Buddhism Books

Book SynopsisAn English translation of the Asokavadana text, the Sanskrit version of the legend of King Asoka, first written in the second century A.D. Emperor of India during the third century B.C. and one of the most important rulers in the history of Buddhism, Asoka has hitherto been studied in the West primarily from his edicts and rock inscriptions in manyTable of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*Contents, pg. vii*Preface, pg. xi*CHAPTER ONE The Legend and Its Background, pg. 3*CHAPTER TWO Dirt and Dharma: Kingship in the Asokavadana, pg. 38*CHAPTER THREE King and Layman: Asoka's Relationship to the Buddhist Community, pg. 71*CHAPTER FOUR Asoka and the Buddha, pg. 101*CHAPTER FIVE Asoka: Master of Good Means and Merit Maker, pg. 134*Introduction to the Translation, pg. 169*The Legend of Asoka, pg. 173*APPENDIX Sanskrit Legends about Asoka Not Appearing in the Asokavadana, pg. 295*Glossary, pg. 305*Bibliography of Works Cited, pg. 313*Index, pg. 329

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Book SynopsisTable of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*CONTENTS, pg. vii*List of Illustrations, pg. ix*Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, pg. xi*Preface, pg. xiii*Note, pg. xviii*I. Reverence to the Guru, Manjughosha!, pg. 3*II. Shambhu, Meghavahana, Hiranyagarbha, pg. 8*III. I bow devoted to Maitreya and Manjughosha, pg. 18*IV. I bow my head to the feet of Nagarjuna and Asanga, pg. 21*V. Respectfully I bow to those Master Scholars, pg. 33*VI. Many who did not realize That, pg. 49*VII. But I have seen It quite precisely, pg. 63*VIII. You who aspire to Peerless Philosophy, pg. 89*The Short Essence of True Eloquence, pg. 175*Prologue, pg. 187*I. Statements from the Elucidation of Intention, pg. 191*II. Explanations of the Scripture's Statements, pg. 209*III. The Essential Centrist Message, pg. 253*IV. Explanations of the Followers of the Savior Nagarjuna, pg. 265*V. The Dialecticist Elucidation of the Holy Intention, pg. 288*VI. Avoidance of Contradiction between the (Dialecticist) System and the Scriptures, pg. 345*VII. The Chief Reason for Negation of Ultimate Status, pg. 364*Glossary of Technical Terms, pg. 387*List of Abbreviations, pg. 401*Bibliography of Principal Sources, pg. 407*Index, pg. 421

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1992 "Makes a substantial contribution to the fields of religious and Buddhist studies. The grace of Strong's prose and the detail with which he recounts stories, myths, and rituals related to the Upagupta, provide specialist and generalist with an important new resource."--Journal of ReligionTable of ContentsList of Figures and TablesPrefaceNote and AbbreviationsIntroduction3Pt. 1Upagupta in IndiaCh. 1Provisions for the Buddha's Absence23Ch. 2Monk and Monkey: Upagupta's Karmic Past44Ch. 3Birth and Lineage, Patriarchs, and the Forest-Monk Tradition57Ch. 4Lay Life, Ordination, and Arhatship75Ch. 5Upagupta and Mara: Bhakti and the Buddha Body93Ch. 6Master-Disciple Relations118Ch. 7Upagupta and Asoka145Pt. 2Upagupta in Southeast AsiaCh. 8The Southeast Asian Context: Upagupta and Theravada Orthodoxy171Ch. 9The Lokapannatti Legend186Ch. 10Mythic Elaborations and Ritual Developments209Ch. 11Upagupta and the Arhat Cults236Ch. 12Communal Cults: Upagupta as Protector of Festivals253Ch. 13Personal Rewards and Domestic Rites273Conspectus and Conclusion291Notes297Glossary347Bibliography of Works Cited353Index377

