Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism
About the Book Series
Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism is a comprehensive study of the Buddhist tradition. The series explores this complex and extensive tradition from a variety of perspectives, using a range of different methodologies. The series is diverse in its focus, including historical, philological, cultural, and sociological investigations into the manifold features and expressions of Buddhism worldwide. It also presents works of constructive and reflective analysis, including the role of Buddhist thought and scholarship in a contemporary, critical context and in the light of current social issues. The series is expansive and imaginative in scope, spanning more than two and a half millennia of Buddhist history. It is receptive to all research works that are of significance and interest to the broader field of Buddhist Studies.
Some of the titles in the series are published in association with the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, which conducts and promotes rigorous teaching and research into all forms of the Buddhist tradition.
Editorial Advisory Board:
James A. Benn, McMaster University, Canada
Rupert Gethin, University of Bristol, UK
Peter Harvey, University of Sunderland, UK
Sallie King, James Madison University, USA
Anne Klein, Rice University, USA
Lori Meeks, University of Southern California, USA;
Ulrich Pagel, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK
John Powers, Australian National University, Australia;
Juliane Schober, Arizona State University, USA
Vesna A. Wallace, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Michael Zimmermann, University of Hamburg, Germany
Engendering the Buddhist State: Territory, Sovereignty and Sexual Difference in the Inventions of Angkor
1st Edition
By Ashley Thompson
December 12, 2019
Drawing from more than a decade of field and archival research, this monograph concerns Cambodian cultural history and historiography, with an ultimate aim of broadening and deepening bases for understanding the Cambodian Theravadin politico-cultural complex. The book takes the form of an ...
The Buddhist Art of Living in Nepal: Ethical Practice and Religious Reform
1st Edition
By Lauren Leve
December 12, 2019
Theravada Buddhism has experienced a powerful and far-reaching revival in modern Nepal, especially among the Newar Buddhist laity, many of whom are reorganizing their lives according to its precepts, practices and ideals. This book documents these far-reaching social and personal transformations ...
Theravada Buddhist Encounters with Modernity
1st Edition
Edited
By Juliane Schober, Steven Collins
December 12, 2019
Although recent scholarship has shown that the term ‘Theravāda’ in the familiar modern sense is a nineteenth- and twentieth-century construct, it is now used to refer to the more than 150 million people around the world who practice that form of Buddhism. Buddhist practices such as meditation, ...
Early Buddhist Meditation: The Four Jhanas as the Actualization of Insight
1st Edition
By Keren Arbel
September 27, 2018
This book offers a new interpretation of the relationship between 'insight practice' (satipatthana) and the attainment of the four jhànas (i.e., right samàdhi), a key problem in the study of Buddhist meditation. The author challenges the traditional Buddhist understanding of the four jhànas as ...
Tibetan Buddhism in Diaspora: Cultural re-signification in practice and institutions
1st Edition
By Ana Lopes
January 22, 2018
The imperialist ambitions of China – which invaded Tibet in the late 1940s – have sparked the spectacular spread of Tibetan Buddhism worldwide, and especially in western countries. This work is a study on the malleability of a particular Buddhist tradition; on its adaptability in new contexts. The ...
Women in Pāli Buddhism: Walking the Spiritual Paths in Mutual Dependence
1st Edition
By Pascale Engelmajer
January 22, 2018
The Pāli tradition presents a diverse and often contradictory picture of women. This book examines women’s roles as they are described in the Pāli canon and its commentaries. Taking into consideration the wider socio-religious context and drawing from early brahmanical literature and epigraphical ...
Reason and Experience in Tibetan Buddhism: Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü and the Traditions of the Middle Way
1st Edition
By Thomas Doctor
October 23, 2017
Based on newly discovered texts, this book explores the barely known but tremendously influential thought of the Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü (d. 1185).This Tibetan Buddhist master exercised significant influence on the interpretation of Madhyamaka thinking in Tibet during the ...
Death and Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism: In-Between Bodies
1st Edition
By Tanya Zivkovic
October 12, 2017
Contextualising the seemingly esoteric and exotic aspects of Tibetan Buddhist culture within the everyday, embodied and sensual sphere of religious praxis, this book centres on the social and religious lives of deceased Tibetan Buddhist lamas. It explores how posterior forms – corpses, relics, ...
The Refutation of the Self in Indian Buddhism: Candrakīrti on the Selflessness of Persons
1st Edition
By James Duerlinger
May 18, 2017
Since the Buddha did not fully explain the theory of persons that underlies his teaching, in later centuries a number of different interpretations were developed. This book presents the interpretation by the celebrated Indian Buddhist philosopher, Candrakīrti (ca. 570–650 C.E.). Candrakīrti’s ...
The Reflexive Nature of Awareness: A Tibetan Madhyamaka Defence
1st Edition
By Paul Williams
May 13, 2016
Places the controversy initiated by the Tibetan Tsong kha pa - who elaborated on one of the eight difficult points in understanding Madhyamaka philosophy - in its Indian and Tibetan context....
A Survey of Vinaya Literature
1st Edition
By Charles S. Prebish
February 29, 2016
The most important research tool for vinaya studies. Covers both primary and secondary sources in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, and Chinese as well as modern sources in English, French, German and Japanese....
Buddhism and Human Rights
1st Edition
By Wayne R. Husted, Damien Keown
June 08, 2015
It is difficult to think of a more urgent question for Buddhism in the late twentieth century than human rights. 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....