The first English translation of the oldest extant work in Apabhramsha, a literary language from medieval India, recounting the story of the Ramayana.
The Life of Padma, or the Paümacariu, is a richly expressive Jain retelling in the Apabhramsha language of the famous Ramayana tale. The work was written by the poet and scholar Svayambhudeva, who lived in south India around the beginning of the tenth century. Like the epic tradition on which it is based, The Life of Padma narrates Prince Rama’s exile, his search for his wife Sita after her abduction by King Ravana of Lanka, and the restoration of his kingship.
Book details:
Eva De Clercq, ed. and trans. The life of Padma, Volume 1. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018
ISBN 9780674660366
Publication date: 01/05/2018
One of the key factors for the success of the Chán/Sǒn/Zen schools in East Asia was the creativity of their adherents concerning the development of innovative literary genres and the skillful application of linguistic and rhetorical devices in their textual products. From the very beginning, Zen Buddhists used literature in order to attract the attention and support of influential lay Buddhists, such as literati, officials, and members of the aristocracy. Consequently, Zen Buddhist texts had a deep and lasting impact on the development of East Asian languages, literary genres, and rhetorical devices, and more generally, on East Asian culture. In this volume, leading specialists in East Asian Buddhism and linguistics analyze the interplay of language and doctrine/ideology in Chinese Chán, Korean Sŏn, and Japanese Zen, as well as tracing developments triggered by changes in the respective sociopolitical and socio-religious contexts. As a special focus, Zen rhetoric will be related to pre-Chán Buddhist literary developments in India and China, in order to trace continuities and changes in the application of rhetorical strategies in the overall framework of Buddhist literary production. Through this diachronic and comparative approach, the great complexity and the multifaceted features of Chán/Sŏn/Zen literature is revealed.
Buddhist monasteries, in both Ancient India and China, have played a crucial social role, for religious as well as for lay people. They rightfully attract the attention of many scholars, discussing historical backgrounds, institutional networks, or influential masters. Still, some aspects of monastic life have not yet received the attention they deserve. This book therefore aims to study some of the most essential, but often overlooked, issues of Buddhist life: namely, practices and objects of bodily care. For monastic authors, bodily care primarily involves bathing, washing, cleaning, shaving and trimming the nails, activities of everyday life that are performed by lay people and monastics alike. In this sense, they are all highly recognizable and, while structuring monastic life, equally provide a potential bridge between two worlds that are constantly interacting with each other: monastic people and their lay followers. Bodily practices might be viewed as relatively simple and elementary, but it is exactly through their triviality that they give us a clear insight into the structure and development of Buddhist monasteries. Over time, Buddhist monks and nuns have, through their painstaking effort into regulating bodily care, defined the identity of the Buddhist saṃgha, overtly displaying it to the laity.
In no region of the world Buddhism can be seen as a unified doctrinal system. It rather consists of a multitude of different ideas, practices and behaviours. Geographical, social, political, economic, philosophical, religious, and also linguistic factors all played their role in its development and spread, but this role was different from region to region. Based on up-to-date research, this book aims at unraveling the complex factors that shaped the presence of particular forms of Buddhism in the regions to the north and the east of India. The result is a fascinating view on the mechanisms that allowed or hampered the presence of (certain aspects of) Buddhism in regions such as Central Asia, China, Tibet, Mongolia, or Korea.
The purpose of this work is, on the one hand, to give an annotated English translation of the Chinese version of the bhiksunivibhanga of the Dharmaguptakavinaya, and on the other hand to study the life and the career of Buddhist nun as described in the vinaya literature. This vinaya laid the foundation of Chinese monastic life. As the Dharmaguptakavinaya came into being in symbiosis with other vinaya traditions, a comparison is made with these other traditions on important issues.