Can we access the religious lives of impoverished individuals in the premodern world? This talk proposes that we can. I will introduce evidence from a previously untranslated manuscript to show how preachers actively promoted doctrines aimed to appeal to poor provincial villagers in ninth-century Japan, often promising them wealth in return for humble donations or sometimes even simple faith. I will then survey earthenware pots found throughout Japan that often contain simple prayers for wealth and were likely offered by provincial villagers. By combining these sources, I will suggest that we may be able to recover not just what was said about the poor but also how impoverished individuals may have responded to Buddhist teachings.

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Bio
Bryan D. Lowe is an assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Princeton University. His first book, Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2017) was awarded the John Whitney Hall Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. He is currently completing a book called How Buddhism Spread in Japan. His work has been supported by a ACLS Robert H. N. Ho Foundation fellowship, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright IIE, Japan Foundation, and others.