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Book SynopsisBuddhism is indisputably gaining prominence in the West, as is evidenced by the growth of Buddhist practice within many traditions and keen interest in meditation and mindfulness. In The Lotus and the Lion, J. Jeffrey Franklin traces the historical...Trade Review"Whereas most Victorianists are aware of such bestsellers as Edwin Arnold's poem about the Buddha, 'The Light of Asia,' few understand the sheer scope of the 19th-century Buddhism industry. Franklin collects wide-ranging references to, studies of, and polemics about Buddhism, ranging from poems and tracts to novels and religious scholarship. Drawing on postcolonial theory, especially theories of hybridity, the author argues that the 19th-century imperial encounter with Buddhism reshaped Britain as much as it did Britain's colonies. As Franklin demonstrates, Victorians drew on Buddhism (however understood or misunderstood) to criticize Christianity and to develop their own religions—for example theosophy—even as more orthodox Christians also saw the growing presence of Buddhism in Britain itself as part of an atheist threat. The author further demonstrates Buddhism's complex influence on bestselling novelists like H. Rider Haggard and Marie Corelli. But in his most provocative chapter he takes on Rudyard Kipling's Kim, arguing that a Buddhist reading of the text denies the 'polarization' beloved of Western critics (e.g., between India and the Great Game or the self and the other). An exceptionally lucid, accessible study. Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice, July 2009"I have been hoping someone would write this book. The sustained readings of Corelli, Haggard, Blavatsky, Edwin Arnold, and Kipling are significant. Most works on Buddhism and Western literature tend to offer weak analogies—how an author's views are 'like' certain Buddhist ones—but J. Jeffrey Franklin actually traces the relationships. The Lotus and the Lion will have a unique place in criticism, forever changing our view of Victorian religion by placing it in its global context."—James Najarian, Boston College"What did Elizabeth Gaskell know about the Dalai Lama? What did Marie Corelli and H. Rider Haggard know about Buddhist ideas of reincarnation and karma? If your reflex answer is 'nothing,' The Lotus and the Lion will surprise you. The assumption that the Victorians knew very little about Buddhism or that such references form mere Orientalist gestures may, J. Jeffrey Franklin suggests, tell us more about ourselves than about them. Franklin chronicles his own 'eye-opening' encounter with the Victorian knowledge of Buddhism in a well-researched and intriguing book that should make scholars open their eyes in turn."—Lisa Surridge, University of Victoria

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the possible relations between Western types of rationality and Buddhism. It also examines some clichés about Buddhism and questions the old antinomies of Western culture (faith and reason, or idealism and materialism). The use of the Buddhist notion of the Two Truths as a hermeneutic device leads to a double or multiple exposure that will call into question our mental habits and force us to ask questions differently, to think in a new key.Double Exposure is somewhat of an oddity. Written by a specialist for nonspecialists, it is not a book of vulgarization. Although it aims at a better integration of Western and Buddhist thought, it is not an exercise in comparative philosophy or religion. It is neither a contribution to Buddhist scholarship in the narrow sense, nor a contribution to some vague Western spirituality. Cutting across traditional disciplines and blurring established genres, it provides a leisurely but deeply insightful stroll through phTrade Review"Faure's analysis is agile, complex, and perceptive....Double Exposure is a subtle and challenging reflection on both Buddhist and Western culture and thought and should be read by anyone concerned with their encounter in the contemporary world."—The Journal of Religion

