This work however introduces the ten transcendent perfections and eleven bhūmis on the basis of relative truth and, on the basis of the ultimate truth, explains how there is no arising even conventionally according to the four extremes. Thus, this commentary on the intent of the Middle Way includes several uncommon features not found in the works of other scholars.

Khenpo Shenga’s prologue to Madhyamakāvatāra emphasizes that Candrakīrti’s text serves as a comprehensive introduction to Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā, elucidating the two truths—relative and ultimate—and their interdependence.

This essay explores the image-text relationship between the ca. 12-century monumental Maitreya bodhisattva sculpture within a narrow tower in the village of Mangyu and passages from the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra.

A religion’s power lies in its symbols, and those symbols are by their very nature not reducible to a set of propositions, or a body of doctrines

May I too accomplish the transcendent perfection
Of ethical discipline, just like you!

This prayer for accomplishing the transcendent perfections, attributed to Āryaśūra, is adapted from Dharmakirit’s commentary on the Jātakamālā. Covering the first four perfections, additional verses for the remaining perfections and birth stories were composed by the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje.

This text is bilingual, being in both English and Indonesian.

This paper offers a comparative study of a cluster of stories in which the Buddha-to-be makes a sacrifice – of flesh, family members or wealth – in exchange for a single verse of teaching. […] The paper argues that these tales reveal new perspectives on the oft-studied relationship between Buddha and Dharma, and between the Buddha’s physical body and his body of teachings

The adept who mastered them could claim that he shared a spiritual experience similar to that of the Buddha and this entitled him to say that he was speaking by the Buddha’s might.

The Mahāyāna likely emerged as a monastic, meditation-oriented movement.

The prince and his two wives, buddhas of the ten directions, gods and nāgas all shed tears, which collect to form a big lake. Lotus flowers bloom on the lake, and from them spring buddhas. The earth quakes, and rainbows and flowers rain down from the sky.

A couple, previously unidentified, Tibetan parallels to the Vessantara Jātaka.

What the above-cited reports and the colophons indicate is, rather, a symbiosis of the Mahāsāṃghikas and the followers of Mahāyāna Buddhism (at least) in Pāṭaliputra. This symbiosis is illustrated clearly in the case of the aforementioned Master Mañjuśrī, who dwelt in the Devarāja Monastery, whose monks were Mahāsāṃghikas, and was revered by all the Mahāyāna monks in the country.

Taking seriously Faxian’s report of the monasteries in the Magadha capital circa 406 C.E.

Virtuosity in chanting spells and working miracles—particularly those associated with healing, protection, and other aspects of personal welfare—was an important quality for a monk to develop.

A nuanced view of “spells” during the Sui Dynasty period through the end of the Tang, roughly 500–907 C.E focusing on three Chinese intellectuals—Jingying Huiyuan (523–592), Daoshi (596–683), and Amoghavajra (705-774)—asking how these figures would have understood Dhāraṇī in those days before the development of Buddhist Tantra.

Actually, during the Song, although marginal, this dual acceptation of supernaturalism and its antithesis manifests itself not only in Chan biographies, but also in doctrinal writings of the school.

This paper explores the theme of Chan interaction with indigneous Chinese religions and deities.

Early Chan texts de-emphasized miracles, focusing on doctrine and dharma transmission, but by the 9th and 10th centuries, Chan biographies embraced accounts of Buddhist dominance over local cults, mirroring a trend in broader Chinese Buddhist hagiography. Finally, the study ends with a look at a syncretic model in Song Chan writings, which presented a veiled challenge to idolatry and redefined supranturalism to serve new Chan doctrines.

Missionary monks encountered these zones of multicultural influences, either in situ or in the diasporas of the great cities of North India or China, many of them became enamored of the paradoxical presence of metropolitan sophistication and rural isolation that Central Asia afforded

Long seen as a mythical land (See, “Uttarakuru”), Inner Asia was central (via the Silk Road) in not only disseminating Buddhism across Asia in but shaping its mythos as well.

The decision of a Buddhist council in favor of extensive missionary work outside India and the dispatch of monks to Afghanistan and Kashmir launched Buddhism’s development into a world religion. Thus, at the beginning of our era, Buddhist monks were wandering as missionaries through Central and Far East Asia.

This is a catalog of a 1982 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the pieces themselves dating from the 3rd century CE to the 10th century CE and now housed in the collections of the West Berlin State Museums. Also included is a scholarly introduction, giving a background to both the Silk Road and the movement of Buddhist art (and therefore Buddhism itself) through Central and East Asia.

Nagarjuna’s illocution seems an attempt to radicalize his difference from a developing Nyaya extensionalist theory of the pramanas, a theory in which the Buddhists and the Naiyayikas are closer than anywhere else.

Drawing upon an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist compendium of bodhisattva practice, this paper explores the role bodhisattva bodies play in the ethical development of other living beings.

