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  3. Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions

Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions is a series designed to accommodate the best scholarship in religious studies, raising key questions about religion in general through in-depth studies of specific religious traditions and contexts. The books in the series offer explorations of religious life, thought, texts and history that are grounded in a particular religious tradition but which at the same time make connections with other traditions and with other academic fields, disciplines and approaches, thus opening up avenues for comparison. The aim is to present books of the highest quality which cover a broad range of questions and methodologies appropriate to the academic study of religion, and which speak out to a broad audience both within and beyond religious studies.

  • General Editors: John Clayton, University of Lancaster, Steven Collins, University of Chicago, Nicholas de Lange, William Graham

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9 results in Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions

Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism
  • Dale S. Wright
  • Published online:
    12 November 2009
    Print publication:
    29 October 1998
  • This book is the first to engage Zen Buddhism philosophically on crucial issues from a perspective that is informed by the traditions of western philosophy and religion. It focuses on one renowned Zen master, Huang Po, whose recorded sayings exemplify the spirit of the 'golden age' of Zen in medieval China, and on the transmission of these writings to the West. The author makes a bold attempt to articulate a post-romantic understanding of Zen applicable to contemporary world culture. While deeply sympathetic to the Zen tradition, he raises serious questions about the kinds of claims that can be made on its behalf.

Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities
  • Steven Collins
  • Published online:
    18 December 2009
    Print publication:
    13 May 1998
  • This book presents an answer to the question: what is nirvana? Part I distinguishes between systematic and narrative thought in the Pali texts of Theravada Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, arguing that nirvana produces closure in both, and setting nirvana in the wider category of Buddhist Felicities. Part II explores other Buddhist utopias (both eu-topias, 'good places', and ou-topias, 'no-places'), and relates Buddhist utopianism to studies of European and American utopian writing. The book ends with a close reading of the Vessantara Jataka, which highlights the conflict between the ascetic quest for closure and ultimate felicity, and the ongoing demands of ordinary life and society. Steven Collins discusses these issues in relation to textuality, world history and ideology in premodern civilizations, aiming to contribute to an alternate vision of Buddhist history, which can hold both the inside and the outside of texts together.

Mysticism and Kingship in China
  • The Heart of Chinese Wisdom
  • Julia Ching
  • Published online:
    15 December 2009
    Print publication:
    13 November 1997
  • In this book, Julia Ching offers a magisterial survey of over four thousand years of Chinese civilisation through an examination of the relationship between kingship and mysticism. She investigates the sage-king myth and ideal, arguing that institutions of kingship were bound up with cultivation of trance states and communication with spirits. Over time, these associations were retained, though sidelined, as the sage-king myth became a model for the actual ruler, with a messianic appeal for the ruled. As a paradigm, it also became appropriated by private individuals who strove for wisdom without becoming kings. As the Confucian tradition interacted with the Taoist and the Buddhist, the religious character of spiritual and mystical cultivation became more pronounced. But the sage-king idea continued, promoting expectations of benevolent despotism rather than democratisation in Chinese civilisation.

Evil and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy
  • Oliver Leaman
  • Published online:
    24 October 2009
    Print publication:
    08 June 1995
  • The problems of evil and suffering have been extensively discussed in Jewish philosophy, and much of the discussion has centred on the Book of Job. In this study Oliver Leaman poses two questions: how can a powerful and caring deity allow terrible things to happen to obviously innocent people, and why have the Jewish people been so harshly treated throughout history, given their status as the chosen people? He explores these issues through an analysis of the views of Philo, Saadya, Maimonides, Gersonides, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, and post-Holocaust thinkers, and suggests that a discussion of evil and suffering is really a discussion about our relationship with God.

