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Winner of the 2014 Frederick J. Streng Award presented by the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies In this work of Buddhist-Christian reflection, John Ross Carter explores two basic aspects of human religiousness: faith and the activity of understanding. Carter's perspective is unique, putting people and their experiences at the center of inquiry into religiousness. His model and method grows out of friendship, challenging the so-called objective approach to the study of religion that privileges patterns, concepts, and abstraction. Carter considers the traditions he knows best, the Protestant Christianity he was born into and the Theravāda and Jōdo Shinshū (Pure Land) traditions of the Sri Lankan and Japanese friends among whom he has lived, studied, and worked. His rich, wide-ranging accounts of religious experience include discussions of transcendence, reason, saṃvega, shinjin, the inconceivable, and whether lives oriented toward faith will survive in a global context with increased pressures for individualism and secularism. Ultimately, Carter proposes that the endeavor of interreligious understanding is itself a religious quest.
This translation of a 1982 volume published in Bern (Paul Haupt Verlag) by a Swiss theologian with a longstanding interest in dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity features an examination of the Kyoto school of Japanese philosophers who attempted to engage with both Christianity and secular Wes
Masao Abe is widely acknowledged as a leader in the worldwide dialogue on Buddhism. A profound scholar of Buddhism and of Christian theology, his critical and constructive reflections culminate in the seminal essay that is the cornerstone of this volume. Seven eminent scholars respond to the challenge of Abe's construal of Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata.Ó Abe demonstrates powerfully the dynamism of the Buddhist appreciation of the divine Emptiness at the heart of Being. His essay suggests how the doctrine of sunyata can provide a needed corrective to the reified understanding of God prominent in Jewish and Christian traditions. Abe opens the way for new and deeper engagement of these tradi...
Wilhelm Halbfass, philosopher and Indologist, is a committed participant in the dialogue between India and Europe, whose reflections on the Indian tradition and its Western perception are accompanied by reflection on and critical examination of the Western tradition. In this innovative combination of Indological research and philosophical-hermeneutical research in the history of ideas, he demonstrates a purpose more ambitious and a scope wider than Edward Said's who constructed the Western study of the so-called Orient as an attempt to deprive it of its identity and sovereignty, and who perceived the pursuit of Oriental Studies in Western universities to be an extension of a fundamentally po...
All forms of Buddhism--The Theravada, the Mahayana and the Vajrayana--affirm the perfectability of the person, and one finds this notion of perfection embodied in three images; the arahant, the bodhisattva and the mahasiddha. Reader also finds, in scholarly treatments of Buddhism, much made of the perceived differences among these three `vehicles` (yana). By close textual analysis as well as by extensive field work, Katz criticizes this emphasis on difference and prefers to treat Buddhism as a whole, a position he finds in accord with the teachings of both Buddhists and Buddhist texts. By a close examination of these three images of human perfection, bridges among the Theravada, the Mahayana and the Vajrayana are built and continuities within Buddhism are explored. This comparison involves pioneering discussions of Buddhist philosophy of language and hermeneutics, which are facilitated by Katz`s familiarity with Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan Buddhist texts as well as his sympathetic involvement with the living Buddhist tradition.
The present volume, comprising ninteen articles by renowned scholars, is divided into three sections, namely, Buddhist Jaina and Hindu Philsosphical Researches. The articles in Hindu section take a comperative base. K.K.Raj compares the Buddhist and Mimamsa views on Laksana. K. Bhattacharya speaks of grammarians and philososphers regarding post-Panini grammarians on a certain anusasana. R.C.Dwivedi compares kashmir Saivism with Sankara`s Vedanta and T.S.Rukmani compares Siddhis as found in the Bhagavata Purana and in Patanjali`s Yogasutras. R.V. Joshi compares the Advaita and the Vaisnava views of the matter.
Carter unfolds the cumulative traditions of Theravāda Buddhism by showing how one "looks at the world through Buddhist eyes." Presenting evidence from the Buddhist heritage in Sri Lanka, he develops a disciplined, inclusive approach to understanding notions of ethical living and "faith," or how individuals live life religiously. The author examines Buddhism as a worldview, reviewing the process of its origins and the development of its important concepts such as the pursuit of dhamma by Buddhists; the "Four Noble Truths;" the notion of refuge and the process of transcending; the role of the Buddhist monk (bhikkhu); and the role of music in ritual chant and song.
Encounters, networks, identities and diversity are at the core of the history of Buddhism. They are also the focus of Buddhist Encounters and Identities across East Asia, edited by Ann Heirman, Carmen Meinert and Christoph Anderl. While long-distance networks allowed Buddhist ideas to travel to all parts of East Asia, it was through local and trans-local networks and encounters, and a diversity of people and societies, that identities were made and negotiated. This book undertakes a detailed examination of discrete Buddhist identities rooted in unique cultural practices, beliefs and indigenous socio-political conditions. Moreover, it presents a fascinating picture of the intricacies of the regional and cross-regional networks that connected South and East Asia.
In no region of the world Buddhism can be seen as a unified doctrinal system. It rather consists of a multitude of different ideas, practices and behaviours. Geographical, social, political, economic, philosophical, religious, and also linguistic factors all played their role in its development and spread, but this role was different from region to region. Based on up-to-date research, this book aims at unraveling the complex factors that shaped the presence of particular forms of Buddhism in the regions to the north and the east of India. The result is a fascinating view on the mechanisms that allowed or hampered the presence of (certain aspects of) Buddhism in regions such as Central Asia, China, Tibet, Mongolia, or Korea.
This book is a serious study of relic veneration among South Asian Buddhists. Drawing on textual sources and archaeological evidence from India and Sri Lanka, including material rarely examined in the West, it looks specifically at the practice of relic veneration in the Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist tradition. The author portrays relic veneration as a technology of remembrance and representation which makes present the Buddha of the past for living Buddhists. By analysing the abstract ideas, emotional orientation and ritual behaviour centred on the Buddha's material remains, he contributes to the 'rematerializing' of Buddhism which is currently under way among Western scholars. This book is an excellent introduction to Buddhist relics. It is well written and accessible and will be read by scholars and serious students of Buddhism and religious studies for years to come.