A01=Alan Cole
asian
Author_Alan Cole
buddhism
buddhist books
buddhist monk
buddhist studies
Category=QRF
china
chinese buddhism
diamond sutra
eastern philosophy
eastern religion
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
lotus sutra
mahayana
meditation
mindfulness
monastic buddhism
monasticism
monk
nonfiction
philosophy
religion
spirituality
sutra
sutra studies
sutras
tathagatagarbha sutra
vimalakirti nirdesa
Product details
- ISBN 9780520242760
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 29 Aug 2005
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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This beautifully written work sheds new light on the origins and nature of Mahayana Buddhism with close readings of four well-known texts--the Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Tathagatagarbha Sutra, and Vimalakirtinirdesa. Treating these sutras as literary works rather than as straightforward philosophic or doctrinal treatises, Alan Cole argues that these writings were carefully sculpted to undermine traditional monastic Buddhism and to gain legitimacy and authority for Mahayana Buddhism as it was veering away from Buddhism's older oral and institutional forms. His sophisticated and sustained analysis of the narrative structures and seductive literary strategies used in these sutras suggests that they were specifically written to encourage devotion to the written word instead of other forms of authority, be they human, institutional, or iconic.
Alan Cole, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Lewis & Clark College, is author of Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism (1998).
