Garland Of The Buddha S Past Lives Volume 2

In this second volume of the Garland of Past Lives, Aryashura applies his elegant literary skill toward composing fourteen further stories that depict the Buddha’s quest for enlightenment in his former lives. Here the perfection of forbearance becomes the dominant theme, as the future Buddha suffers mutilations from the wicked and sacrifices himself for those he seeks to save. Friendship, too, takes on central significance, with greed leading to treachery and enemies transformed into friends through the transformative effect of the future Buddha’s miraculous virtue. The setting for many such moral feats is the forest. Portrayed as home for the future Buddha in his lives as an animal or ascetic, the peaceful harmony of this idyllic realm is often violently interrupted by intrusions from human society. Only the future Buddha can resolve the ensuing conflict, influencing even kings, in the stories but also throughout Asian history, to express wonder and devotion at the startling demonstrations of virtue they encounter.

The Garland of Past Lives is a collection of thirty four stories depicting the miraculous deeds performed by the Buddha in his previous rebirths. Composed in the fourth century C.E. by the Buddhist monk Aryashura, the text’s accomplished artistry led Indian aesthetic theorists to praise its elegant mixture of verse and prose. The twenty stories in this first volume deal primarily with the virtues of giving and morality. Ascetics sacrifice their lives for hungry tigers, kings open their veins for demons to drink their blood, helmsmen steer their crew through perilous seas, and quail chicks quench forest fires by proclaiming words of truth. The experience is intended to arouse astonishment in the audience, inspiring devotion, through the future Buddha’s transcendence of conventional norms in his quest to acquire enlightenment and save the world from suffering. The importance of such stories of past lives in traditional Buddhist culture, throughout Asia and up to today, cannot be overestimated.

A translation of a popular Buddhist work on worldly ethics by Tibet's most famous philosopher. Leadership. Power. Responsibility. From Sun Tzu to Plato to Machiavelli, sages east and west have advised kings and rulers on how to lead. Their motivations and techniques have varied, but one thing they all have had in common is that their advice has been as relevant to the millions who have read their works as it has been to the few kings and princes they were, on the surface, addressed to. The nineteenth-century Buddhist monk and luminary Jamgön Mipham’s letter to the king of Dergé, whose small kingdom straddled China and Tibet during a particularly turbulent period, is similar in the universality of its message. This work, however, is unique in that it stresses compassion, impartiality, self-control, and virtue as essential for long-lasting success—whether as a leader or an individual trying to live a meaningful life. Mipham’s historic contribution to ethics and governance, until now little studied outside of Buddhist circles, teaches us the importance of protecting life, fair taxation, environmental sustainability, aiding the poor, and freedom of religion. Both present day leaders and those they lead will find this classic work, finally available in English, profoundly illuminating on political, societal, and personal levels.

In all religions, in the medieval West as in the East, ideas about the past, the present and the future were shaped by expectations related to the End. The volumes Cultures of Eschatology explore the many ways apocalyptic thought and visions of the end intersected with the development of pre-modern religio-political communities, with social changes and with the emergence of new intellectual and literary traditions. The two volumes present a wide variety of case studies from the early Christian communities of Antiquity, through the times of the Islamic invasion and the Crusades and up to modern receptions, from the Latin West to the Byzantine Empire, from South Yemen to the Hidden Lands of Tibetan Buddhism. Examining apocalypticism, messianism and eschatology in medieval Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist communities, the contributions paint a multi-faceted picture of End-Time scenarios and provide their readers with a broad array of source material from different historical contexts. The first volume, Empires and Scriptural Authorities, examines the formation of literary and visual apocalyptic traditions, and the role they played as vehicles for defining a community’s religious and political enemies. The second volume, Time, Death and Afterlife, focuses on key topics of eschatology: death, judgment, afterlife and the perception of time and its end. It also analyses modern readings and interpretations of eschatological concepts.

To the dry bones of grammar Bhatti gave juicy flesh in his poem, telling the Indian story in Sanskrit. This book is both a poetic retelling of Rama's adventures, and a compendium of grammatical and rhetorical examples for students.

The “Little Clay Cart” is, for Sanskrit theatre, atypically romantic, funny, and thrilling. This most human of Sanskrit plays is Shakespearian in its skilful drawing of characters and in the plot’s direct clarity. One of the earliest Sanskrit dramas, “Little Clay Cart” was created in South India, perhaps in the seventh century CE. Set in the city of Ujjain, so secular and universal is the story that it can be situated in any society, and it has, including in Bollywood film and by the BBC. Charu•datta, a bankrupt married merchant, is extramaritally involved with a wealthy courtesan, Vasánta•sena. The king’s vile brother-in-law, unable to win Vasánta•sena’s love, strangles her, and accuses Charu•datta. The court decides the case hastily, condemning Charu•datta to death. Fortunately, our heroine rises from the dead to save her beloved, and all applaud their love. At this climax, the regime changes, and the rebel-turned-king makes Charu•datta lord of an adjacent city.

To the dry bones of grammar Bhatti gave juicy flesh in his poem, telling the greatest Indian story in elegant Sanskrit. Composed in the fourth century CE, in South India, ”Bhatti’s Poem: The Death of Rávana” is both a poetic retelling of Rama’s adventures, and a compendium of grammatical and rhetorical examples for students. Bhatti’s study aid to Pánini’s groundbreaking grammatical treatise, the “Eight Books,” gives examples disguised as the gripping, morally improving “Ramáyana” story. In Bhatti’s own words: “This composition is a lamp to those whose eyes have language as their goal.” Tradition has it that an elephant ambled between Bhatti and his pupils, interrupting their outdoors grammar class. By Hindu law this intrusion canceled class for a year. Lest time be lost, Bhatti composed his poem to teach grammar without textbooks. Ever since, “The Death of Rávana” has been one of the most popular poems in Sanskrit literature.

A complete translation of Asanga's classic work on the distinguishing qualities of bodhisattvas that describes how to awaken, develop, and perfect the mind of enlightenment in the Great Vehicle, or Mahayana, Buddhist tradition. Arya Asanga, famous for having been the conduit through which the teachings contained in the Five Texts of Maitreya were received and recorded, is also considered to be the author in his own right of several other foundational works of Yogācāra philosophy. One of these, considered the definitive text of the Yogācāra school of Buddhism, is the encyclopedic synthesis of Mahayana Buddhist doctrines and practices known as the Yogācārabhūmi, or "Stages of Spiritual Practice." The Bodhisattvabhūmi, or "Stages of the Bodhisattva Path," is one portion of that massive work, though it is considered a stand-alone text in the Tibetan traditions--for example, it is counted among the six core texts of the Kadampas. However, despite the text's centrality to the Yogācāra school and its seminal importance in the Tibetan traditions, it has remained unavailable in English except in piecemeal translations; Engle's translation will therefore be especially welcomed by scholars and students alike.