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Originally written in the First Century, A.D. by Asvaghosha. This may be the oldest known story of the complete life of Buddha, having been written in the first century AD. The author was an educated ecclesiastic Buddhist who traveled throughout India collecting stories and traditions relating to the Buddhas life. He was a famous preacher and musician who then wove them into a Sanskrit poem which he performed musically during his travels. The people of India delighted in this magical tale whenever it was performed with the choir of musicians who traveled with him. It holds many facts that other biographies or stories of the Buddha dont have, which makes this work so important. The entire epic is preserved in this rare book, long out of print, which may have otherwise been lost to the western world.
This play satirizes various religions in Kashmir and their place in the politics of King Shankaravarman (883–902). The leading character is a young and dynamic orthodox graduate, whose career starts as a glorious campaign against the heretic Buddhists, Jains, and other antisocial sects. By the end of the play he realizes that the interests of the monarch do not encourage such inquisitional rigor. Unique in Sanskrit literature, Jayánta Bhatta's play, Much Ado About Religion, is a curious mixture of fiction and history, of scathing satire and intriguing philosophical argumentation. The play satirizes various religions in Kashmir and their place in the politics of King Shánkara·varman (883-902 CE). The leading character, Sankárshana, is a young and dynamic orthodox graduate of Vedic studies, whose career starts as a glorious campaign against the heretic Buddhists, Jains and other antisocial sects. Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org
The two great epics of (old) India, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, are written in a language, which differs from so-called classical Sanskrit in many details. Both texts still are of an enormous importance in India and other countries. Because of this, a grammar describing all the different characteristics of epic Sanskrit has been missed until now. The Grammar of Epic Sanskrit will now close this gap.
In 385 AH/AD 995 the Qāḍī ‘Abd al-Jabbār, well known for his Mu‘tazilī theological writings, wrote the Confirmation of the Proofs of Prophecy, a work that includes a creative polemic against Christianity. ‘Abd al-Jabbār reinterprets the Bible, Church history (especially the lives of Paul and Constantine) and Christian practice to argue that Christians changed the Islamic religion of Jesus. The present work begins with an examination of the controversial theory that this polemic was borrowed from an unkown Judaeo-Christian group. The author argues that ‘Abd al-Jabbār's polemic is better understood as a response to his particular milieu and the on-going inter-religious debates of the medieval Islamic world. By examining the life and thought of ‘Abd al-Jabbār, along with the Islamic, Christian and Jewish antecedants to his polemic, the author uncovers the intimate relationship between sectarian controversy and the development of an Islamic doctrine on Christianity.