Women under the Bo Tree
  • Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka
  • Tessa J. Bartholomeusz
  • Published online:
    05 November 2011
    Print publication:
    25 August 1994
  • Women under the Bo Tree examines the tradition of female world-renunciation in Buddhist Sri Lanka. The study is textual, historical and anthropological, and links ancient tradition with contemporary practice. Tessa Bartholomeusz utilizes data based on her field experiences in many contemporary cloisters of Sri Lanka, and on original archival research. She explores the history of the re-emergence of Buddhist female renouncers in the late nineteenth century after a hiatus of several hundred years; the reasons why women renounce; the variety of expressions of female world-renunciation; and, above all, attitudes about women and monasticism that have either prohibited women from renouncing or have encouraged them to do so. One of the most striking discoveries of the study is that the fortunes of Buddhist female renouncers is tied to the fortunes of Buddhism in Sri Lanka more generally, and to perceived notions of Sri Lanka as the caretaker of Buddhism.

The Religious Culture of India
  • Power, Love and Wisdom
  • Friedhelm Hardy
  • Published online:
    09 February 2010
    Print publication:
    28 July 1994
  • This study conducts a lively and innovative exploration of the traditional Indian religions and cultures - an area that has both fascinated and puzzled the West for centuries. Friedhelm Hardy aims at presenting the widest possible range of themes that have preoccupied traditional Indian culture. He uses a great variety of sources, in various languages, and listens not only to what the learned philosopher or theologian in the classical Sanskrit texts has to say, but also to what folk and regional cults and cultures express in stories, myths and poetry. The result is a personal and entertaining portrayal of the colourful world of India which will have great appeal for the non-specialist. By making the three universal human drives of power, love and wisdom his focal points, Hardy seeks to guide the reader through an alien world which is nevertheless recognizably human. This book will be required reading for all those interested in India and its culture.

The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent
  • Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh
  • Published online:
    07 October 2009
    Print publication:
    24 September 1993
  • This work is a critical analysis of Sikh literature from a feminist perspective. It begins with Guru Nanak's vision of Transcendent Reality and concludes with the mystical journey of Rani Raj Kaur, the heroine of a modern Punjabi epic. The eight chapters of the book approach the Sikh vision of the Transcendent from historical, scriptural, symbolic, mythological, romantic, existential, ethical and mystical perspectives. Each of these discloses the centrality of the woman, and show convincingly that Sikh Gurus and poets did not want the feminine principle to serve merely as a figure of speech or literary device; it was intended rather to pervade the whole life of the Sikhs. The present work bolsters the claim that literary symbols should be translated into social and political realities, and in so doing puts a valuable feminist interpretation on a religious tradition which has remained relatively unexplored in scholarly literature.

Religion and the Individual
  • A Jewish Perspective
  • Louis Jacobs
  • Published online:
    11 October 2009
    Print publication:
    09 January 1992
  • The aim of this study is to demonstrate that, for all the admitted emphasis on peoplehood in the Jewish religious tradition, there are equally strong individualistic tendencies within Judaism which should not be confined to the sidelines. Dr Jacobs maintains that - in any balanced view of Judaism - it needs to be shown that what the individual does with his life has eternal significance for that same individual, not only for the Jewish people as a whole. Through a careful analysis of the primary texts, Jacobs conducts a thorough survey of some of the most important instances where the individual is discussed in the Jewish religious tradition. In so doing, his aim is not to elevate individualism at the expense of the Jewish community, but rather to show that Judaism pivots centrally neither on the people nor on the individual, but rests, rather, on both: his contention, finally, is that each needs to be taken equally into account if a balanced opinion of both is to be formed.

The Body Divine
  • The Symbol of the Body in the Works of Teilhard de Chardin and Ramanuja
  • Anne Hunt Overzee
  • Published online:
    11 December 2009
    Print publication:
    12 December 1991
  • The Body Divine explores the ways in which two spiritual teachers, one Christian (Teilhard de Chardin) and one Hindu (Ramanuja) have seen the world as inherently divine, and have presented this insight theologically through the use of a symbol, that of the 'body of the divine' (the body of Christ/Brahman). In a careful study of their beliefs, Dr Hunt Overzee shows how both thinkers came to understand reality in terms of consciousness, believing that salvation/release is realized through attaining the Lord. This goal is approximated through a changed view of things, in which everything is seen to belong to the Lord and to manifest his presence. The author compares those spiritual practices taught by each thinker in order to help people attain the Lord, and places these practices in a broader context of practices for transforming consciousness.