Religions· 2026Q1
Mastering Tradition: Desire and Overcoming in the Diamond Sūtra and the Gospel of Mark
- 0citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
The Diamond Sūtra and the Gospel of Mark are presented as tradition-making machines that leverage reader desire to encourage discarding old convictions and adopting the text as the sole solution to religious problems.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Both the Diamond Sūtra and the Gospel of Mark are analyzed as texts that create "theaters of conversion."
- These texts encourage readers to discard previous convictions about tradition.
- The reader's desire for tradition is used to draw them into a revised relationship with authority figures via the reading experience.
- Both scriptures are presented as self-contained, portable machines for reinventing tradition.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
This essay compares the Buddhist classic the Diamond Sūtra to the oldest Christian gospel, the Gospel of Mark, in order to argue that both texts work up complex “theaters of conversion” in order to encourage readers to discard previous convictions about tradition (Buddhist or Jewish/proto-Christian) so as to take the text itself, and its narrative, as the solution to all religious problems. In short, both texts appear to be knowingly designed to function as the centers of new (and rather aggressive) forms of tradition. And, in either case, it is the reader’s desire for the fullest version of tradition that is handily used to draw him or her into imagining radically revised relations with tradition and its authority figures via the reading experience. In a basic sense, then, both texts appear as portable, tradition-making machines, carrying within themselves all that is needed to reinvent tradition.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Religions, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Religious studies
Religious studiesArts and Humanities