Indian Buddhism

In the study of Buddhism it is commonly accepted that a monk or nun who commits a pārājika offence is permanently and irrevocably expelled from the Buddhist monastic order. This view is based primarily on readings of the Pāli Vinaya. With the exception of the Pāli Vinaya, however, all other extant Buddhist monastic law codes (Dharmaguptaka, Mahāsāṅghika, Mahīśāsaka, Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda) contain detailed provisions for monks and nuns who commit pārājikas but nevertheless wish to remain within the saṅgha. These monastics are not expelled. Rather, they are granted a special status known as the śikṣādattaka. In this paper I explore the rules concerning pārājika penance and the śikṣādattaka with specific regard to monastic celibacy. Given that five out of six extant law codes recognise this remarkable accommodation to the rule of celibacy, I argue that we must look to Vinayas other than the Pāli Vinaya if we are to arrive at a nuanced and representative view of Indian Buddhist monasticism.

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This is an extended version of my "book note" of Garfield's book for the Australasian Journal of Philosophy including both the pre-publication version of that book note and some additional comments.
The "book note" focuses on the ambiguous purpose of the book in relation with its envisaged project of engagement between mainstream Western philosophy and Buddhist philosophy. Additional comments in the extended review concern terminological problems (such as "dukkha"/"suffering" and metaphysical "dependence"), obscurity, and conflicting dogmas, and further explore the aforementioned ambiguous aim and purpose of the book.

Ellora is the place where caves associated with different sects and religions were carved over a span of at least 800 years. While the caves, narrowly understood, have been the subject of many studies, the 'place', as a site of political and social interaction, has been largely neglected. Ellora was larger than just the caves; it was a place with a long history where traders, monks, artisans and armies brought in different ideas, reconsidered the old and innovated upon cultural traditions that reflected on their own identities and their relationship with Ellora. These people and their actions stamped the place with meaning and identity, which accrued over time-sometimes exclusive, at other times hybrid, but inevitably transformative. Ellora was an important site that conjured multivalent sensibilities, more complex than many other places. This article uses toponym as an analytic focus to bring into play different subjects-the historical agents, religious organisations, monuments and textual materials-that provided structure and meaning to the Ellora Caves at different historical junctures. It argues how the place and people in power have different kinds of relationships with the past, especially when it is not their past but one that they need to master. The impact of material change and transition in the production of historical materials is particularly striking when studied in the long duration with focus on a relatively small but politically significant site.

Emergent technologies of “Human Engineering,” also known as “Human Augmentation” and “Human Enhancement” are rapidly changing the nature of human embodiment and have profound social and moral implications.  Particularly noteworthy among these are technologies that enhance human physical, sensory, and cognitive capacities, from artificial limbs and visual and hearing aids that expand action and perception to wearables and implants that provide instant access to vast amounts of data and augment knowledge of, and control over, otherwise autonomous biophysical processes. A counterpoint to these technologies that aim to transform human embodiment are technologies that aim to transcend embodiment entirely, such as “uploading,” in which human consciousness is moved from the “wetware” of the human body and brain to machine-based “hardware.”  Some technologists and enthusiasts view such augmentation as potentially ushering in the transformation of humanity itself into a different order of being—first, as “transitional humans” or “transhumans,” and second, as “posthumans” that are seen as the evolutionary successor to humanity and the harbingers of utopia.  This paper will argue that the philosophy and practice of Buddhist meditation (Skt. dhyāna, Pāli jhāna, Ch. ch'an, Jpn. zen) or meditative cultivation (bhāvanā) provides a paradigm for understanding how Buddhist philosophy and ethics might address issues raised by the augmentation of human capacities through technology. It will also demonstrate how emergent philosophical and religious conceptions of the Transhuman and Posthuman can be critiqued and re-interpreted in light of Buddhist philosophy, particularly that of the fluidity of the cosmological boundary between the human and divine and the human being’s potential to become radically spiritually transformed as an awakened Noble Person (āryapudgala).

