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Author: Willa Jane Tanabe
Publisher: Weatherhill, Incorporated
Published: 1988
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn in-depth survey of the several genres of pictorial art related to the Lotus Sutra, one of the most influential scriptures of Buddhism. The book analyzes the content, style, and import of each work, accompanied by a comprehensive classification scheme.
Author: Tamura Kurata
Publisher: Kosei Publishing Company
Published: 1989-12-15
Total Pages: 174
ISBN-13: 4333010969
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Lotus Sutra, one of the principal scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism, is at once a great work of literature and a profound religious classic, containing the core and culmination of the historical BuddhaÆs ageless teaching of compassion and the way to achieve liberation from suffering. For more than fourteen hundred years, since its introduction into Japan early in the sixth century, the Lotus Sutra has been a rich source of subjects and themes for the countryÆs artists. Generations of priests, nuns and lay believers confident in the sutraÆs promise of spiritual reward for those who revere it and pay it homage have made opulent transcriptions of it, fashioned lavishly ornamented vessels for its preservation, and commissioned votive art depicting its narratives and religious teachings. As Art of the Lotus Sutra eloquently reveals, the range of artistic expression inspired by the Lotus Sutra is astonishing: miniature altars, bronzes, lacquerware, vibrant mandalas, wall paintings, hanging scrolls, narrative picture scrolls, and sculptures, as well as embroidered, handwritten and printed copies of the sutra itself. Much has been written in Japanese about the Lotus Sutra and the magnificent artworks related to it, but not until Bunsaku Kurata and Yoshiro Tamura compiled the present book was it possible to bring this material together in a single volume in English.
Author: Eugene Yuejin Wang
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 550
ISBN-13: 9780295984629
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Lotus Sutra has been the most widely read and most revered Buddhist scripture in East Asia since its translation in the third century. The miracles and parables in the "king of sutras" inspired a variety of images in China, in particular the sweeping compositions known as transformation tableaux that developed between the seventh and ninth centuries. Surviving examples in murals painted on cave walls or carved in relief on Buddhist monuments depict celestial journeys, bodily metamorphoses, cycles of rebirth, and the achievement of nirvana. Yet the cosmos revealed in these tableaux is strikingly different from that found in the text of the sutra. Shaping the Lotus Sutra explores this visual world. Challenging long-held assumptions about Buddhist art, Eugene Wang treats it as a window to an animated and spirited world. Rather than focus on individual murals as isolated compositions, Wang views the entire body of pictures adorning a cave shrine or a pagoda as a visual mapping of an imaginary topography that encompasses different temporal and spatial domains. He demonstrates that the text of the Lotus Sutra does not fully explain the pictures and that a picture, or a series of them, constitutes its own "text." In exploring how religious pictures sublimate cultural aspirations, he shows that they can serve both political and religious agendas and that different social forces can co-exist within the same visual program. These pictures inspired meditative journeys through sophisticated formal devices such as mirroring, mapping, and spatial programming - analytical categories newly identified by Wang. The book examines murals in cave shrines at Binglingsi and Dunhuang in northwestern China and relief sculptures in the grottoes of Yungang in Shanxi, on stelae from Sichuan, and on the Dragon-and-Tiger pagoda in Shandong, among other sites. By tracing formal impulses in medieval Chinese picture-making, such as topographic mapping and pictorial illusionism, the author pieces together a wide range of visual evidence and textual sources to reconstruct the medieval Chinese cognitive style and mental world. The book is ultimately a history of the Chinese imagination. Read an interview with the author: http: //dgeneratefilms.com/cinematalk/cinematalk-interview-with-professor-eugene-wang-on-chinese-art-and-film/
Author: Stephen F. Teiser
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 300
ISBN-13: 0231142897
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSpecialists in Buddhist philosophy, art, and history of religion outline the major ideas and controversies surrounding the 'Lotus Sūtra'. They also treat its use in ritual performance, ascetic practice, visual representations, and social action.
