Rewriting Buddhism

Author : Alastair Gornall
Publisher : UCL Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2020-03-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9781787355156

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Rewriting Buddhism by Alastair Gornall Pdf

Rewriting Buddhism is the first intellectual history of premodern Sri Lanka’s most culturally productive period. This era of reform (1157–1270) shaped the nature of Theravada Buddhism both in Sri Lanka and also Southeast Asia and even today continues to define monastic intellectual life in the region. Alastair Gornall argues that the long century’s literary productivity was not born of political stability, as is often thought, but rather of the social, economic and political chaos brought about by invasions and civil wars. Faced with unprecedented uncertainty, the monastic community sought greater political autonomy, styled itself as royal court, and undertook a series of reforms, most notably, a purification and unification in 1165 during the reign of Parakramabahu I. He describes how central to the process of reform was the production of new forms of Pali literature, which helped create a new conceptual and social coherence within the reformed community; one that served to preserve and protect their religious tradition while also expanding its reach among the more fragmented and localized elites of the period.

Author : Alastair Gornall
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2020-10-09
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1013295412

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Rewriting Buddhism by Alastair Gornall Pdf

Rewriting Buddhism is the first intellectual history of premodern Sri Lanka's most culturally productive period. This era of reform (1157-1270) shaped the nature of Theravada Buddhism both in Sri Lanka and also Southeast Asia and even today continues to define monastic intellectual life in the region. Alastair Gornall argues that the long century's literary productivity was not born of political stability, as is often thought, but rather of the social, economic and political chaos brought about by invasions and civil wars. Faced with unprecedented uncertainty, the monastic community sought greater political autonomy, styled itself as royal court, and undertook a series of reforms, most notably, a purification and unification in 1165 during the reign of Parakramabahu I. He describes how central to the process of reform was the production of new forms of Pali literature, which helped create a new conceptual and social coherence within the reformed community; one that served to preserve and protect their religious tradition while also expanding its reach among the more fragmented and localized elites of the period. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Author : Alastair Gornall
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2021-01-08
Category : Buddhism
ISBN : 1787355160

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Rewriting Buddhism by Alastair Gornall Pdf

Author : Stephen C. Berkwitz,Ashley Thompson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 576 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2022-03-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781351026642

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Routledge Handbook of Theravāda Buddhism by Stephen C. Berkwitz,Ashley Thompson Pdf

Among one of the older subfields in Buddhist Studies, the study of Theravāda Buddhism is undergoing a revival by contemporary scholars who are revising long-held conventional views of the tradition while undertaking new approaches and engaging new subject matter. The term Theravāda has been refined, and research has expanded beyond the analysis of canonical texts to examine contemporary cultural forms, social movements linked with meditation practices, material culture, and vernacular language texts. The Routledge Handbook of Theravāda Buddhism illustrates the growth and new directions of scholarship in the study of Theravāda Buddhism and is structured in four parts: Ideas/Ideals Practices/Persons Texts/Teachings Images/Imaginations Owing largely to the continued vitality of Theravāda Buddhist communities in countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, as well as in diaspora communities across the globe, traditions associated with what is commonly (and fairly recently) called Theravāda attract considerable attention from scholars and practitioners around the world. An in-depth guide to the distinctive features of Theravāda, the Handbook will be an invaluable resource for providing structure and guidance for scholars and students of Asian Religion, Buddhism and, in particular, Theravāda Buddhism. The introduction and chapter 20 of this book are available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Author : Kenneth Kuan Sheng Ch'en
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2016-04-19
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780691646152

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Chinese Transformation of Buddhism by Kenneth Kuan Sheng Ch'en Pdf

When Buddhism was introduced into China at about the beginning of the Christian era, the Chinese were captivated at first by its overpowering world view. Consequently, Buddhism in China has usually been discussed in terms of the Indianization of Chinese life and thought, but Kenneth Ch'en shows that as Indian ideas were gaining ground the Chinese were choosing among them and modifying them to fit their situation. To demonstrate how the Chinese transformed Buddhism the author investigates its role in the ethical, political, literary, educational, and social life of the Chinese. Buddhism was able to gain a wide following by accommodating itself to Chinese ethical practices. The Buddhist monastic community submitted to the jurisdiction of the state and the monasteries also became integrated into the economic life of the empire through their ownership of land and their operation of industrial and commercial enterprises. Through an analysis of the work of a representative Chinese poet the author reveals the ways in which Buddhism came to be reflected in the literary life of China. Finally, he explores the methods used by the Buddhists to popularize their religion. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Author : Anne M. Blackburn
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2024-01-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824896966

