"Whenever I have questions on Mahayana Buddhist doctrine, I return to this text and Professor Hakeda's interpretation of it. I wonder if I will ever encounter a work that is at once more profound, attractive, and mysterious than the Awakening of Faith." -- Ryuichi Ab, from the introduction
First published in 1967, Yoshito S. Hakeda's critical interpretation of the Awakening of Faith has become a classic. This edition, which includes a new introduction by Ryuichi Ab, presents a beautiful and accessible translation of one of the...
"Whenever I have questions on Mahayana Buddhist doctrine, I return to this text and Professor Hakeda's interpretation of it. I wonder if I will eve...
The Tales of the Heike is one of the most influential works in Japanese literature and culture, remaining even today a crucial source for fiction, drama, and popular media. Originally written in the mid-thirteenth century, it features a cast of vivid characters and chronicles the epic Genpei war, a civil conflict that marked the end of the power of the Heike and changed the course of Japanese history. The Tales of the Heike focuses on the lives of both the samurai warriors who fought for two powerful twelfth-century Japanese clans-the Heike (Taira) and the Genji (Minamoto)-and...
The Tales of the Heike is one of the most influential works in Japanese literature and culture, remaining even today a crucial source for ficti...
This abridged edition of Haruo Shirane's popular anthology, Early Modern Japanese Literature, retains the essential texts that have made the original volume such a valuable resource. The book introduces English-speaking readers to prose fiction genres, including dangibon, kibyoshi (satiric picture books), sharebon (books of wit and fashion), yomihon, kokkeibon (books of humor), gokan (bound books), and ninjobon (books of romance and sentiment). It also features poetic genres such as waka, haiku, senryu, and kyoka,...
This abridged edition of Haruo Shirane's popular anthology, Early Modern Japanese Literature, retains the essential texts that have made the or...
This form of poetry, similar to haiku, is a short classical Japanese verse form that has attracted considerable attention in North America this century. This collection of tanka poems consists of 400 poems by 20 renowned Japanese poets, with biographical sketches of the authors.
This form of poetry, similar to haiku, is a short classical Japanese verse form that has attracted considerable attention in North America this centur...
Compiled during the Warring States period of 475-221 B.C.E., The Art of War has had an enormous impact on the development of Chinese military strategy over the past two thousand years and occupies an important place in East Asian intellectual history. It is the first known attempt to formulate a rational basis for the planning and conduct of military operations, and while numerous editions of the work exist, Victor Mair's translation is the first to remain true to the original structure and essential style of the text. Mair's fidelity to the original, along with his insightful...
Compiled during the Warring States period of 475-221 B.C.E., The Art of War has had an enormous impact on the development of Chinese military s...
Originating in Tamil mythology, Cilappatikaram is the love story of Kannaki and Kovalan. Kannaki wears a circular anklet representing the power, strength and dignity of the goddess Pattini. Goddess status is bestowed upon Kannaki as her life undergoes the same fate as the anklet that is stolen and used as a weapon.
Originating in Tamil mythology, Cilappatikaram is the love story of Kannaki and Kovalan. Kannaki wears a circular anklet representing the power, stren...
Zeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of the finest plays of no drama. He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been only partially available in English. Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of Zeami's critical thought on this subject, which focused on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and...
Zeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of the finest plays of no drama. He also wrote a variety of...
The Record of the Dharma-Jewel Through the Generations (Lidai fabao ji) is a little-known Chan/Zen Buddhist text of the eighth century, rediscovered in 1900 at the Silk Road oasis of Dunhuang. The only remaining artifact of the Bao Tang Chan school of Sichuan, the text provides a fascinating sectarian history of Chinese Buddhism intended to showcase the iconoclastic teachings of Bao Tang founder Chan Master Wuzhu (714-774). Wendi Adamek not only brings Master Wuzhu's experimental community to life but also situates his paradigm-shifting teachings within the history of Buddhist thought....
The Record of the Dharma-Jewel Through the Generations (Lidai fabao ji) is a little-known Chan/Zen Buddhist text of the eighth century, redisco...
Classical Sanskrit literature boasts an exquisite canon of poetry devoted to erotic love. In Erotic Poems from the Sanskrit, noted translator and scholar R. Parthasarathy curates a selection in a new verse translation that introduces readers to Sanskrit poetry in a modern English vernacular. The volume features works by seventy-two poets, including seven women poets and thirty-five anonymous poets, primarily composed between the fourth and seventeenth centuries. It includes a detailed introduction that guides readers through Sanskrit poetic forms and explains how to read and...
Classical Sanskrit literature boasts an exquisite canon of poetry devoted to erotic love. In Erotic Poems from the Sanskrit, noted translator ...
This is an age of deception. Con men ply the roadways. Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three. Devious nuns entice young women into adultery. Sorcerers use charmed talismans for mind control and murder. A pair of dubious monks extorts money from a powerful official and then spends it on whoring. A rich student tries to bribe the chief examiner, only to hand his money to an imposter. A eunuch kidnaps boys and consumes their "essence" in an attempt to regrow his penis. These are just a few of the entertaining and surprising tales to be found in this seventeenth-century...
This is an age of deception. Con men ply the roadways. Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three. Devious nuns entice young wome...
