Bodh Gaya Shiva Buddha

Historical, sociological, and anthropological aspects of a pilgrimage center in Bihar.

Bodh Gaya, one of the most important sacred Buddhist pilgrimage centre in the world, lies in Bihar, India.

An introduction to Buddhism which focuses on Gautama Buddha and on holy sites of the religion.

This handsomely illustrated volume explores the medieval Deccani temple complexes at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Pattadakal, with careful attention to their makers. The vibrant red sandstone temples of India's Deccan Plateau, such as the Pattadakal temple cluster, have attracted visitors since the eighth century or earlier. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and the coronation place of the Chalukya dynasty, Pattadakal and its neighboring sites are of major historical importance. In Shiva's Waterfront Temples, Subhashini Kaligotla situates these buildings in the cosmopolitan milieu of Deccan India and considers how their makers and awestruck visitors would have seen them in their day. Kaligotla reconstructs how architects and builders approached the sites, including their use of ornamentation, responsiveness to courtly values such as pleasure and play, and ingenious juxtaposition of the first millennium's Nagara and Dravida aesthetics, a blend largely unique to Deccan plateau architecture. With over 130 color illustrations, this original book elucidates the Deccan's special place in the lexicon of medieval South Asian architecture.

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, reincarnations and hagiographical representations – extend a lama’s trajectory of lives and manipulate biological imperatives of birth and death. The book looks closely at previously unexamined figures whose history is relevant to a better understanding of how Tibetan culture navigates its own understanding of reincarnation, the veneration of relics and different social roles of different types of practitioners. It analyses both the minutiae of everyday interrelations between lamas and their devotees, specifically noted in ritual performances and the enactment of lived tradition, and the sacred hagiographical conventions that underpin local knowledge. A phenomenology of Tibetan Buddhist life, the book provides an ethnography of the everyday embodiment of Tibetan Buddhism. This unusual approach offers a valuable and a genuine new perspective on Tibetan Buddhist culture and is of interest to researchers in the fields of social/cultural anthropology and religious, Buddhist and Tibetan studies.

A vivid account of the life of Dhardo Rimpoche, the tulku (incarnation) of the abbot of the influential Drepung monastery of Tibet. Rimpoche's life spanned two worlds, the medieval agricultural life of old Tibet and the struggle to save Tibetan culture and Buddhism in the uncertain world of exile. With sensitivity and clarity, Suvajra traces his path from Tantric college to a pioneer monastery at Bodhgaya, from Yi Ga Choling gompa at Ghoom-made famous by Lama Govinda in The Way of the White Clouds-to an orphanage and school for refugee children. Dhardo Rimpoche never flaunted his spiritual credentials; instead he lived them out, unpretentiously doing whatever seemed necessary for the welfare of all. This is a moving testament to the life of a remarkable man and a fascinating glimpse of the world that shaped him and that he fought so hard to preserve. Also about Dhardo Rimpoche: Dhardo Rimpoche: A Celebration