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Buddhist-Inflected Sovereignties across the Indian Ocean by Anne M. Blackburn Pdf

Buddhist-Inflected Sovereignties across the Indian Ocean draws attention to the varied, historically contingent, and sometimes competing, arguments for and about sovereignty that operated in the Pali arena during the first half of the second millennium AD. It was a time of expanding interaction within the Indian Ocean just prior to Portuguese colonial presence in Southern Asia. Developing a linked series of case studies and examining territories now subsumed within the nation-states of Sri Lanka, Burma/Myanmar, and Thailand, Blackburn examines sovereign arguments expressed textually, as well as in the built environment, by persons with an interest in the teachings and institutions associated with Gotama Buddha. These cases show that no single model of Buddhist-inflected sovereignty dominated the Pali arena during this time, and that there was no stable vision of “Buddhist kingship.” Rather, over time, there was an accrual of possible models and pathways for argumentation about how sovereigns could and should relate to buddha-sāsana. Taking inspiration from diverse sources transmitted through multiple forms and media, arguments for and about sovereignty in the Pali arena were contested and rapidly changing. As the Indian Ocean increasingly shaped the flow of people, objects, and ideas, more peoples and territories participated in the Pali arena, attracted by its intellectual and aesthetic resources. Drawing on extensive scholarship and a wide range of multilingual source materials from premodern Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia, Anne M. Blackburn develops innovative conclusions about the relationships between textuality, sovereignty, maritime connectivity, and material culture in each of these areas. The book contributes simultaneously to several fields of study: the intellectual history of Southern Asia, literary and historical scholarship on Buddhism, and historical studies of the Indian Ocean. By offering accessible yet in-depth analysis, Buddhist-Inflected Sovereignties across the Indian Ocean connects research fields and introduces new interpretive possibilities for the study of sovereignty, politics, premodern textual cultures, and Buddhism.

Author : Bhikkhu Bodhi
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 763 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2020-12-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781614296973

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Reading the Buddha's Discourses in Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi Pdf

Renowned scholar-monk and bestselling translator Bhikkhu Bodhi’s definitive, practical guide on how to read ancient Buddhist texts in the original language. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s sophisticated and practical instructions on how to read the Pali of the Buddha’s discourses will acquaint students of Early Buddhism with the language and idiom of these sacred texts. Here the renowned English translator of the Pali Canon opens a window into key suttas from the Sa?yutta Nikaya, giving a literal translation of each sentence followed by a more natural English rendering, then explaining the grammatical forms involved. In this way, students can determine the meaning of each word and phrase and gain an intimate familiarity with the distinctive style of the Pali suttas—with the words, and world, of the earliest Buddhist texts. Ven. Bodhi’s meticulously selected anthology of suttas provides a systematic overview of the Buddha’s teachings, mirroring the four noble truths, the most concise formulation of the Buddha’s guide to liberation. Reading the Buddha’s Discourses in Pali shares with readers not only exceptional language instruction but also a nuanced study of the substance, style, and method of the early Buddhist discourses.

Author : C. Pierce Salguero
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2014-06-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812209693

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Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China by C. Pierce Salguero Pdf

The transmission of Buddhism from India to China was one of the most significant cross-cultural exchanges in the premodern world. This cultural encounter involved more than the spread of religious and philosophical knowledge. It influenced many spheres of Chinese life, including the often overlooked field of medicine. Analyzing a wide variety of Chinese Buddhist texts, C. Pierce Salguero examines the reception of Indian medical ideas in medieval China. These texts include translations from Indian languages as well as Chinese compositions completed in the first millennium C.E. Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China illuminates and analyzes the ways Chinese Buddhist writers understood and adapted Indian medical knowledge and healing practices and explained them to local audiences. The book moves beyond considerations of accuracy in translation by exploring the resonances and social logics of intercultural communication in their historical context. Presenting the Chinese reception of Indian medicine as a process of negotiation and adaptation, this innovative and interdisciplinary work provides a dynamic exploration of the medical world of medieval Chinese society. At the center of Salguero's work is an appreciation of the creativity of individual writers as they made sense of disease, health, and the body in the context of regional and transnational traditions. By integrating religious studies, translation studies, and literature with the history of medicine, Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China reconstructs the crucial role of translated Buddhist knowledge in the vibrant medical world of medieval China.

Author : James William Coleman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2002-05-16
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0195152417

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The New Buddhism by James William Coleman Pdf

This text outlines the development and spread of ancient Buddhism. It describes its journey west and its evolution here, sketching the lives and teachings of some of Western Buddhism's most important figures.

