Ashvaghosha : The Awakening of Faith

Contents: Introduction. I. General. II. The awakening of faith. III. Buddhism and Christianity. IV. Nirvana. V. The translation and its history. VI. The editing. 1. Reasons for writings the book. 2. The fundamental doctrine of the Mahayana faith. 3. Expositions of the Mahayana faith. 4. The practice of the Mahayana faith. 5. The advantages of the practice of the Mahayana faith. Translator's supplementary. Select bibliography.

"This is the title of one of the most important religious books in the world, occupying, in the literature of the higher Buddhism, a place not dissimilar to that of our own New Testament.

Its importance is increased when one considers that it formulates the fundamental doctrines of the Mahayana School, and was written by Ashvaghosha, one of the greatest poets of India, during the early part of the first century AD--a period when communication between east and west was reasonably frequent and extensive.

Not only have Buddhist sages considered it of the utmost worth--it has also been counted one of the five most valuable Buddhist scriptures by eminent western scholars, and has been quoted and praised by such writers as Aldous Huxley, Dr. E.Y. Evans-Wentz (in his monumental Tibetan series published by the Oxford University Press), E.A. Burtt (Sage Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University), Christmas Humphreys, Maurice Percheron, Dr. Edward Conze, and others.

Should we decide to estimate the value of books by the number of those adhering to the doctrines expounded therein, then, after the Bible, the Quran, the Confucian classics, and the Vedas, this volume ranks not only as one of the five most important books of Mahayana Buddhism, but fifth among the sacred books of the world.

Much published work offers material for a study of the apparently common ground of Buddhism and Christianity, but few shed greater light than this reasonably short work by the first and finest full-length biographer of Gautama the Buddha." (jacket)