Bodhisattvas adopt certain disciplinary practices in order to produce bodies whose very sight, sound, touch, and even taste transform living beings in physical and moral ways. The compendium uses a common South Asian and Buddhist metaphor to describe a bodhisattva’s physical and moral impact on others. Bodhisattvas are said to “cook living beings.” The paper considers how this metaphor suggests ways of nuancing modern Western conceptions of ethical self‐cultivation, particularly as articulated by Michel Foucault in his studies of the technologies of the self.

For an academic discussion of this Mahayana Sutra and its parallels, see Levman’s 2005 article in CJBS.

Zhiyi was notable as a systematizer and domesticator of Buddhist knowledge, and particularly for his writings on śamatha and vipaśyanā meditation. The excerpt translated below is a complete chapter from the shorter of his meditation treatises. It focuses specifically on how various strands of Indian and Chinese medical and religious knowledge could be employed to diagnose and treat illness while the practitioner remained engaged in seated meditation.

Incorporating both foreign and domestic knowledge into the framework of śamatha and vipaśyanā , this chapter represents one of the earliest examples of systematic Indo-Sinitic medical syncretism, and one of the most important expressions of a unique medieval Chinese Buddhist perspective on healing.

One of the early functions of the talisman was for a ruler to authorize the conduct and scope of authority of a general (e.g., how many troops he could command). The military context of talismans later found a corollary in the spiritual realm and permitted their possessor to summon and control a variety of deities that could be drawn on in battles with spirits.

When it came to such significant acts, such as warding off disease demons and protecting or extending one’s life, Buddhist and Daoists were occupied with the same types of concerns and employed a similar arsenal of powerful techniques that drew on the powers embedded in esoteric talismans.

It’s easy to think of Emptiness as the “right” view in an ontological sense. What the sutra is saying is that there isn’t a “right” way to characterize reality. “Thusness” is ineffable. So, Emptiness is not so much the “right” characterization as it is the remedy to our tendency to reify things into essences.

A lengthy interview with Prof Waldron on his new book which explores Yogacara thought within its Indian, Buddhist context and in light of contemporary neuroscience and politics.

Nagarjuna relentlessly analyzes phenomena or processes that appear to exist independently and argues that they cannot so exist, and yet, though lacking the inherent existence imputed to them either by naive common sense or by sophisticated, realistic philosophical theory, these phenomena are not nonexistent-they are, he argues, conventionally real.

This paper focuses on a section of the Gandavyuha Sutra (Book 39 of the Avatamsaka Sutra), which lists and frequently explains the Buddhalakṣaṇas. The study introduces a new translation of the passage from the original Sanskrit, and compares its descriptions to other relevant Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan sources. In most cases the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra offers the most convincing explanation of the relevance and/or origin of the lakṣaṇa.

In some works Sadāprarudita is presented as the paragon of one who searches for prajñāpāramitā; in others he is the model for those who desire to serve their gurus. In China, moreover, during the early stage of the Pure Land tradition, Sadāprarudita was regarded as the preeminent exemplar of one practising the niànfósānmèi 念佛三昧 (recollection of the buddhas).

How one character came to represent so much to so many.

These two collections include many suttas addressed to Buddhists dealing with the ethical and spiritual concerns of life within the world (as noted by Bhikkhu Bodhi), and thus involves the issues of merit (puñña). In this study I have illustrated the significant but often underestimated position of compassion with merit in early Buddhist doctrine.

Beginning in the northwestern region of India, and spreading through Central Asia and the rest of Asia along the Silk Road, the making of colossal Buddha statues has been a major theme in Buddhist art. The colossal Buddha statues predominantly feature Śākyamuni (the Historical Buddha), Maitreya (the Future Buddha), and Vairocana (the Transcendant Buddha), and they were fashioned out of religious devotion and frequently in conjunction with notions of Buddhist kingship. This paper examines the religious, social and political circumstances under which these colossal statues were made, focusing on examples from Central and East Asia made during the first millennium CE. Beginning in the 1990s, there was a revival of making colossal Buddha statues across China and elsewhere. The paper also briefly compares the current wave of building colossal Buddha statues with historical examples.

Rather than seeking to put forward a philosophical view about the nature of reality or knowledge, Nāgārjuna uses arguments for emptiness to purge Madhyamaka Buddhists of any view, thesis, or theory whatsoever, even views about emptiness itself.

For Venerable Analayo’s thoughts on how the śikṣādattaka emerged from earlier Vinaya practices, see Pārājika Does Not Necessarily Entail Expulsion.

… self-referential passages functioned as self-promotion strategies suited to the employment of the emerging medium of the manuscript

… these devices come to be constitutive of Mahāyāna doctrine, as it is argued the Mahāyāna sutra texts themselves are constitutive of the Buddha’s true body.

Buddhism’s second step in becoming a world religion occurred during the reign of King Kaniska (r. 130?–155?, or 78?–103?) of the Kushan Empire as the religion spread into Central Asia.