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"No other work has linked gendered religious symbols to the complex process of identity-making in such a long historical span, and with such analytical depth. Meticulously researched and lucidly written, this book makes an important and timely contribution to dialogues about religion, gender, and ethnicity in China." -- Xiaofei Kang * George Washington University *"A compelling interdisciplinary study of a fascinating religio-cultural phenomenon on the frontiers of China, India, and Southeast Asia. Bryson has skillfully combined historical research with fieldwork to produce a methodologically sophisticated portrait of a regionally important goddess through her many historical and contemporary vicissitudes." -- Robert Ford Campany * Vanderbilt University *"A tour de force of historical and ethnographic inquiry, Goddess on the Frontier sheds invaluable light on the religion and culture of southwest China. Combining meticulous scholarship with sophisticated theory, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the interplay of gender, ethnicity, and religion." -- Meir Shahar * Tel Aviv University *"Goddess on the Frontier vividly portrays religious life in Dali (Yunnan). Megan Bryson's interdisciplinary research shows how the manifold images of the goddess Baijie resulted from local worshippers adapting to the impact of Buddhism and Han Chinese culture by subverting stereotypes of sexually uninhibited minority women, while still emphasizing indigenous ideals of feminine fertility."— Paul R. Katz, Academia Sinica"Bryson hits her target well...The scholarship is excellent, the sources well researched, and the ancillary references useful." -- John W. Dardess * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *"Megan Bryson's new book, Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China, offers not only another example of the growing academic discourse on Dali, one of the most popular tourist destinations nowadays in Southwest China, but also an ingenuous case study of Baijie, an iconic figure in the cultural life of the Bai people in Dali....Clarifying, refreshing, and thought provoking, the book is a very layered analysis of Baijie." -- Yuemin He * Religion and the Arts *"[T]he author has successfully created a fascinating study of a Chinese frontier where histories, borders, cultures, religions, and ethnicities converge. Bryson has deftly combined historiography and art history with ethnography, and is thereby able to present before our eyes a sophisticated picture of a local goddess." -- Naran Bilik * Nova Religio *"This is an outstanding work of scholarship on gender and religion in Chinese history. Bryson selected a perfect case study to shed light on how people in frontier zones develop regional identities from a range of possibilities, and the role gender plays in these possibilities."––Ping Yao, Journal of Chinese Religions"By employing such a thorough methodology, Bryson has compiled a volume of immense use to anyone in the field of Chinese religions, especially those seeking a window into the interaction of religion, ethnicity, and gender." -- Joseph Chadwin * Religious Studies Review *"Goddess on the Frontier is an intellectual powerhouse....I wholeheartedly recommend the study for its depth of otherwise unavailable historical and anthropological information on the Dali region, for its potential strength in graduate training, and for its firm insistence that frontier regions of the Chinese heartland need to be studied on their own terms." -- Stephanie Balkwell * H-Buddhism *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Dali chapter abstractThe introduction gives an overview of the goddess Baijie's four identities and the book's main themes of religion, ethnicity, and gender. It starts by examining the relationship between deities and society, with a focus on gendered deities, local deities, and deities of the Chinese frontier. It also introduces the Dali region, which it locates both in Zomia, the mountainous, stateless region that covers much of Southeast Asia and southwest China, and in relation to the Chinese state. Baijie's different forms illustrate how people in Dali managed the tensions between their local identities and the increasing proximity of the Chinese state. Finally, the introduction addresses historiographical and methodological issues that arise in studying Dali and concludes with an outline of each chapter. 1Baijie's Background: Religion and Representation in the Nanzhao and Dali Kingdoms chapter abstractChapter one goes back to the Nanzhao (649-903) and Dali kingdoms (937-1253) to understand the broader context in which the Buddhist Baijie arose. It shows that though Nanzhao and Dali rulers adopted most of their Buddhist texts from Chinese territory, they embraced Indian Buddhist images and claimed Indian origins for their Buddhist tradition. Moreover, it was their worship of distinctive deities with Indian iconography that distinguished their Buddhist tradition from that of Tang and Song China. This emphasis on India did not just stem from India's prestige as Buddhism's birthplace, but also from Dali's position in relation to China. While Nanzhao and Dali rulers could not claim equality with Chinese rulers as Sons of Heaven, their relative proximity to India meant that they could claim superiority as Buddhist monarchs. 2Holy Consort White Sister: Baijie Shengfei and Dali Buddhism chapter abstractThe second chapter focuses on the Buddhist Baijie Shengfei, a hybrid figure whose identity combines elements of the Indian goddess Lakmī and local dragon maidens. This chapter demonstrates how her hybridity and gendered characteristics relate to Dali rulers' religious self-representation. It argues that though Baijie Shengfei appears in tantric Buddhist materials as the consort of the wrathful Indian Buddhist protector Mahākāla, she herself does not embody the sexuality or violence seen in images of many Indian and Tibetan tantric goddesses. Dali rulers embraced images of fierce tantric masculinity, as shown in Dali-kingdom depictions of Mahākāla, but this did not extend to female figures like Baijie. This stemmed from Dali rulers' close interactions with China, in which Dali could exploit stereotypes of martial masculine barbarism to their advantage, but not stereotypes of sexually uninhibited barbarian femininity. 3Little White Sister: Baijie Amei, Dragons, and Kingship in Ming Dali chapter abstractThis chapter examines Baijie's next form, Baijie Amei, which developed in the fifteenth century after the Dali kingdom had become part of the Ming dynasty. Baijie Amei's legend shows how Dali elites drew on Chinese historiographical conventions in formulating a local Bai ethnic identity. According to her legend, Baijie Amei was born from a giant plum and conceived Duan Siping, founder of the Dali kingdom, after touching a dragon. This story mirrors Chinese tales about great rulers that claim dragon paternity, but diverges from Chinese conventions by giving Baijie Amei her own miraculous birth. Chinese officials accepted that male rulers could have miraculous births, but not that their mothers could, too. Baijie Amei remained a powerful symbol for Bai elites in Dali who claimed direct descent from her and worshiped her as a goddess that linked them to the illustrious Bai lineage of Dali's independent history. 4Lady of Cypress Chastity: Baijie Furen in the Ming and Qing chapter abstractAs the Ming dynasty continued and gave way to the Qing, more migrants from the empire's eastern and central regions made their way to Yunnan. Baijie Furen, the third form of Baijie, emerged as a result of this increasing contact between Han outsiders and Dali locals. This chapter argues that Baijie Furen, portrayed in legend as an eighth-century widow martyr, supplanted the earlier forms of Baijie because of her multifaceted identity: for Dali elites, she signified the region's long history of Confucian virtues, which marked it as civilized; for Ming and Qing elites, her exceptional example proved that imperial civilizing projects could succeed. In both cases Baijie Furen served as a proxy for the Bai people because male elites correlated a population's civilization with women's sexual propriety. 5Baijie the Benzhu: Village Religion in Contemporary Dali chapter abstractBaijie's significance shifts again in the modern period with the adoption of the terms ethnicity and religion. In the reform era (1978-present) Baijie again represents difference from Chinese identity, but in this period the language of ethnicity demarcates Bai from Han. However, the use of this language differs within the Dali population: male Bai elites present Baijie as a symbol of Bai ethnic culture, while most people who worship Baijie as their village guardian use gendered terms instead of ethnic discourse. Male Bai elites claim a modern, rational identity similar to the image of the Han and displace tradition, religiosity, and ethnic difference onto rural populations and women. This chapter relies in part on ethnographic research that examines how people not involved in textual production represent Baijie, which offers a new perspective on how gender plays a role in demarcating Bai ethno-cultural identities. Conclusion: Ethnicity and Gender in the Cult of the Goddess Baijie chapter abstractThe conclusion returns to the book's central question of how people in the frontier zone of Dali develop gendered local identities out of multiple possibilities. Baijie's examples, from the Dali kingdom to the present, show that people Dali locals have combined local and translocal elements in different ways in response to historical changes. Representations of Dali identity strategically use gendered symbols that correlate to local and translocal forces, so that Baijie's roles as dragon maiden, mother, and martyr tie her to Dali while also making her legible within universalizing semiotic systems.

