This comprehensive and
detailed survey of the first six centuries of Indian Buddhism sums up the
results of a lifetime of research and reflection by one of Japan's most
renowned scholars of Buddhism. Relying on Pali and Sanskrit sources and on
inscriptions from archaeological sites and Chinese translations of Indian
texts, Hirakawa balances his review of early Buddhist doctrinal development
with extensive discussion of historical background and the evolution of
Buddhist institutions. The inclusion of Japanese and Western language
bibliographies together with an extensive bibliographic essay by the translator
should make this volume especially useful as an introduction to a large corpus
of Japanese scholarship on Buddhism which is still not widely known in the
West.
