Related Papers
Religious Studies Review
Common Ground between Islam and Buddhism. By Reza Shah Kazemi et al. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2010. Pp. vii +143. $16.95
2013 •
carole Barnsley
Numen
Finding God in Buddhism: A New Trend in Contemporary Buddhist Approaches to Islam
2015 •
Kieko Obuse
The purported absence of a highest god who creates and governs the universe in the Buddhist worldview has often been regarded as an obstacle to dialogue and mutual understanding between Buddhists and Muslims. However, there has emerged a trend among contemporary Buddhist scholars to discuss a Buddhist equivalent of such a god in order to relate to Islam doctrinally. This article examines three examples of such an attempt, respectively representing the Theravāda, Tibetan, and Japanese Pure Land traditions, as endeavors in the theology of religions. The article demonstrates that these accounts all seek to overcome the psychological gap between Buddhists and Muslims created by perceived doctrinal remoteness between the two traditions, by drawing parallels between the Islamic concept of God and Buddhist notions of the ultimate reality, be it the dhamma, emptiness, Adi Buddha, or Amida Buddha. It will be argued that, although highly unconventional, this line of approach has been motivated by the agenda shared among these Buddhist scholars to promote interreligious harmony and understanding on a global scale. Such agendas tend to be developed in reaction to interreligious conflicts or through personal involvement with Muslims.
Entangled Religions
Islam and Buddhism: The Arabian Prequel?
Anna Akasoy
Conventionally, the first Muslim-Buddhist encounters are thought to have taken place in the context of the Arab-Muslim expansions into eastern Iran in the mid-seventh century, the conquest of Sind in 711 and the rise of the Islamic empire. However, several theories promoted in academic and popular circles claim that Buddhists or other Indians were present in western Arabia at the eve of Islam and thus shaped the religious environment in which Muhammad’s movement emerged. This article offers a critical survey of the most prominent arguments adduced to support this view and discusses the underlying attitudes to the Islamic tradition, understood as a body of ideas and practices, and Islamic Tradition, understood as a body of texts. Such theories appear to be radical challenges of the Islamic tradition insofar as they seek to reinscribe the presence of religious communities in conventional narratives of Islamic origins that do not acknowledge them. On the other hand, they often operate ...
A Comparative Approach to Common Ground between Buddhism and Islam
DrFarooq Hassan
Revista Española de Documentación Científica
THE ISLAMIC SUBTLETIES LATAIF AND BUDDHIST WHEEL CIRCLE CHAKRAS IN ESOTERIC THEORIES: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
2023 •
Bushra Furqan
In several religious tradition"s simulations of the human body regarding its visible formation may be parallel to its "subtle" or "spiritual" structures, which function to mediate between the material and the transcendent realm. The theory of the subtleties delivers a flexible and soft relationship of the human individual to wider metaphysical and ideological systems. The construction of these subtleties actually trains the person through different practices like " zikr", " Muraqabah", meditational traditions like "yantra yoga" in Buddhism, meditative visualization like "mantras", "mudras" in Hinduism and "Meridians" energy points in Chine"s tradition. These subtleties which are the inborn points of lights in each human body having positions in particular organs with specific colors and significant works according to their traditions. These function within that tradition ought to reflect religious and cultural transformation within that environment. In the following study, the esoteric theories of the subtle spiritual centers of the person developed by the Islamic Sufi tradition and the Buddhist Tibetan tradition will be considered. While a primary focus of the paper is to demonstrate how these "Lataif" and "chakras" work in understanding of spiritual transformation. Further intent to describe their human individual understanding and impacts at societal level. These esoteric theories are considered psycho-spiritual constituents which each bearing meaningful correspondences to cosmic processes. Though both Lataif and chakras points are located in entirely different locations on the body and deal with different things even then their cognitive behavior therapy eventually transform into clear light that is the main reality of the Lataif in Islamic Sufism. These spiritual practice"s objective to release from all negative habituation and escape from control of reasoning that brings the unity of perception of God Almighty though Buddhism has not a clear idea of one God, however, grasp the concept of enlightenment of heart.
Refiguring East Asian Religious Art: Buddhist Devotion and Funerary Practice
The Material of East Asian Religions: A View from Buddhist Studies
2019 •
Paul Copp
Afterword to Refiguring East Asian Religious Art: Buddhist Devotion and Funerary Practice, edited by Wu Hung and Paul Copp
Religious Studies 718 Topics in Buddhist Studies: Recent Scholarship McMaster University, Term I 2009–10
James A Benn
In this seminar we shall read and discuss a selection of recent important works on Buddhism (in English). Topics covered will include Buddhism and science, material culture, death, relics, art and architecture of Buddhist sites. In addition we shall survey trends in recent Buddhist Studies scholarship produced in other languages (Chinese, Japanese, French, German, etc.). Students will be required to write regular, short (1–2 page), critical responses to the readings in addition to a longer essay that reflects on the state of the field of Buddhist Studies.
Persica
Islamicised pseudo-Buddhist Iconography in Ilkhanid Royal Manuscripts
2005 •
Leo Jungeun Oh
“Symbolism in Asian Statues of the Buddha,” Presented to the American Academy of Religion [AAR], Pacific Northwest Regional Conference, May 2010.
Cristina Richie
Art may have either literal or symbolic functions. Iconography- the correlation between symbolic characteristics and otherworldly concepts- is like a code. When the semiotics of the art is studied, deeper meaning can be excavated. In surveying the diverse statues of Buddha from across Asia, certain repetitious themes appear. The ways in which the various parts of the head, the hands in their mudras, the legs of the Buddha- be it seated or standing- and the accouterments that surround the Enlightened One are created to serve a heuristic function for the devotee. Once these aspects of Buddhist art are understood, additional insight into the account of Siddhartha and the way of Buddha can be more readily internalized. To gaze upon a statue of Buddha and observe the representational details of the head, arms and legs is to understand the cycle of samsara and diligently pursue Nirvana.
On Signification in Buddhist and French Traditions BY HARJEET SINGH GILL
Harjeet Singh Gill
