The object of the thesis is to investigate the position of the Mahavagga in early Baddhism by a comparative study. The method of comparison is to consider (a) internal evidence in relation to its composition and to other parts of the Canon, and (b) external evidence in relation to identical products of the Mulasarvastivadins. Occasionally reference has been made to varieus literary works of a similar type. The whole work is divided into three main sections, viz., an Introduction; (2) a study of the Gilgit Manuscripts, and (3) the Conclusion. The introductory section deals with the ten chapters of the Mahavagga, their general character, contents, arrangement, respective importance and inter relation, and a short comment on the Gilgit Manuscripts. The second section is a comparative study of the ten vastus of the Gilgit Manuscripts which are the Sanskrit versions of the corresponding ten chapters of the Pali Mahavagga, and on which our main interest has been concentrated in the course of our investigation. The summary at the end of each vastu points out the most marked agreements and differences between the two versions. The final chapter of the thesis attempts to define the position of the Gilgit Manuscripts in the Vinaya tradition, as represented by the Pali as well as Buddhist Sanskrit and Chinese, and dwells upon its specific Avadana character, as contrasted with the simplicity of the Pali Mahavagga.

A quantitative study explored the values profile of teen self-identifying Buddhists growing up in Britain and the degree to which religious affiliation, sex, age, social class and convert or heritage religious style linked with features of their Buddhist identity and values. A variety of attitude statements including those concerning personal well-being, psychological type, discrimination, the media, friends, work, school, Religious Education, family, substance use, collectivism, tradition and religion, were rated for levels of agreement using postal and online surveys of 417 self-identifying Buddhists aged between 13 and 20. Likely antecedents of Buddhist identity were found to include parenting style, spiritual teachers, temple training and ethos, shrines and religious practice in the home, collectivism, cleavage against assimilation and intuitive psychological type. Teen years saw a decline and relativising of Buddhist values except for inspiration towards engaged Buddhism and spending time in the monastic order. Likely consequences of Buddhist identity were found to include impact on lifestyle, commitments and personality. Being Buddhist and male was different from being Buddhist and female in that males were more extraverted and ordination-oriented in their faith aspirations and less concerned about their children growing up Buddhist. Lower class Buddhists were more likely to be collectivist and traditional. Middle class Buddhists were more vertical individualist and interested in a monastic vocation. In terms of religious style, heritage Buddhists were found to be more extrinsic and traditional in their religiosity than convert Buddhists for whom religiosity was more intrinsic and reform orientated. This dissertation offers quantitative evidence for individual differences between convert and heritage Buddhist styles of religiosity and commends emphasising religious practice rather than beliefs, scripture and spirituality when portraying Buddhism in school Religious Education.

This study traces the development of Tibetan 'treasure' texts and practices in contemporary times via the life-story and scriptural revelations of the Tibetan 'treasure revealer' (gter ston) Kun bzang bde chen gling pa (1928-2006). It examines how his revelations (gter ma) rooted in the historic spirituality of Tibet, continue and adapt into the twenty first century. The study is important in order to understand the ways this Asian religious concept develops and coalesces in North America. With the dramatic advances in communication through digital technology, it examines how gter ma texts and practices reach a modern audience. Also discussed are the implications of centuries old debates surrounding Buddhist lineage, transmission and ‘authenticity’ as well as concepts such as liberty, equality and authority. All of which are culture-specific constructions that differ radically when seen from a variety of perspectives. The main conclusion drawn from this research is that as a Western Vajrayāna ‘tradition’ emerges and intersects with older Tibetan forms, both must attempt to find a middle path between their differing applications and interpretations if they are to avoid drifting into an arena of extensive commercialisation, dilution and distortion.

