Early European histories of India frequently reflected colonialist agendas. The idea that Indian society had declined from an earlier Golden Age helped justify the colonial presence. It was said, for example, that modern Buddhism had fallen away from its original identity as a purely rational philosophy that arose in the mythical 5th-century BCE Golden Age unsullied by the religious and cultural practices that surrounded it. In this book Robert DeCaroli seeks to place the formation of Buddhism in its appropriate social and political contexts. It is necessary, he says, to acknowledge that the monks and nuns who embodied early Buddhist ideals shared many beliefs held by the communities in which they were raised. In becoming members of the monastic society these individuals did not abandon their beliefs in the efficacy and the dangers represented by minor deities and spirits of the dead. Their new faith, however, gave them revolutionary new mechanisms with which to engage those supernatural beings. Drawing on fieldwork, textual, and iconographic evidence, DeCaroli offers a comprehensive view of early Indian spirit-religions and their contributions to Buddhism-the first attempt at such a study since Ananda Coomaraswamy's pioneering work was published in 1928. The result is an important contribution to our understanding of early Indian religion and society, and will be of interest to those in the fields of Buddhist studies, Asian history, art history, and anthropology.

"Right Development" examines the Santi Asoke Buddhist Reform Movement of Thailand as a culturally and environmentally appropriate alternative to western development programs. The Asoke group's aim is not a Western ideal, to accumulate high levels of material comfort, but a Buddhist ideal to release attachment to the material world and attain spiritual freedom. Ethnographic research at one Asoke community illuminates how Asoke beliefs and practices foster development on three levels: the individual, community, and society. A closer look at "a day in the life" of four women provides further insight into this development. This book stipulates that development must be culturally/locally situated, focused on livelihoods rather than economic growth, environmentally sustainable, and endogenously inspired, implemented, and maintained. The intent here is not to offer a new meta-strategy for global development but to underscore the need for diverse responses to the vast array of economic, social, and environmental dilemmas. "Right Development" offers alternatives for sustainable development perfect for scholars of Buddhism or Thailand.

This title was first published in 2002: Religion and Social Transformations examines the reciprocal relationship between religion, modernity and social change. The book focuses on the world's three major missionary religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. It explores how these three traditions are responding to some of the most challenging issues associated with globalization, including the role of religion in the fall of Communism; the tension between religion and feminism; the compatibility of religion and human rights; and whether ancient religions can accommodate new challenges such as environmentalism. The five textbooks and Reader that make up the Religion Today Open University/Ashgate series are: From Sacred Text to Internet; Religion and Social Transformations; Perspectives on Civil Religion; Global Religious Movements in Regional Context; Belief Beyond Boundaries; Religion Today: A Reader

When we read about the profundity and complexity of the Buddhist tradition, we are hard pressed to imagine how the earliest Japanese priests propagated this tradition and how the common people accepted it. Kyokai's collection of 'miraculous stories throw much light on this.

Buddhist meditation has given rise to much literature. Despite differences in style and terminology, these modern writings serve much the same purpose as did the manuals and commentaries of the classical masters: to explicate and interpret the Buddha's teachings on meditation, to clarify the nature and value of the various meditative techniques and attainments, and/or to offer advice on the actual practice of meditation. This collection of 28 readings is designed to give meditators, researchers and general readers access to representative examples of those writings, and to the principal relevant texts. The readings are grouped under four headings, arranged roughly in chronological order. Section I covers "Pali Sources", historically the earliest source of information on Buddhist meditation in the "suttas", or discourses of the Buddha, preserved principally in the canonical texts of Theravada Buddhism. Excerpts from eight "suttas" containing important teachings on meditation are presented in this first section. Section II presents "Classical Masters", six samples of the writings of highly-regarded classical authorities on meditation. They cover a wide historical and geographical ran

Buddhist meditation has given rise to much literature. Despite differences in style and terminology, these modern writings serve much the same purpose as did the manuals and commentaries of the classical masters: to explicate and interpret the Buddha's teachings on meditation, to clarify the nature and value of the various meditative techniques and attainments, and/or to offer advice on the actual practice of meditation. This collection of 28 readings is designed to give meditators, researchers and general readers access to representative examples of those writings, and to the principal relevant texts. The readings are grouped under four headings, arranged roughly in chronological order. Section I covers "Pali Sources", historically the earliest source of information on Buddhist meditation in the "suttas", or discourses of the Buddha, preserved principally in the canonical texts of Theravada Buddhism. Excerpts from eight "suttas" containing important teachings on meditation are presented in this first section. Section II presents "Classical Masters", six samples of the writings of highly-regarded classical authorities on meditation. They cover a wide historical and geographical ran

Series Information:
RoutledgeCurzon Studies in Asian Philosophy

In this compact book, the authors reflect on the legacy of four great religious thinkers: Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, and Muhammad. They offer a brief biography of each founder, describing the events that most shaped his life, how his personal spirituality developed, how he lived and how he died, what kind of person he was, and finally, they briefly trace the course of each religious tradition after its founder's death. The Carmodys divide their topic into the major dimensions of spiritual life - nature, society, the self, and divinity - and provide clear and easy access to where each figure stands on enduring issues and how each compares with the others.