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Book SynopsisThis interdisciplinary study examines the reception of Ayurvedic knowledge and other Indian medical teachings in medieval China through analysis of Buddhist texts, including translations from Indian languages as well as Chinese compositions between the second and ninth centuries.Trade Review"C. Pierce Salguero skillfully uses religious studies, translation studies, and anthropology in his investigations. He provides a clear and nuanced account of the complex processes that brought Buddhist doctrines to China and enriched them with new ideas and practices. In the process he demonstrates that here, as elsewhere, 'knowledge about disease, healing, and the body is always inextricably interwoven with the social, economic, political, and personal histories of the people involved in its production and consumption." * Nathan Sivin, University of Pennsylvania *"A welcome reframing of the transmission of Buddhist medicine to China. Salguero reimagines this process not as the clash of monoliths but as numerous specific acts of translation. He invites us to see how people made meaning within and between traditions, rather than contenting ourselves with enumerating the contents of traditions as if they were inert containers of ideas." * Robert Ford Campany, Vanderbilt University *"An excellent contribution which sets the stage for very important future work. Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China provides a detailed analytical perspective on a question of profound importance in the intellectual history of Asia." * Joseph S. Alter, University of Pittsburgh *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1. The Buddhist Medical Transmission Chapter 2. Translators and Translation Practice Chapter 3. Translating Medicine in Buddhist Scriptures Chapter 4. Rewriting Buddhist Medicine Chapter 5. Popularizing Buddhist Medicine Conclusion List of Abbreviations Notes List of Chinese and Japanese Characters References Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisExplores various themes of Sri Lanka’s long history in novel and constructive ways. Topics include Sinhala Buddhists’ sense of manifest destiny arising from Sri Lanka’s oldest historical chronicles, the Mahavamsa and the Dipavamsa; and concepts of order and legitimation of power in ancient Ceylon.

