Once the Buddha Was a Monkey
Once the Buddha Was a Monkey

Author: Āryaśūra

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2006-09-15

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0226782158

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Here is one of the most entertaining masterpieces of Sanskrit literature rendered in an English translation that fully captures the original's artistry and charm. Written most probably in the fourth century A.D., the Jatakamala is generally considered the masterpiece of Buddhist literature in Sanskrit. In elegant, courtly style, Arya Sura retells thirty-four traditional stories about the Buddha in his previous incarnations, human and animal. Whether as a king, a brahmin, a monkey, or a hare, the Great One is shown in assiduous pursuit of virtue and compassion. Though primarily intended as exemplary tales illustrating the Buddhist virtues, these stories also provide a vivid picture of life at a high point in ancient Indian culture—city life in ordinary households or at the royal court, and country life against a backdrop of mountain, desert, and jungle. Fresh study of the Sanskrit manuscripts, now scattered in libraries all over the world, has enabled Peter Khoroche to make this new translation faithful to the original in both style and content. His explanatory notes will assist student and general reader alike in appreciating this classic from an ancient and exotic civilization. “The general reader will be highly grateful for this new translation which, besides being beautifully printed, is rounded off with a very informative and reliable introduction.”—Renate Söhnen-Thieme, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies “One would be a fool not to welcome the chance to read this book.”—Richard Gombrich, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature
Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature

Author: Amaresh Datta

Publisher: Sahitya Akademi

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 936

ISBN-13: 9788126011940

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A Major Activity Of The Sahitya Akademi Is The Preparation Of An Encyclopaedia Of Indian Literature. The Venture, Covering Twenty-Two Languages Of India, Is The First Of Its Kind. Written In English, The Encyclopaedia Gives A Comprehensive Idea Of The Growth And Development Of Indian Literature. The Entries On Authors, Books And General Topics Have Been Tabulated By The Concerned Advisory Boards And Finalised By A Steering Committee. Hundreds Of Writers All Over The Country Contributed Articles On Various Topics. The Encyclopaedia, Planned As A Six-Volume Project, Has Been Brought Out. The Sahitya Akademi Embarked Upon This Project In Right Earnest In 1984. The Efforts Of The Highly Skilled And Professional Editorial Staff Started Showing Results And The First Volume Was Brought Out In 1987. The Second Volume Was Brought Out In 1988, The Third In 1989, The Fourth In 1991, The Fifth In 1992, And The Sixth Volume In 1994. All The Six Volumes Together Include Approximately 7500 Entries On Various Topics, Literary Trends And Movements, Eminent Authors And Significant Works. The First Three Volume Were Edited By Prof. Amaresh Datta, Fourth And Fifth Volume By Mohan Lal And Sixth Volume By Shri K.C.Dutt.

Jatakamala : Stories From The Buddha's Previous Births
Jatakamala : Stories From The Buddha's Previous Births

Author: A.N.D Haksar

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2014-12-17

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788172234553

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Jatakamala is a famous work in both sacred Buddhist and classical Sanskrit literature. It recounts thirty-four stories of the Buddha's previous births, and his good deeds in those earlier incarnations as a god, man or an animal. Written in elegant Sanskrit prose and verse in the fourth century A.D., these tales were later translated into Chinese and Tibetan. Several feature in the Ajanta cave paintings. Their colourful backgrounds range from a sea voyage to a battle scene, a forest fire to a royal hunt and from the charms of the harem to the horrors of hell. Popular through the ages, they remain highly readable today, both for their timeless message of compassion and concord, and the vivid, dramatic imagery with which it is presented. Twelve of these tales are not found in any other collection including the Pali Jataka texts. Arya Shura, the author of the Jatakamala, is known in tradition as a saintly teacher and an authority on prosody. In all probability he was a Buddhist monk. No details are available of his life, except that he wrote several other works, some of which are extant only in Tibetan and Chinese translations.

