Category: Buddhism

Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture

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Spirits of the PlaceSpirits of the Place: Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture, by John Clifford Holt, is a rare and timely contribution to our understanding of religious culture in Laos and Southeast Asia. Most often studied as a part of Thai, Vietnamese, or Khmer history, Laos remains a terra incognita to most Westerners—and to many of the people living throughout Asia as well. Holt’s new book brings this fascinating nation into focus. With its overview of Lao Buddhism and analysis of how shifting political power—from royalty to democracy to communism—has impacted Lao religious culture, the book offers an integrated account of the entwined political and religious history of Laos from the fourteenth century to the contemporary era.

“John Holt’s study of Lao Buddhism makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the understudied religious culture of Laos. Of special value are the comparisons Holt draws between Lao and Sinhala religious culture, and the insight achieved when Buddhist conceptuality, symbol, and ritual are seen through the lens of the indigenous Lao religious substratum rather than vice versa.” —Donald K. Swearer, Director, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School

August 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3327-5 / $58.00 (CLOTH)

Ichikawa Hakugen’s Critique and Lingering Questions for Buddhist Ethics

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During the first half of the twentieth century, Zen Buddhist leaders contributed actively to Japanese imperialism, giving rise to what has been termed “Imperial-Way Zen” (Kodo Zen). Its foremost critic was priest, professor, and activist Ichikawa Hakugen (1902–1986), who spent the decades following Japan’s surrender almost single-handedly chronicling Zen’s support of Japan’s imperialist regime and pressing the issue of Buddhist war responsibility. Ichikawa focused his critique on the Zen approach to religious liberation, the political ramifications of Buddhist metaphysical constructs, the traditional collaboration between Buddhism and governments in East Asia, the philosophical system of Nishida Kitaro (1876–1945), and the vestiges of State Shinto in postwar Japan.

Despite the importance of Ichikawa’s writings, Imperial-Way Zen: Ichikawa Hakugen’s Critique and Lingering Questions for Buddhist Ethics, by Christopher Ives, is the first book by any scholar to outline his critique. In addition to detailing the actions and ideology of Imperial-Way Zen and Ichikawa’s ripostes to them, Ives offers his own reflections on Buddhist ethics in light of the phenomenon. He devotes chapters to outlining Buddhist nationalism from the 1868 Meiji Restoration to 1945 and summarizing Ichikawa’s arguments about the causes of Imperial-Way Zen.

July 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3331-2 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face Now in Paperback

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Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China, by Christine Mollier, is now available in paperback. The book is a recent recipient of the Prix Stanislas Julien, a prestigious prize from the French academic society Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, which recognizes Western-language scholarship on the Asian humanities.

“In Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face, Christine Mollier undertakes five detailed case studies, each one illuminating a different dimension of the ritual, iconographic, and scriptural interactions of Buddhists and Taoists in medieval China. Mollier does not simply assert that these traditions influenced one another; she reveals in breathtaking detail the wide array of techniques used by Buddhists and Taoists as they appropriated and transformed the texts and icons of their rivals. . . . Mollier’s work in this volume is brilliant. She deftly navigates through manuscripts, canonical texts, archaeological remains, and art-historical evidence. . . . Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face is an exhilarating display of Sinological erudition.” —H-Buddhism

May 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3411-1 / $20.00 (PAPER)

The Record of Linji Now Available in Paperback

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The Record of Linji, translation and commentary by Ruth Fuller Sasaki and edited by Thomas Y. Kirchner, is now available in paperback.

“A masterpiece of scholarship not only on Linji Chan, but also on Chinese Buddhist language and history—the annotations, which constitute almost two-thirds of the book, explain in astonishing detail the meanings, references, and grammar of each line of text. The edition preserves the excellent historical introduction, and includes a lengthy glossary, index, and table of names.” —Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly

Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture
March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3319-0 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Socially Engaged Buddhism

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Socially Engaged Buddhism, is an introduction to the contemporary movement of Buddhists, East and West, who actively engage with the problems of the world—social, political, economic, and environmental—on the basis of Buddhist ideas, values, and spirituality. Sallie B. King, one of North America’s foremost experts on the subject, identifies in accessible language the philosophical and ethical thinking behind the movement and examines how key principles such as karma, the Four Noble Truths, interdependence, nonharmfulness, and nonjudgmentalism relate to social engagement.

Dimensions of Asian Spirituality
February 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3351-0 / $16.00 (PAPER)

Important Buddhist Scripture Now in Paperback

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The Suramgamasamadhisutra / The Concentration of Heroic Progress is an early Mahayana Buddhist scripture. Within a narrative framework provided by a dialogue between the Buddha and the bodhisattva Drdhamati, it airs central issues of Mahayana Buddhism by means of philosophical discussion, edifying anecdote, marvelous feat, and drama. At its core is a description of the seeming conversion of Mara, the embodiment of all malign tendencies that obstruct advancement, and the prediction that he too will become a Buddha.

