TY - BOOK ID - 77864221 TI - Text as father PY - 2005 SN - 9786612357589 0520931408 1282357581 1598755412 9780520931404 1417595876 9781417595877 9781598755411 9780520242760 0520242769 9781282357587 6612357584 PB - Berkeley Los Angels University of California Press DB - UniCat KW - Mahayana Buddhism KW - Paternalism KW - Parentalism KW - Social classes KW - Social control KW - Social systems KW - Doctrines. KW - Religious aspects KW - Mahayana Buddhism. KW - Sacred books. KW - Mahayana Buddhism - Sacred books. KW - Paternalism - Religious aspects - Mahayana Buddhism. KW - Mahayana Buddhism - Doctrines. KW - asian. KW - buddhism. KW - buddhist books. KW - buddhist monk. KW - buddhist studies. KW - china. KW - chinese buddhism. KW - diamond sutra. KW - eastern philosophy. KW - eastern religion. KW - lotus sutra. KW - mahayana. KW - meditation. KW - mindfulness. KW - monastic buddhism. KW - monasticism. KW - monk. KW - nonfiction. KW - philosophy. KW - religion. KW - spirituality. KW - sutra studies. KW - sutra. KW - sutras. KW - tathagatagarbha sutra. KW - vimalakirti nirdesa. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:77864221 AB - This beautifully written work sheds new light on the origins and nature of Mahayana Buddhism with close readings of four well-known texts-the Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Tathagatagarbha Sutra, and Vimalakirtinirdesa. Treating these sutras as literary works rather than as straightforward philosophic or doctrinal treatises, Alan Cole argues that these writings were carefully sculpted to undermine traditional monastic Buddhism and to gain legitimacy and authority for Mahayana Buddhism as it was veering away from Buddhism's older oral and institutional forms. His sophisticated and sustained analysis of the narrative structures and seductive literary strategies used in these sutras suggests that they were specifically written to encourage devotion to the written word instead of other forms of authority, be they human, institutional, or iconic. ER -