Download or read book Yasodhar the Wife of the B dhisattva written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-02-07 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What about Buddha's wife? We all know that Prince Siddhartha left his wife and infant son to begin his journey to enlightenment. The Pali canon does not mention the woman he left behind. Yasodharā enters the commentarial tradition around the first century CE and lives on in the folk tradition, growing from a shadowy figure to a nun and arahat (an Enlightened One), even gaining magical powers. In this book, Ranjini Obeyesekere offers a translation of two works from Sri Lanka on this intriguing figure. The Yasodharāvata (The Story of Yasodharā) is a folk poem, whose best-known verses are Yasodharā's lament over the departure of her husband. The Yasodharāpadānaya (The Sacred Biography of Yasodharā) is an account of Yasodharā as a nun capable of miracles, who has traveled through saṃsāra with the Bodhisattva, and who is praised by him. Obeyesekere places these works within their historical and literary context and provides a glossary of Buddhist terms.
Download or read book Yasodhara and the Buddha written by Vanessa R. Sasson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By combining the spirit of fiction with the fabulism of Indian mythology and in-depth academic research, Vanessa R. Sasson shares the evocative story of the Buddha from the perspective of a forgotten woman: Yasodhara, the Buddha's wife. Although often marginalized, Yasodhara's narrative here comes to life. Written with a strong feminist voice, we encounter Yasodhara as a fiercely independent, passionate and resilient individual. We witness her joys and sorrows, her expectations and frustrations, her fairy-tale wedding, and her overwhelming devastation at the departure of her beloved. It is through her eyes that we witness Siddhattha's slow transformation, from a sheltered prince to a deeply sensitive young man. On the way, we see how the gods watch over the future Buddha from the clouds, how the king and his ministers try to keep the suffering of the world from him and how he eventually renounces the throne, his wife and newly-born son to seek enlightenment. Along with a foreword from Wendy Doniger, the book includes a scholarly introduction to Yasodhara's narrative and offers extensive notes along with study questions, to help readers navigate the traditional literature in a new way, making this an essential book for anyone wanting to learn about Buddhist narratives.
Download or read book Yasodhara and the Buddha written by Vanessa R. Sasson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By combining the spirit of fiction with the fabulism of Indian mythology and in-depth academic research, Vanessa R. Sasson shares the evocative story of the Buddha from the perspective of a forgotten woman: Yasodhara, the Buddha's wife. Although often marginalized, Yasodhara's narrative here comes to life. Written with a strong feminist voice, we encounter Yasodhara as a fiercely independent, passionate and resilient individual. We witness her joys and sorrows, her expectations and frustrations, her fairy-tale wedding, and her overwhelming devastation at the departure of her beloved. It is through her eyes that we witness Siddhattha's slow transformation, from a sheltered prince to a deeply sensitive young man. On the way, we see how the gods watch over the future Buddha from the clouds, how the king and his ministers try to keep the suffering of the world from him and how he eventually renounces the throne, his wife and newly-born son to seek enlightenment. Along with a foreword from Wendy Doniger, the book includes a scholarly introduction to Yasodhara's narrative and offers extensive notes along with study questions, to help readers navigate the traditional literature in a new way, making this an essential book for anyone wanting to learn about Buddhist narratives.
Download or read book The Buddha s Wife written by Janet Surrey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As women’s spirituality continues to gain popularity, The Buddha’s Wife offers to a broad audience for the first time the intimate and profound story of Princess Yasodhara, the wife Buddha left behind, and her alternative journey to spiritual enlightenment. What do we know of the wife and child the Buddha abandoned when he went off to seek his enlightenment? The Buddha’s Wife brings this rarely told story to the forefront, offering a nuanced portrait of this compelling and compassionate figure while also examining the practical applications her teachings have on our modern lives. Princess Yasodhara’s journey is one full of loss, grief, and suffering. But through it, she discovered her own enlightenment within the deep bonds of community and “ordinary” relationships. While traditional Buddhism emphasizes solitary meditation, Yasodhara’s experience speaks of “The Path of Right Relation,” of achieving awareness not alone but together with others. The Buddha’s Wife is comprised of two parts: the first part is a historical narrative of Yasodhara’s fascinating story, and the second part is a “how-to” reader’s companion filled with life lessons, practices, and reflections for the modern seeker. Her story provides a relational path, one which speaks directly to our everyday lives and offers a doorway to profound spiritual maturation, awakening, and wisdom beyond the solitary, heroic journey.
Download or read book Family in Buddhism written by Liz Wilson and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging exploration of Buddhism and family in Asiafrom biological families to families created in monasteries. The Buddha left his home and family and enjoined his followers to go forth and become homeless. With a traditionally celibate clergy, Asian Buddhism is often regarded as a world-renouncing religion inimical to family life. This edited volume counters this view, showing how Asian Buddhists in a wide range of historical and geographical circumstances relate as kin to their biological families and to the religious families they join. Using contemporary and historical case studies as well as textual examples, contributors explore how Asian Buddhists invoke family ties in the intentional communities they create and use them to establish religious authority and guard religious privilege. The language of family and lineage emerges as central to a variety of South and East Asian Buddhist contexts. With an interdisciplinary, Pan-Asian approach, Family in Buddhism challenges received wisdom in religious studies and offers new ways to think about family and society.