Mary Douglas is a prominent figure in the pantheon of religious studies, but the relevance of Douglas's influential theories about ritual pollution for Classical Indian Buddhism, a literate tradition that is sometimes critical of ritual and often explicitly distances itself from physicalized interpretations of bodily impurity, is not obvious. In fact, students of Classical Indian Buddhism have often argued that ideas about ritual impurity, including blood taboos, hold no place of importance in that tradition. This article brings together materials from the Indian Buddhist tradition and Douglas's theories of pollution in society to fulfill the dual purpose of testing Douglas's theory in a new arena and better articulating and explaining Indian Buddhist notions of female impurity.

The paper discusses a group of dhāraṇ īs associated with the seven days (saptavāra) of the week, with each dhāraṇ ī being recited on a specific day. The visual forms of the dhāraṇ īs were represented in miniature paintings in manuscripts of the saptavāra texts and in woodcarvings on the struts of two Newar Buddhist monasteries in Kathmandu. The paper shows that even though two members of the saptavāra group were originally male, eventually all members came to be conceived of as feminine in Nepal. It further provides evidence that the group is likely to have become known in Nepal by at least the late sixteenth century.

A good deal of important scholarship on early Indian Mah ay ana Buddhism has been done in recent years. Well established theories, such as the theory that the Mah ay ana arose as a lay reaction to the arhat ideal and the theory that it arose from the Mah as a _ mghika monastic lineage, have been rejected, and a number of new theories, perhaps most notably theories linking Mah ay ana to forest ascetics and to a 'cult of the book,' have been put forward. Part 1 of this article surveys and evaluates these recent developments. Part 2 will present a number of new perspectives for future scholarship.

This article serves as a contribution to the financial primacy of Buddhist women in early historic South Asia. Presented here is a single case study from the first century bce monastic stūpa site from Central India called Sanchi whereby gender demographics are analysed over two subsequent stages of funding. Investments by women not only fuelled the construction of the built landscape but, as time went on, female donors were crucial to the economic solvency of the monastic institution at Sanchi. Such a micro-history of Buddhist women from classical India illustrates the agency of women during Buddhism’s formative years.

Stand-alone self-compassion or mindful self-compassion, presented independently from the cultivation of other-oriented compassion, has recently emerged as a specific field of secular training and research. Its purported Buddhist background has so far received limited attention in academic scholarship. This article surveys Buddhist precedents—or lack thereof—to the contemporary emergence of this notion. In view of the yet to be established presence of an altruistic component as a psychological corollary of self-compassion, an analysis of the Buddhist sources may offer insights relevant for facilitating future research on the self-other relationship in self-kindness (or self-benevolence) and self-compassion constructs and on altruistic aspects as correlates of self-compassion.

This essay examines how Tārā 'reclaims' the discourse of enlightenment for Buddhist women and feminist theologians. Despite universal concern for the liberation of all beings, Buddhahood in mainstream texts and narratives was confined to male deities and masters, or females that switched their genders in their final rebirth. Furthermore, Tārā's senior male bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara and Mañjuśrî, overwhelmingly monopolized compassion and wisdom as the latters' embodiments. This study proposes how Tārā's theology gradually came to distinguish her from her male colleagues and reclaim the state of Buddhahood. Tārā is an unequivocally female Buddha in Vajrayāna Buddhism because she has managed to assimilate these theological virtues that were essentially reserved as masculine, correcting them as genderless qualities without identity. Tārā's legitimization sets a concrete precedent for the title of 'Buddha' to be included amongst the categories of feminine faith and practice.

It has been claimed that Indian Buddhism, as opposed to East Asian Chan/Zen traditions, was somehow against humour. In this paper I contend that humour is discernible in canonical Indian Buddhist texts, particularly in Indian Buddhist monastic law codes (Vinaya). I will attempt to establish that what we find in these texts sometimes is not only humorous but that it is intentionally so. I approach this topic by comparing different versions of the same narratives preserved in Indian Buddhist monastic law codes.

