Includes index.

A hymn of praise to the Buddha's good qualities / Paul J. Griffiths -- Consecrating the Buddha / Donald K. Swearer -- Sutra on the merit of bathing the Buddha / Daniel Boucher -- Reading others' minds / Carl Bielefeldt -- The prayer of the original Buddha / Matthew Kapstein -- Myoe's letter to the island / George J. Tanabe, Jr. -- The Tathagatagarbha Sutra / William H. Grosnick -- The whole universe as a Sutra / Luis O. Gómez -- Gotami's story / Jonathan S. Walters -- The Great Bliss Queen / Anne C. Klein -- Story of Simhala, the caravan leader / Todd T. Lewis -- A prayer for the long life of the Dalai Lama / Donald S. Lopez, Jr. -- Chinese women pilgrims' songs glorifying Guanyin / Chün-fang Yü -- A Mahayana liturgy / Luis O. Gómez -- A discussion of seated Zen / Carl Bielefeldt -- The way to meditation / Donald K. Swearer -- Buddhism and the state in early Japan / William E. Deal -- Original enlightenment thought in the Nichiren tradition / Jackie Stone -- The Matsumoto debate / George J. Tanabe, Jr. -- A prophecy of the death of the Dharma / Jan Nattier -- The book of resolving doubts concerning the semblance Dharma / Kyoko Tokuno -- A heretical Chinese Buddhist text / Jamie Hubbard -- Eschatology in the Wheel of Time Tantra / John Newman -- Atisa's A lamp for the path to awakening / Ronald M. Davidson -- The advice to layman Tundila / Charles Hallisey -- The legend of the iron Stupa / Charles Orzech -- Two tantric meditations : visualizing the deity / Luis O. Gómez -- The story of the horn blowing / Todd T. Lewis -- A summary of the seven books of the Abhidhamma / Donald K. Swearer -- On becoming a Buddhist wizard / Patrick Pranke -- Pure land Buddhist worship and meditation in China / Daniel B. Stevenson -- Aryadeva and Candrakirti on self and selfishness / Karen Lang -- A modern sermon on merit making / Donald K. Swearer -- Saramati's Entering into the great vehicle / Ronald M. Davidson -- Auspicious things / Charles Hallisey -- Tales of the lotus Sutra / Daniel B. Stevenson -- Daily life in the assembly / T. Griffith Foulk -- Deaths, funerals, and the division of property in a monastic code / Gregory Schopen -- A rite for restoring the Bodhisattva and tantric vows / Donald S. Lopez, Jr. -- Awakening stories of Zen Buddhist women / Sallie King -- The Chinese life of Nagarjuna / Roger Corless -- Atisa's journey to Sumatra / Hubert Decleer -- Bimba's lament / Donald K. Swearer -- Hagiographies of the Korean monk Wonhyo / Robert E. Buswell, Jr. -- The illustrated biography of Ippen / Dennis Hirota -- Account of the Buddhist Thaumaturge Baozhi / Alan J. Berkowitz -- Buddhist chaplains in the field of battle / Sybil Thornton -- Death-bed testimonials of the pure land faithful / Daniel B. Stevenson.

This anthology illustrates the vast scope of Buddhist practice in Asia, past and present, by presenting a selection of forty-eight translated texts including hagiographies, monastic rules, pilgrimage songs, apocryphal sutras, and didactic tales from India, China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma. Most of these pieces have never before been translated into a Western language, and each is preceded by a substantial introduction by its translator.

Together they are designed to do nothing less than reshape the way in which Buddhism is understood.

These unusual sources provide the reader with a sense of the remarkable diversity of the practices of persons who over the course of 2,500 years have been identified, by themselves or by others, as Buddhists. In this rich variety there are often contradictions, such that the practices of one Buddhist community might seem strange or unfamiliar to another.

At the same time, however, there is evidence here of many continuities among the practices of Buddhist cultures widely separated by both history and topography.