The History of Buddhist Thought

The book is arranged into nineteen chapters with supporting scholarly apparatus. It opens with an introduction on Buddhist biography, geography, chronology, and the historical setting of Magadha, Kosala, and the early Buddhist world. It then examines the ascetic ideal, the Buddhist councils and early schools, early doctrine and yoga, causation and the Wheel of Becoming, and the broader religious background of Buddhism. Subsequent chapters analyze Brahmanism and the Upaniṣads, the problem of soul, karma, release and Nirvāṇa, and the concept of Buddha. The middle section studies Abhidhamma developments, the doctrine of the Buddhas, and the Lotus of the True Doctrine, including a note on spells. The later chapters focus on popular bodhisattva doctrine, the bodhisattva’s career, the doctrine of the void, later schools, consciousness-only, and the relation of Buddhism to modern thought. The appendices provide materials on the scriptures and the eighteen schools, followed by bibliography and index. The volume also includes illustrations such as a Gandhāra bodhisattva, the Wheel of Becoming, Gotama practising austerities, Buddha’s first sermon, and the presentation of Om maṇipadme hūṃ.