Author: Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2016-10-04
Total Pages: 265
ISBN-13: 0691152209
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA concise and accessible introduction to the classic Buddhist text The Lotus Sutra is arguably the most famous of all Buddhist scriptures. Composed in India in the first centuries of the Common Era, it is renowned for its inspiring message that all beings are destined for supreme enlightenment. Here, Donald Lopez provides an engaging and accessible biography of this enduring classic. Lopez traces the many roles the Lotus Sutra has played in its travels through Asia, Europe, and across the seas to America. The story begins in India, where it was one of the early Mahayana sutras, which sought to redefine the Buddhist path. In the centuries that followed, the text would have a profound influence in China and Japan, and would go on to play a central role in the European discovery of Buddhism. It was the first Buddhist sutra to be translated from Sanskrit into a Western language—into French in 1844 by the eminent scholar Eugène Burnouf. That same year, portions of the Lotus Sutra appeared in English in The Dial, the journal of New England's Transcendentalists. Lopez provides a balanced account of the many controversies surrounding the text and its teachings, and describes how the book has helped to shape the popular image of the Buddha today. He explores how it was read by major literary figures such as Henry David Thoreau and Gustave Flaubert, and how it was used to justify self-immolation in China and political extremism in Japan. Concise and authoritative, this is the essential introduction to the life and afterlife of a timeless masterpiece.
Author: George Joji Tanabe
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 1989-01-01
Total Pages: 270
ISBN-13: 9780824811983
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Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2014-04-14
Total Pages: 504
ISBN-13: 0861719875
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Lotus Sutra is regarded as one of the world's great religious scriptures and most influential texts. It's a seminal work in the development of Buddhism throughout East Asia and, by extension, in the development of Mahayana Buddhism throughout the world. Taking place in a vast and fantastical cosmic setting, the Lotus Sutra places emphasis on skillfully doing whatever is needed to serve and compassionately care for others, on breaking down distinctions between the fully enlightened buddha and the bodhisattva who vows to postpone salvation until all beings may share it, and especially on each and every being's innate capacity to become a buddha. Gene Reeves's new translation appeals to readers with little or no familiarity with technical Buddhist vocabulary, as well as long-time practitioners and students. In addition, this remarkable volume includes the full "threefold" text of this classic.
Author: Burton Watson
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House
Published: 2023-08-06
Total Pages: 457
ISBN-13: 9357600566
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Lotus Sutra clearly and definitively reveals the buddha nature that is an integral part of the lives of all people. And it makesclear that the Buddha desires and acts so that all people, by opening up this buddhanature inherent within themselves, mayattain the state of buddhahood forthemselves. The sutra further stresses that the continued observance of such action is the true mission of the bodhisattva, and never ceases to praise the observance of this practice.
Author: Daisaku Ikeda
Publisher: Middleway Press
Published: 2014-01-01
Total Pages: 418
ISBN-13: 1938252497
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Lotus Sutra has been regarded for centuries as one of the most important teachings in Mahayana Buddhism. This book goes beyond theory to show how to bring these teachings into practice in daily life. Containing profound truths for all people from every culture, it reveals the secret for attaining happiness for both oneself and others through the process of self-reformation. Based on the teachings of Nichiren, a 13th-century Buddhist teacher and reformer, the scriptures of the Lotus Sutra show how every person can attain Buddhahood.
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780231148955
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOriginally published in 1976, Leon Hurvitz's monumental translation of the Lotus Sutra is the work scholars have preferred for decades. Hailed by critics as an "extraordinary" and "magnificent" achievement, Hurvitz's translation is based on the best known Chinese version of the text and includes passages of the original Sanskrit that were omitted from the Chinese. Beloved for its mythology and literary artistry, the Lotus Sutra is one of the most popular and influential texts of Mahayana Buddhism, asserting that there is only one path to enlightenment, the bodhisattva path, and that all followers without exception can achieve supreme awakening. The text argues that the Buddha cannot be delimited by time and space and that a common intent underlies the diversity of Buddhist teachings. Through parables of the burning house, the wayward son, and other tales that have come to be known throughout East Asia, the sutra skillfully concretizes abstract religious concepts and clarifies bold claims about the Buddhist tradition. Urging devotees to revivify doctrine through recitation and interpretation, the sutra powered an organic process of remaking that not only kept its content alive in the poetry and art of premodern Asia but also introduced new forms of practice and scriptural study into contemporary Buddhism. Stephen F. Teiser's foreword addresses this vital quality of the sutra, discusses its background, and reflects on the enduring relevance of Hurvitz's critical work.
