What the Buddha Thought

Richard Gombrich is founder and President of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, and Chairman of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies. Before his retirement in 2004, he held the Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford University and a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College for 28 years. He is the author of 200 publications. He continues to lecture and teach at universities round the world.

• PrefaceBackground InformationChapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: More about karma, and its social contextChapter 3: The antecedents of the karma doctrine in brahminismChapter 4: Jain antecedentsChapter 5: What did the Buddha mean by no soulA"?Chapter 6: The Buddha's positive values: love and compassionChapter 7: Assessing the evidenceChapter 8: Everything is burning: the centrality of fire in the Buddha's thoughtChapter 9: Causation and non-random processChapter 10: Cognition; language; nirvanaChapter 11: The Buddha's pragmatism and intellectual styleChapter 12: The Buddha as satirist; brahmin terms as social metaphorsChapter 13: Is this book to be believed?Appendix: The Buddha's appropriation of four (or five?) brahminical terms