Take Advantage Of Power, Wealth And Women In Indian Mahayana Buddhism: The Gandavyuha-Sutra Developed By Douglas Osto File Format Digital Format

book if you want to learn about Gandavyuha Sutra and Indian Mahayana Buddhism, Paperback version is a bit more affordable, Well worth it if you are a student of Indian Mahayana Buddhism, This

book examines the concepts of power, wealth and women in the important Mahayana Buddhist scripture known as the Gandavyuhasutra, and relates these to the text s social context in ancient Indian during the Buddhist Middle PeriodCE.


Employing contemporary textual theory, worldview analysis and structural narrative theory, the author puts forward a new approach to the study of Mahayana Buddhist sources, the systems approach, by which literature is viewed as embedded in a social system.
Consequently, he analyses the Gandavyuha in the contexts of reality, society and the individual, and applies these notions to the key themes of power, wealth and women.
The study reveals that the spiritual hierarchy represented within the Gandavyuha replicates the political hierarchies in India during Buddhism s Middle Period, that the role of wealth mirrors its significance as a sign of spiritual status in Indian Buddhist society, and that the substantial number of female spiritual guides in the narrative reflects the importance of royal women patrons of Indian Buddhism at the time.


This book will appeal to higherlevel undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars of religious studies, Buddhist studies, Asian studies, South Asian studies and Indology.
".