Gautama Buddha (1956)

The volume is structured as a multi-author collection covering the Buddha’s life, Buddhist doctrine, philosophy, art, history, and cultural expansion. It begins with studies on the Buddha’s biography, including “The Master’s Life in Stone,” which interprets episodes of the Buddha’s life through ancient Indian sculpture, and a chronological account of principal events in his life. Several essays focus on language and textual culture, including the Buddha’s relation to language, Pāli phonetics, and Pāli-Sanskrit linguistic issues. The doctrinal and philosophical sections examine Buddhist social ideals, controversies over the five propositions, the place of Buddhism in Indian thought, duḥkha-satya, nirodha-satya, pratītyasamutpāda, Buddhist psychology, the relation between Śaṅkara’s Brahman and Madhyamaka śūnyatā, Buddhist Tantra, Harivarman’s theory of cognition, Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma, and the Buddhist view of the eternity of the Vedas. Historical and regional studies explore Buddhism in Andhra, Rajasthan, the classical age, the Śuṅga period, South-East Asia, ancient Kambujadeśa, and Pāṭaliputra. The art-historical essays analyze Buddhist antiquities, Bodhisattva images from Sanchi, Vinayaka imagery, and early Buddha statues from Yunnan, presenting Buddhism as a complex transregional tradition shaped by doctrine, practice, institutions, art, and cultural exchange.