Research into Buddhist Iconography

Research into Buddhist Iconography To gather material on Buddhist Iconography. . . . .

Reiko Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination, Oxford University Press New York, 2017 ...
22/09/2026

Reiko Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination, Oxford University Press New York, 2017
Unfortunate Destiny focuses on the roles played by non-human animals within the imaginative thought-world of Indian Buddhism, as reflected in pre-modern south Asian Buddhist literature. These roles are multifaceted, diverse, and often contradictory: in Buddhist doctrine and cosmology, the animal rebirth is a most unfortunate destiny (durgati), won through negative karma and characterized by a lack of intelligence, moral agency, and spiritual potential. in stories about the Buddha's previous lives, on the other hand, we find highly anthropomorphized animals who are wise, virtuous, endowed with human speech, and often critical of the moral shortcomings of humankind. In the life-story of the Buddha, certain animal characters serve as doubles of the Buddha, illuminating his nature through identification, contrast or parallelism with an animal other. Relations between human beings and animals likewise range all the way from support, friendship, and near-equality to rampant exploitation, cruelty, and abuse. Perhaps the only commonality among these various strands of thought is a persistent impulse to use animals to clarify the nature of humanity itself - whether through similarity, contrast, or counterpoint. Buddhism is a profoundly human-centered religious tradition, yet it relies upon a dexterous use of the animal other to help clarify the human self. Through a wide-ranging exploration of animal imagery, animal discourse, and specific animal characters in south Asian Buddhist texts, Unfortunate Destiny seeks to make sense of this process.

Masterpieces of Industrial Art & Sculpture at the International Exhibition, 1862, Selected and Described By J. B. Waring...
01/09/2026

Masterpieces of Industrial Art & Sculpture at the International Exhibition, 1862, Selected and Described By J. B. Waring, Volume III, 1863, Plate 291.
https://archive.org/details/masterpiecesind3wari
ORNAMENTS IN GOLD, SILVER, IVORY, ETC.,
FROM CHINA, SIAM, AND CEYLON,
We have read how, in ancient times, the wild warriors of Scandinavia rejoiced in drinking out of cups formed by the skulls of their slain foes. This, however, is a mere tradition. The gold-mounted skull from China, which is stated to be that of Confucius, has been described as a drinking-cup ; but we are not prepared to admit that it ever was applied to that purpose, as it may have been, and probably is, a sacred relic, though we may doubt that it is the skull of Confucius himself which is thus richly mounted and preserved. All who visited the Exhibition will doubtless recollect this curious specimen of goldsmith’s work, as among one of the great attractions of the Chinese Court. It was taken from the summer-palace of the emperor by one of Fane’s cavalry, and is now the property of P. M. Tait, Esq., by whose kind permission we have been enabled to have it lithographed. The skull is placed on a triangular stand of pure gold, and rests on three very roughly- shaped gold heads ; the cover, also of pure gold, is richly ornamented with minute patterns in low relief, and is studded with small precious stones. The ornament itself presents nothing peculiar, the principal portion of it being formed by the usual Chinese conventional method of representing clouds or the sky,—typical, perhaps, of the regions to which the soul of the deceased had flown.

James Gentry: The Bodhisattva’s Body in a Pillhttps://buddhiststudies.stanford.edu/publications/james-gentry-bodhisattva...
28/08/2026

James Gentry: The Bodhisattva’s Body in a Pill
https://buddhiststudies.stanford.edu/publications/james-gentry-bodhisattvas-body-pill

James Gentry , "The Bodhisattva's Body in a Pill: A Material Cultural History of Ta**ra in Tibet" , Annuaire de l'École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Section des sciences religieuses , 132 | 2025, 141-158.
https://journals.openedition.org/asr/5547
https://stanford.academia.edu/JamesGentry

James Duncan Gentry, "The Bodhisattva’s Body in a Pill: The Material and Spiritual History of a Buddhist Relic Tradition", Series: Traditions and Transformations in Tibetan Buddhism, University of Virginia Press, 2026. [CONTENTS HERE]
https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.42890671