The present volume comprises the first full English translation of Kumarajiva’s Chinese translation of the Suramgamasamdhisutra, with an extensive explanatory introduction and annotations. Etienne Lamotte’s French version appeared in 1965 and now Sara Boin-Webb’s English rendering of this work gives the English-speaking world access both to an important Buddhist scripture and a classic work of Buddhist studies scholarship.

“This English rendering has been done by Ms. Boin-Webb with the same deftness, accuracy, and attention to detail seen in her translations of Lamotte’s L’Enseignement de Vimalakirti and his Histoire du bouddhisme indien, des origines à l’ére Saka. . . . In French this book was a gem of thoroughgoing and wholly admirable scholarship. It is no less so in its English setting.” —Journal of the American Oriental Society

Published in association with The Buddhist Society, London (TBSLL)
November 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3353-4 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan

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Few periods in Japanese history are more fascinating than the seventh century. This was the period when Buddhism experienced its initial flowering in the country and the time when Asukadera, Kudara Odera, Kawaradera, and Yakushiji (the “Four Great Temples” as they were called in ancient texts) were built. Despite their enormous historical importance, these structures have received only limited attention in Western literature, primarily because they are now ruins. Focus has been placed instead on Horyuji, a beautifully preserved structure, but not a key temple of the period. In The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan, Donald F. McCallum seeks to restore the four great temples to their proper place in the history of Japanese Buddhism and Buddhist architecture.

November 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3114-1 / $38.00 (CLOTH)

Incest and Schism in Indian Buddhist Legend and Historiography

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“[In Riven by Lust: Incest and Schism in Indian Buddhist Legend and Historiography], Jonathan Silk takes a tale that has major importance for the history of the development of Buddhism, a tale about the man who caused the major schism in Indian Buddhism, and traces it through all of the texts, in all of the major languages of Buddhism, with a bit of Greek and Latin thrown in for good measure. He traces the myth back to its probable early sources and forward to its labyrinthine developments through the Buddhist (and Hindu) world. And since it is a tale of mother-son incest, he discusses its implications in the light of contemporary psychological understandings of incest. It is a highly original work, with truly impressive scholarship, both in the breadth of knowledge and in the care with which all the relevant texts are cited and translated. Beautifully and fluently written, it will surely capture a large audience of scholars, students, and those who take a personal interest in Buddhism.” —Wendy Doniger, University of Chicago

October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3090-8 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

The Record of Linji

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“[The Record of Linji] will be the translation of choice for Western Zen communities, college courses, and all who want to know that the translation they are reading is faithful to the original. Professional scholars of Buddhism will revel in the sheer wealth of information packed into footnotes and biliographical notes. Unique among translations of Buddhist texts, the footnotes to the Kirchner edition contain numerous explanations of grammatical constructions. Translators of classical Chinese will immediately recognize the Kirchner edition constitutes a small handbook of classical and colloquial Chinese grammar. It sets a new standard in scholarly translation of Buddhist primary texts.” —Victor Sogen Hori, McGill University

October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-2821-9 / $53.00 (CLOTH)

A Study and Translation of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra

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Bodhisattvas of the Forest, by Daniel Boucher, 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.

“This important study makes the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra available, for the first time, in an English translation that highlights the differences between the oldest version (a third-century Chinese translation) and the much later Sanskrit version. Highly recommended for all those who are interested in the process of evolution of Mahayana scriptures over time.” —Jan Nattier, International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University

Studies in the Buddhist Traditions
September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-2881-3 / $54.00 (CLOTH)

Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism

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For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. The nine essays in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, edited by Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, ranging chronologically from the tenth century to the present, bring to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. They also explore the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice.

August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3204-9 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China

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The seventeenth century is generally acknowledged as one of the most politically tumultuous but culturally creative periods of late imperial Chinese history. Scholars have noted the profound effect on, and literary responses to, the fall of the Ming on the male literati elite. Also of great interest is the remarkable emergence beginning in the late Ming of educated women as readers and, more importantly, writers. Only recently beginning to be explored, however, are such seventeenth-century religious phenomena as “the reinvention” of Chan Buddhism—a concerted effort to revive what were believed to be the traditional teachings, texts, and practices of “classical” Chan. And, until now, the role played by women in these religious developments has hardly been noted at all. Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China, by Beata Grant, is an innovative interdisciplinary work that brings together several of these important seventeenth-century trends.

July 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3202-5 / $46.00 (CLOTH)

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