Mahayana Buddhism

Originating in India, Mahayana Buddhism spread across Asia, becoming the prevalent form of Buddhism in Tibet and East Asia. Over the last twenty-five years Western interest in Mahayana has increased considerably, reflected both in the quantity of scholarly material produced and in the attraction of Westerners towards Tibetan Buddhism and Zen. Paul Williams’ Mahayana Buddhism is widely regarded as the standard introduction to the field, used internationally for teaching and research and has been translated into several European and Asian languages. This new edition has been fully revised throughout in the light of the wealth of new studies and focuses on the religion’s diversity and richness. It includes much more material on China and Japan, with appropriate reference to Nepal, and for students who wish to carry their study further there is a much-expanded bibliography and extensive footnotes and cross-referencing. Everyone studying this important tradition will find Williams’ book the ideal companion to their studies.

"Buddhism is one of the world's oldest and largest religions having about 490 million followers. Mahayana Buddhists represent approximately two-thirds of the total Buddhist population. A large portion of Mahayanists resides in East Asia. They cannot be said to follow an undivided doctrine and have a unified religious lifestyle. Mahayana Buddhism, rather, consists of a multitude of ideas and practices with its followers holding various behaviors and attitudes. This book explores the lives and teachings of Mahayana Buddhists, who reside in Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Myanmar, as well as in the ancient Gandhara region (today's north Pakistan and east Afghanistan). The time frame covered is from the beginning of the Mahayana movement in the Ancient Gandhara region in the first several centuries of the Common Era to the present-day lifestyle and practices of the Mahayanists as they respond to 2020's COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the historical and doctrinal views of Mahayana Buddhism, the book features thematic chapters on topics, such as pandemic responses, Mahayana scriptures and sculptures, modern Mahayana teachings, charity, suicide, and ethnicity. The book also considers such social constructs as family and community and modern Buddhist movements in reshaping the traditional structures and cosmological beliefs of Chinese Mahayanists. In sum, this book is a unique effort to define the nature of Mahayana Buddhist life in the past and in the present as well as its teaching in Asia. It does so from various multidisciplinary perspectives"--

William Montgomery McGovern’s Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism was one of the first books on Mahayana Buddhism written for a Western audience. It predates influential English language overviews of Buddhism by D. T. Suzuki, A. Watts, and W. Rahula. The author was born in New York City in 1897 and spent his latter teenage years (1914-1917) training at the Nishi Hongwanji Mahayana Buddhist monastery in Kyoto, Japan. He founded the Mahayana Association at age eighteen and edited and published the journal "Mahayanist" while completing his studies at the monastery. Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism was written as part of a thesis which secured him his Buddhist degree and an honorary ordination as a Buddhist priest. Intended as a simplified and introductory text for a lay audience, the book reflects the unique perspective of a Westerner trained in Japan at a time when Mahayana Buddhism was little known in the West. Referencing Buddhist literature, it gives a short history of Buddhism and the divergence of schools of Buddhist philosophy, introduces the four noble truths, the philosophy of Karma, the nature of Buddhahood, reincarnation and the road to nirvana, Buddhist cosmology, and psychological and philosophical elements of Buddhist teachings. Although the divisions of non Mahayana Buddhist sects and philosophy described may be considered dated, Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism remains significant for its historical value in presenting Eastern religious and philosophical thought to Westerners at a pivotal time in history.

The object of this book is twofold : (I) To refute the many wrong opinions which are entertained by Western critics concerning the fundamental teachings of Mahayana Buddhism; (2) To awake interest among scholars of comparative religion in the development of the religious sentiment and faith as exemplified by the growt of one of the most powerful spiritual forces in the world. The book is therefore at once popular and scholarly.

Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism offers a solution to the monumental problem that some have called the "holy grail" of Buddhist studies: the problem of the “origins” of Mahāyāna Buddhism. As much as it contributes to a theory of origins for religious studies and Buddhist Studies, the book argues that that it is the neglect of political power in the scholarly imagination of Buddhism in history that has made the origins of Mahāyāna an intractable problem. Walser challenges commonly-held assumptions, offering a fascinating new take on the genealogy of Mahāyāna that traces its doctrines of emptiness and mind-only from the present day back to the time before Mahāyāna was “Mahāyāna.” In situating such concepts in their political and social history across diverse regimes of power in Tibet, China and India, the book shows that what was at stake in the Mahāyāna championing of the doctrine of emptiness was the articulation and dissemination of court authority across the rural landscapes of Asia. This text will be will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars of Buddhism, religious studies, history, and philosophy.

Joseph Walser provides the first examination of Nagarjuna's life and writings in the context of the religious and monastic debates of the second century CE. Walser explores how Nagarjuna secured the canonical authority of Mahayana teachings and considers his use of rhetoric to ensure the transmission of his writings by Buddhist monks. Drawing on close textual analysis of Nagarjuna's writings and other Buddhist and non-Buddhist sources, Walser offers an original contribution to the understanding of Nagarjuna and the early history of Buddhism.

Visual metaphors in a number of Mahayana sutras construct a discourse in which visual perception serves as a model for knowledge and enlightenment. In the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) and other Mahayana literature, immediate access to reality is symbolized by vision and set in opposition to language and conceptual thinking, which are construed as obscuring reality. In addition to its philosophical manifestations, the tension between vision and language also functioned as a strategy of legitimation in the struggle of the early heterodox Mahayana movement for authority and legitimacy. This emphasis on vision also served as a resource for the abundant mythical imagery in Mahayana sutras, imagery that is ritualized in Vajrayana visualization practices. McMahan brings a wide range of literature to bear on this issue, Including a rare analysis of the lavish imagery of the Gandavyuha Sutra in its Indian context. He concludes with a discussion of Indian approaches to visuality in the light of some recent discussions of "ocularcentrism" in the west, inviting scholars to expand the current discussion of vision and its roles in constructing epistemic systems and cultural practices beyond its exclusively European and American focus.

Skilful means' is the key principle of Mahayana, one of the great Buddhist traditions. I illuminates a core working philosophy essential for any complete understanding of Buddhism.