When the Lotus Sutra arrived in Boston in 1844 the few people who could read it were intrigued by its parables that reminded them of the Bible. For these westerners, the Lotus was like a gateway into a mysterious and profound culture from across the world. But it took a long time to get there, from India to China, Japan, and beyond, and the most exciting history occurred before it ever reached Europe.
The Lotus is a book that explains how you can be a Buddha, too. But its explanation challenged earlier Buddhist texts and led to disagreements that have lasted for centuries.
Donald S. Lopez, Jr. joins us to talk about his new book, The Lotus Sutra: A Biography.
Special Episodes: “Lives of Great Religious Books”
This ongoing series of MIPodcast episodes features interviews with authors of volumes in Princeton University Press’s impressive “Lives of Great Religious Books” series. Leading experts examine the origins of books like the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad Gita, Augustine’s Confessions, and C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. They trace shifts in the reception, influence, and interpretation of these landmark texts.
By looking at other religious texts from a variety of perspectives—worthwhile in their own right—we come to understand other faiths better, as well as our own. We begin to see the different ways scholars and believers and believing scholars grapple with sacred texts.
About the Guest
Donald S. Lopez, Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. His many books include The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, and a biography of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. His latest book is The Lotus Sutra: A Biography from Princeton University Press’s Lives of Great Religious Books series.
The post The life of the Lotus Sutra, with Donald S. Lopez, Jr. [MIPodcast #60] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.
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Are you familiar with the New Atheists? The late Christopher Hitchens wrote biting books about religion as “poison,” Richard Dawkins champions a sort of scientism as a replacement for faith, and people like Bill Maher spend time each evening poking fun at the pious. Despite their unofficial “New Atheist” title, they’re perhaps not actually all that new. Award-winning historian Leigh Eric Schmidt sees them as ancestors of village atheists of days gone by.
Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. He is author of the highly acclaimed book Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment, among other titles. His latest is called Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way In a Godly Nation (Princeton University Press).