Language: EnglishPages: 322About the Book:A comprehensive anthology of Buddhist texts was never before attempted. The documents were distributed over so many languages that no one person could aim at knowing them all. Even where English translations of Buddhist texts existed, they were in most cases carried out at a time when the particular idiom of these texts was only imperfectly understood. Only in recent years has it become possible to translate accurately these texts.Present work was originally published in 1954 under the same name and was the first work in English for the Mahayana texts, Tantras and texts from China and Japan translated from the originals.IntroductionA comprehensive Anthology of Buddhist Texts has never before been attempted. The documents are distributed over so many languages that no one person could aim at knowing them all. More than a dozen collections of texts from the Pali Scriptures have been published and a fairly representative collection of Mahayana passages, translated by Prof. M. Winternitz, has appeared in German. I But there is no corresponding publication in English for the Mahayana, and nothing in any European language for the Tantras, or for China and Japan. The overwhelming majority of the texts preserved in Sanskrit, Tibetan and the Far Eastern languages are still untranslated. Even where English translations of Mahayana texts exist, they were in most cases carried out at a time when the particular idiom of these texts was only imperfectly understood. Only in recent years has it become possible to translate accurately, and work done in the middle of the 2oth century is likely to be greatly superior to anything done fifty or more years ago. All the texts in this book have been newly translated fro - from Amzon