Download or read book Simas written by Jason A. Carbine and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2022-01-31 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human-fashioned boundaries transform spaces by introducing dualisms, bifurcations, creative symbioses, contradictions, and notions of inclusion and exclusion. The Buddhist boundaries considered in this book, sīmās—a term found in South and Southeast Asian languages and later translated into East Asian languages—come in various shapes and sizes and can be established on land or in bodies of water. Sometimes, the word sīmā refers not only to a ceremonial boundary, but the space enclosed by the boundary, or even the markers (when they are used) that denote the boundary. Sīmās were established early on as places where core legal acts (kamma), including ordination, of the monastic community (sangha) took place according to their disciplinary codes. Sīmās continue to be deployed in the creation of monastic lineages and to function in diverse ways for monastics and non-monastics alike. As foundations of Buddhist religion, sīmās are used to sustain, revitalize, or reform Buddhist practices, notions of identity, and conceptualizations of time and history. In the last few decades, scholarly awareness of and expertise on sīmās has developed to a point where a volume like this one, which examines sīmās across numerous cultural contexts and scholarly fields of inquiry, is both possible and needed. Sīmā traditions expressed in the Theravāda cultures of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka constitute the dominant focus of the work; a chapter on East Asia raises questions of historical transmission beyond these areas. Throughout contributors engage texts; history; archaeology; politics; art; ecology; economics; epigraphy; legal categories; mythic narratives; understandings of the cosmos; and conceptualizations of compassion, authority, and violence. Examining sīmās through multiple perspectives allows us to look at them in their contextual specificity, in a way that allows for discernment of variation as well as consistency. Sīmā spaces can be both simple and extremely intricate, and this book helps show why and how that is the case.
Download or read book The Woman Who Raised the Buddha written by Wendy Garling and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nautilus Book Award Winner The first full biography of Mahaprajapati Gautami, the woman who raised the Buddha--examining her life through stories and canonical records. Mahaprajapati was the only mother the Buddha ever knew. His birth mother, Maya, died shortly after childbirth, and her sister Mahaprajapati took the infant to her breast, nurturing and raising him into adulthood. While there is a lot of ambiguity overall in the Buddha's biography, this detail remains consistent across all Buddhist traditions and literature. In this first full biography of Mahaprajapati, The Woman Who Raised the Buddha presents her life story, with attention to her early years as sister, queen, matriarch, and mother, as well as her later years as a nun. Drawing from story fragments and canonical records, Wendy Garling reveals just how exceptional Mahaprajapati's role was as leader of the first generation of Buddhist women, helping the Buddha establish an equal community of lay and monastic women and men. Mother to the Buddha, mother to early Buddhist women, mother to the Buddhist faith, Mahaprajapati's journey is finally presented as one interwoven with the founding of Buddhism.
Download or read book Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia written by Juliane Schober and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 2002 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary collection of essays explores the biographical genre of the Buddhist traditions of South and Southeast Asia. Scholars in the history of religions, anthropology, literature and art history present a broad range of explorations into sacred biography as an interpretive genre. Easch essay makes unique contributions and the collection as a whole engages methodological and interpretive approaches that are central to scholars of Buddhism and those specializing in the study of south and Southeast Asia.
Download or read book The Buddha a Storied Life written by Vanessa R. Sasson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Retellings of the Buddha's life story have animated and sustained Buddhist thought and practice through some 2,500 years of history. To this day, Buddhist holidays and rituals are pinned to the arc of his biography, celebrating his birth, awakening, teaching, and final nirvana. His story is the model that exemplary Buddhists follow. Often, there is a moment of insight akin to the Buddha's experience with the Four Sights, followed by a great departure from home, and a period of searching that it is hoped will lead to final awakening. The Buddha's story is not just the Buddha's story; it is the story of Buddhism. In this book, twelve leading scholars of South Asian texts and traditions articulate the Buddha-life blueprint--the underlying and foundational pattern that holds the life story of a buddha together. They retell the episodes of Buddha Gautama's extended life story, while keeping in mind the cosmic, paradigmatic arc of his narrative. The contributors have dedicated their careers to exploring hagiographical materials, each applying their own methodological and theoretical interests to shed new light on the enduring story of Buddhism. Using multiple perspectives, voices, and sources, this volume underscores the multivalent centrality of this story. The book will be an invaluable resource to practicing Buddhists and students of Buddhist Studies to help them engage in the most foundational story of the tradition.
