Popular Buddhist Texts from Nepal

This book demonstrates how popular ritual texts and story narratives have shaped the religious life and culture of the only surviving South Asian Mahayana Buddhist society, the Newars of Kathmandu. It begins with an account of the Newar Buddhist community's history and its place within the religious environment of Nepal and proceeds to build around five popular translations, several of which were known across Asia: the Srngabheri Avadana, the Simhalasarthabahu Avadana, the Tara, the Mahakala Vratas, and the Pancaraksa. Lewis documents how the respective texts have been domesticated in Nepal's art and architecture, healing traditions, and rituals. He shows how they provide paradigmatic case studies that transcend the Nepalese context, illustrating universal practices or issues in all Buddhist communities, such as gender relations and stupa veneration, the role of merchants, ethnicity, violence, devotions to celestial bodhisattvas by kings and women, and the role of mantra recitations and healing rituals in the lives of Buddhists.

• Foreword by Gregory SchopenPreface 1. Introduction: Buddhism as a Pragmatic Religious Tradition Popular Narratives and their "Domestication" in Buddhist CommunitiesThe Development of Buddhist RitualismThe Ritual Innovations of Mahayana BuddhismNepal and Newar BuddhismThe Context and Paradoxes of Modernity 2. Stupas and Spouses: The Shrngabheri Avadana BackgroundTranslationThe Domestication of the TextObservations on the History of Practical Buddhism 3. Merchants, Demonesses, and Missionary Faith: The Simhalasarthabahu Avadana BackgroundTranslationThe Domestication of the Text Observations on the History of Practical Buddhism 4. Devotions to a Celestial Bodhisattva: The Tara Vrata Background TranslationThe Domestication of the Text 5. Invoking the Powers of the Buddhist "Dark Lord": The Caturdashi Vrata of Mahakala BackgroundTranslationThe Domestication of the TextVratas and the History of Practical Buddhism 6. The Refuge of Recitation: The Pañcaraksa Buddhism amid Disease in the Premodern WorldBackgroundTranslationThe Domestication of the Pañcaraksa TextsObservations on the History of Practical Buddhism 7. Summary and Conclusions NotesBibliographyIndex