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Book SynopsisContributions from scholars in anthropology, religion, and area studies -- stemming from research in East and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas – collected to represent a form of historically grounded, ethnographically driven social science that seeks to understand social phenomena by dialogically engaging global and local perspectivesTrade Review"Essays that reflect Stanley Tambiah's approach to historically grounded anthropology." -The Chronicle of Higher Education "Strives for thick description, close reading, and comparative agility." -- -Jim Boon Princeton University "The scholarship embodied in the collection is consistently high quality and the contributions combine theoretical rigor with rich empirical detail. The volume both reflects and extends Stanley J. Tambiah's contributions to anthropology." -- -Elizabeth Traube Wesleyan University

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Book SynopsisContributions from scholars in anthropology, religion, and area studies -- stemming from research in East and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas – collected to represent a form of historically grounded, ethnographically driven social science that seeks to understand social phenomena by dialogically engaging global and local perspectivesTrade Review"Essays that reflect Stanley Tambiah's approach to historically grounded anthropology." -The Chronicle of Higher Education "Strives for thick description, close reading, and comparative agility." -- -Jim Boon Princeton University "The scholarship embodied in the collection is consistently high quality and the contributions combine theoretical rigor with rich empirical detail. The volume both reflects and extends Stanley J. Tambiah's contributions to anthropology." -- -Elizabeth Traube Wesleyan University

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Book SynopsisThe first systematic discussion of the bodhisattva path in Māhayāna Buddhism from a Christian theological perspective.Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Bodhisattva Path and the Christ Path 1 Comparative Theology as Christian Theology • Some Historical Background • Theology of Religious Pluralism • Plan of This Book I Two Paths 1 Two Problems, Two Miracles 25 What to Study? • Bridging Gaps • The Miracle of the Bodhisattva • The Miracle of the Great Exchange • Matchless Wonders II Perfection of Wisdom and the Bodhisattva Path in Śāntideva 2 The Bodhisattva Path 59 Undertaking the Way of Enlightenment: Text and Reader • Cultivating Awakening Mind: Starting Where We Are 3 Extreme Wisdom, Groundless Compassion 82 Expanding and Dispelling the Self • Perfection of Wisdom • Back to the Bodhisattva • Being Buddha III Christian Reflections 4 The Bodhisattva as Aspirant: Creatures and No-Self 127 Creatures and No-Self • The Blessings of Emptiness • Mimetic Self: Too Little or Too Much? • No-Self and the Cross 5 The Bodhisattva as Buddha: Immanence and Emptiness 165 Buddha Nature • Theosis, Divine Energies, and Bare Awareness • Attainment and History • Attainment and Self-Consciousness • Practicing Bare Immanence • Christ and the Bodhisattva 6 How Do Buddhas Help?: Bodhisattva as Benefactor and Christ as Savior 209 Many Faces of Compassion • Three Ways That Bodhisattvas Help • Deity and Benefactor Meditation • Christian Reflections • Benefactor Practices in Christian Perspective • Bodhisattva and Christ I: Diversity and Person-Making • Bodhisattva and Christ II: Why Christ Suffers and Bodhisattvas Don’t Conclusion: Crucified Wisdom 261 Notes 271 Works Cited 309 Index 321

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Book SynopsisAnother of the few books of those Zen Masters. This Master is also unusual in that Dogen claimed his lineage, but you will not find any zazen meditation in the pages of this book, only the Original Mind of Zen transmission.

