Can I read Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism (Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism, 37) on EtoBox?

Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism (Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism, 37) by James A. Benn is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism (Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism, 37) about?

Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism is the first book-length study of the theory and practice of "abandoning the body"(self-immolation) in Chinese Buddhism. Although largely ignored by conventional scholarship, the acts of self-immolators (which included not only burning the body, but also being devoured by wild animals, drowning oneself, and self-mummification, among others) form an enduring part of the religious tradition and provide a new perspective on the multifarious dimensions of Buddhist practice in China from the early medieval period to the present time. This book examines the hagiographical accounts of all those who made offerings of their own bodies and places them in historical, social, cultural, and doctrinal context.Rather than privilege the doctrinal and exegetical interpretations of the tradition, which assume the central importance of the mind and its cultivation, James Benn focuses on the ways in which the heroic ideals of the bodhisattva present in scriptural materials such as the Lotus Sutra played out in the realm of religious practice on the ground. His investigation leads him beyond traditional boundari

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Author

James A. Benn

Publisher

University of Hawai'i Press

Published

2007

Language

EN

ISBN

9780824861735

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

History, Religion, Education