Transforming Buddhism

The world of Buddhism has always been a dynamic one. There are endless developments and interactions as the dharma spread throughout Asia. In more recent times Buddhism has even made a more global appeal, dharma centers are everywhere nowadays. Transforming Buddhism presents a number of casestudies of a group of scholars who each of them focus on the ways how Buddhism transforms and is transformed, both in the past and in modernity. The book presents results of research performed in Asia for instance on women in the Buddhist monastic tradition of Thailand, foreigners living in the harsh conditions of specific Thai Theravāda monasteries, and childmonks in Tibet. Other subjects are developments within Japanese Zen Buddhism in interaction with modern western philosophy and the Japanese Buddhism incited by Kōbō Daishi (774-835). Next there is the inspiration for modernity that can be found in the works of the Korean monk Chinul (1158-1210), and themes in Buddhist life-histories, legendary, historical and personal. As such Transforming Buddhism gives a broad view on a number of transformations of the Buddhist dharma from various perspectives.

Paul van der Velde is Professor of Asian Religions, Sanskrit and Hindi at the Radboud University Nijmegen (RUN).

André van der Braak is Professor of Comparative Philosophy of Religion at the faculty of Religion and Theology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU).

Tristan Letzer is currently a research master student of Theology and Religious Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), specializing in Buddhism.