… a somewhat ambivalent formulation that suggests a possible relation to the notion of rebirth in the Pure Abodes

Nagarjuna uses concepts to undermine the thought-constructed ways in which we understand the world

… observance of the monastic rules was not intended to be only a matter of acceptance of institutional rules and lifestyles. […] educated monks understood a causal connection between the exercise of ethical behavior in a monastic lifestyle and progress on the path

Mahayana (and Tantric) Buddhism is often portrayed as antinomian or even “lay oriented” but, while certainly a strand, did not constitute the mainstream understanding, even in late India.

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Literacy disrupted the continuity of the oral tradition and reoriented access to knowledge from the oral- and aural-sense world to the visual world.

How the emerging Mahāyāna movement in India capitalized on new technology (writing) to legitimate and spread their teachings, and how the new medium shaped them in turn.

… the redefinition of arahantship cannot be looked upon as successful. The relaxed criteria would have enabled many monks of lesser attainment, as well as status-seeking monks, to proclaim themselves arahants. […] In its devalued form it simply could not satisfy the spiritual aspiration of those who sought the ultimate goal.

A reasonable explanation for the emergence of the Bodhisattva Ideal.

… partisans of Mahāyāna did not reject the Śrāvaka scriptures, or even their philosophies. Mahāyānists practiced the Vinaya, often quite earnestly, and studied the Sūtras and the Abhidharma.

… scholarship has always interpreted the resurgence of Buddhist activity at Ajanta and neighboring sites as a regional phenomenon linked to the prestige of a dominating group and to internal political strives. Yet at a closer look, it appears that much like in earlier times, the life of these rock-cut sites in the fifth century continued to be closely related to a network of commercial activities

Buddhists, and the worshippers of Avalokitesvara in particular, spread along Indian Ocean and Central Asian trade routes during the early medieval period, returning wealth and dynamism to the Buddhist communities of India.

… the identification of Vairocana in these caves suggests that some form of the Tantric soteriological methodology explained in the Mahāvairocanasūtra was extant in the fifth century

This small Sutta deals with the veneration in which the Buddha held the Dharma, the doctrine which he had discovered on the night of his enlightenment and which he had chosen as his teacher. This text throws some light on the nature of the Buddha and the Dharma as they were conceived by the first Buddhists.

On the five pure and impure Skandhas and on the subtle reversal of paṭicca-samuppāda in the prajñāpāramitā

With skilful means and compassion, you were born in the Śākya clan…

Deep contemplative experiences and the philosophical conclusions which they yield are beyond history. Or are they?…

Three sūtras in the SA which deal with emptiness especially attracted the attention of the author of the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa

One of the great archeological finds of the 20th century, the Gandhāran Buddhist Texts, dating from the 1st century CE, are the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever discovered. Richard Salomon discusses his pioneering research on these fascinating manuscripts, how the then obscure Gāndhārī language was deciphered, the historical and religious context from which these texts emerged, and the Gandhāran influence on other parts of the Buddhist world.

… wealth and power did not seem to ease disruptive conflict

The fascinating details of monastic life in medieval Dunhuang as told by their cave-preserved legal documents.

That Buddhism became so ritualistic, excessive, and subservient to the state even along the Silk Road demonstrates how common and impactful state intervention has been to the history of Buddhism.

Did Indian Buddhists believe in astrology, and, if so, how did they incorporate it into their religious framework?

This volume assumes knowledge of the first, introducing three types of writings from texts translated in China from Indian originals in medieval times.

The answer key for this textbook can be found on Google Drive, here.

… simultaneously donning a tolerant posture while claiming the overriding-ness of one’s religion was in fact a distinct phenomenon from what could be called “synthesis,” and has in actuality characterized many syncretistic endeavors in Chinese history.

How Ming era Buddhist apologists adapted Chan to Yogacara doctrine.

… how to interpret Buddhist Sanskrit texts in such a way as to avoid unnecessary bastardization of the English language, while still performing the scholarly task of making available the meaning of such texts to the scholarly community

On the basis of Prajnavarman’s and Nagarjuna’s citations and of Vasubandhu’s and Asanga’s lists, it seems that parallels to the Pali Asankhatasamyutta were indeed transmitted by the (Mula-)Sarvastivadins and perhaps other schools, even though they have not been preserved in Chinese translation.

To approach what, for the want of a better term, we call the mythic portions of the Nikāyas with the attitude that such categories as “mythic symbol” and “literally true” are absolutely opposed is to adopt an attitude that is out of time and place. It seems to me that in some measure we must allow both a literal and a psychological interpretation. Both are there in the texts.

Note that I (~KhBh) have removed pages 206–210 from the linked PDF as they contain a lengthy and irrelevant digression into Mahāyāna doctrine. If you’re interested, you can find the full article here.

I would say that the Nikāyas and Āgamas give us a “historical-realistic perspective” on the Buddha, while the Mahāyāna sūtras give us a “cosmic-metaphysical perspective.”

Bhikkhu Bodhi explores the Bodhisattva ideal from the perspective of the both the Theravāda and Mahayana, with a brief summary of its history. An excellent introduction to this vital topic.