Early Buddhist Metaphysics provides a philosophical account of the major doctrinal shift in the history of early Theravada tradition in India: the transition from the earliest stratum of Buddhist ...thought to the systematic and allegedly scholastic philosophy of the Pali Abhidhamma movement. Entwining comparative philosophy and Buddhology, the author probes the Abhidhamma's metaphysical transition in terms of the Aristotelian tradition and vis-à-vis modern philosophy, exploits Western philosophical literature from Plato to contemporary texts in the fields of philosophy of mind and cultural criticism.
Noa Ronkin received her PhD from the University of Oxford. She is currently Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Buddhist Studies, Stanford University. Her research interests include a range of issues associated with Indian Theravada Buddhist philosophy and psychology, the Abhidhamma tradition and comparative Indian philosophy.
Introduction: Situating Theravådin Doctrinal Thought: Towards a Comparative Buddhist Philosophy 1. The Further Teaching: Abhidhamma Thought in Context 2. What the Buddha Taught and Abhidhamma Thought: From Dhamma 3. The Development of the Concept of Sabhåva and Buddhist 4. Individuals: Revisiting the Abhidhamma Dhamma Theory 5. Causation as the Handmaid of Metaphysics: From the Paticcasamuppåda to the Patthåna Concluding Reflections
'The author often uses methods of comparative philosophy of religion and draws on later Buddhist systems of philosophy, non-Buddhist Indian sources and also on achievements of western philosophical inquiries and Buddhological scholarship.... the references...are always well chosen and are good pointers for reflection and stimulants for further research.' - Karel Werner, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
In the contemporary world the meeting of Buddhism and Islam is most often imagined as one of violent confrontation. Indeed, the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 seemed not only to ...reenact the infamous Muslim destruction of Nalanda monastery in the thirteenth century but also to reaffirm the stereotypes of Buddhism as a peaceful, rational philosophy and Islam as an inherently violent and irrational religion. But if Buddhist-Muslim history was simply repeated instances of Muslim militants attacking representations of the Buddha, how had the Bamiyan Buddha statues survived thirteen hundred years of Muslim rule?Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Roaddemonstrates that the history of Buddhist-Muslim interaction is much richer and more complex than many assume. This groundbreaking book covers Inner Asia from the eighth century through the Mongol empire and to the end of the Qing dynasty in the late nineteenth century. By exploring the meetings between Buddhists and Muslims along the Silk Road from Iran to China over more than a millennium, Johan Elverskog reveals that this long encounter was actually one of profound cross-cultural exchange in which two religious traditions were not only enriched but transformed in many ways.
Temples are everywhere in Chiang Mai, filled with tourists as
well as saffron-robed monks of all ages. The monks participate in
daily urban life here as elsewhere in Thailand, where Buddhism is
...promoted, protected, and valued as a tourist attraction. Yet this
mountain city offers more than a fleeting, commodified tourist
experience, as the encounters between foreign visitors and Buddhist
monks can have long-lasting effects on both parties.
These religious contacts take place where economic motives,
missionary zeal, and opportunities for cultural exchange coincide.
Brooke Schedneck incorporates fieldwork and interviews with student
monks and tourists to examine the innovative ways that Thai
Buddhist temples offer foreign visitors spaces for religious
instruction and popular in-person Monk Chat sessions in which
tourists ask questions about Buddhism. Religious Tourism in
Northern Thailand also considers how Thai monks perceive other
religions and cultures and how they represent their own religion
when interacting with tourists, resulting in a revealing study of
how religious traditions adapt to an era of globalization.
Avram Alpert combines personal experience and readings of modern novels to offer another way to understand modern Buddhism. He argues that it represents a rich resource not for attaining perfection ...but rather for finding meaning and purpose in a chaotic world.
This book deals with the confrontation of Buddhism and Brahmanism in India. Both depended on support from the royal court, but Buddhism had less to offer in return than Brahmanism. Buddhism developed ...in a manner to make up for this.
Early Buddhism flourished because it was able to take up the challenge represented by buoyant economic conditions and the need for cultural uniformity in the newly emergent states in north-eastern ...India from the fifth century BCE onwards. This book begins with the apparent inconsistency of Buddhism, a renunciant movement, surviving within a strong urban environment, and draws out the implications of this. In spite of the Buddhist ascetic imperative, the Buddha and other celebrated monks moved easily through various levels of society and fitted into the urban landscape they inhabited. The Sociology of Early Buddhism tells how and why the early monks were able to exploit the social and political conditions of mid-first millennium north-eastern India in such a way as to ensure the growth of Buddhism into a major world religion. Its readership lies both within Buddhist studies and more widely among historians, sociologists and anthropologists of religion.
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