The Triratna/FWBO Buddhist movement has been associated with younger people and a lifestyle in which single sex residential communities and work projects (TBRLs) have been prominent. There is now a trend towards a wider range of lifestyles including fewer people living communally. Demographic changes include 50+ average age for ordained members and some people developing Long-Term Care (LTC) needs, with limited family and financial support. This raises questions as to the extent to which ‘Buddhist identity’ can be supported in LTC situations, with informal care, mainstream LTC services and possible care-based TBRLs all relevant.Data-gathering was initially on the basis of a general investigation of LTC issues in Triratna/FWBO using an eclectic, primarily qualitative design which had features of both a case study and a cross-sectional survey. 17 interviews included participants with current LTC needs, others asked to anticipate future care preferences, and people with relevant expertise. A questionnaire was formulated to explore attitudes to possible care-based TBRLs, with 107 participants and numerous additional comments. There was a strong consensus that Buddhist-based LTC services would, for example, provide better vegetarian diets and have an understanding of Buddhist names taken at ordination. These features were included in a conceptualisation of Buddhist identity which contrasted ‘Buddhist’ and ‘Non-Buddhist’ life, and noted ‘Dreams’ and ‘Nightmares’ as to LTC. Effective basic care was seen as essential to the general level of well-being needed for Buddhist practice, whilst a higher level of support might facilitate access to Buddhist ‘life goods’, and assist people in self-verifying themselves as committed Buddhists through ongoing practice. Informal support from fellow Buddhists was available in many contexts, but not at levels of intensity and duration characteristic of some family-based care, and it was seen as modulated by perceptions of burden, ‘busy-ness’ and other factors. There was a ‘legacy of suspicion’ of mainstream LTC, mainly focussed on residential care, with acknowledgement of some good/respectful carers and care services. TBRLs in LTC were generally welcomed, being seen as suitably altruistic work which might feature an atmosphere of ‘mutuality’ between staff and clients who were Buddhist or of Buddhist sympathy. Comparative material was used here from Methodist, Jewish and Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT) communities in LTC contexts, with the last of these conceptualised as comparable to the Western Buddhist community as a currently emerging identity in terms of later life services. Practicality and feasibility were discussed with reference to existing TBRLs, and experience of paid-for care input between Buddhists. The latter appeared supportive of Buddhist identity and readily linked to the personalisation agenda in social care. Buddhist-friendly services were seen as a possible context for generativity, and the concept of ‘a natural part of life’ was explored in terms of the emergence of LTC in the Triratna/FWBO movement, and of Buddhism as a gradually more familiar identity which might be encountered in the sphere of LTC.

This thesis is a study of the contemporary forms of trance-possession rituals performed in Thai Buddhism. It explores the way in which the trance-possession rituals are conceptualised by Thai Buddhist people as having therapeutic potentiality, through the examination of the ritual efficacy that is established through participants’ lived experience. My main research question focuses on how trance-possession rituals operate within a contemporary Thai cultural context and what are the contributory factors to participants’ expressing a sense of efficacy in the ritual. This thesis proposes that applied drama can be used as a ‘lens’ to examine the participants’ embodied experiences, particularly in relation to the ritual’s potential efficacy. In addition, the thesis also draws on discourses from anthropology, to enable a clearer understanding of the Thai socio-cultural aspects. I proceed to examine the efficacy of trance-possession ritual by focusing on the Parn Yak chanting ritual and rituals in sak yant, the spiritual tattoo tradition, as the two examples. Through the interdisciplinary study as mentioned above, these rituals are investigated and interpreted through several aspects. This study uses interviews with monks, participants and people involved with rituals as well as documentary and archival research. As part of my research, I also critically reflect upon my ethnographic experiences, between 2006-2012, of a variety of these rituals that are performed in temples around central Thailand. My attendance at the Parn Yak rituals in and around Bangkok involved both complete participation as well as observation. For the rituals of sak yant tattooing, I observed a tattoo master’s practices at Wat Bang Phra temple in Nakhon Pathom province. This thesis intends to offer an alternative approach to examine participants’ experiences of efficacy during and after the rituals. The research examines the therapeutic transformation of participants through the embodied process during rituals, and suggests that participants’ embodiment during lived experience in ritual together with their historical and sociocultural context influence the ways that they articulate their sense of efficacy in the ritual. The thesis offers insights and ideas for further exploration of Thai Buddhist rituals as culturally therapeutic performances.