This comprehensive, compact, lucid, and faithful account of the Buddha's teachings persistently enjoys great popularity in colleges, universities, and theological schools both here and abroad. "An exposition of Buddhism conceived in a resolutely modern spirit."--from the Foreword.
"For years," says the Journal of the Buddhist Society, "the newcomer to Buddhism has lacked a simple and reliable introduction to the complexities of the subject. Dr. Rahula's What the Buddha Taught fills the need as only could be done by one having a firm grasp of the vast material to be sifted. It is a model of what a book should be that is addressed first of all to 'the educated and intelligent reader.' Authoritative and clear, logical and sober, this study is as comprehensive as it is masterly."
A classic introductory book to Buddhism, What the Buddha Taught, contains a selection of illustrative texts from the original Pali texts, including the Suttas and the Dhammapada (specially translated by the author), sixteen illustrations, and a bibliography, glossary, and index.

In this major new study, Prasenjit Duara expands his influential theoretical framework to present circulatory, transnational histories as an alternative to nationalist history. Duara argues that the present day is defined by the intersection of three global changes: the rise of non-western powers, the crisis of environmental sustainability and the loss of authoritative sources of what he terms transcendence - the ideals, principles and ethics once found in religions or political ideologies. The physical salvation of the world is becoming - and must become - the transcendent goal of our times, but this goal must transcend national sovereignty if it is to succeed. Duara suggests that a viable foundation for sustainability might be found in the traditions of Asia, which offer different ways of understanding the relationship between the personal, ecological and universal. These traditions must be understood through the ways they have circulated and converged with contemporary developments.

This invaluable interpretive tool, first published in 1937, is now available for the first time in a paperback edition specially aimed at students of Chinese Buddhism.
Those who have endeavoured to read Chinese texts apart from the apprehension of a Sanskrit background have generally made a fallacious interpretation, for the Buddhist canon is basically translation, or analogous to translation. In consequence, a large number of terms existing are employed approximately to connote imported ideas, as the various Chinese translators understood those ideas. Various translators invented different terms; and, even when the same term was finally adopted, its connotation varied, sometimes widely, from the Chinese term of phrase as normally used by the Chinese.
For instance, klésa undoubtedly has a meaning in Sanskrit similar to that of, i.e. affliction, distress, trouble. In Buddhism affliction (or, as it may be understood from Chinese, the afflicters, distressers, troublers) means passions and illusions; and consequently fan-nao in Buddhist phraseology has acquired this technical connotation of the passions and illusions. Many terms of a similar character are noted in the body of this work. Consequent partly on this use of ordinary terms, even a well-educated Chinese without a knowledge of the technical equivalents finds himself unable to understand their implications.

This book discusses what is now called "Buddhism". It started as an effort to strengthen a weak point in that "immanence" which had become the accepted religious teaching in the valley of the Ganges, by showing that the "God/in/man" was realizable, not by gnosis and ritual, but in conduct. Conduct needed to be brought into relgion, into the relation between man and his eternal destiny. Man's being is more truly becoming; and only in and by becoming a More, will he attain to an actual, not potential Most. In teaching a More worth in conduction, Buddhism brought in a teaching of the man himself as Less.

"Sermon of One Hundred Days" is the first translation into English from Korean of a seminal text in Korean Buddhism. Buddhism was introduced into Korea through China in about the 4th-5th century C.E. and within 200 years became so advanced that it influenced the development of Chinese Buddhism. Chan Buddhism was introduced into Korea around the 8th century and Seon Master Jinul (1158-1210) is honoured as having set the curriculum for the education of Buddhist monks and established Korean Buddhism as it was known for the next millennium. In this "Sermon of One Hundred Days", published in 1967, Master Songcheol (1912-93) develops Korean Buddhism further by teaching what Buddhist truth is. This Sermon comprehends the vast developments of Buddhism in India and China, including early Buddhism, Abhidharma, Madhyamaka, Yogacara Buddhism, Chinese doctrinal schools of Tiantai and Huayan and Chinese Chan and Korean Seon Buddhism. The Master analyses the logical structure of various historical teachings, which are connected by the principle of 'the middle way,' and encourages his audience to pursue solely the truth to which the Buddha awakened.

