"Hair, teeth, fingernails, pieces of bone-bodily fragments supposedly from the Buddha himself have a complicated history. These relics have long served as objects of veneration for many Buddhists, and unsurprisingly, when Western colonial powers subjugated populations in South A…
Part One: The Portuguese and the Tooth Relic -- Chapter One: The Tale of the Portuguese Tooth and Its Sources -- Chapter Two: Where the Tooth Was Found: Traditions about the Location of the Relic in Sri -- Lanka -- Chapter Three: Whose Tooth Was It? Traditions about the Identity…
"Buddhism or Buddhisms? By the time they move on to Buddhism in Japan, many students who have studied its origins in India ask whether this is in fact the same religion, so different can they appear. In Buddhisms: An Introduction, Professor John S. Strong provides an overview of…
Buddhisms: An Introduction represents a novel way of presenting the whole of the Buddhist tradition in its unity and multiplicity. Clear in its explanations, replete with tables and suggestions for further reading, it should appeal to students, yet also be of interest to scholar…
