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Buddhist Studies
The impressive growth of Buddhist Studies in recent years is the result of several factors. Important collections of manuscripts have been found, and monuments unearthed, in nearly all parts of Asia where Buddhism existed; political and social events bringing East and West together have increased interest in both scholarly research and Buddhist religious practices. The spread of Buddhism outside its birthplace, Madhyadesa, first in India and soon throughout Asia, prompted its followers constantly to invent new discursive strategies and to adjust the rules to local customs and administrations. The essays presented here illustrate how why Buddhist literature adapted to a new and specific context, particularly in North-west India. They also discuss hermeneutical and exegetical practices of Indian Buddhism, the complex interrelation between the Brahmanical and the Buddhist milieu, as well as the role of the social and political context in determining the rules of the monastic code (vinaya).
Tibetan Inscriptions
Inscriptions are a rather neglected field within Tibetan Studies, because they are often located in places that are not easily accessible for both geographical and political reasons. It is thus especially welcome that two of the contributions to this volume deal with inscriptions documented on recent field trips to Tibet: Benjamin Wood discusses an inscription in Zha lu that relates an enigmatic conflict in the history of the monastery, and Kurt Tropper looks into an epigraphic cycle on the life of the Buddha in Tsaparang. Moreover, Nathan Hill provides a new interpretation of the beginning of the famous Rkong po inscription, and Kunsang Namgyal Lama surveys the various kinds of texts found on tsha tshas. An extra level of reflection is added to the volume by Cristina Scherrer-Schaub’s methodological considerations on the classification and interpretation of inscriptions.
Old Tibetan Studies
Old Tibetan Studies, edited by Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, is an inquiry into secular and religious Old Tibetan documents from Central Asia and Tibet. The volume is written with the intent to confront facts and textualization and contribute to the clarification of particular aspects of the administrative and legislative organization, the ecclesiastical institution, and the religious, monastic, intellectual and material culture of Old Tibet and its borderlands.The material is critically examined from different perspectives, focusing on classical disciplines (history, linguistics, lexicography, ph.
Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the IATS, 2003. Volume 14: Old Tibetan Studies
Old Tibetan Studies, edited by Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, is an inquiry into secular and religious Old Tibetan documents from Central Asia and Tibet. The volume is written with the intent to confront facts and textualization and contribute to the clarification of particular aspects of the administrative and legislative organization, the ecclesiastical institution, and the religious, monastic, intellectual and material culture of Old Tibet and its borderlands. The material is critically examined from different perspectives, focusing on classical disciplines (history, linguistics, lexicography, philology, codicology and diplomatics). With contributions by Roland Bielmeier, Anne Chayet, Helga Uebach, Kazushi Iwao, Siglinde Dietz, Yoshiro Imaeda, Bianca Horlemann, Brandon Dotson,Tsuguhito Takeuchi and Cristina Scherrer-Schaub.
Cultural Flows Across the Western Himalaya
This collection of essays is the outcome of a symposium hosted by the International Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla (15th-18th April 2009). An international group of scholars, collaborating in the project The Cultural History of the Western Himalayas from the 8th Century (sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund, NFN S98), present here some of their own specific research on various areas, archaeological sites, monuments and centres of learning that, in various degrees, have studded the region along the centuries. The complex morphology of the Western Himalayas has favoured quite a number of dynamic interactions with their bordering countries (present day U-tsang and Chang-thang in the TA...
Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka
The Indian philosopher Acharya Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 CE) was the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of Mahayana Buddhism and arguably the most influential Buddhist thinker after Buddha himself. Indeed, in the Tibetan and East Asian traditions, Nagarjuna is often referred to as the "second Buddha." His primary contribution to Buddhist thought lies is in the further development of the concept of sunyata or "emptiness." For Nagarjuna, all phenomena are without any svabhaba, literally "own-nature" or "self-nature," and thus without any underlying essence. In this book, Jan Westerhoff offers a systematic account of Nagarjuna's philosophical position. He reads Nagarjuna in his own philosophical context, but he does not hesitate to show that the issues of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy have at least family resemblances to issues in European philosophy.
Mipham's Dialectics and the Debates on Emptiness
"This book explores a number of themes in connection with the concept of Emptiness, a highly technical but very central notion in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. It examines the critique by the leading Nyingma school philosopher Mipham (1846-1912), one of Tibet's brightest and most versatile minds, formulated in his diverse writings. The book focuses on related issues such as what is negated by the doctrine of Emptiness, the nature of ultimate reality and the difference between 'extrinsic' and 'intrinsic' emptiness. For the first time, a major understanding of Emptiness, variant to the Gelukpa interpretation that has become dominant in both Tibet and the West, is revealed." --Book Jacket.
Transfer of Buddhism Across Central Asian Networks (7th to 13th Centuries)
The interdisciplinary volume Transfer of Buddhism across Central Asian Networks (7th to 13th Centuries), edited by Carmen Meinert, offers a new transregional and transcultural vision for religious transfer processes in Central Asian history. It looks at the region as an integrated (religious) whole rather than from the perspective of fragmented sub-disciplines and analyses the spread of Buddhism as a driving force in a societal and cultural change of pan-Asian importance. One particular dimension of this ‘Buddhist globalisation’ was the rise of local forms of Buddhism. This volume explores Buddhist localisations through manuscripts and material culture in the multiethnic oases of the Tarim basin, the Transhimalyan region of Zangskar, Ladakh and Kashmir and the Western Tibetan Kingdom of Purang-Guge. Contributors are: Kazuo Kano, Deborah Klimburg-Salter, Rob Linrothe, Linda Lojda, Carmen Meinert, Henrik H. Sørensen, Monica Strinu, Gertraud Taenzer, Sam van Schaik, and Jens Wilkens.
Tsong-kha-pa's Final Exposition of Wisdom
In fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Tibet there was great ferment about what makes enlightenment possible, since systems of self-liberation must show what factors pre-exist in the mind that allow for transformation into a state of freedom from suffering. This controversy about the nature of mind, which persists to the present day, raises many questions. This book first presents the final exposition of special insight by Tsong-kha-pa, the founder of the Ge-luk-pa order of Tibetan Buddhism, in his medium-length Exposition of the Stages of the Path as well as the sections on the object of negation and on the two truths in his Illumination of the Thought: Extensive Explanation of Chandrakirti's...
