Buddhist Architecture

"The volume thoroughly examines the origins and principal types of Buddhist architecture in Asia primarily between the third century BCE-twelfth century CE with an emphasis on India. It aims to construct shared architectural traits and patterns alongwith the derivative relationships between Indian and Asian Buddhist monuments. It also discusses the historical antecedents in the Indus Civilization and the religious and philosophical foundations of the three schools of Buddhism and its founder, Buddha. Previously obscure topics such as Aniconic and Vajrayana (Tantric) architecture and the four holiest sites of Buddhism will also be covered in this comprehensive volume. The author further investigates the influences of Buddhist architecture upon Islamic, Christian, and Hindu architecture that have been overlooked by past scholars."

This book deals with the technical, artistic and architectural aspects of the Hindu and Buddhist monuments from the beginning until today in Southeast Asia.

This book is the first comprehensive overview of Buddhist architecture in North America and provides an analysis of Buddhist architecture and communities. Exploring the arrival of Buddhist architecture in America, the book lays out how Buddhists have expressed their spiritual beliefs in structural form in the United States. The story follows the parallel history of the religion’s emergence in the United States since the California Gold Rush to the present day. Conceived of as a general history, the book investigates Buddhist structures with respect to the humanistic qualities associated with Buddhist doctrine and how Buddhist groups promote their faith and values in an American setting. The author’s point of view starts from the ground floor of the buildings to move deeper into the space of Buddhist practice, the mind that seeks enlightenment, and the structures that help one to do so. It discusses Buddhist architecture in the United States in a manner consistent with the intensely human context of its use. A unique and ground-breaking analysis, this book adds to the study of Buddhist architecture in America while also addressing the topic of how and why Buddhists use architecture in general. It will be of interest to scholars of religion, architecture, space and place, U.S. history, Asian Studies, and Buddhist Studies. It will also be a valuable addition to the libraries of Buddhist communities across the United States and the world, since many of the observations about Buddhist architecture in the United States may also apply to structures in Europe and Asia.

Buddhism, often described as an austere religion that condemns desire, promotes denial, and idealizes the contemplative life, actually has a thriving leisure culture in Asia. Creative religious improvisations designed by Buddhists have been produced both within and outside of monasteries across the region—in Nepal, Japan, Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Justin McDaniel looks at the growth of Asia’s culture of Buddhist leisure—what he calls “socially disengaged Buddhism”—through a study of architects responsible for monuments, museums, amusement parks, and other sites. In conversation with noted theorists of material and visual culture and anthropologists of art, McDaniel argues that such sites highlight the importance of public, leisure, and spectacle culture from a Buddhist perspective and illustrate how “secular” and “religious,” “public” and “private,” are in many ways false binaries. Moreover, places like Lek Wiriyaphan’s Sanctuary of Truth in Thailand, Suối Tiên Amusement Park in Saigon, and Shi Fa Zhao’s multilevel museum/ritual space/tea house in Singapore reflect a growing Buddhist ecumenism built through repetitive affective encounters instead of didactic sermons and sectarian developments. They present different Buddhist traditions, images, and aesthetic expressions as united but not uniform, collected but not concise: Together they form a gathering, not a movement. Despite the ingenuity of lay and ordained visionaries like Wiriyaphan and Zhao and their colleagues Kenzo Tange, Chan-soo Park, Tadao Ando, and others discussed in this book, creators of Buddhist leisure sites often face problems along the way. Parks and museums are complex adaptive systems that are changed and influenced by budgets, available materials, local and global economic conditions, and visitors. Architects must often compromise and settle at local optima, and no matter what they intend, their buildings will develop lives of their own. Provocative and theoretically innovative, Architects of Buddhist Leisure asks readers to question the very category of “religious” architecture. It challenges current methodological approaches in religious studies and speaks to a broad audience interested in modern art, architecture, religion, anthropology, and material culture.

The book provides an updated chronology of the Amar?vat? st?pa and argues its close link with the long-term development of urbanization of this region between ca. 200 BCE-250 CE based on the latest archaeological, art-historical and epigraphic evidence.

Gandhara, with its wide variety of architectural remains and sculptures, has for many decades perplexed students of South and Central Asia. Kurt Behrendt in this volume for the first time and convincingly offers a description of the development of 2nd century B.C.E. to 8th century C.E. Buddhist sacred centers in ancient Gandhara, today northwest Pakistan. Regional variations in architecture and sculpture in the Peshawar basin, Swat, and Taxila are discussed. At last a chronological framework is given for the architecture and the sculpture of Gandhara, but also light is being shed on how relic structures were utilized through time, as devotional imagery became increasingly significant to Buddhist religious practice. With an important comparative overview of architectural remains, it is indispensable for all those interested in the development of the early Buddhist tradition of south and central Asia and the roots of Buddhism elsewhere in Asia.

Buddhist temples are some of the most beautiful and awe inspiring examples of religious architecture ever created. This helpful handbook is a guide to the finest examples from around the world. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Bhutan is a small Himalayan country with a rich Buddhist heritage and a striking architectural style. Bhutan's Buddhist Architecture provides an introduction and travel guide to the country's beautiful temples, monasteries and dzongs--the fortresses built while Bhutan was being unified as a Buddhist state. Illustrated with maps, plans, and more than a hundred photographs the book includes brief historical and architectural overviews, a dozen examples of the country's best-known buildings, and a pictorial glossary of forty Buddhist symbols commonly used in building decoration.