Download or read book Mahayana Buddhism written by Paul Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-07-11 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originating in India, Mahayana Buddhism spread across Asia, becoming the prevalent form of Buddhism in Tibet and East Asia. Over the last twenty-five years Western interest in Mahayana has increased considerably, reflected both in the quantity of scholarly material produced and in the attraction of Westerners towards Tibetan Buddhism and Zen. Paul Williams’ Mahayana Buddhism is widely regarded as the standard introduction to the field, used internationally for teaching and research and has been translated into several European and Asian languages. This new edition has been fully revised throughout in the light of the wealth of new studies and focuses on the religion’s diversity and richness. It includes much more material on China and Japan, with appropriate reference to Nepal, and for students who wish to carry their study further there is a much-expanded bibliography and extensive footnotes and cross-referencing. Everyone studying this important tradition will find Williams’ book the ideal companion to their studies.
Download or read book Exploring the Life and Teachings of Mahayana Buddhists in Asia written by Ampere A. Tseng and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Buddhism is one of the world's oldest and largest religions having about 490 million followers. Mahayana Buddhists represent approximately two-thirds of the total Buddhist population. A large portion of Mahayanists resides in East Asia. They cannot be said to follow an undivided doctrine and have a unified religious lifestyle. Mahayana Buddhism, rather, consists of a multitude of ideas and practices with its followers holding various behaviors and attitudes. This book explores the lives and teachings of Mahayana Buddhists, who reside in Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Myanmar, as well as in the ancient Gandhara region (today's north Pakistan and east Afghanistan). The time frame covered is from the beginning of the Mahayana movement in the Ancient Gandhara region in the first several centuries of the Common Era to the present-day lifestyle and practices of the Mahayanists as they respond to 2020's COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the historical and doctrinal views of Mahayana Buddhism, the book features thematic chapters on topics, such as pandemic responses, Mahayana scriptures and sculptures, modern Mahayana teachings, charity, suicide, and ethnicity. The book also considers such social constructs as family and community and modern Buddhist movements in reshaping the traditional structures and cosmological beliefs of Chinese Mahayanists. In sum, this book is a unique effort to define the nature of Mahayana Buddhist life in the past and in the present as well as its teaching in Asia. It does so from various multidisciplinary perspectives"--
Download or read book An Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism written by William Montgomery McGovern and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Buddha Nature written by Maitreya and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddha's definitive teachings on how we should understand the ground of enlightenment and the nature and qualities of buddhahood. All sentient beings, without exception, have buddha nature—the inherent purity and perfection of the mind, untouched by changing mental states. Thus there is neither any reason for conceit nor self-contempt. This is obscured by veils that are removable and do not touch the inherent purity and perfection of the nature of the mind. The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra, one of the “Five Treatises” said to have been dictated to Asanga by the Bodhisattva Maitreya, presents the Buddha’s definitive teachings on how we should understand this ground of enlightenment and clarifies the nature and qualities of buddhahood. This seminal text details with great clarity the view that forms the basis for Vajrayana, and especially Mahamudra, practice.
Download or read book Nagarjuna in Context written by Joseph Walser and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005-05-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joseph Walser provides the first examination of Nagarjuna's life and writings in the context of the religious and monastic debates of the second century CE. Walser explores how Nagarjuna secured the canonical authority of Mahayana teachings and considers his use of rhetoric to ensure the transmission of his writings by Buddhist monks. Drawing on close textual analysis of Nagarjuna's writings and other Buddhist and non-Buddhist sources, Walser offers an original contribution to the understanding of Nagarjuna and the early history of Buddhism.
