The Uses of Light: Visuality, Metaphor and Rhetorical Strategy in the Daśabhūmikasūtra-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

The Uses of Light: Visuality, Metaphor and Rhetorical Strategy in the Daśabhūmikasūtra

Published:2020-11-01 Issue:4 Volume:74 Page:797-851
ISSN:0004-4717
Container-title:Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques
language:en
Short-container-title:

Author:

Newton Nic¹

Affiliation:

1. Asian Studies, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures , University of Edinburgh , 50 George Square , Edinburgh EH8 9LH , UK

Abstract

Abstract The Daśabhūmikasūtra has a number of distinctly visual components. However, how, and to what ends, imagery functions in this text is less clear. Taking a single narrative episode at the beginning of the text as its main focus this paper offers an examination of the pivotal metaphor of the peaked dwelling of networks of dense clouds of great light rays (mahāraśmighanābhrajālakūṭāgāra). In attempting to show the importance of visuality to the rhetoric of the text the following approach is offered: exploration of the conceptual domains of the elements of the composition to provide approximated access to cultural context; visual reconstruction of the narrative sequence; analysis of the visual articulation of meaning and interpretation of the strategic use of visual rhetoric.

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Link

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/asia-2018-0026/pdf

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