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Book SynopsisDescribes the four basic meditations of Tantric Buddhism: the Eighteen-path Mandala, the Lotus-womb Mandala, the Vajra-thunder Mandala, and the Goma Rite of Fire. The book summarizes the teachings of Tendai Tantric Buddhism, as practiced on Mt. Hiei, Kyoto, by a Master of the Homan devotional (Bakhti) school.

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Book SynopsisIntroduces and analyses the ideas of critical Buddhism in relation to the targets of its critique and situates those ideas in the context of current discussions of postmodern academic scholarship, the separation of the disinterested scholar and committed religious practitioner, and the place of social activism within the academy.

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of the rich complexity of the worship of the deity Inari in contemporary Japan. The work covers institutional and popular power in religion, the personal meaningfulness of religious figures and the communicative styles that preserve homogeneity in the face of factionalism.

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of Buddhism during the Sung Dynasty (960-1279). It asserts, that, far from signalling a decline, the Sung was a period of great efflorescence in Buddhism. The studies presented focus largely on elite figures, elite traditions, and interactions among Buddhists and literati.Trade ReviewI know of no edited volume of as consistently excellent scholarship as this one.... Every contribution to this volume is of significant value. - Journal of Asian Studies

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Book SynopsisOffers a study and translation of The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipcchâ), one of the most influential Mahâyâna sutras on the bodhisattva path, but also one of the most neglected texts in Western treatments of Buddhism.

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Book SynopsisMoving beyond the entrenched categories that can hamper our understanding of other views, this book demonstrates the real-life connections between the ""religious"" and the ""psychological."" It shows how such beliefs and practices are used, sometimes strategically, in people's constructions of themselves, and in their attempts at social positioning.

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Book SynopsisExplores the transformation of Buddhism from the premodern to the contemporary era in Japan and the central role its visual culture has played in this transformation. Although Buddhism is generally regarded as peripheral to modern Japanese society, this book demonstrates otherwise.Trade ReviewThis book is densely written and copiously illustrated, rich with evidence that Buddhist art has thrived over the last four hundred years and continues to do so. One of the book's many contributions is how it traces the widening patronage of Buddhist art, which helped to create and support a new class of Buddhist artists and appreciation for their art beyond the walls of the Buddhist temples. - Buddhadharma

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Book SynopsisThis introductory work proposes a fresh take on the ancient Indian concept dharma. By unfolding how, even in its developments as law and custom, dharma participates in nuanced and multifarious understandings of the term that play out in Indiaâs great spiritual traditions, the book offers insights into the innovative character of both Hindu and Buddhist usages of the concept. Alf Hiltebeitel, in an original approach to early Buddhist usages, explores how the Buddhist canon brought out different meanings of dharma. This is followed by an exposition of the hypothesis that most, if not all, of the Hindu law books flowered after the third-century BC emperor Asoka, a Buddhist, made dharma the guiding principle of an entire realm and culture. A discussion built around the authorâs expertise on the Sanskrit epics shows how their narratives amplified the new Brahmanical norms and brought out the ethical dilemmas and spiritual teachings that arose from inquiry into dharma. A chapter on the tal

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Book SynopsisâœFarther on, I find other figures of Jizo, single reliefs, sculptured upon tombs. But one of these is a work of art so charming that I feel a pain at being obliged to pass it by. More sweet, assuredly, than any imaged Christ, this dream in white stone of the playfellow of dead children, like a beautiful young boy, with gracious eyelids half closed, and face made heavenly by such a smile as only Buddhist art could have imagined, the smile of infinite lovingness and supremest gentleness. Indeed, so charming the ideal of Jizo is that in the speech of the people a beautiful face is always likened to hisââJizo-kao,â as the face of Jizo.â âLafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan (1894)Stone images of the Buddhist deity Jizoâbedecked in a red cloth bib and presiding over offerings of flowers, coins, candles, and incenseâare a familiar sight throughout Japan. Known in China as a savior from hellâs torment, Jizo in Japan came to be utterly transformed through fusion with the local trad

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Book SynopsisThis is the fourth in a series of collected essays by one of today’s most distinguished scholars of Indian Buddhism. In these articles Gregory Schopen once again displays the erudition and originality that have contributed to a major shift in the way that Indian Buddhism is perceived, understood, and studied.

