Translation of an Important Commentary in the Korean Buddhist Tradition

Wŏnhyo’s (617–686) Exposition of the Vajrasamâdhi-Sûtra (Kŭmgang sammaegyŏng non) is one of the finest examples of a scriptural commentary ever written in the East Asian Buddhist tradition. The Exposition is the longest of Wŏnhyo’s extant works and is widely regarded as his masterpiece. In Cultivating Original Enlightenment, the first volume in The International Association of Wŏnhyo Studies’ Collected Works of Wŏnhyo series, Robert E. Buswell, Jr.’s, translation of the Exposition, the eminent Silla exegete brings to bear all the tools acquired throughout a lifetime of scholarship and meditation to the explication of a scripture that has a startling connection to the Korean Buddhist tradition.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3076-2 / $37.00 (CLOTH)

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., is co-editor of Christianity in Korea (with Timothy S. Lee),  and editor of Currents and Countercurrents: Korean Influences on the East Asian Buddhist Traditions, both published by University of Hawai‘i Press.