Download or read book Outlines of Maha na Buddhism written by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Women in Buddhism written by Diana Y. Paul and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1985-04-23 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In seeking to explore the interrelationships between, and mutual influence of, varieties of sexual stereotypes and religious views of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, Women in Buddhism succeeds in drawing our attention to matters of philosophical importance. Paul examines the 'image' of women which arise in a number of Buddhist texts associated with Mahayana and finds that, while ideally the tradition purports to be egalitarian, in actual practice it often betrayed a strong misogynist prejudice. Sanskrit and Chinese texts are organized by theme and type, progressing from those which treat the traditionally orthodox and negative to those which set forth a positive consideration of soteriological paths for women. . . . In Women in Buddhism, Diana Paul may be forcing our consideration of the problem of female enlightenment. Thus the main purport and accomplishment of her scholarship is revolutionary."—Philosophy East and West
Download or read book Mahayana Tantra written by Shri Dharmakirti and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2002 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tantra, Considered By Many As A Dangerous And Secret Path, Invariably Generates A Tremendous Amount Of Curiosity. In This, The First Comprehensive Book Of Its Kind, Shri Dharmakirti Gives Us A Rare Glimpse Into The Fascinating Nature Of Tantra. A Practitioner Of The Mahayana Buddhist Tantra Uses His Intellect And Moral Discipline To Attain Buddha-Hood, The Highest State Of Existence. How To Achieve This State Was First Shown By The Buddha And, After Him, By Various Incarnations Of Indian And Tibetan Gurus Such As The Dalai Lama. The Author Gives Us A Detailed Account Of The Moral, Ethical And Philosophical Basis Of Buddhist Tantra. He Also Shows How The Buddhist Tantric Path Of The Highest Secret Mantra Decisively Addresses The Three Crucial Problems That Every Genuine Spiritual Warrior Must Resolve3⁄4 Problems Of Death, Sexuality And The True Nature Of Reality. The Author Discusses Various Facets Of The Buddhist Tantric Path: Its History, Its Harnessing Of Sexual Energy To Access Subtle Levels Of Reality, The Doctrine Of Karma, The Concept Of Profound Emptiness That Is The Philosophical Core Of The Buddha Dharma, And The Wheel Of Existence Or The Bhava-Chakra. Narrated Simply And Enriched With Visual Representations Of The Author S Vision Of Tantra, This Is An Invaluable Guide For Those Seeking A Meaningful Spiritual Path.
Download or read book Mapping Modern Mahayana written by Jens Reinke and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-01-18 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a multi-sited ethnographic study of the global development of the Taiwanese Buddhist order Fo Guang Shan. It explores the order’s modern Buddhist social engagements by examining three globally dispersed field sites: Los Angeles in the United States of America, Bronkhorstspruit in South Africa, and Yixing in the People’s Republic of China. The data collected at these field sites is embedded within the context of broader theoretical discussions on Buddhism, modernity, globalization, and the nation-state. By examining how one particular modern Buddhist religiosity that developed in a specific place moves into a global context, the book provides a fresh view of what constitutes both modern and contemporary Buddhism while also exploring the social, cultural, and religious fabrics that underlie the spatial configurations of globalization.
Download or read book Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahayana written by Daniel Boucher and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bodhisattvas of the Forest delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra (Questions of Rastrapala), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the first half of the first millennium C.E. In this meticulously researched study, Daniel Boucher first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahayana Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the innovations of this new literature. Following that is a careful analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for charting the sutra’s evolution. The first part of the study looks at the relationship between the bodily glorification of the Buddha and the ascetic career—spanning thousands of lifetimes—that produced it within the socioeconomic world of early medieval Buddhist monasticism. The authors of the Rastrapala sharply criticize their monastic contemporaries for rejecting the rigorous lifestyle of the first Buddhist communities, an ideal that, for the sutra’s authors, self-consciously imitates the disciplines and sacrifices of the Buddha’s own bodhisattva career, the very career that led to his acquisition of bodily perfection. Thus, Boucher reveals the ways in which the authors of the Rastrapala authors co-opted this topos concerning the bodily perfection of the Buddha from the Mainstream tradition to subvert their co-religionists whose behavior they regarded as representing a degenerate version of that tradition. In Part 2 Boucher focuses on the third-century Chinese translation of the sutra attributed to Dharmaraksa and traces the changes in the translation to the late tenth century. The significance of this translation, Boucher explains, is to be found in the ways it differs from all other witnesses. These differences, which are significant, almost certainly reveal an earlier shape of the sutra before later editors were inspired to alter dramatically the text’s tone and rhetoric. The early Chinese translations, though invaluable in revealing developments in the Indian milieu that led to changes in the text, present particular challenges to the interpreter. It takes an understanding of not only their abstruse idiom, but also the process by which they were rendered from an undetermined Indian language into a Chinese cultural uh_product. One of the signal contributions of this study is Boucher’s skill at identifying the traces left by the process and ability to uncover clues about the nature of the source text as well as the world of the principal recipients. Bodhisattvas of the Forest concludes with an annotated translation of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra based on a new reading of its earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript. The translation takes note of important variants in Chinese and Tibetan versions to correct the many corruptions of the Sanskrit manuscript.
