The Buddha: A Short Biography - Softcover

Strong, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1851682562 ISBN 13: 9781851682560

Publisher: Oneworld Pubns Ltd, 2001

Synopsis

This new biography charts not only the life of the Buddha as it happened, but also considers what the life of Siddhartha Gautama still means to Buddhists today.

About this title

About the Author:

John Strong is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Bates College in Maine, USA. He has lectured in countries across the world, including Japan and Sri Lanka, and is the respected author of four books and numerous articles on Buddhism.

From Booklist:

Most scholars believe that the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was a historical person, but scholarly consensus about the historical Buddha ends there. Unlike Karen Armstrong's Buddha: A Biography [BKL Ja 1 & 15 01], Strong's life doesn't begin with the Buddha's birth and end with his death. Instead, Strong's begins eons before the Buddha's incarnation as Gautama, with the Jataka tales, a huge body of world literature that tells of the Buddha's past lives as persons, animals, and sometimes gods. Strong argues that the past lives tell us as much about the Buddha as do the stories of his final incarnation. He examines the stories of the Buddha's primary life, too, of course, and continues beyond it to the present day, considering the significance of his relics--the parts of his body enshrined throughout the world--and of the literary body of sutras that resulted from his teachings. Strong's fascinating approach to religious biography furnishes readers curious about the Buddha with a deep and broad introduction to his many lives. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Oneworld Pubns Ltd
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1851682562
• ISBN 13: 9781851682560
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 203