Gentry produces innumerable insights into not just Tibetan history but the contours of how Tibetan Buddhism really works. What emerges is a picture of Tibetan treasure revelation unmatched in its rich detail."
—Jacob Dalton, University of California, Berkeley
The maṇi pill is one of the most popular relic traditions in Tibetan Buddhism. Treasured around the globe, maṇi pills are small edible pellets formed from mixing the powdered bodily remains of buddhas and bodhisattvas with ingredients used in Tibetan medicine and sanctified through a ta***ic liturgy. Maṇi pills are today predominantly produced by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, who consecrates and distributes hundreds of thousands annually, but the tradition of producing and consuming maṇi pills stretches back more than a millennium.
Examining the broad cultural history of Buddhist ta**ra in Tibet through the lens of the maṇi pill, James Gentry illustrates how these pills have influenced Tibetan conceptions of the body, medicine, healing, collective identity, and shared past; how they have functioned as a point of interaction, contestation, and negotiation between different Buddhist sects and institutions; and how they have created and shaped social bonds and religious identity across Tibet and beyond to the present day.

Adeana McNicholl, Of Ancestors and Ghosts: How Preta Narratives Constructed Buddhist Cosmology and Shaped Buddhist Ethic...
24/07/2026

Adeana McNicholl, Of Ancestors and Ghosts: How Preta Narratives Constructed Buddhist Cosmology and Shaped Buddhist Ethics, Oxford University Press 2024

In Buddhist cosmology, pretas make up one of several categories of rebirth. They are best known as "hungry ghosts," pitiful beings with miniscule mouths and bloated stomachs whose state of extreme starvation is a result of stinginess and immorality in a former life.
But they were not always portrayed in this way. Of Ancestors and Ghosts traces the construction of the Buddhist realm of the pretas through narrative literature composed in Pali and Sanskrit in the first millennium of Buddhism's development in South Asia. By exploring issues such as where the departed go after they die, how the living can assist the dead in the next world, and how the departed fits into a karmic cosmology, Buddhist monks used these stories to construct the preta realm and, with it, Buddhist cosmology as we know it today. In the process they established themselves as religious experts concerning the dead. Of Ancestors and Ghosts illustrates the importance of narrative for the construction of religious cosmologies, showing that cosmologies come into formation over a long, cumulative process.
Far from being simple morality tales, preta literature helped develop and articulate Buddhist understandings of actions and their fruits. In the process, these narratives portray ethical cultivation as inherently connected to the cultivation of bodies. As a result, stories about preta s speak to the vast range of embodied experiences in the Buddhist cosmos, including the intersection of human/non-human identity and class, caste, gender, and sexuality. These stories help model and elicit aesthetically informed embodied experiences that are themselves ethically formative. As a result, preta literature highlights the enduring importance of emotions and embodiment on the Buddhist path to awakening.
IMAGE: Mural of the Cakravāla Cosmos, Sonada Gompa, Darjeeling, India.

Ellen Pearlman, Tibetan Sacred Dance: A Journey into the Religious and Folk Traditions, Inner Traditions International, ...
11/07/2026

Ellen Pearlman, Tibetan Sacred Dance: A Journey into the Religious and Folk Traditions, Inner Traditions International, 2002
The first book to explore the significance and symbolism of the sacred and secular ritual dances of Tibetan Buddhism. Lavishly illustrated with colour and rare historic photographs depicting the dances, costumes, and masks. Looks at both sacred (cham) and folk (achi lhamo) forms and their role in the development, practice, and culture of Tibetan Buddhism. From the time Buddhism entered the mythical land of the snows, Tibetans have expressed their spiritual devotion and celebrated their culture with dance. Only since the diaspora of the Tibetan people have outsiders witnessed these performances, and when they do, no one explains why these dances exist and what they really mean. Ellen Pearlman, who studied with Lobsang Samten, the ritual dance master of the Dalai Lama's Namgyal monastery in India, set out to discover the meaning behind these practices. She found the story of the indigenous shamanistic Bon religion being superseded by Buddhism—a story full of dangerous and illicit liaisons, brilliant visions, secret teachings, betrayals, and unrevealed yogic practices.
Pearlman examines the four lineages that developed sacred cham —the secret ritual dances of Tibet's Buddhist monks—and achi lhamo storytelling folk dance and opera. She describes the mental and physical process of preparing for these dances, the meaning of the iconography of the costumes and masks, the spectrum of accompanying music, and the actual dance steps as recorded in a choreography book dating back to the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1647. Beautiful colour photographs from the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and Pearlman's own images of touring monastic troupes complement the rare historic black-and-white photos from the collections of Sir Charles Bell, chief of the British Mission in Tibet during the life of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.

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