Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravada Buddhism

by Steven Collins

Overview

This book explains the Buddhist doctrine of annattá ("not-self"), which denies the existence of any self, soul, or enduring essence in man. The author relates this doctrine to its cultural and historical context, particularly to its Brahman background. He shows how the Theravada Buddhist tradition has constructed a philosophical and psychological account of personal identity on the apparently impossible basis of the denial of self. Although the emphasis of the book is firmly philosophical, Dr. Collins makes use of a number of academic disciplines, particularly those of anthropology, linguistics, sociology, and comparative religion, in an attempt to discover the "deep structure" of Buddhist culture and imagination, and to make these doctrines comprehensible in terms of the western history of ideas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521397261
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/29/1990
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.75(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction; Part I. The Cultural and Social Setting of Buddhist Thought: 1. The origins of rebirth; 2. Varieties of Buddhist discourse; Part II. The Doctrine of Not-Slef: 3. The denial of self as 'right view'; 4. Views, attachment, and 'emptiness'; Part III. Personality and Rebirth: 5. The individual of 'conventional truth'; 6. 'Neither the same nor different'; Part IV. Continuity: 7. Conditioning and consciousness; 8. Momentariness and the bhavanga-mind; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Glossary and index of Pali and Sanskrit terms; General index.

Editorial Reviews

"...it succeeds also in its avowed aim of being a book entirely accessible to non-specialists, and will be of interest not only to students of the human sciences, but also to those who are students of themselves for other than, or at least for more than, academic reasons." The Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher