The Buddhist World

The Buddhist World joins a series of books on the world’s great religions and cultures, offering a lively and up-to-date survey of Buddhist studies for students and scholars alike. It explores regional varieties of Buddhism and core topics including buddha-nature, ritual, and pilgrimage. In addition to historical and geo-political views of Buddhism, the volume features thematic chapters on philosophical concepts such as ethics, as well as social constructs and categories such as community and family. The book also addresses lived Buddhism in its many forms, examining the ways in which modernity is reshaping traditional structures, ancient doctrines, and cosmological beliefs.

John Powers is Professor of Asian Studies in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. He is the author of fourteen books and more than seventy articles and book chapters. His publications includeA Bull of a Man: Images of Masculinity, Sex, and the Body in Ancient India (2015) andHistorical Dictionary of Tibet (with David Templeman, 2012).