This book presents a brilliant account of of Theravada Buddhism and embraces a wide variety of themes ranging from the birth of Buddhism to the Buddha’s prophetic teachings regarding the future of mankind. Topics covered include, among many others, the background of early Buddhism; the significance of the Buddha’s birthday; the Buddhist doctrines of karma and reincarnation; the Buddhist conception of truth, good and evil, Nirvana, the individual, the universe and the material world; the Buddhist view of nature and destiny; Buddhism and the caste system; Buddhism and international law; and the contemporary relevance of the Buddha’s teachings to the modern world. Professor Jayatilleke always writes with both the scholar and the lay reader in mind. As a result, this is a highly readable and extremely penetrating book—and one that explores the roots and nature of the Buddha’s teachings and examines them in the light of contemporary knowledge. The present collection contains all essays earlier published in the book The Message of the Buddha, edited by Ninian Smart, as well as essays that were published the Wheel Publication series. Contents 1. Buddhism and the Scientific Revolution 2. The Historical Context of the Rise of Buddhism 3. The Buddhist Conception of Truth 4. The Buddhist Attitude to Revelation 5. The Buddhist Conception of Matter and the Material World 6. The Buddhist Analysis of Mind 7. The Buddhist Conception of the Universe 8. The Buddhist Attitude to God 9. Nibbana 10. The Buddhist View of Survival 11. The Buddhist Doctrine of Kamma 12. The Case for the Buddhist Theory of Karma and Survival 13. The Conditioned Genesis of the Individual 14. The Buddhist Ethical Ideal of the Ultimate Good 15. The Basis of Buddhist Ethics 16. The Buddhist Conception of Evil 17. The Criteria of Right and Wrong 18. The Ethical Theory of Buddhism 19. Some Aspects of the Bhagavad Gita and Buddhist Ethics 20. Toynbee’s Criticism of Buddhism 21. The Buddhist Attitude to Other Religions 22. Buddhism and Peace 23. The Significance of Vesakha 24. Buddhism and the Race Question 25. The Principles of International Law in Buddhist Doctrine

The author presents a selection of papers written over the last twenty or so years, spanning the period from early research into the then nearly unknown Madhyamika writer Bhavaviveka or Bhavya, amongst Tibetan refugees in India, up to the recent past where there interests have, perhaps, somewhat broadened to include comparative religion. The author has moe or less left the essays in their original form and has introduced some consistency in the citing of the names of Japanese scholars in order to aid the English speaking reader unfamiliar with Japanese.

This book comprises Francis Story’s contributions to the two serial publications The Wheel and Bodhi Leaves, which belong to his best and most mature writing. With its rich and variegated contents, this book may well serve as an introduction to the Buddha's teachings. The Buddha once said that his Teaching has only one taste, that of liberation. Yet, being a Teaching of Actuality, Buddhism has also dimensions extending to wide fields of human life and thought. Some of them are mirrored in the essays of this volume. These wide-ranging and penetrative writings offer, therefore, many stimulating approaches to Buddhist thought and its application to problems of our time. Contents 1 Hymn for Vaishakha 2 The Buddha—a Unique Teacher 3 The Supreme Conqueror 4 The Appeal of Buddhism 5 The Uniqueness of Buddhism 6 The Four Noble Truths 7 Dialogues on the Dhamma 8 The Scientific Approach to Buddhism 9 The Buddhist World View in the Age of Science 10 A Larger Rationalism 11 Of Gods and Men 12 Prayer and Worship 13 Gods and their Place in Buddhism 14 Cosmological Thought in Buddhism and Modern Science 15 Expanding Universe and Steady-States Universe 16 The Magic Mountain 17 Is there a Beginning? 18 Buddhism and the Origin of Life 19 Divine Creation or Lawful Genesis? 20 Buddhist Meditation 21 Buddhist Mental Therapy 22 Buddhist Lay Ethics 23 The Place of Animals in Buddhism 24 Action 25 Kamma and Causality 26 Kamma and Freedom 27 Collective Karma 28 Beauty and the Buddhist 29 Omniscience and the Buddha 31 Samsara 32 The Way of Dispassion 33 Nibbana

This book contains fourteen numbers of the renowned Wheel Publication series, dealing with various aspects of the Buddha’s teaching. 152–4: A Buddhist Catechism — Subhadra Bhikshu (Friedrich Zimmermann); 155–8: Anguttara Nikaya Part I by Nyanaponika Thera and Bhikkhu Bodhi; 159–161: Edwin Arnold — William Peiris; 162–164: Facets of Buddhist Thought — K. N. Jayatilleke; 165–166: The Buddhist Doctrine of Nibbana — Parawahera Vajiranyana Thera and Francis Story

This constitues the first volume of the series. It indicates the scope of the project and provides a list of sources which will be surveyed in the sebsequent volumes, as well as provide a guide to secondary literature for further study of Indian Philosophy. It lists in relative chronological order, Sanskrit and Tamil works. All known editions and translations into European languages are cited; where puplished versions of the text are not known a guide to the location of manuscripts of the work is provided.

Historical, anthropological, and philosophical in approach, Buddha in the Crown is a case study in religious and cultural change. It examines the various ways in which Avalokitesvara, the most well known and proliferated bodhisattva of Mahayana Buddhism throughout south, southeast, and east Asia, was assimilated into the transforming religious culture of Sri Lanka, one of the most pluralistic in Asia. Exploring the expressions of the bodhisattva's cult in Sanskrit and Sinhala literature, in iconography, epigraphy, ritual, symbol, and myth, the author develops a provocative thesis regarding the dynamics of religious change. Interdisciplinary in scope, addressing a wide variety of issues relating to Buddhist thought and practice, and providing new and original information on the rich cultural history of Sri Lanka, this book will interest students of Buddhism and South Asia.

Peter Francis Kornicki and Ian James McMullen have put together a remarkable collection of essays on different aspects of religion in Japan by an international team of contributors. The essays in this 1996 book cover a wide range of subjects, from the new religions of post-war Japan to beliefs about fox-possession in the Heian period, and from French missionaries in Okinawa in the mid-nineteenth century to the Ainu bear festival in Hokkaido. Other chapters examine the religious life of Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of the first shogunate in the late twelfth century, and the role of pilgrimage in Japanese religion. The essays offer fresh insights into the rich religious traditions of Japan, many of which have been previously neglected in the English-language writing on Japan.