<i>The Unravelers</i> is a Buddhist novel of literary fiction, which to my knowledge is the first in the last one hundred years to synthesize the Buddhist teachings and values found in the suttas of the <i>Pāli</i> Canon, the theory of ancient Indian <i>kāvya</i> literature, and the latest stylistic and structural innovations of contemporary literary fiction. The narrative follows four characters from the moment of their deaths as they manipulate the process of becoming—the mental act of creating and entering into “worlds”. The novel depicts the characters’ development of dispassion for a variety of realms, resulting in their eventual return to the human world with the motivation necessary to practice the Buddhist path. My critical essay opens with an introduction to <i>kāvya </i>and Theravāda Buddhist concepts that are particularly relevant to the process of creating a fictional world— namely, <i>saṅkhāra </i>(fabrication) and <i>bhava </i>(becoming)—and the inherent karma of writing. Section II “Literary Review” explores narrative modes from Theravāda Buddhist literature and develops them through experimental narrative modes of contemporary literary fiction. Section III discusses the depiction of becoming, fabrication, and dispassion through the novel’s characters. Section IV “<i>Rasa</i>,” explains the theory of how a reader experiences the work’s savor, while relating the use of <i>rasa </i>in<i> The Unravelers</i> to the early Buddhist <i>kāvyas </i>(the <i>Pāli </i>Canon’s <i>Udāna </i>and <i>Dhammapada</i>, and two works by Aśvaghoṣa). Section V evaluates the classic use of Buddhist concepts and metaphors in Aśvaghoṣa’s <i>Handsome Nanda</i> as compared to<i> The Unravelers</i>. Section VI examines Jack Kerouac’s <i>The Dharma Bums</i> as a forerunner to the genre of the Buddhist novel and Keith Kachtick’s <i>Hungry Ghost</i> as archetypal. Section VII concludes by detailing<i> The Unravelers</i>’ contribution to the Buddhist novel.

The tath&amacr;gatagarbha doctrine of Mah&amacr;y&amacr;na Buddhism affirms the existence of some permanent, significant content of sentient beings that is of the same character as a Buddha. While this alone was an important innovation within Buddhist thought, some of its authors ventured further to deem this significant content an &amacr;tman: a ‘self’, in apparent contradiction to the central Buddhist teaching of the absence of self (an&amacr;tman) in the constitution of all beings. The aims of this thesis are two. Firstly, to examine usage of the term &amacr;tman in the Indian tath&amacr;gatagarbha sources which develop use of this expression. This entails a close reading of relevant sources (primarily Mah&amacr;y&amacr;na s&umacr;tra literature), and attention to how this term is used in the context of each. These sources present different perspectives on the tath&amacr;gatagarbha and its designation as a self; this study aims to examine significant differences between, and similarities across, these texts and their respective doctrines. The second aim is to attempt an account of why authors of these texts ventured to designate the tath&amacr;gatagarbha with the term &amacr;tman, especially when some of our sources suggest that this innovation received some opposition, while others deem it in requirement of strong qualification, or to be simply inappropriate. It is not my objective to account for whether or not the tath&amacr;gatagarbha is or is not implicitly what we may deem ‘a self’ on the terms of Buddhist tradition; rather, I am concerned with the manner in which this expression itself was adopted, and – in light of clear difficulties raises by it – what may have motivated those authors responsible. I argue not only that we can trace the development of this designation across the tath&amacr;gatagarbha literature, but also that those authors responsible for its earliest usage adopted an attitude towards non-Buddhist discourses on the self that requires special attention. This, I believe, had its roots in an account of the Buddha and his influence that advances our understanding of one tradition of Mah&amacr;y&amacr;na Buddhology, and its ambition to affirm its superiority over other Indian religious traditions.

Bzhad pa'i rdo rje (1697-1740), the Fifth Sle lung Rin po che, was a religiously and politically controversial figure and an incredibly prolific author, having written or compiled over 46 volumes worth of mainly religious texts. A high-ranking Dge lugs pa sprul sku, Sle lung is seen as having gradually "defected" to the Rnying ma school, although he self-identified as a follower of the "non-sectarian" (ris med) perspective. Sle lung also acted as a spiritual advisor to most of the major central Tibetan rulers during the course of his life, most significantly Mi dbang Pho lha nas (r. 1729-1747). But despite numerous features of fascinating interest, Sle lung and his writings have received very little scholarly attention, and this thesis is intended to fill this unfortunate lacuna. The present study begins with an extended biographical examination of Sle lung's life, and the political and religious unrest in central Tibet at the time in which he was deeply invested. I pay special attention to the controversies that surrounded him, particularly his purported sexual licentiousness and his ecumenical work which was unpopular among his more sectarian Dge lugs pa critics. This opening biography provides critical historical context as I move on to examine two of Sle lung's most important literary works. The first is the sixteen-volume Gsang ba ye shes chos skor, a massive cycle of teachings by Sle lung and his students that integrates tantric theories derived from Sle lung's experience with Gsar ma (specifically Dge lugs pa) teachings. The second work is the Bstan srung rgya mtsho'i rnam thar, a unique text in Tibetan literature which consists of an apparently unprecedented compilation of Tibetan Buddhist protector deity (bstan srung, chos skyong) origin myths. I will make sense of key features of these two works within the larger context of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the political and personal concerns of Sle lung himself.