This essay considers the eighth century Indian Buddhist monk, S ´ a ¯ntideva's strategy of using the afflictive mental states (kleśas) for progress towards liberation in his Introduction to the Practice of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra). I begin by contrasting two images from the first chapter that represent the power of bodhicitta: the fires destroying the universe at the end of time, and the mercury elixir that transmutes base metals into gold. The first of these, I argue, better illustrates the text's predominant strategy of destroying the afflictive mental states directly by their antidotes. The second, in contrast, represents an alternative strategy in which afflictive mental states (kleśas) like anger, craving and delusion, are manipulated for liberative gain. I offer several examples of S ´ a ¯ntideva's use of the kleśas in his text, and argue that they can be understood as a continuation of the logic of skillful means, in which destructive actions, and here destructive mental states, are used to lessen suffering. Finally, I suggest that one reason S ´ a ¯ntideva employs the kleśas in this way is because of his realization that many practitioners early on the bodhisattva path will lack the motivation necessary to successfully pursue the difficult training of the bodhisattva. Keywords S ´ a ¯ntideva · Buddhist ethics · Mahayana buddhism · Bodhisattva · Bodhicarya ¯vata ¯ra · Skillful means

Nāgārjuna’s (c. 150-250) Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā), contains copious, clear, and comprehensive calls for the ‘abandonment of all views’ (sarvadṛṣṭiprahāṇāya). Despite this, contemporary scholars typically interpret such statements as referring only to false views (however these may be understood). In this paper, I argue instead that Nāgārjuna’s insistence on the abandonment of all views – including ultimately his own – constitutes his distinctive means to the metaphysical exhaustion characteristic of nirvāṇa, wherein all views, propositions, theses (dṛṣṭi, pakṣa, pratijñā) – all beliefs – are abandoned as so many subtle affirmations of an only ever empty self.

The received wisdom about Buddhism depicts it as an otherworldly religion that values the solitary monk or nun and devalues family life and the social world in general. Recent scholarship, however, reveals evidence that this picture is seriously flawed. Yes, there are many seminal Buddhist texts that suggest that monastics should destroy familial ties to whatever extent is possible. But there are many other texts, as well as inscriptions and other forms of material culture such as art and architecture, that indicate that in both the past and the present, Buddhist monks and nuns have remained embedded in family life in ways that might surprise us. Moreover, many Buddhist institutions have been modeled on the family and rely on familial loyalties for their strength and endurance. Familial ties have shaped the expression of Buddhism in every Buddhist society, structuring Buddhist institutions and providing a fundamental language and form of practice.

Two of the most important modern Indian Buddhist pioneers are the polyglot explorer
and Marxist revolutionary, Rahul Sankrityayan (1893–1963), and the Pali scholar and
Gandhian nationalist, Dharmanand Kosambi (1876–1947). Although best known as
scholars of Buddhism, it is their lesser-known personal lives—namely, their political
involvement in anti-colonial efforts, social reform projects, and travels abroad—that are
of primary focus in this study. Through an examination of their activities and writings,
this essay reveals the methods they employed and the networks of support they utilized in order to propagate Buddhism. In particular, it focuses on two features common to both of their lives: first, their relations with transnational Buddhist organizations and Euro-American and other Asian intellectuals, and second, their collaborative efforts with Indian elites whom they shared similar social, educational and national concerns. These two factors, I argue, were essential to their reconfiguration of a modern Indian Buddhism that was relevant to contemporary Indian concerns.

Buddhists have articulated the central notion of the “path” in a variety of different ways and in a great number of texts throughout the history of their traditions.  Among texts related to the path, the Ornament for Clear Realization, a commentary on the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, has had a significant impact on Mahāyāna Buddhist notions of the path and became the dominant Indian text for the study of the path in Tibetan traditions. This article focuses on two general descriptions of the bodhisattva path found in the Ornament for Clear Realization.  The first description centers upon eight ‘clear realizations’ (abhisamaya) that constitute the knowledges and practices of Prajñāpāramitā textual systems. The second description elucidates a system of five paths, shaped by Indian Abhidharma and Yogācāra texts, that is commonly used by Tibetan commentators. The article demonstrates how the eight clear realizations and five paths are interrelated, yet distinct, modes of envisioning the bodhisattva path in the Ornament. While these path structures do not provide details of actual meditation experience, they do provide Tibetan Buddhists who follow the Ornament a structured worldview where a narrative of spiritual progress is possible and where the altruistic goal of Buddhahood can be attained.

