Buddhist Scriptures (Penguin Classics)
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Product Description
Product Description
While Buddhism has no central text such as the Bible or the Koran, there is a powerful body of scripture from across Asia that encompasses the dharma, or the teachings of Buddha. This rich anthology brings together works from a broad historical and geographical range, and from languages such as Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese. There are tales of the Buddha's past lives, a discussion of the qualities and qualifications of a monk, and an exploration of the many meanings of Enlightenment. Together they provide a vivid picture of the Buddha and of the vast nature of the Buddhist tradition.
About the Author
Donald Lopez is Professsor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan. He is the author of Buddhism (Penguin, 2000, r/i 2002) and Modern Buddhism (Penguin, 2002).
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First Sentence
The doctrines of karma and rebirth are fundamental to Buddhist theory and practice. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The doctrines of karma and rebirth are fundamental to Buddhist theory and practice. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book offers little snippets from original Buddhist texts, translated into easy-going English. Each entry is prefaced by a helpful and insightful intoduction, and they are arranged thematically in a way that makes a lot of sense. This introduction to Buddhism takes an entirely different approach than that offered in introductory texts by, for example, Hagen, Keown, Carrithers and Stokes. Arguably this approach is better, letting the original texts speak for themselves.
Format:Paperback
The stated aim of this book is to provide a representative sample of the vast range of historical Buddhist texts. Being no scholar of Buddhism I can't judge how well it achieves this. What you get is a scrap book of mythology (of the 33-Buddhas-on-a-pin-head type), transcripts of rituals, magic spells, a bit of philosophy, travelogues.... Much of this stuff is of anthropological interest only.
What I didn't get was a coherent sense of what the Buddha himself (i.e., Sakyamuni) actually preached. Probably it was naive of me to hope for this, but for this reason I wouldn't recommend this book for beginners or those with a passing interest in Buddhism. Instead I'd suggest a more modern guide, or the Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic with Annotations.
What I didn't get was a coherent sense of what the Buddha himself (i.e., Sakyamuni) actually preached. Probably it was naive of me to hope for this, but for this reason I wouldn't recommend this book for beginners or those with a passing interest in Buddhism. Instead I'd suggest a more modern guide, or the Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic with Annotations.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
there are all kinds of texts within this volume, some junk, many gems, no real affilation with any paticular school or period. it is like a grap bag of different buddhist texts and if it werent for the price id give it five stars
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