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OverviewRitual manuals are among the most common and most personal forms of Buddhist literature. Since at least the late fifth century, individual practitioners-including monks, nuns, teachers, disciples, and laypeople-have kept texts describing how to perform the daily rites. These manuals represent an intimate counterpart to the canonical sutras and the tantras, speaking to the lived experience of Buddhist practice. Conjuring the Buddha offers a history of early tantric Buddhist ritual through the lens of the Tibetan manuscripts discovered near Dunhuang on the ancient Silk Road. Jacob P. Dalton argues that the spread of ritual manuals offered Buddhists an extracanonical literary form through which to engage with their tradition in new and locally specific ways. He suggests that ritual manuals were the literary precursors to the tantras, crucial to the emergence of esoteric Buddhism. Examining a series of ninth- and tenth-century tantric manuals from Dunhuang, Dalton uncovers lost moments in the development of rituals such as consecration, possession, sexual yoga, the Great Perfection, and the subtle body practices of the winds and channels. He also traces the use of poetic language in ritual manuals, showing how at pivotal moments, metaphor, simile, rhythm, and rhyme were deployed to evoke carefully sculpted affective experiences. Offering an unprecedented glimpse into the personal practice of early tantric Buddhists, Conjuring the Buddha provides new insight into the origins and development of the tantric tradition. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Jacob P. DaltonPublisher: Columbia University Press Imprint: Columbia University Press ISBN: 9780231205825ISBN 10: 0231205821 Pages: 344 Publication Date: 17 January 2023 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In stock We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately. Table of ContentsReviewsThis unique, approachable and well-organized book not only mines an extraordinary number of Dunhuang manuscripts, of which Dalton is one of the acknowledged experts, but also offers excellent examinations of the practices and controversies in the development of forms of Buddhist tantra in the eighth century. -- Ronald M. Davidson, author of <i>Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement</i> This unique, approachable and well-organized book not only mines an extraordinary number of Dunhuang manuscripts, of which Dalton is one of the acknowledged experts, but also offers excellent examinations of the practices and controversies in the development of forms of Buddhist tantra in the eighth century. -- Ronald M. Davidson, author of <i>Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement</i> When we read the tantras, they often strike us as merely magic. How did these strange texts, filled with demonic deities, become the foundation for the empowering rituals and sophisticated meditations so widely practiced across the Buddhist world? This book, with its profound analyses and precise translations, finally answers that question. -- Donald S. Lopez Jr., Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, University of Michigan Author InformationJacob P. Dalton is Khyentse Foundation Distinguished Professor in Tibetan Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism (2011) and The Gathering of Intentions: A History of a Tibetan Tantra (Columbia, 2016), as well as coauthor of Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library (2006). Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |