Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition

by Anthony J. Tribe, Paul S. Williams, Alexander Wynne, et al.

Book Overview

This book serves as an accessible and reliable survey for students wishing to gain familiarity with the basic ideas of Buddhist philosophical and religious thought, and with some of the recent... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415207010
• ISBN13: 9780415207010
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Overview of Indian Buddhist History

I found this book to be an excellent overview of Indian Buddhist history. The writing style is engaging and absorbing, and the book offers thoughtful explorations of a number of issues that are a matter of contention among scholars. I found that the book was able to answer a number of questions for me that I had not found addressed in other overviews of Buddhist history. I was particularly taken with the discussions of 1) the coexistence and relative influence of various Mahayana and non-Mahayana schools of thought in ancient India, 2)the different meanings of emptiness in the madhyamaka and yogacara schools, 3) the discussion of Buddha fields and Pure Lands and the cults of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, 4)the author's understanding of Mahayana thought as a continuation of the Abhidharma project rather than simply a rebellion against it, and 5) the explanation of the relationship of Indian tantra in general to Buddhist tantra, and the way to understand the relationship between and differentiation of terms such as "tantra" and "vajrayana." This is not necessarily the best book to read as one's very first book on Buddhist history, but it fills a great void between books that are intended for beginners and books that are intended for readers who are already accomplished scholars.

Contains the best brief overview of tantric Buddhism

I've only read chapter seven of Williams' "Buddhist Thought," which was actually written by Anthony Tribe. However, on the strength of this one chapter alone, I feel moved to recommend this book. Put simply, chapter seven is the single best brief introductory overview of tantric Buddhism that I have ever encountered. I was stunned by the amount of useful, intelligent, accurate information that was provided in such a short space, especially since this is one of the most misunderstood topics in all of Buddhist Studies. Bravo to Tribe; this chapter alone is probably worth the price of the book, and if the rest of the book is up to this standard, this is a volume of rare excellence indeed.

Best single volume on the history of Buddhist philosophy

Williams trumps his masterful classic "Mahayana Buddhism" with an even better book. This is vastly superior to any previous effort (David Kalupahana, eat your heart out!). Williams has a superb talent for explicating difficulty ideas with clarity and simplicity, and his prose has a pleasant and inviting tone. He is also completely up to date on the state of current specialized scholarship, so even those readers already endowed with a good grasp of the development of Buddhist philosophy will find an abundance of interesting material here. This book is destined to be a classic.

THE WAY THINGS ARE

Coming to see things the way they really are, is the path of Buddha Dharma, the Buddhist doctrine, that leads to enlightenment, as clarified by the author Paul Williams. Ironically, in the Western world Buddhism itself is still very far from being adequately seen the way it really is, despite the considerable amount of popular and academic studies which were being pursued in the last century. The ever increasing interest in Eastern philosophy and religion notwithstanding, the vast majority of people in Europe and the US is still merely acquainted with a rarely coherent and sometimes motley patchwork of woolly catchword outlines regarding the supposed teachings of Buddha. Especially the obtrusive invasion of zeitgeist esoterica, which have been cramming the bookshops full of shelf-metres of oh so edifying and devotional tomes since the late 1960's, their authors daring to claim to have grasped the only true essence of Buddhism, contributes to the maintenance of confusion and ignorance about this in fact not so easily understood religious philosophy. Accordingly, it was mostly by sheer luck, whenever an interested and unbiased layman happened to come upon an objectively informative and authoritative work on Buddhist thought, before losing track within the maze of all those fashionable titles on the market concerning Buddhist topics. More than anything else, suitable up-to-date introductions to the sophisticated field of academic Buddhist studies have been virtually inexistent. Fortunately, this poor situation has now changed for the better through the publication of an outstanding work that meets perfectly all requirements reason and logic impose to my greatest satisfaction: "Buddhist Thought" by Paul Williams and Anthony Tribe, two internationally leading scholars in the field of Buddhist studies. Their brilliant, well-written book is undoubtedly by far the best introductory summary available, shedding bright light of objective comprehension and knowledge on the complex spiritual world of Buddhism by laying bare and concisely expounding its quintessence, to whose fascinating intellectual power many great men like, for instance, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer have succumbed. If you intend to gain a first, yet thorough and actually reliable understanding of the extensive realm of Buddhism, choose this book as your indispensable guide without the slightest hesitation and forget about all those unscholarly and sorry esoteric efforts producing the kind of joss stick literature hardly worth the paper, that will make your mind swim and won't get you any further with your quest for clear information. As I cited at the beginning, the Buddha is the one who is seeing things the way they really are. Correspondingly, Williams & Tribe are the ones who are seeing Buddhism the way it really is. So we have come full circle. Your awakening is awaiting you! ;-)