Download or read book The Modern Divine Comedy Book 1 Inferno 1 Descending written by Andrew J. Farrara and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2022-10-13 with total page 1054 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores and details the experiences and trials of both the Journalist Romano known here as the First Man Adam and his celestial ancient Persian guide Zarathustra while they travel to the Inferno and Limboland Arenas of the Pre-Historic Paleo Heroes; the Ancient Greek Gods & Goddesses; the Ancient Roman Gods & Goddesses; the Sumerian & Babylonian & Egyptian Gods; the Norse Viking Gods; the Indian Hindoo Vedic Gods; the Chinese Gods & Emperors; the Koreans; the Vietnamese; the Amerikan Experimental; the Cambodian & Laotian Encampments; the Burmese; the Hodgepodge of Nations On The Fringe Desiring Anonymity; the Japanese; the Irish Republican Army & Sinn Fein; the Native Americans; the Incas & Aztecs & Mayas; and Cuba & Nicaragua.
Download or read book Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative Iconography and Ritual written by Serinity Young and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Courtesans and Tantric Consorts, Serinity Young takes the reader on a journey through more than 2000 years of Buddhist history, revealing the colourful mosaic of beliefs that inform Buddhist views about gender and sexuality.
Download or read book Mansions of the Moon written by Shyam Selvadurai and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking reimagining of ancient India through the extraordinary life of Yasodhara, the woman who married the Buddha—from the bestselling, award-winning author of Funny Boy and The Hungry Ghosts. In this sweeping tale, at once epic and intimate, Shyam Selvadurai introduces us to Siddhartha Gautama—who will later become “the enlightened one,” or the Buddha—an unusually bright and politically astute young man settling into his upper-caste life as a newlywed to Yasodhara, a woman of great intelligence and spirit. Mansions of the Moon traces the couple’s early love and life together, and then the anguished turmoil that descends upon them both as Siddhartha’s spiritual calling takes over and the marriage partnership slowly, inexorably crumbles. Eventually, Yasodhara is forced to ask what kind of life a woman can lead in ancient India if her husband abandons her—even a well-born woman such as herself. And is there a path she, too, might take towards enlightenment? Award-winning writer Shyam Selvadurai examines these questions with empathy and insight, creating a vivid portrait of a fascinating time and place, the intricate web of power, family and relationships that surround a singular marriage, and the remarkable woman who, until now, has remained a little-understood shadow in the historical record. Mansions of the Moon is an immersive, lively and thrilling feat of literary imagination.
Download or read book The Buddha written by John Strong and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-01 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revealing the man behind the icon. From his many births to his deathbed deeds, this authoritative biography unites the Buddha of history with the Buddha of legend in a bid to reveal the lasting spiritual relevance at the heart of the Buddhist tradition. Acclaimed scholar John Strong examines not only the historical texts, but also the supernatural accounts that surround this great religious figure, uncovering the roots of many Buddhist beliefs and practices. Accompanied by helpful charts and tables, and drawing on a vast array of primary sources, the text also features such key topics as: biographical accounts from all the Buddhist schools, an analysis of the Buddha’s enlightenment, the life of the Buddha as depicted by Buddhist art and rituals, and the relics of Siddhartha Gautama, and how they continue his story, even after his lifetime.
Download or read book What is Religious Ethics written by Irene Oh and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-12-30 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Religious Ethics? An Introduction is an accessible and informative overview to major themes and methods in religious ethics. This concise and lively book demonstrates the relevance and importance of ethics based in religious traditions and describes how scholars of religious ethics think through moral problems. Combining an issues-based approach with a model of studying ethics religion-by-religion, this volume examines pressing topics through a variety of belief systems—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism—while also importantly spotlighting Indigenous communities. Engaging case studies invite readers to consider the role of religions with regard to issues such as: CRISPR Vegetarianism Nuclear weapons Women’s leadership Reparations for slavery What is Religious Ethics? is a reliable and easily digestible introduction to the field. With chronologically structured chapters, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and interviews with scholars of religious ethics, this is an ideal guide to those approaching the study of religious ethics for the first time.
Download or read book The Legend and Cult of Upagupta written by John S. Strong and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1994 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddhist monk Upagupta, who preached and taught meditative practices in Northwest India over two thousand years ago, is venerated today by the laity in parts of Burma, Thailand, and laos as a proctective figure endowed with magical powers. The author demonstrates a remarkable continuity among traditions focused on Upagupta in ancient Sarvastivadin Sanskrit materials, key Pali texts, medieval Thai and Burmese texts, and rituals in Southeast Asia. In so doing he reflects the orientation of popular Sanskrit Hinayana Buddhism, which allows for new perspectives on such classic questions as the nature of enlightnment, the evil, the worship of the Buddha image, the veneration of saints, master-disciple relationships, the treatment of heterodoxy, and the relation of myth and ritual.
Download or read book Conceptualizing Friendship in Time and Place written by Carla Risseeuw and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of friendship is more easily valued than it is described: this volume brings together reflections on its meaning and practice in a variety of social and cultural settings in history and in the present time, focusing on Asia and the Western, Euro-American world. The extension of the group in which friendship is recognized, and degrees of intimacy (whether or not involving an erotic dimension) and genuine appreciation may vary widely. Friendship may simply include kinship bonds—solidarity being one of its more general characteristics. In various contexts of travelling, migration, and a dearth of offspring, friendship may take over roles of kinship, also in terms of care.
Download or read book The Historical Evolution of the Buddha Legend written by Sarla Khosla and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