Nirmala S. Salgado offers a groundbreaking study of the politics of representation of Buddhist nuns. Challenging assumptions about writing on gender and Buddhism, Salgado raises important theoretical questions about the applicability of liberal feminist concepts and language to the practices of Buddhist nuns. Based on extensive research in Sri Lanka as well as on interviews with Theravada and Tibetan nuns from around the world, Salgado's study invites a reconsideration of female renunciation. How do scholarly narratives continue to be complicit in reinscribing colonialist and patriarchal stories about Buddhist women? In what ways have recent debates contributed to the construction of the subject of the Theravada bhikkhuni? How do key Buddhist concepts such as dukkha, samsara, and sila ground female renunciant practices? Salgado's provocative analysis of modern discourses about the supposed empowerment of nuns challenges interpretations of female renunciation articulated in terms of secular notions such as ''freedom'' in renunciation, and questions the idea that the higher ordination of nuns constitutes a movement in which female renunciants act as agents seeking to assert their autonomy in a struggle against patriarchal norms. Salgado argues that the concept of a global sisterhood of nuns-an idea grounded in a notion of equality as a universal ideal-promotes a discourse of dominance about the lives of non-Western women and calls for more nuanced readings of the everyday renunciant practices and lives of Buddhist nuns. Buddhist Nuns and Gendered Practice is essential reading for anyone interested in the connections between religion and power, subjectivity and gender, and feminism and postcolonialism.

The collection of teachings presented in As It Is, Volume II, is selected from talks given by the Tibetan meditation master, Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche between 1994 and 1995. The emphasis in Volume I was on the development stage practice and in Volume II primarily on the completion stage. However, to make such divisions is merely for the convenience of the editors. In the reality of Rinpoche's teaching method, no such separations exist.

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was someone with extra¬ordinary experience and realization, a fact known throughout the world. It is evident to everyone that he was unlike anyone else when it came to pointing out the nature of mind, and making sure that people both recognized it and had some actual experience.
--Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was an incredible master, both learned and ac¬complished. The great masters of this time -- the 16th Karmapa, Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche -- all venerated him as one of their root gurus and a jewel in their crown or¬nament. He was someone who achieved the final realization of the Great Perfection.
--Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche
The difference between buddhas and sentient beings is that sentient beings are busy fabricating. Our self-existing wakefulness is being altered and contrived and as long as it continues to be so, that long we will wander in samsara. Instead, we need to recognize the nature of mind. Here I am explaining this to give you the idea, of how it is. The next step is for you to experience; intellectual understanding is not enough. You need to actually taste it and realize it. Train till it becomes uninterrupted.
--Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

India has a rich tradition of meditative practices designed to study the phenomenon of consciousness. From the distant past to the present, India has evolved a unique psychological culture with grand unifying themes and universal modes of meditative practice. This book provides a detailed analysis of classical and modern Indian views on consciousness along with their related meditative methods. It offers a critical analysis of three distinct trends of Indian thought, viz., a dualistic mode of understanding and realizing consciousness in Hindu Samkhya, an interactive mode in early Buddhist abhidhamma, and the evolutionary transformational mode in the teachings of the twentieth-century sage Sri Aurobindo. This book explores the unifying features in Indian first person practices with regard to consciousness and the importance of these applied psychological practices and their associated understanding of our conscious inner lives. The most striking feature of the work is that side by side theoretical exposition of consciousness, it includes a number of worksheets which explain how to use meditation to achieve relaxation as well as cognitive 'maps' of the different levels of conscious states and instruction and how one can traverse from one state to another. The final chapter explores Sri Aurobindo who introduced new and decisive Indian spiritual thought and practice to India in the form of Integral Yoga. This innovative book will be of interest to scholars studying Indian philosophy, Indian religion and the emerging field of contemplation studies.

This manual, by an experienced Buddhist, has been written so that it will be easily accessible also to the reader who knows nothing about meditation, but also contains knowledge and experience that can be gained only through practice.

Emphasizes the inner life as a constant moving on and the mover as a pilgrim travelling along an ancient Way. This Way to ultimate Reality was called by Gautama the Buddha the Middle Way, the path between the introverted life of contemplation and the extrovert life of action in the world of men.

The wisdom of Buddhism is to be found in its Scriptures, and this book attempts to compile a selection from Buddhist writings. The Scriptures used by the Zen School of China and Japan are well represented, and chapters discuss such topics as the Buddha, Tibetan Buddhism, concentration and meditation, the Buddhist order, and Nirvana. In this anthology, the source of each item is given, whilst a glossary and index have been added.

The "Lotus of the Wonderful (or Mystic) Law" is the most important religious book of the Far East, and has been described as "The Gospel of Half Asia". It is also the chief scripture of Buddhism in China, and therefore the chief source of consolation of the many millions of Buddhists in East Asia. It is justifiable to consider it as one of the greatest and most formative books of the world, and the text is here translated for the use of the Western student whilst an endeavour is made to reveal the contour of the most spiritual drama known in the Far East.

This is one of the oldest collections of Buddhist discourses in the Pali canon; by far one of the most popular as well as the most important. Written in a mixture of prose and verse, it presents a code of conduct and provides the basis for a system of moral philosophy. A prime source work.

A popular, if erroneous, conception of Buddhism has been that of self-negation or even nihilism, that is to say a religion that is negative in its basic attitude. In this classic work, Professor Tachibana instead argues that Buddhism is an essentially positive creed that provides an ethical philosophy that remains relevant irrespective of time and place. This is the 'Middle Way', with eight qualities or virtues - understanding, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration - that form the core of the Buddhist philosophy of life. It is these great moral attributes that Professor Tachibana expounds as being the essence of Buddhism and providing a way of life based on tolerance and benevolence.