Stephen Batchelor

Author of After Buddhism

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Book Recommendations:

Recommended by Stephen Batchelor

This wonderful book provides tantalizing glimpses of a forgotten Buddhist civilization, one that flourished at the geographical crossroads of Indian, Persian, Hellenistic, and Central Asian cultures around the time of Christ. A world rich in religious devotion, human conflict, and philosophical reflection emerges as though by magic from the meticulous reading by a dedicated group of scholars of fragile textual fragments written on birchbark. The book not only introduces us to ancient Gandhara but also enriches our understanding of the complex currents of ideas that formed the diverse Buddhist traditions of India, Central Asia, and China. (from Amazon)

Discover the fascinating history of a long-hidden Buddhist culture at a historic crossroads. In the years following Alexander the Great’s conquest of the East, a series of empires rose up along the Silk Road. In what is now northern Pakistan, the civilizations in the region called Gandhara became increasingly important centers for the development of Buddhism, reaching their apex under King Kaniska of the Kusanas in the second century CE. Gandhara has long been known for its Greek-Indian synthesis in architecture and statuary, but until about twenty years ago, almost nothing was known about its literature. The insights provided by manuscripts unearthed over the last few decades show that Gandhara was indeed a vital link in the early development of Buddhism, instrumental in both the transmission of Buddhism to China and the rise of the Mahayana tradition. The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara surveys what we know about Gandhara and its Buddhism, and it also provides translations of a dozen different short texts, from similes and stories to treatises on time and reality.