Rebirth as Empirical Basis for the Buddha's Four Noble Truths
by Suwanda H J Sugunasiri
Re-Making the World: Christianity and Categories (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, #434)
This edited volume brings together important scholars of religion in the ancient world to honor the impact of Karen L. King's scholarship in this field. Her work shows that Christianity was diverse from its first moments - even before the word "Christian" was coined - and insists that scholars must engage both in deep historical work and in ethical reflection. These essays honor King's intellectual impact by further investigating the categories that scholars have used in their reconstructions of...
The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism in Eighth- through Tenth-Century China
by Jinhua Jia
Does Buddhism require faith? Can an atheist or agnostic follow the Buddha’s teachings without believing in reincarnation or organized religion? This is one man’s confession. In his classic Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor offered a profound, secular approach to the teachings of the Buddha that struck an emotional chord with Western readers. Now, with the same brilliance and boldness of thought, he paints a groundbreaking portrait of the historical Buddha—told from the author’s...
Sarnath - A Critical History of the Place Where Buddhism Began
by Frederick M. Asher
Sarnath has long been regarded as the place where the Buddha preached his first sermon and established the Buddhist monastic order. Excavations at Sarnath have yielded the foundations of temples and monastic dwellings, two Buddhist reliquary mounds (stupas), and some of the most important sculptures in the history of Indian art. This volume offers the first critical examination of the historic site. Frederick M. Asher provides a longue duree (long-term) analysis of Sarnath-including the plunder...
The Ark and the Cherubim (Forschungen zum Alten Testament)
by Raanan Eichler
The most important objects in the Hebrew Bible are a wooden box, styled in English "the ark" or "the ark of the covenant", and two statues of winged creatures, "the cherubim", that surmount it. Raanan Eichler attempts to understand these objects using the full gamut of data and tools available to the modern scholar. The study features an abundance of visual comparative material, much of it in colour, with a particularly close examination of the finds from the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The aut...
Chinese Pure Land Buddhism (Pure Land Buddhist Studies)
by Charles B. Jones
Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice is the first book in any western language to provide a comprehensive overview of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism. Even though Pure Land Buddhism was born in China and currently constitutes the dominant form of Buddhist practice there, it has previously received very little attention from western scholars. In this book, Charles B. Jones examines the reasons for the lack of scholarly attention and why the few past treatments of the topic...
Pyrrho of Elis went with Alexander the Great to Central Asia and India during the Greek invasion and conquest of the Persian Empire in 334-324 BC. There he met with early Buddhist masters. Greek Buddha shows how their Early Buddhism shaped the philosophy of Pyrrho, the famous founder of Pyrrhonian scepticism in ancient Greece. Christopher I. Beckwith traces the origins of a major tradition in Western philosophy to Gandhara, a country in Central Asia and northwestern India. He systematically exam...
Rebuilding Buddhism describes in evocative detail the experiences and achievements of Nepalis who have adopted Theravada Buddhism. This form of Buddhism was introduced into Nepal from Burma and Sri Lanka in the 1930s, and its adherents have struggled for recognition and acceptance ever since. With its focus on the austere figure of the monk and the biography of the historical Buddha, and more recently with its emphasis on individualising meditation and on gender equality, Theravada Buddhism cont...
Burma and neighboring areas of Southeast Asia comprise the only region of the world to have developed a written corpus of Buddhist law claiming jurisdiction over all members of society. Yet in contrast with the extensive scholarship on Islamic and Hindu law, this tradition of Buddhist law has been largely overlooked. In fact, it is commonplace to read that Buddhism gave rise to no law aside from the vinaya, or monastic law. In Buddhist Law in Burma, D. Christian Lammerts upends this misperceptio...
History, Buddhism, and New Religious Movements in Cambodia
This volume showcases some of the most current and exciting research being done on Cambodian religious ideas and practices by a new generation of scholars from a variety of disciplines. The different contributors examine in some manner the relationship between religion and the ideas and institutions that have given shape to Cambodia as a social and political body, or nation. Although they do not share the same approach to the idea of ""nation,"" all are concerned with the processes of religion t...
Yetzer Anthropologies in the Apocalypse of Abraham (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, #438)
by Andrei A. Orlov
In this book, Andrei A. Orlov examines the imagery of "inclination" or yetzer found in the Apocalypse of Abraham. He argues that the text operates with several yetzer anthropologies, some of which are reminiscent of early biblical models, while others are similar to later rabbinic notions. Although the author focuses on the traditions found in the Apocalypse of Abraham, he also treats the evolution of the yetzer symbolism in its full historical and interpretive complexity through a broad variety...
Japan's Frames of Meaning
In Japan's Frames of Meaning, Michael Marra identifies interpretative concepts central to discussions of hermeneutical practices in Japan and presents English translations of works on basic hermeneutics by major Japanese thinkers. Discussions of Japanese thought tend to be centered on key Western terms in light of which Japanese texts are examined; alternatively, a few Buddhist concepts are presented as counterparts of these Western terms. Marra concentrates on Japanese philosophers and thinkers...
Hiraizumi (Harvard East Asian Monographs, #171) (Harvard East Asian Monographs (HUP))
by Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan
In the twelfth century, along the borders of the Japanese state in northern Honshu, three generations of local rulers built a capital city at Hiraizumi that became a major military and commercial center. Known as the Hiraizumi Fujiwara, these rulers created a city filled with art, in an attempt to use the power of art and architecture to claim a religious and political mandate. In the first book-length study of Hiraizumi in English, the author studies the rise of the Hiraizumi Fujiwara and analy...
'The Buddha was the source. Venerable Svasti and the young buffalo boys were rivers that flowed from the source. Wherever the rivers flowed, the Buddha would be there.'In Old Path White Clouds, the world's revered master of mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh, retells the story of the Buddha in his own inimitably beautiful style. He draws upon Pali, Sanskrit and Chinese sources to trace the Buddha's life slowly and gently through the course of eighty years. Seen partly through the eyes of the Buddha hi...
The Buddha clearly expounds his noble path of virtue for everyone. This is a foundation scripture, teaching the supreme doctrine of nirvana, the perfect way to the highest happiness possible for mankind. This edition is translated by the great scholar and orientalist, the Oxford Professor Dr Max Muller.
The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism
In this book, Mark Blum offers a critical look at the thought and impact of the late 13th-century Buddhist historian Gyonen (1240-1321) and the emergent Pure Land school of Buddhism founded by Honen (1133-1212). Blum also provides a clear and fully annotated translation of Gyonen's Jodo homon genrusho, the first history of Pure Land Buddhism.
Niguma, Lady of Illusion (Tsadra, #9) (Tsadra Foundation)
by Sarah Harding
Providing a rare glimpse of feminine Buddhist history, Niguma, Lady of Illusion brings to the forefront the life and teachings of a mysterious eleventh-century Kashmiri woman who became the source of a major Tibetan Buddhist practice lineage. The circumstances of her life and extraordinary qualities ascribed to her are analyzed in the greater context of spiritual biography and Buddhist doctrine. More than a historical presentation, Niguma's story raises the question of women as real spiritual le...