Author: M G Chitkara
Publisher: APH Publishing Corporation
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 764
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8176481904
Description
As part of a 21-volume set, this book points out that the most widely known aspect of Hindu Mysticism, beginning from the Vedas to the Upanishads ultimately blossomed into Vedantic Philosophy of Sunyata; (emptiness) and Tantrayana the aphoristic Yog Shastra of Patanjali.
The author has also tried to enumerate the conceptual tenets of Hinayana the original text of Buddhism now known as Theravada, and also Mahayana, Buddhism, which his Holiness the 14th Delai Lama has termed as Democratic Religion.
These threee scholars of thoughts namely; Hinayana, Mahayana and Tantrayana are virtually the exposition of Sutra and Tantra contained in the three Pitakas i.e. Vinaya-Code of conduct, Swatantra-Meditation and Abhidhamma-Philosophical discourse. Together termed as Dhamma and enunciated by lord Buddha at the behest of his, three chief disciples: Ananda, Modgalyana and Sariputra.
The author has thus dilated over the vast and complex dialectics of Buddhist and spell out the reason for its popularity as a world faith, its significance and peculiar appeal to the modern world, thereby enabling transformation of discontent in understanding.
Furthermore, the book apparently is for general readership. At the same time, it offers a key to our understanding of various doctrines of Buddhism and their synthetic interpretation; with a mystic search mirroring the psychic depth of the human soul or Consciousness- that actually underlies the broad, deep and main currents of Buddhism.
TheTantra speaks of a soul fallen from its status passing through many lacs of births in plant and animal forms before it can reach the human level and be ready for salvation. Here, again, there is implied the conception of vegetable and animal life forms as the lower steps of a ladder, humanity as the last a or culminting development of the conscious being, the forms which the soul has to inhabit in order to be capable of the spiritual motive and a spiritual issue out of mentality, life and physically. This indeed the normal conception, and it recommends itself so strongly both to reason and intuition that it hardly needs debate, the conclusion is almost inescapable.
Contents
Introduction
Edifice of Buddhism
Emblem of Buddhism
Buddhism as Mantrism
Trantric Buddhism
Mythology
Bodhisattva Philosophy
Path of the Soul
Religion of Logic and Reason
Kalchakra: Wheel of Time
Bhavachkra: The Wheel of Light
Aurachakra: The Wheel of Light
Yogacara: A Major School of Mahayana
Theravada Buddhism: Dhamma is Duty, Norm, Right & Destiny
Sutra Tantra and Dzgchen
Tantra in Vedas & Puranas
Mahamudra
The Enlightenment
Appraisal & Sum up
Bibliography
Glossary ( English, Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit & Tibetan Terms)
Index