Once a Peacock, Once an Actress
Once a Peacock, Once an Actress

Author: Haribhatta

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-08-30

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 022648596X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Peter Khoroche's translation of Arya Sura's "Jatakamala" (ca. fourth century) has sold more than fifteen-hundred copies in each of its editions. We now have a new translation of the "Jatakamala" by Haribhatta, a later contemporary of Arya Sura's. Like the earlier volume, this one contains rare examples of the earliest extant writings from Sanskrit's classical period. To date, six of the thirty-four stories from the work are still lost to time, but even in its truncated form, the tales, in Khoroche's splendid, fluid renderings, amply illustrate the Buddha's single-minded devotion to the good of all creatures in each of his incarnations. Here we have stories of an actress and a peacock, as noted in the title, but also tales of kings and monkeys, sages and fools, lions and elephants, princes and fairies, in equal measure entertaining, surprising, and moving--in addition to edifying. These unique tales of bravery, romance, sex, death, and, ultimately, rebirth, will be greeted by a very appreciate audience.

Jātakamālā
Jātakamālā

Author: Āryaśūra

Publisher: Asian Educational Services

Published: 1914

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9788120615038

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives (Volume 1)
Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives (Volume 1)

Author: Aryashura

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2017-04-01

Total Pages: 552

ISBN-13: 1479885835

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Garland of Past Lives is a collection of thirty four stories depicting the miraculous deeds performed by the Buddha in his previous rebirths. Composed in the fourth century C.E. by the Buddhist monk Aryashura, the text’s accomplished artistry led Indian aesthetic theorists to praise its elegant mixture of verse and prose. The twenty stories in this first volume deal primarily with the virtues of giving and morality. Ascetics sacrifice their lives for hungry tigers, kings open their veins for demons to drink their blood, helmsmen steer their crew through perilous seas, and quail chicks quench forest fires by proclaiming words of truth. The experience is intended to arouse astonishment in the audience, inspiring devotion, through the future Buddha’s transcendence of conventional norms in his quest to acquire enlightenment and save the world from suffering. The importance of such stories of past lives in traditional Buddhist culture, throughout Asia and up to today, cannot be overestimated.

Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish
Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish

Author:

Publisher: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 8185102155

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One of the great treasures of Buddhist literature, is mDo-mdzangs-blun or the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish as it is known to the Mongols. The text was translated to Mongolian from Tibetan as the Üliger-ün Dalai or Ocean of Narratives. It is one of the most interesting, enjoyable and readable Buddhist scriptures. For centuries, it has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration, instruction and pleasure for all who have been able to read it. The history of this unusual scripture is still uncertain. Legend has it that the tales were heard in Khotan by Chinese monks, who translated them (but from what language?) into Chinese, from which it was translated into Tibetan, then into Mongolian and Oirat. The Narratives are Jatakas, or rebirth stories, tracing the causes of present tragedy in human lives to events which took place in former lifetimes. The theme of each narrative is the same: the tragedy of the human condition, the reason for this tragedy and the possibility of transcending it. But unlike Greek tragedy, Buddhist tragedy is never an end in itself, i.e. a catharsis, but a call to transcend that which can be transcended and need not be endlessly endured. The people we meet in the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish, although supposedly living in the India of the Buddha’s time, might also be living at present in New York City, a small rural town or Leningrad, and the problems they face are the same problems that men have had to face always and everywhere. Herein lies the timeless appeal of this profound Buddhist scripture.

Religious Bodies Politic
Religious Bodies Politic

Author: Anya Bernstein

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-11-27

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 022607269X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Religious Bodies Politic examines the complex relationship between transnational religion and politics through the lens of one cosmopolitan community in Siberia: Buryats, who live in a semiautonomous republic within Russia with a large Buddhist population. Looking at religious transformation among Buryats across changing political economies, Anya Bernstein argues that under conditions of rapid social change—such as those that accompanied the Russian Revolution, the Cold War, and the fall of the Soviet Union—Buryats have used Buddhist “body politics” to articulate their relationship not only with the Russian state, but also with the larger Buddhist world. During these periods, Bernstein shows, certain people and their bodies became key sites through which Buryats conformed to and challenged Russian political rule. She presents particular cases of these emblematic bodies—dead bodies of famous monks, temporary bodies of reincarnated lamas, ascetic and celibate bodies of Buddhist monastics, and dismembered bodies of lay disciples given as imaginary gifts to spirits—to investigate the specific ways in which religion and politics have intersected. Contributing to the growing literature on postsocialism and studies of sovereignty that focus on the body, Religious Bodies Politic is a fascinating illustration of how this community employed Buddhism to adapt to key moments of political change.