A concise volume traces the developments and tenets of Buddhism from its origins to the present day.

Product Description: Lavishly illustrated with some thirty color photographs and sprinkled with boxed features that focus on fascinating issues, these four volumes offer a marvelous tour of Eastern religions. Covering Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, and Confucianism, the set illuminates the history of each religion, its practices and holy texts, and its sacred places and important figures...read more

Offers an introduction to Buddhism, covering origins, the religion's spread across Asia, theological beliefs, sacred persons, rituals, death and the afterlife, and Buddhism's role in society.

Malcolm David Eckel takes us on a contemporary quest to discover the essential meaning behind the Buddha's many representations. Eckel's bold thesis proposes that the proper understanding of Buddhist philosophy must be thoroughly religious--an understanding revealed in Eckel's new translation of the philospher Bhavaviveka's major work, The Flame of Reason. Eckel shows that the dimensions of early Indian Buddhism--popular art, conventional piety, and critical philosophy--all work together to express the same religious yearning for the fullness of emptiness that Buddha conveys.