On Being Buddha: The Classical Doctrine of BuddhahoodWhat is it like to be a Buddha? Is there only one Buddha or are there many? What can Buddhas do and what do they know? Is there anything they cannot do and cannot know? These and associated questions were much discussed by Buddhist thinkers in India, and a complex and subtle set of doctrinal positions was developed to deal with them. This is the first book in a western language to treat these doctrines about Buddha from a philosophical and thoroughly critical viewpoint. The book shows that Buddhist thinkers were driven, when theorizing about Buddha, by a basic intuition that Buddha must be maximally perfect, and that pursuing the implications of this intuition led them into some conceptual dilemmas that show considerable similarity to some of those treated by western theists. The Indian Buddhist tradition of thought about these matters is presented here as thoroughly systematic, analytical, and doctrinal. The book s analysis is based almost entirely upon original sources in their original languages. All extracts discussed are translated into English and the book is accessible to nonspecialists, while still treating material that has not been much discussed by western scholars. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abhidharmakośa ākāra analysis Ankeizō daijō Asanga Aṣṭasāhasrikā authoritative texts awakening Bodhisattvabhūmiḥ bodhisattvas body of communal body of magical Buddha Buddha-field Buddha's action Buddha's awareness buddhalogical doctrine Buddhist bya ba bzhin chapter claim cognition communal enjoyment community's construction-free awareness dang Derge Tanjur dharma dharmadhātu dharmakaya discourse discussion doctrinal digests doctrine-candidate doctrine-expressing sentences epistemic epithet example experience expressive of doctrine four-continent world Funahashi function Gautama Śākyamuni Griffiths Hakamaya interpretation Jaini jñāna Johnston kinds of awareness Lamotte Lévi living longs spyod ma yin Madhyāntavibhāga Madhyāntavibhāgaṭīkā magical transformation Mahāyāna Maitreya maximally means mental event metaphysical modes of appearance Nagao nature Nepōru shahon ness non-Buddhas omnilinguality pa'i path phenomenal properties phyir possible practice predicated Ratnagotravibhāga real body Realm religious communities rnam rules of recognition Śākyamuni salvific samyaksambuddha Sanskrit śāstra sems-tsam sense Shastri soteriological subcommentary Sūtra tathāgata temporal properties theory things tion Vaidya Vallée Poussin Vasubandhu vikalpa volume Yogācāra