This essay begins with a brief discussion of the marginalization of demonology in the study of both Indian Buddhist traditions and Āyurvedic medicine. Unlike the study of Buddhist traditions in other geographic regions, there has been relatively little scholarship on the dialogue between Indian Buddhist communities and the localized spirit deity cults with which they have interacted for more than two millennia. The modern study of Āyurverda, with few exceptions, demonstrates a similar trend in the marginalization of bhūtavidyā, or demonology, which has constituted a legitimate branch of Āyurvedic medicine from at least the time that the earliest Āyurvedic compendium, the Carakasaṃhitā, was composed. This essay argues that this lack of proper attention to Indian Buddhist and Āyurvedic medical demonology is symptomatic of a broader, persistent bias in the human sciences. The essay then examines a handful of stories from the Karmaśataka, a collection of Buddhist avadānas, to argue that certain Buddhist communities may have held their own biases against systems of medical demonology, albeit for entirely different reasons. The balance of this essay then concludes with an analysis of The Sūtra of the Seven Buddhas that presents this work as an example of Buddhist medical demonology.

This essay analyzes the provocative image of the bodhisattva, the saint of the Indian Mahayana Buddhist tradition, descending into the hell realms to work for the benefit of its denizens. Inspired in part by recent attempts to naturalize Buddhist ethics, I argue that taking this 'mythological' image seriously, as expressing philosophical insights, helps us better understand the shape of Mahayana value theory. In particular, it expresses a controversial philosophical thesis: the claim that no amount of physical pain can disrupt the flourishing of a fully virtuous person. I reconstruct two related elements of early Buddhist psychology that help us understand this Mahayana position: the distinction between hedonic sensation (vedanā) and virtuous or nonvirtous mental states (kuśala/akuśala-dharma); and the claim that humans are massively deluded as to what constitutes well-being. Doing so also lets me emphasize the continuity between early Buddhist and Mahayana traditions in their views on well-being and flourishing. Julia Annas has shown that taking seriously Stoic and Epicurean claims that the sage is happy even while being tortured on the rack helps articulate the structure of their ethics, and in particular the relationship between virtue (arête) and happiness (eudaimonia). 1 In this essay, I apply this strategy to Mahayana Buddhist moral philosophy by taking seriously the image of the bodhisattva joyfully diving into the hell realms. A powerful

A study of of medieval female-authored Buddhist texts from Pakistan comparing the differences between female-authored and male-authored religious biographies. The paper attempts to establish a gender theory and methodology for the study of female-authored religious works. It lays out an interpretive framework for subjectivity via the terms 'appropriation' and 'assertion' as two interrelated yet diametrically opposed elements in the performativity of the subject. It also discusses and criticizes Judith Butler's notion of gender performativity as being overly restrictive with its reference to the physical body, and instead argues for a gender concept that is truly performative, irrespective of bodily gender, by showing that the medieval female religious teacher Laksmi took on a gender role that was neither female nor male but which asserted itself in a third gender role, that of an asexual religious mode, a gender x.

A study of the Paramādibuddha (the Kālacakra mūlatantra) and its relationship with the Sekoddeśa and the Śrī Kālacakra (the Kālacakra laghutantra) in light of the Kālacakra tradition's account of these texts' origins. This paper also raises the question of Vajrayāna mūlatantras in general, noting the Kālacakra tradition's references to gigantic mūlatantras of the Guhyasamāja, Yamāntaka, Māyājāla, and Cakrasaṃvara tantras. See now my "On the origin of the Kālacakra tantra and the Paramādibuddha" in JIABS 2021 which presents additional information bearing on the early textual history of the Kālacakra.

‘The Duologue of King/Governor Pāyāsi’ (Long Discourses) has long been recognised as a source for the proto-materialism current at the time of the Buddha. What needs to be stressed is the significance of the text as a pointer to the development of Logic in India. Perception (observation and experiment employing the joint method of agreement and difference), which is an accepted method of experimental enquiry, and reasoning from analogy, which can lead at best to a probable conclusion – these two are the only means employed to settle the dispute concerning the existence of the other-world. The Jain version of the same duologue-cum-parable, though varying in minor details regarding the name and identity of the monk refuting the king/governor, contains the same contrast, namely, perception versus analogical reasoning. There can be little doubt that the original parable was conceived with a view to asserting the existence of the other-world. In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (sixth century BCE), an earlier Brahmanical text, however, instead of argument by analogy, verbal testimony (śabda) was invoked to settle the same point. Naciketas is assailed by doubt about the existence of a person after his or her death. The authority of Yama, the Pluto of Indian mythology, is invoked to convince him that the other-world does exist. Thus, the three parables taken together exhibit three means of knowledge in operation: verbal testimony and argument by analogy pitted against perception.

