5 - Transporting Goods and Faith

Summary

This chapter presents a “thick description” of a single prolonged trade relationship between a Chinese and Japanese monastery in which a Chinese merchant functioned as the go-between. This allows the reader to see the precise workings of the religio-commercial network. In 1242, the prominent Chinese monastery Jingshan was severely damaged by fire, and via his former Japanese student’s introduction, the abbot of the Jingshan monastery purchased one thousand wooden planks from a wealthy Chinese sea merchant, Xie Guoming, who was based in Hakata. To embed himself into the Buddhist network, Xie founded a monastery in Hakata to spread Zen Buddhism from the continent to the archipelago. The letters from the Jingshan abbot indicate that Xie’s efforts were not in vain: the abbot showed exceptional trust in Xie and his fellow merchants, helped them when their cargo was detained on the Chinese coast, and even praised Xie’s interpretation of Buddhist scriptures.