A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor

A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor
Author: Roy Tzohar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2018-04-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 019066441X

Buddhist philosophy is fundamentally ambivalent toward language. Language is paradoxically seen as both obstructive and necessary for liberation. In this book, Roy Tzohar delves into the ingenious response to this tension from the Yogacara school of Indian Buddhism: that all language-use is metaphorical. Exploring the profound implications of this claim, Tzohar makes the case for viewing the Yogacara account as a full-fledged theory of meaning, one that is not merely linguistic, but also applicable both in the world as well as in texts. Despite the overwhelming visibility of figurative language in Buddhist philosophical texts, this is the first sustained and systematic attempt to present an indigenous Buddhist theory of metaphor. By grounding the Yogacara pan-metaphorical claim in a broader intellectual context, of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, the book uncovers an intense philosophical conversation about metaphor and language that reaches across sectarian lines. Tzohar's analysis radically reframes the Yogacara controversy with the Madhyamaka school of philosophy, sheds light on the Yogacara application of particular metaphors, and explicates the school's unique understanding of experience.

A Yogacara Buddhist Theory of Metaphor

A Yogacara Buddhist Theory of Metaphor
Author: Roy Tzohar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2018
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0190664398

Buddhist philosophy is fundamentally ambivalent toward language. Language is paradoxically seen as both obstructive and necessary for liberation. In this book, Roy Tzohar delves into the ingenious response to this tension from the Yogacara school of Indian Buddhism: that all language-use is metaphorical. Exploring the profound implications of this claim, Tzohar makes the case for viewing the Yogacara account as a full-fledged theory of meaning, one that is not merely linguistic, but also applicable both in the world as well as in texts. Despite the overwhelming visibility of figurative language in Buddhist philosophical texts, this is the first sustained and systematic attempt to present an indigenous Buddhist theory of metaphor. By grounding the Yogacara pan-metaphorical claim in a broader intellectual context, of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, the book uncovers an intense philosophical conversation about metaphor and language that reaches across sectarian lines. Tzohar's analysis radically reframes the Yogacara controversy with the Madhyamaka school of philosophy, sheds light on the Yogacara application of particular metaphors, and explicates the school's unique understanding of experience.

A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor

A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor
Author: Roy Tzohar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2018-04-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 019066441X

Buddhist philosophy is fundamentally ambivalent toward language. Language is paradoxically seen as both obstructive and necessary for liberation. In this book, Roy Tzohar delves into the ingenious response to this tension from the Yogacara school of Indian Buddhism: that all language-use is metaphorical. Exploring the profound implications of this claim, Tzohar makes the case for viewing the Yogacara account as a full-fledged theory of meaning, one that is not merely linguistic, but also applicable both in the world as well as in texts. Despite the overwhelming visibility of figurative language in Buddhist philosophical texts, this is the first sustained and systematic attempt to present an indigenous Buddhist theory of metaphor. By grounding the Yogacara pan-metaphorical claim in a broader intellectual context, of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, the book uncovers an intense philosophical conversation about metaphor and language that reaches across sectarian lines. Tzohar's analysis radically reframes the Yogacara controversy with the Madhyamaka school of philosophy, sheds light on the Yogacara application of particular metaphors, and explicates the school's unique understanding of experience.

A Yog=ac=ara Buddhist Theory of Metaphor

A Yog=ac=ara Buddhist Theory of Metaphor
Author: Roy Tzohar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2018-04-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190664401

Buddhist philosophy is fundamentally ambivalent toward language. Language is paradoxically seen as both obstructive and necessary for liberation. In this book, Roy Tzohar delves into the ingenious response to this tension from the Yogacara school of Indian Buddhism: that all language-use is metaphorical. Exploring the profound implications of this claim, Tzohar makes the case for viewing the Yogacara account as a full-fledged theory of meaning, one that is not merely linguistic, but also applicable both in the world as well as in texts. Despite the overwhelming visibility of figurative language in Buddhist philosophical texts, this is the first sustained and systematic attempt to present an indigenous Buddhist theory of metaphor. By grounding the Yogacara pan-metaphorical claim in a broader intellectual context, of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, the book uncovers an intense philosophical conversation about metaphor and language that reaches across sectarian lines. Tzohar's analysis radically reframes the Yogacara controversy with the Madhyamaka school of philosophy, sheds light on the Yogacara application of particular metaphors, and explicates the school's unique understanding of experience.

