Lives Lived, Lives Imagined: Biography in the Buddhist Traditions

236 Pages·2010·2.7 MB·English

by  Linda Covill, Ulrike Roesler, Sarah Shaw

Biography in the Buddhist Traditions
~: LINDA COVILL
ULRIKE ROESLER
SARAH SHAW
Lives Lived, Lives Imagined
'-.....__ __, .
Biography in the Buddhist Traditions
~l_y LINDA COVILL
ULRIKE ROESLER
SARAH SHAW
Wisdom Publications · Boston
~~~~
The Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies
Wisdom Publications
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www.wisdompubs.org
© :z.oio Ulrike Roesler
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lives lived, lives imagined : biography in the Buddhist traditions I edited by Linda
Covill, Ulrike Roesler, Sarah Shaw.
p.cm.
ISBN o-86I7I-578-o (pbk.: alk. paper)
I. Buddhist literature-History and criticism. :z.. Religious biography-History and crit-
icism. 3· Buddhists-Biography. I. Covill, Linda, I96:z.- II. Roesler, Ulrike. III. Shaw,
Sarah, Dr.
BQio:z.o.L58 :z.oio
2.94·309:z.-dc:z.:z.
:Z.OIOO:Z.452.6
I4 I3 12. II IO
5 4 3 :Z. I
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Contents
Preface IX
Introduction
Ulrike Roesler
I. THE BUDDHA: A LIFE LIVED, IMAGINED, AND LIVING STILL
And That Was I: How the Buddha Himself Creates a Path between
Biography and Autobiography
Sarah Shaw I s
Chips from a Biographical Workshop-Early Chinese Biographies
of the Buddha: The Late Birth ofRahula and Yasodhara's Extended
Pregnancy
MaxDeeg 49
Truth Under the Guise of Poetry: Asvagho~a's "Life of the Buddha"
Roland Steiner 89
Handsome Is as Handsome Does: Asvagho~a's Story of the Buddha's
Younger Brother
Linda Covill I 2 3
II. THERAVADA BIOGRAPHIES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Seeing Myself as Another Person: The Autobiography of a Burmese
Monastic Thinker in the Twentieth Century
Ven. Khammai Dhammasami I 3 9
VIII : LIVES LIVED, LIVES IMAGINED
Learning, Living, Spreading the Dharma-A PostmodernJourney
from Uku Baha, Lalitpur, to Hsi Lai Monastery, Hacienda Heights,
California: How Ganesh Kumari Shakya Became Bhikkhuni
Dhammawati
Sarah LeVine 161
Ill. TIBET RE-NARRATED: BIOGRAPHIES OF TIBETAN MASTERS
The Evolution of the Biographies ofMilarepa and Rechungpa
Peter Alan Roberts I 8 I
Tibetan Sources on the Life of Serdog PaQ.chen Shakya Chogden
(I428-I 507)
Volker Caumanns 20 s
Narratives of Reincarnation, Politics of Power, and the Emergence
of a Scholar: The Very Early Years ofMikyo Dorje
Jim Rheingans 24 I
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Circumscription of Saintly
Evil in Tibetan Biography
Charles Ramble 299
Spellings of Tibetan Names 3 2 s
Contributors 3 3 3