The Buddhist Dead

Bryan J. Cuevas, associate professor of Buddhist studies and Tibetan studies at the Department of Religion at Florida State University is Bryan J. Cuevas. Jacqueline I. Stone is a professor of Japanese Religions at Princeton University’s Department of Religion.
Buddhism, in all its forms, has always been deeply concerned with the death and dying. Surprisingly, “death” in Buddhism has not received sustained academic attention. The Buddhist Dead is the first comprehensive comparative study of the topic in all major Buddhist cultures, including those of India, Sri Lanka and China, Japan, Tibet, Tibet, and China. The essays cover a variety of topics, including traditional Buddhist practices for the dying, complex but paradoxical Buddhist discourses about death and the dead, as well as the diverse representations of the afterlife and dead found in Buddhist funerary arts and popular literature. John S. Strong, Gregory Schopen, and Gregory Schopen, present the opening essays on the historic figure of the historical Buddha, his death and the symbolism surrounding his funeral. They also discuss his relationship with the impurity and dead. Jacqueline I and Koichi Shinohara investigate the deaths of later notable adepts who followed the Buddha’s example. They also discuss their significance to Buddhist communities. Stone, Raoul Birnbaum, and Kurtis R. Scheffer. James Benn, D. Max Moerman, and Kurtis R. Schaeffer examine a dramatic, controversial category of exemplary deaths, the “giving up of the body” or Buddhist suicidal suicide. Bryan J. Cuevas and John Clifford Holt, along with Matthew T. Kapstein, examine the topic of the “ordinary dead” as well as the intimate relationships that can persist between them, the living, and their loved ones. Hank Glassman and Mark Rowe, on the other hand, discuss Buddhist funerary practices, and provide insight into the social and physical locations of Buddhist dead. This important book expands on the text-heavy, doctrine-centered Buddhist scholarship of an earlier generation and includes a discussion of ritual, devotional, and material culture in its treatment of death.