Rethinking 'Classical Yoga' and Buddhism

Rethinking 'Classical Yoga' and Buddhism
Author: Karen O'Brien-Kop
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2021-09-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1350230014

This book revisits the early systemic formation of meditation practices called 'yoga' in South Asia by employing metaphor theory. Karen O'Brien-Kop also develops an alternative way of analysing the reception history of yoga that aims to decentre the Eurocentric and imperialist enterprises of the nineteenth-century to reframe the cultural period of the 1st – 5th centuries CE using categorical markers from South Asian intellectual history. Buddhist traditions were just as concerned as Hindu traditions with meditative disciplines of yoga. By exploring the intertextuality of the Patanjalayogasastra with texts such as Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosabhasya and Asanga's Yogacarabhumisastra, this book highlights and clarifies many ideologically Buddhist concepts and practices in Patanjala yoga. Karen O'Brien-Kop demonstrates that 'classical yoga' was co-constructed systemically by both Hindu and Buddhist thinkers who were drawing on the same conceptual metaphors of the period. This analysis demystifies early yoga-meditation as a timeless 'classical' practice and locates it in a specific material context of agrarian and urban economies.

Buddhist Philosophy of Language in India

Buddhist Philosophy of Language in India
Author: Lawrence J. McCrea
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231150954

Jnanasrimitra (975-1025) was regarded by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists as the most important Indian philosopher of his generation. His theory of exclusion combined a philosophy of language with a theory of conceptual content to explore the nature of words and thought. Jnanasrimitra's theory informed much of the work accomplished at Vikramasila, a monastic and educational complex instrumental to the growth of Buddhism. His ideas were also passionately debated among successive Hindu and Jain philosophers. This volume marks the first English translation of Jnanasrimitra's Monograph on Exclusion, a careful, critical investigation into language, perception, and conceptual awareness. Featuring the rival arguments of Buddhist and Hindu intellectuals, among other thinkers, the Monograph reflects more than half a millennium of competing claims while providing an invaluable introduction to a crucial philosopher. Lawrence J. McCrea and Parimal G. Patil familiarize the reader with the author, themes, and topics of the text and situate Jnanasrimitra's findings within his larger intellectual milieu. Their clear, accessible, and accurate translation proves the influence of Jnanasrimitra on the foundations of Buddhist and Indian philosophy.

Hua-Yen Buddhism

Hua-Yen Buddhism
Author: Francis H. Cook
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2010-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0271038047

Hua-yen is regarded as the highest form of Buddhism by most modern Japanese and Chinese scholars. This book is a description and analysis of the Chinese form of Buddhism called Hua-yen (or Hwa-yea), Flower Ornament, based largely on one of the more systematic treatises of its third patriarch. Hua-yen Buddhism strongly resembles Whitehead's process philosophy, and has strong implications for modern philosophy and religion. Hua-yen Buddhism explores the philosophical system of Hua-yen in greater detail than does Garma C.C. Chang's The Buddhist Teaching of Totality (Penn State, 1971). An additional value is the development of the questions of ethics and history. Thus, Professor Cook presents a valuable sequel to Professor Chang's pioneering work. The Flower Ornament School was developed in China in the late 7th and early 8th centuries as an innovative interpretation of Indian Buddhist doctrines in the light of indigenous Chinese presuppositions, chiefly Taoist. Hua-yen is a cosmic ecology, which views all existence as an organic unity, so it has an obvious appeal to the modern individual, both students and layman.

What the Buddha Thought

What the Buddha Thought
Author: Richard Francis Gombrich
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2009
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

Argues that the Buddha was one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of all time. This book intends to serve as an introduction to the Buddha's thought, and hence even to Buddhism itself. It also argues that we can know far more about the Buddha than it is fashionable among scholars to admit.

Logical Criticism of Buddhist Doctrines

Logical Criticism of Buddhist Doctrines
Author: Avi Sion
Publisher: Avi Sion
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2017-12-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

Logical Criticism of Buddhist Doctrines is a ‘thematic compilation’ by Avi Sion. It collects in one volume the essays that he has written on this subject over a period of some 15 years after the publication of his first book on Buddhism, Buddhist Illogic. It comprises expositions and empirical and logical critiques of many (though not all) Buddhist doctrines, such as impermanence, interdependence, emptiness, the denial of self or soul. It includes his most recent essay, regarding the five skandhas doctrine.

The Buddhist Teaching of Totality

The Buddhist Teaching of Totality
Author: Garma C C Chang
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 113502958X

Originally published in 1971. Long regarded as a classic, this volume is one of the most systematic treatments of Hwa Yen to have appeared in the English language. With excellently translated selections of Hwa Yen readings, factual information and discussion, it is highly recommended to readers whose interests in Buddhism incline toward the metaphysical and phenomenological.