Books in the Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism series

This work focuses on the Buddhist visual practices surrounding the visual representation of a single, central concept, "prajna" - or wisdom - in medieval north India.

A detailed exploration of the quest for liberation on the part of the early bhikkunis. Only text in the Buddhist tradition of known female authorship.

Presents Buddhist philosophy and practice as a resource for psychotherapy which is responsive to the needs for a three-way dialogue between Buddhism, psychotherapy and contemporary discourse.

Combines the voices of scholars and practitioners in documenting and analysing Buddhist women's history. The book includes 26 articles - written by a range of Asian, Asian-American and Western Buddhists - which document the lives of women who have set in motion changes within Buddhist societies.

The political, ethical and philosophical questions surrounding human rights are debated vigorously in political and intellectual circles throughout the world and now in this volume.

In this paper, Williams seeks to engage in a critical way with some central issues of Buddhist thought relating to the coherence of a reductionist model of the person. He argues for an irreducible subject-involvement of pain-statements.

This work examines the emergence of American Buddhism as a significant research field. Issues examined include: identity in Asian-American Buddhism; the new Buddhism; Buddhism and American culture; and the scholar's place in American Buddhist studies.

This volume brings together the views of leading scholars on a range of controversial subjects including human rights, animal rights, ecology, abortion, euthanasia, and contemporary business practice.

Demonstrates how the four noble truths are used thorughout the Pali canon as a symbol of Buddha's enlightenment and as a doctrine within a larger network of Buddha's teachings.

The chapters in this book examine the many different colonial contexts and regimes that Theravada Buddhists experienced, not just those of European powers such as the British, French, but also the internal colonialism of China and Thailand.

This work traces Mi pham's position in his commentary on the Bodhicaryavatara, the attack of one of his opponents, and his response. It also indicates ways in which the controversy over the nature of awareness may be important within the context of rDzogs chen thought and practice.

Explores the intimate relationship between Japanese institutional Buddhism and militarism during the Second World War.

The new Buddhist religious movements of Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke, emerged Thailand in the 1970s at a time of political uncertainty. This book explores why they have come into being, what they have reacted against and what they offer to their members.

By providing an annotated translation of, and applying the methods of literary criticism to, a first-century account of the life of the saint Purna, this study introduces the reader to a genre which has played an essential role in Buddhist self-understanding for over 2000 years.

Offers essays and dialogues by well-known Buddhist and Christian scholars on topics that were of primary interest to Frederick J. Streng, in whose honour the volume was created.

This work focuses on the relationship between identity and perception in early Buddhism, drawing out and explaining the way they relate in terms of experience. It presents a picture of these issues in the context of Buddhist teachings as a whole and suggests they represent what Buddha taught.

This book analyses the transplantation, development and adaptation of the two largest Tibetan and Zen Buddhist organisations currently active on the British religious landscape.

Contains works by scholars of Buddhism, themselves Buddhist, who seek to apply the critical tools of the academy to reassess the truth and transformative value of their tradition in its relevance to the contemporary world.

The medieval period of Japanese religious history is commonly known as one in which there was a radical transformation of the religious culture. This book suggests an alternate approach to understanding the dynamics of that transformation. It also focuses on what Buddhism meant for medieval Japanese peoples themselves.

Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book explores the dilemmas that Buddhism faces in relation to the ethnic conflict and violence in Sri Lanka. Prominent scholars in the fields of anthropology, history, Buddhist studies and Pali examine multiple dimensions of the problem. This book discusses Buddhist responses to the crisis in detail.

Including a foreword by the Dalai Lama, this book explores the interface between Buddhist studies and the uses of Buddhist principles and practices in psychotherapy and consciousness studies. It also presents a collection of articles that illustrate the potential of Buddhist informed social sciences in contemporary society.

This book presents an analysis of one of the fundamental Mahayana Buddhist teachings, namely the three bodies of the Buddha (the Trikaya Theory), which is considered the foundation of Mahayana philosophy.

Presents a logical examination of the metaphysical and ethical dimensions of early Buddhist literature. This book determines the meaning of nature in the early Buddhist context from general Buddhist teachings on dhamma, paticcasamuppada, samsara and the cosmogony of the "Agganna Sutta".

This insightful study analyzes the phenomenon of Buddhism in Canada from a regional perspective, providing an important examination of the place of Buddhism in a developed western country associated with a traditional Judeo-Christian culture, but undergoing profound sociological transformation due to large-scale immigration and religio-cultural pluralism.