Keywords argument by analogy (analogical reasoning) ∙ experiment ∙ observation ∙ the other-world (paraloka) ∙ verbal testimony (śabda).

Doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Wisconsin – Madison under the supervision of Prof. Geshe Lhundub Sopa. Originally published by University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. UMI underwent multiple name changes and changes of ownership. The current [6 Jan 2022] publisher is named "ProQuest."

Indian Buddhist monks and nuns who commit pārājika offences are generally deemed to be asaṃvāsa (“not in communion”). In this paper I question the simplistic equation of asaṃvāsa with “expulsion.” I discuss the case of a matricide monk who, having been expelled, went down the road and set up a new monastery. I use this example to throw light on local and translocal aspects of Buddhist monastic ordination, suggesting that asaṃvāsa may refer not to a loss of communion from the Saṅgha of the Four Quarters, but from a specific, local monastic community.

Certain philosophers and scientists have noticed that there are data that do not seem to fit with the allegedly scientific view known as the Mind/Brain Identity theory (MBI). This has inspired a new theory about the mind known as the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition (HEC). Now there is a growing controversy over whether these data actually require extending the mind out beyond the brain. Such arguments, despite their empirical diversity, have an underlying form. They all are disputes over where to draw the line between intrinsic and relational causal powers. The second-century Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna deals with similar issues when he argues for a middle way between the two positions that were known in his time by the terms eternalism and nihilism. Eternalism, like MBI, asserts that the mind is a permanent enduring substance (although the two theories disagree as to how long mind endures). Nihilism argued that the mind had no intrinsic existence, and today some argue that HEC could lead us to a similar conclusion. Nagarjuna’s argument for a middle way between these two extremes is similar to an argument that can be made for HEC. We can accept that neither the brain nor any other single physical item is identical to the mind without falling down the slippery slope that leads to “The mind does not really exist, and therefore we are one with everything.” Nagarjuna was correct to say that the mind has conventional reality—that the mind exists even though there is no sharp border between the mind and the world

The article is in English but its abstract is in Japanese.

Kajiyama (1963) および de Jong (1990) は、アヴァローキタヴラタ（8世紀頃）がPrajñāpradīpaṭīkāにおいてヴァルナ制（「カースト」制）を容認する意図をもって『マヌ法典』の引用を行う、例外的な仏教徒だとする。さらにこれらの研究は、このアヴァローキタヴラタによる注釈をもとに、Prajñāpradīpaの著者バーヴィヴェーカ（6世紀頃）も、アヴァローキタヴラタと同様、ヴァルナ制に対して肯定的な立場であったと見なしている。近年、これらの解釈に対し、高橋 (2011) および Nishiyama (2012) は、アヴァローキタヴラタがヴァルナ制に対する否定的な意味合いで『マヌ法典』を引用しているという論考を提示している。しかしながら、これまでの研究では、Tarkajvālāというバラモンの優越性に対して明確に批判を行うバーヴィヴェーカの著作が扱われていない。そこで本稿は、Tarkajvālā中に示される、ヴァルナ制に対するバーヴィヴェーカの立場に関する、新たな資料を提示する。さらにそれにもとづき、バーヴィヴェーカも、この社会的階級制度に対して、仏教思想の伝統的見解に従っていたことを明らかにする。

