The Sabdan Baatr Codex

In The Šabdan Baat?r Codex Daniel Prior presents the first complete edition, translation, and interpretation of a unique manuscript of early twentieth-century Kirghiz epic-like narrative and genealogical poems, analyzing their patronage and their context of oral and written historiography.

Danker's indispensable volume, available since 1993 in a revised and expanded edition, has served for forty years as the reliable guide for students and scholars to the foundational texts of biblical study: concordances, primary Hebrew and Greek texts, grammars and lexicons, Bible dictionaries and versions, commentaries, and a host of contextual tools for studying the world of the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This latest edition features a CD-ROM that usesLibronix software and provides the complete text of the book, an updated bibliography, and related weblinks. The software enables keyword and topic searches, automatic footnoting in a choice of formats, highlighting, bookmarking, and other useful functions for students and scholars.

New edition of the top book on MVC from the top ASP.NET experts at Microsoft! MVC 3.0 is the latest update to Microsoft's Model-View-Controller technology, which enables developers to build dynamic, data-driven web sites. This in-depth book shows you step by step how to use MVC 3.0. Written by top ASP.NET MVC experts at Microsoft, the latest edition of this popular book covers new and updated features such as the new View engine, Razor, NuGet, and much more. The book's practical tutorials reinforce concepts and allow you create real-world applications. Topics include controllers and actions, forms and HTML helpers, Ajax, unit testing, and much more. Shows developers and programmers how to use ASP.NET MVC 3.0, Microsoft's new version of its Model-View-Controller technology for developing dynamic, data-driven web sites Features an expert author team?all are members of Microsoft's ASP.NET team Uses a step-by-step approach to explain all major features and functionalities and provides practical tutorials to allow you to create real-world applications Goes into theory as well as practical application and covers such topics as Razor, NuGet (PowerShell inside Visual Studio 2010), and new layout features Move your development skills to the next level with MVC 3.0 and Professional ASP.NET MVC 3.0.

Gray Tuttle reveals the surprising role Buddhism and Buddhist leaders played in the development of the modern Chinese state and in fostering relations between Tibet and China from the Republican period (1912-1949) to the early years of Communist rule. Tuttle offers new insights on the impact of modern ideas of nationalism, race, and religion in East Asia. He draws on previously unexamined archival and governmental materials, as well as personal memoirs of Chinese politicians and Buddhist monks, and ephemera from religious ceremonies.

An exploration of an extraordinary group of female meditation masters from the Buddhist tradition in Tibet whose determination and accomplishments can serve as a great example for meditators the world over. Among Tibetan spiritual biographies there are many life stories of exceptional male wisdom-holders or vidyādharas. But biographies of religious women are few. This book focuses on the hidden world of the great female spiritual adepts who were born into a prominent lineage of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. For centuries, this family of wisdom holders has been committed to helping others alleviate their suffering and develop a strong dedication to spiritual practice.

Critically exploring medical thought in a cultural milieu with no discernible influence from the European Enlightenment, Being Human in a Buddhist World reveals an otherwise unnoticed intersection of early modern sensibilities and religious values in traditional Tibetan medicine. It further studies the adaptation of Buddhist concepts and values to medical concerns and suggests important dimensions of Buddhism's role in the development of Asian and global civilization. Through its unique focus and sophisticated reading of source materials, Being Human adds a crucial chapter in the larger historiography of science and religion. The book opens with the bold achievements in Tibetan medical illustration, commentary, and institution building during the period of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent, Desi Sangye Gyatso, then looks back to the work of earlier thinkers, tracing a strategically astute dialectic between scriptural and empirical authority on questions of history and the nature of human anatomy. It follows key differences between medicine and Buddhism in attitudes toward gender and sex and the moral character of the physician, who had to serve both the patient's and the practitioner's well-being. Being Human in a Buddhist World ultimately finds that Tibetan medical scholars absorbed ethical and epistemological categories from Buddhism yet shied away from ideal systems and absolutes, instead embracing the imperfectability of the human condition.

The Great Perfection (rDzogs chen in Tibetan) is a philosophical and meditative teaching. Its inception is attributed to Vairocana, one of the first seven Tibetan Buddhist monks ordained at Samye in the eight century A.D. The doctrine is regarded among Buddhists as the core of the teachings adhered to by the Nyingmapa school whilst similarly it is held to be the fundamental teaching among the Bonpos, the non-Buddhist school in Tibet. After a historical introduction to Tibetan Buddhism and the Bon, the author deals with the legends of Vairocana (Part I), analysing early documents containing essential elements of the doctrine and comparing them with the Ch'an tradition. He goes on to explore in detail the development of the doctrine in the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. (Part II). The Tantric doctrines that play an important role are dealt with, as are the rDzogs chen theories in relation to the other major Buddhist doctrines. Different trends in the rDzogs chen tradition are described in Part III. The author has drawn his sources mainly from early unpublished documents which throw light on the origins and development, at the same time also using a variety of sources which enabled him to explicate the crucial position which the doctrine occupies in Tibetan religions.

Esteemed Tibetologist Jean-Luc Achard contextualizes and provides a clear translation of highly secret precepts on Dzogchen practice unlike anything published. The Instructions on the Six Lamps is a profound and important work from the Bön Dzogchen tradition and is one of the root texts of the Zhangzhung Nyengyü (Oral Transmission of Zhangzhung) series of orally transmitted teachings. Considered to be the central work of the inner cycle of these teachings, it expertly details the principles of the natural state and its visionary marvels. The root text describes highly secret precepts of Dzogchen (Great Perfection) practice—the teachings of Trekchö and Thögel—as revealed by Tapihritsa to Gyerpung Nangzher Löpo. The teachings in this text represent oral instructions transmitted by a single master to a single disciple in the mode known as “single transmission.” It is through such a practice that one can see the clear light of one’s own mind before achieving complete buddhahood. In this respect, the text contains a complete teaching of Dzogchen, from beginning to end.

In Power Objects in Tibetan Buddhism: The Life, Writings, and Legacy of Sokdokpa Lodrö Gyeltsen, James Duncan Gentry explores how objects of power figure in Tibetan religion, society, and polity through a study of the life of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual specialist Sokdokpa Lodrö Gyeltsen (1552–1624) within the broader context of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tibet. In presenting Sokdokpa’s career and legacy, Gentry traces the theme of power objects across a wide spectrum of genres to show how Tibetan Buddhists themselves have theorized about objects of power and implemented them in practice. This study therefore provides a lens into how power objects serve as points of convergence for elite doctrinal discourses, socio-political dynamics, and popular religious practices in Tibetan Buddhist societies.

Based on the author's thesis (doctoral--Harvard University, 2012) under title: Delivering the Lotus-Born: historiography in the Tibetan Renaissance.