Suchergebnisse

The author reports on a conference of the Asian and Comparative Philosophy Society of Australasia held on 23-24 September 1990 at St Mary's College, University of Melbourne. He notes that the study of Asian philosophies in Australia, which are mostly lodged in a religious institutional framework, has an identity problem, not belonging to any one traditional discipline. (DÜI-Sen)

Early Buddhism flourished because it took up the challenge represented by buoyant economic conditions in the newly emergent Indian states from the fifth century BCE. This book begins with the apparent inconsistency of Buddhism, a renunciant movement surviving within a strong urban environment, and draws out the implications of this

Early Buddhism flourished because it was able to take up the challenge represented by buoyant economic conditions and the need for cultural uniformity in the newly emergent states in north-eastern India from the fifth century BCE onwards. This book begins with the apparent inconsistency of Buddhism, a renunciant movement, surviving within a strong urban environment, and draws out the implications of this. In spite of the Buddhist ascetic imperative, the Buddha and other celebrated monks moved easily through various levels of society and fitted into the urban landscape they inhabited. The Sociology of Early Buddhism tells how and why the early monks were able to exploit the social and political conditions of mid-first millennium north-eastern India in such a way as to ensure the growth of Buddhism into a major world religion. Its readership lies both within Buddhist studies and more widely among historians, sociologists and anthropologists of religion