Click Here to Download: https://ouo.io/8HCkQi Text as Father Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist Literature By: Alan Cole Publisher: University of California Press Print ISBN: 9780520242760, 0520242769 eText ISBN: 9780520931404, 0520931408 Edition: 1st Pages: 369 Copyright year: 2006 Format: PDF Available from $ 85.00 USD SKU 9780520931404 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.
