This pioneering work documents cultural and religious sites across the Tibetan Plateau and its bordering regions from the Paleolithic Era to today.Western fascination with Tibet has soared in recent decades, yet this historic and globally celebrated region has barely been mapped. With this groundbreaking atlas, Karl E. Ryavec sweeps aside the image of Tibet as Shangri-La, offering a comprehensive vision of the region as it really is. The product of twelve years of r...

Written by a great modern Nyingma master, Dudjom Rinpoche's The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism covers in detail and depth both the fundamental teachings and the history of Tibetan Buddhism's oldest school. This, the first English translation of His Holiness' masterwork, constitutes the most complete work of its type in the West.An absolute treasure for students of the tradition, it is also an indispensable reference for anyone with an interest in Buddhism. The book inc...

Britain's precipitous and ill-planned disengagement from India in 1947--condemned as a "shameful flight" by Winston Churchill--had a truly catastrophic effect on South Asia, leaving hundreds of thousands of people dead in its wake and creating a legacy of chaos, hatred, and war that has lasted over half a century. Ranging from the fall of Singapore in 1942 to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, Shameful Flight provides a vivid behind-the-scenes look at Britain's decision ...

Over the centuries, Buddhism has responded to sexuality in a variety of fascinating ways, sometimes suppressing the sexual urge, sometimes sublimating it, sometimes cultivating it, and, on the highest levels, transforming it. This book reveals how Buddhists, beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha himself, relate to the "inner fire" that drives humankind. Included are chapters on the Buddha’s love life before his enlightenment and his later relationships with women; the tantric approach to sex am...

Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations takes readers on a thoroughly researched and extremely readable journey through Japan's cultural history.This much-anticipated sequel to Roger Davies's best-selling The Japanese Mind provides a comprehensive overview of the religion and philosophy of Japan. This cultural history of Japan explains the diverse cultural traditions that underlie modern Japan and offers readers deep insights...

First Buddhist Women is a readable, contemporary translation of and commentary on the enlightenment verses of the first female disciples of the Buddha. The book explores Buddhism’s relatively liberal attitude towards women since its founding nearly 2,600 years ago, through the study of the Therigatham, the earliest know collection of women’s religious poetry. Through commentary and storytelling, author Susan Murcott traces the journey of the wives, mothers, teachers, courtesan, prostitutes...

"Translated with grace and precision . . . gives us a rare glimpse of how Asian religion and life appeared from the perspective of the Tibetan plateau." —Janet Gyatso, Harvard UniversityIn 1941, philosopher and poet Gendun Chopel sent a manuscript by ship, train, and yak across mountains and deserts to his homeland in Tibet. He would follow it five years later, returning to his native land after twelve years in India and Sri Lanka. But he did not receive the welcome...

A handbook for teaching GIS to healthcare professionals, this reference discusses learning GIS software in the context of visualizing and analyzing health-related data. By outlining a hands-on approach that simulates how a GIS project would be developed in the real world, the included exercises set the student loose on real data with a tangible, clearly-defined end-product as the goal. A companion CD-ROM includes additional exercises for each tutorial chapter with integrated cases that cut...

Relations between China and India underwent a dramatic transformation from Buddhist-dominated to commerce-centered exchanges in the seventh to fifteenth centuries. The unfolding of this transformation, its causes, and wider ramifications are examined in this masterful analysis of the changing patterns of the interaction between the two most important cultural spheres in Asia.Tansen Sen offers a new perspective on Sino-Indian relations during the Tang dynasty (618–907), arguing that...

This multilayered historical ethnography of Bodh Gaya — the place of Buddha’s enlightenment in the north Indian state of Bihar — explores the spatial politics surrounding the transformation of the Mahabodhi Temple Complex into a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002. The rapid change from a small town based on an agricultural economy to an international destination that attracts hundreds of thousands of Buddhist pilgrims and visitors each year has given rise to a series of conflicts that fore...

This book uses gender as a framework to offer unique insights into the socio-cultural foundations of Buddhism. Moving away from dominant discourses that discuss women as a single monolithic, homogenous category—thus rendering them invisible within the broader religious discourse—this monograph examines their sustained role in the larger context of South Asian Buddhism and reaffirms their agency. It highlights the multiple roles played by women as patrons, practitioners, lay and monastic me...

Gandhara is a name central to Buddhist heritage and iconography. It is the ancient name of a region in present-day Pakistan, bounded on the west by the Hindu Kush mountain range and to the north by the foothills of the Himalayas. ‘Gandhara’ is also the term given to this region’s sculptural and architectural features between the first and sixth centuries CE.This book re-examines the archaeological material excavated in the region in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and ...