The dominant culture in India in the Buddha’s day, Brahmanical culture, took as axiomatic the existence of a supernatural creator deity. This deity, termed ‘Brahma’, was conceived as being ‘the all-seeing, the all-powerful, the Lord, the maker and creator, ruler, appointer and orderer, father of all that have been and will be’. Although the Buddha completely rejected such apparent metaphysical speculation as a ‘thicket of views’, he nowhere formulated a systematic repudiation of theism. In one canonical text, however, the Buddha, encountering a young Brahmin espousing theistic beliefs, gives a series of analogies and similes that help to illuminate
his views on the matter. In short, the Buddha saw such a belief as being dangerously reflexive, and hence as a symptom of a debilitating conceptual and affective disorder. Thus, in the dialogue, the Buddha aims to ease this ailment of his interlocutor through a threefold strategy: (1) displaying the language usage that under girds the problem; (2) reorienting the interlocutor toward the primacy of his conceptual apparatus as the proper locus of concern; and (3) providing a practice through which the interlocutor may develop the skills necessary for conceptual and affective health. The parameters of the discussion in this sutta are wide enough
to render it of relevance to contemporary debates on theism. That is, the issue at stake in the sutta may be read as being not only about a restricted local notion of deity, but about God, broadly conceived. The article contains fresh translations from the text under consideration, the Tevijjasutta of the Dighanikaya (13).

Scholars have long debated how the antinomian elements in the Buddhist Tantras are to be interpreted. Some maintain that they are to be taken literally; others that they are figurative or “symbolic.” Both, however—in approaching these statements as examples of directly denotative natural language—miss the most essential aspect of the semiology of these traditions. This paper demonstrates that the Buddhist Mahāyoga Tantras employ a form of signification (theorized by Roland Barthes) called “connotative semiotics,” in which signs (a signifier–signified union) from natural language function as signifiers in a higher-order discourse. Employing these semiological tools enables criticism to recognize that what is fundamentally operative—in both ritual performance and scriptural narrative—is a grammar of purity and pollution in significant dialog with both earlier Buddhist Tantras and broader Indian religious norms. This suggests that such antinomianism—far from representing either “tribal” practices or rarified yogic codes—reflects concerns native to mainstream Indian religion.

Bu ston Rin chen grub (1290-1364), a Tibetan Buddhist monk and well-known polymath and prolific writer, wrote at least six works concerning the monastic law code (Tib. 'dul ba; Skt. vinaya) that was brought from India to Tibet, the so-called Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya (MSV). Recently, modern Buddhist scholars, especially those who study the MSV, have focused on these works in an effort to better understand the extensive monastic code. The 'Dul ba spyi'i rnam par gzhag pa 'dul ba rin po che'i mdzes rgyan ('Dul spyi) is one of the six works. As the title suggests, it includes brief overviews of the MSV and related Indian texts that Bu ston was familiar with. In his overview of *Viśeṣamitra's (Chin. 勝友; Tib. Khyad par bshes gnyen) handbook of the MSV, the *Vinaya-saṃgraha (Chin. 根本薩婆多部律攝; Tib. 'Dul ba bsdus pa) (no later than 7th century CE), Bu ston asserts that five vinaya issues mentioned in the handbook conflict with those that appear in the MSV and Guṇaprabha's handbook, the Vinaya-sūtra (VS) (ca. 5-7th century CE). He concludes that *Viśeṣamitra might have been confused or unfamiliar with the MSV, and thereby dismisses the Vinaya-saṃgraha as unreliable. A close inspection of these five vinaya issues based on the texts of the MSV, the VS, and the Vinaya-saṃgraha currently available to us, however, does not completely support Bu ston's assertion. There does not appear to be as strong a disagreement as Bu ston notes between the MSV, the VS, and the Vinaya-saṃgraha. In my presentation, I investigate Bu ston's controversial assertion about the five vinaya issues in the 'Dul spyi and note that his analysis seems to us to be irrelevant. Furthermore, I discuss the implications of the discrepancy in understanding of these issues between Bu ston and us.

As a synthesis of the system of perfections (p›ramit›-naya) and the system of mantras (mantra-naya), the Indian K›lacakra tantric tradition bases its tantric method of achieving Buddhahood on a set of doctrinal and philosophical perspectives expressed in the Perfection of Wisdom literature and in the later treatises of Indian Mah›y›na authors. The K›lacakratantra's system of perfections, characterized as a causal system, upholds the doctrine of the emptiness of all phenomena, which lies at the core of tantric practice, providing a basis for the application of tantric methods. Its system of mantras, which provides a method for the realization of the clear light of mind and imperishable bliss, is characterized as a resultant system. The integration of these two systems of wisdom (cause) and method (result) corresponds to the wisdom and method aspects constituting the path and the goal of the K›lacakratantra tradition. The K›lacakra tradition positions itself in the philosophical system of Madhyamaka, from whose perspective it criticizes the doctrinal tenets both of Hindu philosophical schools and of Buddhist schools other than Madhyamaka. 1 Its modes of reasoning are clearly based 1 The K›lacakratantra's criticism of philosophical systems from the Madhyamaka perspective is found in the seventh section of the K›lacakratantra's "Chapter on Individual," verses 161-176, and in the accompanying