Download or read book The Holy Teaching of Vimalak rti written by Robert A. F. Thurman and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Empty Vision written by David McMahan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-19 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visual metaphors in a number of Mahayana sutras construct a discourse in which visual perception serves as a model for knowledge and enlightenment. In the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) and other Mahayana literature, immediate access to reality is symbolized by vision and set in opposition to language and conceptual thinking, which are construed as obscuring reality. In addition to its philosophical manifestations, the tension between vision and language also functioned as a strategy of legitimation in the struggle of the early heterodox Mahayana movement for authority and legitimacy. This emphasis on vision also served as a resource for the abundant mythical imagery in Mahayana sutras, imagery that is ritualized in Vajrayana visualization practices. McMahan brings a wide range of literature to bear on this issue, Including a rare analysis of the lavish imagery of the Gandavyuha Sutra in its Indian context. He concludes with a discussion of Indian approaches to visuality in the light of some recent discussions of "ocularcentrism" in the west, inviting scholars to expand the current discussion of vision and its roles in constructing epistemic systems and cultural practices beyond its exclusively European and American focus.
Download or read book Power Wealth and Women in Indian Mahayana Buddhism written by Douglas Osto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the concepts of power, wealth and women in the important Mahayana Buddhist scripture known as the Gandavyuha-sutra, and relates these to the text’s social context in ancient Indian during the Buddhist Middle Period (0–500 CE). Employing contemporary textual theory, worldview analysis and structural narrative theory, the author puts forward a new approach to the study of Mahayana Buddhist sources, the ‘systems approach’, by which literature is viewed as embedded in a social system. Consequently, he analyses the Gandavyuha in the contexts of reality, society and the individual, and applies these notions to the key themes of power, wealth and women. The study reveals that the spiritual hierarchy represented within the Gandavyuha replicates the political hierarchies in India during Buddhism’s Middle Period, that the role of wealth mirrors its significance as a sign of spiritual status in Indian Buddhist society, and that the substantial number of female spiritual guides in the narrative reflects the importance of royal women patrons of Indian Buddhism at the time. This book will appeal to higher-level undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars of religious studies, Buddhist studies, Asian studies, South Asian studies and Indology.
Download or read book A History of Indian Buddhism written by Akira Hirakawa and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1993 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive and detailed survey of the first six centuries of Indian Buddhism sums up the results of a lifetime of research and reflection by one of Japan's most renowned scholars of Buddhism.
Download or read book Genealogies of Mah y na Buddhism written by Joseph G Walser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism offers a solution to the monumental problem that some have called the "holy grail" of Buddhist studies: the problem of the “origins” of Mahāyāna Buddhism. As much as it contributes to a theory of origins for religious studies and Buddhist Studies, the book argues that that it is the neglect of political power in the scholarly imagination of Buddhism in history that has made the origins of Mahāyāna an intractable problem. Walser challenges commonly-held assumptions, offering a fascinating new take on the genealogy of Mahāyāna that traces its doctrines of emptiness and mind-only from the present day back to the time before Mahāyāna was “Mahāyāna.” In situating such concepts in their political and social history across diverse regimes of power in Tibet, China and India, the book shows that what was at stake in the Mahāyāna championing of the doctrine of emptiness was the articulation and dissemination of court authority across the rural landscapes of Asia. This text will be will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars of Buddhism, religious studies, history, and philosophy.
Download or read book Three Early Mah y na Treatises from Gandh ra written by Andrea Schlosser and published by . This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gandh?ran birch-bark scrolls preserve the earliest remains of Buddhist literature known today and provide unprecedented insights into the history of Buddhism. This volume presents three manuscripts from the Bajaur Collection (BC), a group of nineteen scrolls discovered at the end of the twentieth century and named after their findspot in northwestern Pakistan. The manuscripts, written in the G?ndh?r? language and Kharo??h? script, date to the second century CE. The three scrolls?BC 4, BC 6, and BC 11?contain treatises that focus on the Buddhist concept of non-attachment. This volume is the first in the Gandh?ran Buddhist Texts series that is devoted to texts belonging to the Mah?y?na tradition. There are no known versions of these texts in other Buddhist traditions, and it is assumed that they are autographs. Andrea Schlosser provides an overview of the contents of the manuscripts and discusses their context, genre, possible authorship, physical layout, paleography, orthography, phonology, and morphology. Transliteration and translation of the texts are accompanied by notes on difficult terminology, photographs of the reconstructed scrolls, an index of G?ndh?r? words with Sanskrit and Pali equivalents, and a preliminary transliteration of the scroll BC 19.
Download or read book Da cheng qi xing lun xiao zhu written by Aśvaghoṣa and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
