Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Jacques Coulardeau at Academia.edu (35)
There is hardly anything more inspirational than these 547 Jatakas
collected and reunited in three books by the Pali Text Society. Buddhism is
there being born after a long journey through previous life in old Hinduism and
other brahmanism.
These Jatakas are showing how hard the birth of Buddhism was and how hard it was for it to emerge from the gods, goddesses and other deities, from the caste system and from all other alienation and exploitation instated and ossified by older religious practices.
These Jatakas are showing how hard the birth of Buddhism was and how hard it was for it to emerge from the gods, goddesses and other deities, from the caste system and from all other alienation and exploitation instated and ossified by older religious practices.
I have been
working on Theravada Buddhism, and other forms of Buddhism since a long time
ago and particularly since 2005 when I spent three months attached to a
Buddhist monastery and training center in Pidurangala in Sri Lanka
The jatakas
are for me the forest out of which Buddhism emerged with Buddha himself and his
teachings, and then the transcripotion of these teachings into the canonical
texts. Buddhism emerged from older religious and social traditions and lilttle
by little pushed aside all forms of divine alienation and human Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder, what they call "tanha."
That's the
tremendous merit of the Pali Text Society to have collected the six volumes in
three books and to have made them available (in good price conditions only
through them) since 1895 when the first volume was published. The notes,
indexes and tables of contents are essential for the reader to appreciate these
547 Jatakas.
The notes and indexes of this edition are unique and the best of tools you can imagine.
Research Interests:
Buddhism, Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, Buddhist Philosophy,Buddhist Studies, South Asian Studies, Spirituality, Jatakas, Theravada Buddhism, and Buddha
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 2:13 AM 