There have been recent explosions of interest in two fields: Madhyamaka-Pyrrhonism parallels and Pyrrhonism itself, which seems to have been misunderstood and therefore neglected by the West for the same reasons and in the same ways that Madhyamaka traditionally has often been by the West and the East. Among these recent studies are several demonstrating that grounding in Madhyamaka, for example, reveals and illuminates the import and insights of Pyrrhonean arguments. Furthermore it has been suggested that of all European schools of philosophy Pyrrhonism is the one closest to Buddhism, and especially to Madhyamaka. Indeed Pyrrho is recorded to have studied with philosophers in Taxila, one of the first places where Madhyamaka later flourished, and the place where the founder of Madhyamaka, Nāgārjuna, may have received hitherto concealed texts which became the foundation for his school. In this dissertation I explore just how similar these two philosophical projects were. I systematically treat all the arguments in the Pyrrhonist redactor Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against Dogmatists and compare them to the most similar arguments available in the Madhyamaka treatises and related texts. On this basis, I ask whether the Pyrrhonists and the Buddhists would satisfy each other’s self-identifying criteria, or what characteristics would disqualify either or both in the other’s eyes. I also ask what questions arise from the linguistic and historical evidence for interactions between the Pyrrhonist school and the Madhyamaka school, and how sure we can be of the answers. Did Pyrrho learn Buddhism in Taxila? Was Nāgārjuna a Pyrrhonist? Finally I bring the insights of the living commentarial tradition of Madhyamaka to bear on current scholarly controversies in the field of Sextan Pyrrhonism, and apply the subtleties of interpretation of the latter which have developed in recent scholarship to Madhyamaka and its various difficulties of interpretation, to scrutinize each school under the illumination of the other. With this hopefully illuminated view, I address for example whether Sextus was consistent, whether living Pyrrhonism implies apraxia, whether Pyrrhonism is philosophy at all, and whether Madhyamaka is actually nihilism.

Ce travail de thèse propose d’interroger, à travers le matériel scripturaire composé par le moine Akyûbô Sokuden (XVIè siècle), les intentions du mouvement Shugendô durant l’époque médiévale et les motifs sous-jacents à la manoeuvre de définition, ou de redéfinition, entreprise par l’auteur. Il s’agit également d’observer le cadre des influences religieuses et politiques en action dans le Japon du XIVe-XVIe siècle, période d’importantes mutations. L’objectif méthodologique consiste donc à reprendre ce qui nous apparait être la démarche de Sokuden, à savoir reconstruire le Shugendô en accord avec les perspectives de cette époque. Cette étude implique la première traduction en langue occidentale d’un des textes doctrinaux majeurs de cette voie, rédigé en kanbun par le moine Sokuden : le Shugen shûyô hiketsu shû (Recueil des arcanes essentiels à la pratique du shugen). Dans cette étude, nous cherchons à souligner la réactualisation de l’identité du Shugendô, et la dynamique engagée par la distribution de cette identité. Le Shugendô se caractérise par la place qu’il accorde à l’expérimentation de pouvoirs surhumains et par l’usage d’une magie prophylactique issue du contact et de la maîtrise de forces transcendantales. Détenteurs d’une tradition orale et favorables à une initiation par expérience directe plutôt que par l’entremise d’un dogme, ses pratiquants furent longtemps motivés par la recherche d’une efficace, une force agissante, à opposer aux maux de l’individu ou de la société selon un système de valeurs issu du bouddhisme de courant Mahāyāna. / This PhD work intends to investigate, through scriptural materials written by monk Akyûbô Sokuden, global intentions of Shugendô upholders during medieval Japan and Sokuden’s attempts to define or to redefine this spiritual way. It also has for purpose to rebuild Shugendôas an object of its time following Sokuden’s development process, by observing religious and political influences from XIVth to XVIth centuries. Moreover, we intend to put emphazis on the actualization and distribution of Shugendô’s identity by introducing the first occidental translation of a major Shugendô doctrinal essay written in kanbun, Akyûbô Sokuden’s Shugenshûyô hiketsu shû. Shugendô can be distinguished by the use of miraculous power and prophylactic magic obtained through the intimate acquaintance of mystical figures. Favorable towards lineal initiation and oral transmission from a generation to another rather than dogmatic studies, Shugendô practionners were aiming, based on the Mahāyāna moral system, to solve individuals and society suffering through the effectiveness of a magical power.