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  • About RSIS
      • Introduction
      • Building the Foundations
      • Welcome Message
      • Board of Governors
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        • Dean’s Office
        • Management
        • Distinguished Fellows
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        • Visiting Fellows
        • Adjunct Fellows
        • Administrative Staff
      • Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
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      • Career Opportunities
      • Getting to RSIS
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        • Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
        • Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
        • Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)
        • Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
        • International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
      • Research Programmes
        • National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
        • Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
      • Future Issues and Technology Cluster
      • [email protected] Newsletter
      • Other Research
        • Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
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    • RSIS
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    • Buddhist Literature as Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy as Literature
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    Buddhist Literature as Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy as Literature
    by Rafal Stepien

    15 November 2020

    Can literature reveal reality? Is philosophical truth a literary artifice? How does the way we think affect what we can know? Buddhism has been grappling with these questions for centuries, and this book attempts to answer them by exploring the relationship between literature and philosophy across the classical and contemporary Buddhist worlds of India, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, and North America. Written by leading scholars, the book examines literary texts composed over two millennia, ranging in form from lyric verse, narrative poetry, panegyric, hymn, and koan, to novel, hagiography, (secret) autobiography, autofiction, treatise, and sutra, all in sustained conversation with topics in metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophies of mind, language, literature, and religion.

    Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, this book deliberately works across and against the boundaries separating three mainstays of humanistic pursuit—literature, philosophy, and religion—by focusing on the multiple relationships at play between content and form in works drawn from a truly diverse range of philosophical schools, literary genres, religious cultures, and historical eras. Overall, the book calls into question the very ways in which we do philosophy, study literature, and think about religious texts. It shows that Buddhist thought provides sophisticated responses to some of the perennial problems regarding how we find, create, and apply meaning—on the page, in the mind, and throughout our lives.

    “This volume is a significant contribution to the growing critical awareness in the global humanities that scholarship confined solely to Western texts and approaches is seldom applicable to the wider world. While there are numerous books on Buddhist literature with philosophical content and contributions, this one explores the relationship more explicitly, and makes a great reader for courses on world literature, Buddhist literature, or Asian philosophy.” — Michael R. Sheehy, coeditor of The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet

    Categories: Authored Books
    Source: State University of New York Press
    Citation: Rafal Stepien, Buddhist Literature as Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy as Literature. US: State University of New York Press, 2020

    Last updated on 11/12/2020

    Can literature reveal reality? Is philosophical truth a literary artifice? How does the way we think affect what we can know? Buddhism has been grappling with these questions for centuries, and this book attempts to answer them by exploring the relationship between literature and philosophy across the classical and contemporary Buddhist worlds of India, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, and North America. Written by leading scholars, the book examines literary texts composed over two millennia, ranging in form from lyric verse, narrative poetry, panegyric, hymn, and koan, to novel, hagiography, (secret) autobiography, autofiction, treatise, and sutra, all in sustained conversation with topics in metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophies of mind, language, literature, and religion.

    Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, this book deliberately works across and against the boundaries separating three mainstays of humanistic pursuit—literature, philosophy, and religion—by focusing on the multiple relationships at play between content and form in works drawn from a truly diverse range of philosophical schools, literary genres, religious cultures, and historical eras. Overall, the book calls into question the very ways in which we do philosophy, study literature, and think about religious texts. It shows that Buddhist thought provides sophisticated responses to some of the perennial problems regarding how we find, create, and apply meaning—on the page, in the mind, and throughout our lives.

    “This volume is a significant contribution to the growing critical awareness in the global humanities that scholarship confined solely to Western texts and approaches is seldom applicable to the wider world. While there are numerous books on Buddhist literature with philosophical content and contributions, this one explores the relationship more explicitly, and makes a great reader for courses on world literature, Buddhist literature, or Asian philosophy.” — Michael R. Sheehy, coeditor of The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet

    Categories: Authored Books
    Source: State University of New York Press
    Citation: Rafal Stepien, Buddhist Literature as Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy as Literature. US: State University of New York Press, 2020

    Last updated on 11/12/2020

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    Buddhist Literature as Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy as Literature
    Can literature reveal reality? Is philosophical truth a literary artifice? How does the way we think affect what we can know? Buddhism has been grapp ...
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