Studies In The Origins Of Buddhism

The present work is designed to consist of a group of organically connected historical studies relating to the origins of Buddhism. It is the doctrinal rather than the institutional aspect of Buddhism that is mainly considered. The subject matter is for the greater part of a literary and religious-philosophic character, but the treatment is intended to be primarily historical. The whole work attempts to trace the rise and evolution of early Buddhist literature and thought both as an inner cultural process and an external process of actions of individuals and monastic communities.

A contribution to the RoutledgeCurzon Critical Studies in Buddhism series, which offers a comprehensive study of the Buddhist tradition Buddhologists are often vague about the methodological foundation on which they base their theories about the origin and development of Buddhism. This book seeks to address this issue by opening a discussion about how we seek to explain the origins of Buddhism This discussion is also of importance to the study of the history of religions in general, where there is likely a similar lack of consciousness about the origins of Christianity, Judaism and Islam Will be of interest to specialists in Buddhist studies and Indology in general. It will also interest a wider readership in the academic study of religion due to the fundamental questions that it addresses May cause some controversy and debate owing to the fact that it applies social psychological theory to the study of classical texts

This book tells the story of the Scientific Buddha, "born" in Europe in the 1800s but commonly confused with the Buddha born in India 2,500 years ago. The Scientific Buddha was sent into battle against Christian missionaries, who were proclaiming across Asia that Buddhism was a form of superstition. He proved the missionaries wrong, teaching a dharma that was in harmony with modern science. And his influence continues. Today his teaching of "mindfulness" is heralded as the cure for all manner of maladies, from depression to high blood pressure. In this potent critique, a well-known chronicler of the West's encounter with Buddhism demonstrates how the Scientific Buddha's teachings deviate in crucial ways from those of the far older Buddha of ancient India. Donald Lopez shows that the Western focus on the Scientific Buddha threatens to bleach Buddhism of its vibrancy, complexity, and power, even as the superficial focus on "mindfulness" turns Buddhism into merely the latest self-help movement. The Scientific Buddha has served his purpose, Lopez argues. It is now time for him to pass into nirvana. This is not to say, however, that the teachings of the ancient Buddha must be dismissed as mere cultural artifacts. They continue to present a potent challenge, even to our modern world.

Buddhism teaches that to become happy, greed, ill-will, and delusion must be transformed into their positive counterparts: generosity, compassion, and wisdom. The history of the West, like all histories, has been plagued by the consequences of greed, ill-will, and delusion. A Buddhist History of the West investigates how individuals have tried to ground themselves to make themselves feel more real. To be self-conscious is to experience ungroundedness as a sense of lack, but what is lacking has been understood differently in different historical periods. Author David R. Loy examines how the understanding of lack changes at historical junctures and shows how those junctures were so crucial in the development of the West.

This book contains indispensable information concerning the history of Buddhist studies in Europe and the United States and presents the readers with a survey that ranges from 300 b.c. up to modern times. This is an essential reference work for students of Buddhism, who not only will benefit from the overview it gives of previous scholarly work, but also may find in it indicators of the paths their own future research might take. Includes an extensive and detailed bibliography and two indices.

This is a translation of Frauwallner's Abhidharmastudien. It analyzes the literary traditions, doctrinal tendencies, and structural methods of the Buddhist Abhidarma canon in order to expose the beginnings of systematic philosophical thought in Buddhism. Frauwallner's insights illuminate the path of meditation toward liberation, the development of Buddhist psychology, and the evolution of the Buddhist view of causality and the problem of time. He provides a clear explanation of the gradual development of Buddhist thought from its early doctrinal beginning to some of the most complex and remarkable philosophical edifices in history.

Based on the early Brahminic literature, the author asserts the origin of the method of meditation learned by the Buddha from his two teachers and identifies some authentic teachings of the Buddha on meditation.

Medicine, health, and healing have been central to Buddhism since its origins. Long before the global popularity of mindfulness and meditation, Buddhism provided cultures around the world with conceptual tools to understand illness as well as a range of therapies and interventions for care of the sick. Today, Buddhist traditions, healers, and institutions continue to exert a tangible influence on medical care in societies both inside and outside Asia, including in the areas of mental health, biomedicine, and even in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the global history of the relationship between Buddhism and medicine remains largely untold. This book is a wide-ranging and accessible account of the interplay between Buddhism and medicine over the past two and a half millennia. C. Pierce Salguero traces the intertwining threads linking ideas, practices, and texts from many different times and places. He shows that Buddhism has played a crucial role in cross-cultural medical exchange globally and that Buddhist knowledge formed the nucleus for many types of traditional practices that still thrive today throughout Asia. Although Buddhist medicine has always been embedded in local contexts and differs markedly across cultures, Salguero identifies key patterns that have persisted throughout this long history. This book will be informative and invaluable for scholars, students, and practitioners of both Buddhism and complementary and alternative medicine.

This eight-volume set brings together seminal papers in Buddhist studies from a vast range of academic disciplines published over the last forty years. With a new introduction by the editor, this collection is a unique and unrivalled research resource for both student and scholar. Coverage includes: - Buddhist origins; early history of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia - early Buddhist Schools and Doctrinal History; Theravada Doctrine - the Origins and nature of Mahayana Buddhism; some Mahayana religious topics - Abhidharma and Madhyamaka - Yogacara, the Epistemological tradition, and Tathagatagarbha - Tantric Buddhism (Including China and Japan); Buddhism in Nepal and Tibet - Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, and - Buddhism in China, East Asia, and Japan.