How Buddhism Began

Author: Richard F. Gombrich
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134196385
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
Written by one of the world's top scholars in the field of Pali Buddhism, this new and updated edition of How Buddhism Began, discusses various important doctrines and themes in early Buddhism. It takes 'early Buddhism' to be that reflected in the Pali canon, and to some extent assumes that these doctrines reflect the teachings of the Buddha himself. Two themes predominate. Firstly, the author argues that we cannot understand the Buddha unless we understand that he was debating with other religious teachers, notably Brahmins. The other main theme concerns metaphor, allegory and literalism. This accessible, well-written book is mandatory reading for all serious students of Buddhism.

How Buddhism Began

Author: Richard F. Gombrich
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134196393
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Sarnath

Author: Frederick M. Asher
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606066161
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
The first analytical history of Sarnath, the place where the Buddha preached his first sermon and established the Buddhist monastic order. 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 durée (long-term) analysis of Sarnath—including the plunder, excavation, and display of antiquities and the Archaeological Survey of India’s presentation—and considers what lies beyond the fenced-in excavated area. His analytical history of Sarnath’s architectural and sculptural remains contains a significant study of the site’s sculptures, their uneven production, and their global distribution. Asher also examines modern Sarnath, which is a living establishment replete with new temples and monasteries that constitute a Buddhist presence on the outskirts of Varanasi, the most sacred Hindu city.

Setting Out on the Great Way

Author: Paul Maxwell Harrison
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9781781790960
Category : Mahayana Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Setting Out on the Great Way brings together different perspectives on the origins and early history of Mahāyāna Buddhism and delves into selected aspects of its formative period. As the variety of the religion which conquered East Asia and also provided the matrix for the later development of Buddhist Tantra or Vajrayāna, Mahāyāna is regarded as one of the most significant forms of Buddhism, and its beginnings have long been the focus of intense scholarly attention and debate. The essays in this volume address the latest findings in the field, including contributions by younger researchers vigorously critiquing the reappraisal of the Mahāyāna carried out by scholars in the last decades of the 20th century and the different understanding of the movement which they produced. As the study of Buddhism as a whole reorients itself to embrace new methods and paradigms, while at the same time coming to terms with exciting new manuscript discoveries, our picture of the Mahāyāna continues to change. This volume presents the latest developments in this ongoing re-evaluation of one of Buddhism's most important historical expressions.

Theravada Buddhism

Author: Richard F. Gombrich
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113421717X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Written by the leading authority on Theravada Buddhism, this up-dated edition takes into account recent research to include the controversies over the date of the Buddha and current social and political developments in Sri Lanka. Gombrich explores the legacy of the Buddha's predecessors and the social and religious contexts against which Buddhism has developed and changed throughout history, demonstrating above all, how it has always influenced and been influenced by its social surroundings in a way which continues to this day.

Concise History of Buddhism

Author: Andrew Skilton
Publisher: Windhorse Publications
ISBN: 1909314129
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
An ideal introduction to the history of Buddhism. Andrew Skilton - a writer on and practitioner of Buddhism - explains the development of the basic concepts of Buddhism during its 2,500 years of history and describes its varied developments in India, Buddhism's homeland, as well as its spread across Asia, from Mongolia to Sri Lanka and from Japan to the Middle East. A fascinating insight into the historical progress of one of the world's great religions.

A History of Indian Buddhism

Author: Akira Hirakawa
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120809550
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
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.

Legends of Indian Buddhism

Author: Eugène Burnouf
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddha (The concept).
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Book Description
With reference to Magdha King Asoka, fl. 259 B.C.

The Noble Eightfold Path

Author: Bhikkhu Bodhi
Publisher: Buddhist Publication Society
ISBN: 955240116X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 151

Book Description
The Buddha's teachings center around two basic principles. One is the Four Noble Truths, in which the Buddha diagnoses the problem of suffering and indicates the treatment necessary to remedy this problem. The other is the Noble Eightfold Path, the practical discipline he prescribes to uproot and eliminate the deep underlying causes of suffering. The present book offers, in simple and clear language, a concise yet thorough explanation of the Eightfold Path. Basing himself solidly upon the Buddha's own words, the author examines each factor of the path to determine exactly what it implies in the way of practical training. Finally, in the concluding chapter, he shows how all eight factors of the path function in unison to bring about the realization of the Buddhist goal: enlightenment and liberation.

Cambodian Buddhism

Author: Ian Harris
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824861760
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
The study of Cambodian religion has long been hampered by a lack of easily accessible scholarship. This impressive new work by Ian Harris thus fills a major gap and offers English-language scholars a booklength, up-to-date treatment of the religious aspects of Cambodian culture. Beginning with a coherent history of the presence of religion in the country from its inception to the present day, the book goes on to furnish insights into the distinctive nature of Cambodia's important yet overlooked manifestation of Theravada Buddhist tradition and to show how it reestablished itself following almost total annihilation during the Pol Pot period. Historical sections cover the dominant role of tantric Mahayana concepts and rituals under the last great king of Angkor, Jayavarman VII (1181–c. 1220); the rise of Theravada traditions after the collapse of the Angkorian civilization; the impact of foreign influences on the development of the nineteenth-century monastic order; and politicized Buddhism and the Buddhist contribution to an emerging sense of Khmer nationhood. The Buddhism practiced in Cambodia has much in common with parallel traditions in Thailand and Sri Lanka, yet there are also significant differences. The book concentrates on these and illustrates how a distinctly Cambodian Theravada developed by accommodating itself to premodern Khmer modes of thought. Following the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in 1970, Cambodia slid rapidly into disorder and violence. Later chapters chart the elimination of institutional Buddhism under the Khmer Rouge and its gradual reemergence after Pol Pot, the restoration of the monastic order's prerevolutionary institutional forms, and the emergence of contemporary Buddhist groupings.