[Buddha-l] A really good & provocative book

[jkirk]

Speaking of the cooky Mahayana sutras, y'all have GOT to get this book--I
got it via ILL--it's a fantastically good critique of 4 Mahayana sutras as
literature, of their rhetorical hankypanky--I am so impressed:

Alan Cole. _Text As Father : Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist
Literature_. UCPress, 2005.  He takes on the Lotus, the Tathagata, the
Diamond, and Vimalakirti's Nirdesa. [how they got rid of the old Buddha and
made a new one: the texts! + their tricks of the trade] 

My only quibble is the same as with some other scholarly books--he overdoes
the writing, it's often prolix and a repetitive, he could have eliminated at
least 25% of it. Still a brilliant contribution to undoing the smug Mahayana
mainstays.

Joanna


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