Many Buddhas, One Buddha - Appleton, Naomi

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Résumé :
Many Buddhas, One Buddha introduces a significant section of the important early Indian Buddhist text known as the Avad?n?ataka, or One Hundred Stories, and explores some of its perspectives on buddhahood. This text, composed in Sanskrit and dating to perhaps the third to fifth centuries of the Common Era, is affiliated with the Sarv?stiv?da or M?lasarv?stiv?da, and thus provides important evidence of the ideas and literatures of lost non-Mah?y?na schools of Indian Buddhism. The text is a rich literary composition, in mixed prose and verse, and includes some elaborate devotional passages that illuminate early Indian perspectives on the Buddha and on the role of avad?na texts. The book introduces the first four chapters of the Avad?n?ataka through key themes of these stories, such as predictions and vows, preparations for buddhahood, the relationship between ??kyamuni and other buddhas, and the relationship between full buddhahood and pratyekabuddhahood. The study of these stories closes with an argument about the structural design of the text, and what this tells us about attitudes towards different forms of awakening. The second part of the book then presents a full English translation of stories 1-40. From tax-dodging merchants, to monks fretting about their sewing skills, the stories offer a rich and entertaining slice of Indian Buddhist literature and teaching.

Biographie:
Naomi Appleton is Senior Lecturer in Asian Religions at the University of Edinburgh. Her primary research interest is the role of narrative in the construction, communication and challenge of religious ideas in early India, and she has published extensively on this area, including J?taka Stories in Therav?da Buddhism (Ashgate 2010), Narrating Karma and Rebirth (CUP 2014), Shared Characters in Jain, Buddhist and Hindu Narrative (Routledge 2017), as well as translations of Buddhist narrative and numerous articles on related themes.

Sommaire:
Many Buddhas, One Buddha introduces a significant section of the important early Indian Buddhist text known as the Avad?n?ataka, or One Hundred Stories, and explores some of its perspectives on buddhahood. This text, composed in Sanskrit and dating to perhaps the third to fifth centuries of the Common Era, is affiliated with the Sarv?stiv?da or M?lasarv?stiv?da, and thus provides important evidence of the ideas and literatures of lost non-Mah?y?na schools of Indian Buddhism. The text is a rich literary composition, in mixed prose and verse, and includes some elaborate devotional passages that illuminate early Indian perspectives on the Buddha and on the role of avad?na texts. The book introduces the first four chapters of the Avad?n?ataka through key themes of these stories, such as predictions and vows, preparations for buddhahood, the relationship between ??kyamuni and other buddhas, and the relationship between full buddhahood and pratyekabuddhahood. The study of these stories closes with an argument about the structural design of the text, and what this tells us about attitudes towards different forms of awakening. The second part of the book then presents a full English translation of stories 1-40. From tax-dodging merchants, to monks fretting about their sewing skills, the stories offer a rich and entertaining slice of Indian Buddhist literature and teaching....