...This chapter examines what it means to be a follower of the Buddha. To be a Theravada Buddhist is to take refuge in the Triple Gem of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha— the teacher, his teaching, and the community of followers who had achieved the final goal or were on the path toward...

...), Daifukuden-ji (Mie Pref.), Kamakura period, detail: the Four Encounters. Fig. 3.11. Life of the Buddha: The Birth of the Buddha (Butsuden: Tanjō), Nanbokuchō period (1336–1392), section of a wall panel mounted as a hanging scroll, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York...

... 14. The prince promises to come back as a Buddha (11.72–73), at which point he will preach the dharma that converts Bimbisāra and many other Magadhans. 1. Kṛṣṇa, Bhīma, and Arjuna approach the city of five hills 2. Following Kṛṣṇa’s counsel, the three are disguised...

... Buddhist thought on the subject. One kind of concern has to do with the traditional teaching that some of the most significant events of one's current life are the result of one's actions in past lives. While the Buddha decidedly did not teach that everything that happens to a person...

...This chapter examines the role of visual imagery in the spread of Pure Land devotion and the reconception of death as a liberative opportunity. This reconception is made possible by the image of Amida Buddha's welcoming descent (raigo)—Amida's arrival to receive the dying...

...Statues of the Buddha proliferate in Thailand. Every town and province honors its own special Buddha image. The Emerald Buddha, housed on the grounds of the royal Grand Palace, is the country’s palladium. Typically, Buddha images have been defined as devotional reminders or doctrinal symbols...

...Certain Lanna chronicles recount that the Buddha visited southeast Asia during his lifetime. He left strands of his hair and imprints of his feet for his devotees and made predictions about the future greatness of Lanna cities. These accounts depict Lanna places not as sites of Buddhist conquest...

..., that between siblings. What makes the story of sibling incest so very extraordinary is not only the depiction of incest per se, but the fact that it plays a central role in the story of the origins of the Śākya clan itself. For this is the story of the roots of Śākyamuni Buddha's family tree, a family which...

...This chapter examines the centrality of the Buddha's house in the ascetic imagination. If Buddhism and its various practices are ascetic in nature, dwelling is a key locus within that, and the Buddha's house is its paragon. The “Buddha's house” encompasses the range of architectural constructs...

... and as a hieroglyph of home. It also explores the representation of the Buddha as housed or framed within an architectural ensemble, the usnīsa, a protuberance on the crown of the successful ascetic's head; and tāpas, understood as “body heat” or “inner heat,” and its relation...

... the conceptual complexity of ascetic imagination. As a metonym of the ascetic discourse on the dwelling, the ascetic hut becomes the site, subject, and medium of that discourse. The Buddha's house occupies a predominant position and extensive domain in the discussion of the ascetic hut. In both the literary...

...This chapter discusses records of miraculous events that demonstrate the power of the Buddha, bodhisattvas, monks, and nuns. These events were thought to prove the efficacy of Buddhist devotional practices; to illustrate the veracity of Buddhist claims; and to warn of the consequences of violating...

...In this chapter, Kim Iryŏp offers a philosophical reflection on Buddhism and how to become a great person of culture. Iryŏp begins by referring to the Buddha as the pronoun for all existence, the omnipotent self of all beings, equipped with creativity and all the necessary elements in the universe...

... of the Buddha, is aimed at saving what she believes is a cruel world. She argues that the answer is neither compassion nor love, that the real issue is the recovery of the mind in each individual. According to Iryŏp, world peace and human freedom will be accomplished when each nation makes the effort to see...

...Chapters Five examines Buddhist engi and other religious texts in which okina (some of whom depicted engaged in polluting and morally troubling activities) were revealed to be buddhas or bodhisattvas—at times the principle object of worship (honzon) at a given temple. These texts relied on Buddhist...

...This chapter studies Chan master Jizong Xingche (b. 1606). Jizong Xingche—as seems to have been the case with many seventeenth-century abbesses—was not content to simply engage in Buddha recitation as would benefit a pious woman, and in particular a pious and loyal widow, of her times. Rather...

...In a remote setting at the base of Mount Wakakusa in Nara, not far from Tōdaiji Great Buddha Hall and Kasuga Shrine, is an unusual stone Buddha head, known as “Hora no buttōseki” (Stone Buddha head in the grotto). The head is perched atop a pillar that has reliefs of the Six Kannon...

...This work is the first in-depth historical study of the Thai tradition of donation of that most iconic of Thai art objects, the Buddha image. The book introduces stories from tamnan(chronicles), monastic histories and legends from the Lanna region centered in today’s northern...

...This chapter describes the glorification of the Buddha's body in the mainstream tradition, the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, and finally, in the Rāṣṭrapāla. It examines hagiographies which reveal that the Buddha's extraordinary status was both cognitive and somatic...

...This chapter examines the Buddha's long and often grueling bodhisattva career—his sequence of former lives in pursuit of enlightenment—focusing on his continuous practice of a series of moral and spiritual perfections. Because fifty of the Buddha's former lives are referred to explicitly...