Buddhist philosophy in theory and practice

Abstract

A GREAT DEAL has been written about .. Buddhism, but no attempt has hitherto been made in English to present an account of the various systems and problems of Buddhist philosophy in a single volume. To fill that gap is one of the reasons why the present work has been written; another is that much of what has been said about Buddhist philosophy rests on insufficient factual basis. Certain important systems are not mentioned at all and others are disproportionately emphasized. On the basis of two comparatively short works in the Tibetan language, dealing with the whole of Buddhist philosophy, I have endeavoured in this volume to deal with the philosophical problems as they were formulated and developed in the course of time. In doing that, I have also taken into account the major works of which the ones translated here are a summary. Not included are the accounts of the non-Buddhist systems, as they fall outside the scope of this volume.