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Book SynopsisIntroduces contemporary Buddhists from across Asia and from various walks of life. The editors have collected sixty-six profiles of individuals who would be excluded from most Buddhist histories and ethnographies. In addition to monks and nuns, readers will encounter artists, psychologists, social workers, healers, and librarians as well as charlatans, hucksters, profiteers, and rabble-rousers.

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Book SynopsisBuddhist monastics are part of local communities, are governed through national legal frameworks, and participate in both national and transnational Buddhist networks. Educating Monks makes visible the ways Buddhist communities are shaped by all of the above - collectively and often simultaneously.Trade ReviewFor some time now, Thomas Borchert’s sophisticated perspective on Buddhism has been working its way into the province of Buddhist studies through his papers. His long-awaited book—Educating Monks: Minority Buddhism on China’s South- west Border—brings to light the ethnographic background on which he has built this perspective. . . . With his agility in crossing through the various strata of Theravada social life, Borchert reminds us that Theravadin formations everywhere involve a much more complex set up than the local/universal binary. Educating Monks is an important book. Solidly grounded in empirical research, it presents us with a unique ethnography of the lives of ethnic minority monks and novices living in a less well-known corner of China and practicing a minority form of Buddhism. At the same time, it provides a convincing analysis of one way of being a Buddhist in the modern world by showing how such an existence is both anchored in the local as well as it is linked up in multiple different ways with translocal networks. . . . This book is highly recommended to students, researchers, and general readers with an interest in local minority cultures in China and Southeast Asia, in modern Theravāda Buddhism, as well as in Buddhism in general.

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Book SynopsisJohn Culliney and David Jones uncover intersections between science and philosophy. Connecting evidence from evolutionary science with early insights of Daoist and Buddhist thinkers, they maintain that sagely behaviour, envisioned in these ancient traditions, represents a pinnacle of human achievement emerging out of our evolutionary heritage.

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Book SynopsisIn this pioneering study of the shifting status of the emperor within court society and the relationship between the state and the Buddhist community during the Heian period (794-1185), Asuka Sango details the complex ways in which the emperor and other elite ruling groups employed Buddhist ritual to legitimate their authority.

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Book SynopsisDemonstrates how dynastic founders like Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian, r. 690-705), the only woman to rule China under her own name, and Yang Jian (Emperor Wen, r. 581-604), the first ruler of the Sui dynasty, closely identified with Buddhist worldly saviors and Wheel-Turning Kings to legitimate their rule.

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Book SynopsisDemonstrates how dynastic founders like Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian, r. 690-705), the only woman to rule China under her own name, and Yang Jian (Emperor Wen, r. 581-604), the first ruler of the Sui dynasty, closely identified with Buddhist worldly saviors and Wheel-Turning Kings to legitimate their rule.Trade ReviewThe importance of apocalyptic thought in medieval China has long been downplayed in Anglophone scholarship, so it is a great pleasure to have at last a book based firmly on the key surviving sources to redress this imbalance. April Hughes’ work is the first study to pull all of the materials together and put them and the political regimes and rebel movements that took cognizance of such beliefs in a helpful chronological sequence. It is original, sound, and important." —T. H. Barrett, SOAS, University of London

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Book SynopsisStories of acolytes (chigo monogatari) from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries form the basis of this book, an original and detailed literary analysis of six tales coupled with a thorough examination of the sociopolitical, religious, and cultural matrices that produced these texts.

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Book SynopsisFollowing an introduction that relates the colourful story of the Emerald Buddha, this book explores the function of jewels as personal identifiers in Buddhist tradition; Buddhaghosa's commentary on the Jewel Sutta; the paradox of the Buddha's bejeweled status; and the connection in early Buddhism between jewels, magnificence, and virtue.

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