Recent decades have seen a groundswell in the Buddhist world, a transnational agitation for better opportunities for Buddhist women. Many of the main players in the transnational nuns movement self-identify as feminists but other participants in this movement may not know or use the language of feminism. In fact, many ordained Buddhist women say they seek higher ordination so that they might be better Buddhist practitioners, not for the sake of gender equality.

Eschewing the backward projection of secular liberal feminist categories, this book describes the basic features of the Buddhist discourse of the female body, held more or less in common across sectarian lines, and still pertinent to ordained Buddhist women today. The textual focus of the study is an early-first-millennium Sanskrit Buddhist work, "Descent into the Womb scripture" or Garbhāvakrānti-sūtra. Drawing out the implications of this text, the author offers innovative arguments about the significance of childbirth and fertility in Buddhism, namely that birth is a master metaphor in Indian Buddhism; that Buddhist gender constructions are centrally shaped by Buddhist birth discourse; and that, by undermining the religious importance of female fertility, the Buddhist construction of an inauspicious, chronically impure, and disgusting femininity constituted a portal to a new, liberated, feminine life for Buddhist monastic women. Thus, this study of the Buddhist discourse of birth is also a genealogy of gender in middle period Indian Buddhism.

Offering a new critical perspective on the issues of gender, bodies and suffering, this book will be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience, including researchers in the field of Buddhism, South Asian history and religion, gender and religion, theory and method in the study of religion, and Buddhist medicine.

The objective of this book is to analyse the discourses, representations, ritual practices and institutions of this community.  Two aspects of the conversion are to be distinguished: one, the attempt of the Mahar community to achieve social ascension and emancipation; and the other, a project of reform which addresses the indian society in its totality.

Responding to and building upon José Cabezón’s groundbreaking work, Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism (2017), this essay challenges a hermeneutic that capitulates to the androcentrism and misogyny of classical South Asian Buddhist views on female sexuality by suggesting avenues for ‘reading against the grain’ in search of alternative gynocentric views. In particular, it points to glimpses of a female sexuality that is relational, active, and creative in premodern South Asian Buddhist sources, especially vinaya. It also argues that a full and balanced treatment of sexual violence against women is an essential component of any comprehensive study of sexuality in classical South Asian Buddhism.

Ancient India produced three of the world’s oldest religions (known today as Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism) and a vast literary heritage in several languages, but her early history is arguably one of the most difficult to reconstruct. The intricacies of the evidence and the complexities of the arguments have conspired to generate publications on the period that are either hopelessly esoteric for all but specialists or dispiritingly oversimplified. Bronkhorst, of the University of Lausanne, has over the last several years built on the best scholarship across a wide range of topics to produce a narrative that is both sensitive to the important nuances as well as original, clear, and crisply presented. Bronkhorst already had a reputation in the field for bold yet careful argumentation on many vexed issues in Indian cultural history. He does not hesitate to challenge consensus, or to propose a hypothesis on matters for which hard proof may always be lacking. Not all of these arguments shift the consensus. But even if one does not accept all aspects of his argument, his approach offers many new insights and advances the field.

In recent decades the relationship between tantric traditions of Buddhism and Śaivism has been the subject of sustained scholarly enquiry. This article looks at a specific aspect of this relationship, that between Buddhist and Śaiva traditions of practitioners of physical yoga, which came to be categorised in Sanskrit texts as haṭhayoga. Taking as its starting point the recent identification as Buddhist of the c.11th-century Amṛtasiddhi, which is the earliest text to teach any of the methods of haṭhayoga and whose teachings are found in many subsequent non-Buddhist works, the article draws on a range of textual and material sources to identify the Konkan site of Kadri as a key location for the transition from Buddhist to Nāth Śaiva haṭhayoga traditions, and proposes that this transition may provide a model for how Buddhist teachings survived elsewhere in India after Buddhism's demise there as a formal religion.