Author : Kate Crosby
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2020-12-22
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781611807943

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Esoteric Theravada by Kate Crosby Pdf

A groundbreaking exploration of a practice tradition that was nearly lost to history. Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia—which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of science and religion, to bear on Buddhism—there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices. This once-dominant traditional meditation system, known as borān kammatthāna, is related to—yet remarkably distinct from—Vipassana and other Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that would become the hallmark of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. Drawing on a quarter century of research, scholar Kate Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of borān kammatthāna, illuminating the historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era.

Author : Yigal Bronner
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 561 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780197642924

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A Lasting Vision by Yigal Bronner Pdf

A Lasting Vision is dedicated to the Mirror of Literature (Kavyadarsa), a Sanskrit treatise on poetics composed by Dandin in south India (c. 700 CE), and to the treatise's remarkable career throughout large parts of Asia. The Mirror was adapted and translated into several languages spoken on the southern Indian peninsula (Kannada, Tamil) and on the Island of Sri Lanka (Sinhala, Pali), as well as in the Tibetan plateau far to the north (Tibetan, Mongolian). In all these receiving cultures it became a classical text and a source of constant engagement and innovation, often well into the modern era. It also travelled to Burma and Thailand, where it held a place of honor in Buddhist monastic education and intellectual life, and likely to the islands of Java and Bali, where it contributed to the production of literature in Old Javanese. There is even reason to believe that it reached China and impacted Chinese literary culture, although far more peripherally than in other parts of Asia. It also maintained a prominent position in Sanskrit learned discourses throughout the Indian subcontinent for at least a millennium. This multi-authored volume, organized by region and language, is the first attempt to chart and explain the Mirror's amazing transregional and multilingual success: what was so unique about this work that might explain its near-continental conquest, how was it transmitted to and received in these different environments, and what happened to it whenever it was being adopted and adapted.

Author : Trent Walker
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2022-12-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781645471349

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Until Nirvana's Time by Trent Walker Pdf

A unique Buddhist tradition, accessible in English for the first time—translations of forty-five Cambodian Dharma songs, with contextualizing essays and a link to audio of stunning vocal performances. Until Nirvana’s Time is the first collection of traditional Cambodian Buddhist literature available in English, presenting original translations of forty-five poems. Introduced, translated, and contextualized by scholar and vocalist Trent Walker, the Dharma songs in this book reveal a distinctive Southeast Asian genre of devotion, mourning, and contemplation. Their soaring melodies have inspired Cambodians for generations, whether in daily prayers or all-night rituals. Trained in oral and written lineages in Cambodia, Walker presents a carefully curated range of poems from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries that capture the transformative wisdom of the Khmer Buddhist tradition. Many of the poems, having been transcribed from old cassette tapes or fragile bark-paper manuscripts, are printed here for the first time. A link to recordings of selected songs in English and Khmer accompanies the book. These frank and compelling poems offer mirrors to our own lives—even as they challenge Buddhist conventions of how to die, how to grieve, and how to repay the ones we love.

Author : R. Alan Cole
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 1998-07
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9780804765107

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Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism by R. Alan Cole Pdf

Based on close readings of more than twenty Buddhist texts written in China from the 5th to the 13th century, this book demonstrates that Buddhist authors crafted new models for family reproduction based on a mother-son style of filial piety, in contrast to the traditional father-son model.--NAN NÜ

Author : Peter Bien
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 640 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2010-07-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781400824427

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Kazantzakis, Volume 2 by Peter Bien Pdf

Putting Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis's vast output into the context of his lifelong spiritual quest and the turbulent politics of twentieth-century Greece, Peter Bien argues that Kazantzakis was a deeply flawed genius--not always artistically successful, but a remarkable figure by any standard. This is the second and final volume of Bien's definitive and monumental biography of Kazantzakis (1883-1957). It covers his life after 1938, the period in which he wrote Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, the novels that brought him his greatest fame. A demonically productive novelist, poet, playwright, travel writer, autobiographer, and translator, Kazantzakis was one of the most important Greek writers of the twentieth century and the only one to achieve international recognition as a novelist. But Kazantzakis's writings were just one aspect of an obsessive struggle with religious, political, and intellectual problems. In the 1940s and 1950s, a period that included the Greek civil war and its aftermath, Kazantzakis continued this engagement with undiminished energy, despite every obstacle, producing in his final years novels that have become world classics.

Author : Thomas William Rhys Davids
Publisher : Asian Educational Services
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Buddhism
ISBN : 8120614445

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Buddhism by Thomas William Rhys Davids Pdf