Sinitic Buddhist Narratives of Wonders: Are There Miracles in Buddhism?

The hesitation of scholars of Buddhism in their use of the term miracle is rooted in an understanding of the miraculous that is grounded in the Enlightenment philosophical critique of Christian theology. By highlighting the differences between the nature of the miraculous in this Western context and marvelous and wondrous phenomena in the Buddhist context, this article argues that Indian Buddhist marvelous phenomena are embedded within a different worldview, and further proposes that wondrous events and phenomena found in Sinitic Buddhist narratives—although still established on Indian Buddhist presuppositions—are best understood with reference to the Chinese concept of sympathetic resonance (ganying).