Author: Thomas Cleary Publisher: Shambhala Publications ISBN: 0834824094 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 2759
Book Description
A masterful translation of one of the most influential Buddhist sutras—the Avatamsaka Sutra—by one of the greatest translators of Buddhist texts of our time Known in Chinese as Hua-yen and in Japanese as Kegon-kyo, the Avatamsaka Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture, is held in the highest regard and studied by Buddhists of all traditions. Through its structure and symbolism, as well as through its concisely stated principles, it conveys a vast range of Buddhist teachings. This one-volume edition contains Thomas Cleary’s definitive translation of all thirty-nine books of the sutra, along with an introduction, a glossary, and Cleary’s translation of Li Tongxuan’s seventh-century guide to the final book, the Gandavyuha, “Entry into the Realm of Reality.”
Author: Francis H. Cook Publisher: Penn State Press ISBN: 0271038047 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 165
Book Description
Hua-yen is regarded as the highest form of Buddhism by most modern Japanese and Chinese scholars. This book is a description and analysis of the Chinese form of Buddhism called Hua-yen (or Hwa-yea), Flower Ornament, based largely on one of the more systematic treatises of its third patriarch. Hua-yen Buddhism strongly resembles Whitehead's process philosophy, and has strong implications for modern philosophy and religion. Hua-yen Buddhism explores the philosophical system of Hua-yen in greater detail than does Garma C.C. Chang's The Buddhist Teaching of Totality (Penn State, 1971). An additional value is the development of the questions of ethics and history. Thus, Professor Cook presents a valuable sequel to Professor Chang's pioneering work. The Flower Ornament School was developed in China in the late 7th and early 8th centuries as an innovative interpretation of Indian Buddhist doctrines in the light of indigenous Chinese presuppositions, chiefly Taoist. Hua-yen is a cosmic ecology, which views all existence as an organic unity, so it has an obvious appeal to the modern individual, both students and layman.
Author: Karen Muldoon-Hules Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 1498511465 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
For young women in early South Asia, marriage was probably the most important event in their lives, as it largely determined their socioeconomic and religious future. Yet there has been little in the way of systematic examinations of the evidence on marriage customs among Buddhists of this time, and our understanding of the lives of early Buddhist women is still quite limited. This study uses ten stories from the Avadānaśataka, the collection of Buddhist narratives compiled from the second to fifth centuries CE, to examine the social landscape of early India. The author analyzes marital customs and the development of nuns’ hagiographies, while revealing regional variations of Buddhism in South Asia during this period.
Author: Charlotte Eubanks Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520265610 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
"This is an exciting exploration of the world of Buddhist attitudes towards religious texts, from Indian scriptures to Japanese medieval tales. Its emphasis on discursive strategies—how Buddhist texts function and what they expect of their readers/users (especially, the connection between books, their content, and their readers' bodies)—is a welcome new perspective."—Fabio Rambelli, author of Buddhist Materiality "Miracles of Book and Body is fluidly written and engaging. This book brings the reader to an awareness of the range and foci of medieval 'popular' readings of sutra literature, and Eubanks provides an important perspective to interpreting these narratives that is original and stimulating."—Thomas W. Hare, author of Zeami: Performance Notes "Charlotte Eubanks' sophisticated, insightful and readable study of the physicalities of sutra texts and sutra recitation makes sense of some of the strangest phenomena in medieval Japan. By disentangling the literal and metaphorical meanings in Buddhist setsuwa, Eubanks explains such things as how memorizing a text is an embodiment thereof, how texts can become sentient beings, and why the scroll is an appropriate format for recording dharma. Her work is both important and engaging."—Margaret H. Childs, University of Kansas "Drawing on an impressive range of Mahayana scriptures and medieval Japanese didactic tales, Eubanks unpacks recurrent tropes correlating text and flesh to reveal surprising connections among the literary, material, and ritual dimensions of Buddhist textual culture. Elegantly written and theoretically astute, this volume will be welcomed not only by specialists in Buddhist literature but also by readers interested in broader issues of text-based religious practice."—Jacqueline Stone, author of Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism
Author: Thomas Cleary Publisher: University of Hawaii Press ISBN: 9780824816971 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Entry Into the Inconceivable is an introduction to the philosophy of the Hua-yen school of Buddhism, one of the cornerstones of East Asian Buddhist thought. Cleary presents a survey of the unique Buddhist scripture on which the Hua-yen teaching is based and a brief history of its introduction into China. He also presents a succinct analysis of the essential metaphysics of Hua-yen Buddhism as it developed during China's golden age and full translations of four basic texts by seminal thinkers of the school.
Author: Alex Wayman Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe ISBN: 9788120807310 Category : Mahayana Buddhism Languages : en Pages : 166
Book Description
The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala, or Sri-mala-sutra, became the Mahayana scripture preeminent for teaching that all sentient beings have the potentiality of Buddhahood. It was an inspiration for both the Lankavatara-sutra and the Chinese classic Awakening of Faith. The translators present evidence that it was composed in the Andhra region of South India in the third century A.D. Thereafter it had remarkable success in China, and through Korea entered into the beginnings of Buddhism in Japan, where it has been important up to the present time. This, the first complete rendering of the scripture into a western language, utilizes all the known Sanskrit fragments, the Tibetan, the two Chinese versions and the Japanese renditions, Chinese and japanese commentaries, and various studies in japanese. Contents Foreword, Preface, Translator's Note, Introduction, I. Sri-Mala as a Text, II. Classification of Persons, III. Doctrine of Sri-Mala, Prologue, 1. Eliminating all Doubts, 2. Deciding the Cause, 3. Clarifying the Final Meaning, 4. Entering the one vehicle path, Epilogue, Appendix I. The Chinese Section Titles of Sri-Mala and Appendix II. Works Cited in Chi-tsang's Commentary, Glossary, Bibliography, Index.