Buddhist Studies : The Legacy of Gadjin M. Nagao : Wisdom, Compassion and the Search for Understanding Book

Contents: Preface. 1. The Bodhisattva’s compassion described in the Mahayana-sutralamkara/Gadjin M. Nagao. 2. Toward an understanding of the Vijnaptimatrata/Noritoshi Aramaki. 3. Samadhi in Honen’s Hermeneutic of practice and faith: Assessing the Sammai Bottokki/Mark L. Blum. 4. Two jars on two tables: reflections on the "Two Truths"/Luis O. Gomez. 5. Dignaga’s theory of meaning: an annotated translation of the Pramanasamuccayavrtti: Chapter V: Anyapoha-pariksa (I)/Masaaki Hattori. 6. Santaraksita and Bhaviveka as opponents of the Madhyamika in the Madhyamakaloka/Masamichi Ichigo. 7. The Buddha and his teachings/J.W de Jong. 8. Buddhist cosmology as presented in the Yogacarabhumi/Yuichi Kajiyama. 9. Nagarjuna and the Tetralemma (catuskoti)/Shoryu Katsura. 10. The middle path according to the Kasyapaparivarta-sutra/Leslie Kawamura. 11. Jnanasarasamuccaya kko 20-28: mise au point with a Sanskrit Manuscript/Katsumi Mimaki. 12. Lambert Schmithausen: on three Yogacarabhumi passages mentioning the three Svabhavas or Laksanas/Lambert Schmithausen. 13. The Yogacara Bhiksu/Jonathan A. Silk. 14. Manuscript fragments, texts, and inscriptions in the temple of Tabo: an interim report with bibliography/Ernst Steinkellner. 15. Samsara eva nirvanam/Jikido Takasaki. 16. On samaropa: probing the relationship of the Buddha’s silence and his teaching/Teruyoshi Tanji. 17. Buddhist liberation and birth in the heavens: the significance of the earliest Buddhist Icons found among Grave Objects in China’s Yangtze River region/Meiji Yamada. 18. Toward a new edition of the Fan-yu Tsa-ming of Li-yen/Akira Yuyama. Index.

"The field of Buddhist studies is a truly international and interdisciplinary one. By its nature, the study of Buddhism must take into account phenomena that cross national and cultural boundaries, as well as the more artificial boundaries of modern academic fields. This volume presents eighteen studies, the subjects of which range over India, Tibet, China, and Japan, and deal with an even broader range of subjects. It includes many essays on Buddhist philosophy, a number of which deal with the Madhyamaka tradition of Nagarjuna and his successors, while others examine the Yogacara tradition of Asanga, Vasubandhu, and their successors. These essays investigate area of doctrinal interest such as the so-called "Two Truth" theory and the doctrine of the equivalence of nirvana and samsara, as well as such topics as the nature and practice of compassion and Indian Buddhist cosmology. Still other studies examine topics such as the meditation practices of the Japanese Pure Land founder Honen, some of the earliest Chinese Buddhist art objects yet known and their importance for the transmission of Buddhism to China, later Indian logic, epistemology and the theory of meaning, what we know about he earliest teachings of the Buddha, Tibetan manuscript traditions from one of the oldest surviving monastic libraries in the far western reaches of Tibet, several studies of the scriptural traditions of Mahayana Buddhism, and more." (jacket)