The Splendid Vision: Reading a Buddhist Sutra

Featuring the first-ever English translation of the "Splendid Vision Sutra," a sixth-century Indian Mahayana Buddhist scripture known for its rich ritual magic and worship of bodhisattva-goddesses, this volume explicates the text's cultural significance as a source of extraordinary value, cosmic truth, and existential meaning. The ancient author of the "Splendid Vision Sutra" promises every imaginable reward to those who heed its words and rites, whether one's desire is to become king, enjoy heavenly pleasures for thousands of millennia, or attain the spiritual summit of advanced bodhisattvahood. Richard S. Cohen carefully analyzes this religious rhetoric, developing a heuristic model of "scripture" that extends beyond Buddhist literature. In his framework, a text becomes sacred scripture when a community accepts it as a receptacle of extraordinary value, an authoritative source of cosmic truth, and a guide for meaningful action. While clarifying these points, Cohen untangles the discursive skein through which the "Splendid Vision Sutra" expresses its authority, inspires readers to accept that authority, and promises superior power and accomplishments to those who implement its teachings. Exploring ways of living and reading a text, Cohen draws on Marcel Duchamp's theory of found art, Jerzy Grotowski's idealization of the holy actor, and other formulations, identifying contingencies, uncertainties, and incompleteness in the lived present and its determination of our reception of the past. More than a mere introduction to an important work, The Splendid Vision opens a window into religious experience and practice in contemporary environments as well as in the world of the sutra.

Literature & Fiction

COHEN, Richard

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

Featuring the first-ever English translation of the "Splendid Vision Sutra," a sixth-century Indian Mahayana Buddhist scripture known for its rich ritual magic and worship of bodhisattva-goddesses, this volume explicates the text's cultural significance as a source of extraordinary value, cosmic truth, and existential meaning. The ancient author of the "Splendid Vision Sutra" promises every imaginable reward to those who heed its words and rites, whether one's desire is to become king, enjoy heavenly pleasures for thousands of millennia, or attain the spiritual summit of advanced bodhisattvahood. Richard S. Cohen carefully analyzes this religious rhetoric, developing a heuristic model of "scripture" that extends beyond Buddhist literature. In his framework, a text becomes sacred scripture when a community accepts it as a receptacle of extraordinary value, an authoritative source of cosmic truth, and a guide for meaningful action. While clarifying these points, Cohen untangles the discursive skein through which the "Splendid Vision Sutra" expresses its authority, inspires readers to accept that authority, and promises superior power and accomplishments to those who implement its teachings. Exploring ways of living and reading a text, Cohen draws on Marcel Duchamp's theory of found art, Jerzy Grotowski's idealization of the holy actor, and other formulations, identifying contingencies, uncertainties, and incompleteness in the lived present and its determination of our reception of the past. More than a mere introduction to an important work, The Splendid Vision opens a window into religious experience and practice in contemporary environments as well as in the world of the sutra.

The Splendid Vision

This landmark study of economic history since World War II systematically explores why postwar trade and payments have evolved as they have, the prospects for their future evolution, and the range of policy adjustments likely to be required. Through a rigorous examination and analysis of historical records, the author makes two significant and unique contributions to the scholarship on the subject. First, he reveals the existence of distinct cycles in world trade and payments, beginning in 1959. While scholars have recognized postwar business cycles, none have identified--until now--trade and payments cycles which seem to run parallel. Second, Cohen utilizes newly researched data to explore the much-heralded J-curve and its relevance in relating exchange rates to trade balances, and he identifies several important factors which have slowed the maturation of the J-curve effect on U.S. balances.
The study is divided into four parts and begins by looking at the forces that have shaped the postwar trade and payments order. Cohen then turns to an investigation of the period of advance in the trade and payments order from 1945-1967, describing three distinct stages that reflect the emergence, the establishment, and the peak of this period. Section three begins with an analysis of the structure and causes of the four postwar trade and payments cycles and includes an examination of the differences among them. Subsequent chapters address the different cycles themselves, reviewing the history of each and evaluating the growing challenges to the postwar trade and payments order. In the concluding section, Cohen explores why the J-curve in the U.S. has been so weak during the current cycle and assesses the likely consequences of the failure of existing policies to reduce external imbalances. Finally, the author offers a set of recommendations to reduce such imbalances through a new Cycle of Adjustment. Students of economic history, policy makers, and investors will find in Cohen's work significant new insights into economic processes and the probable future economic terrain.

World Trade and Payments Cycles: The Advance and Retreat of the Postwar Order

Business & Money

Economics

Praeger

Superpowers in Economic Decline (Routledge Library Editions: International Security Studies)

Wilson, Peter A.

Reference

Routledge

Napoleon fenced. So did Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Grace Kelly, and President Truman, who would cross swords with Bess after school. Lincoln was a canny dueler. Ignatius Loyola challenged a man to a duel for denying Christ’s divinity (and won). Less successful, but no less enthusiastic, was Mussolini, who would tell his wife he was “off to get spaghetti,” their code to avoid alarming the children. By the Sword is an epic history of sword fighting—a science, an art and, for many, a religion that began at the dawn of civilization in ancient Egypt and has been an obsession for mankind ever since. With wit and insight, Richard Cohen gives us an engrossing alternative history of the world. Sword fighting was an entertainment in ancient Rome, a sacred rite in medieval Japan, and throughout the ages a favorite way to settle scores. For centuries, dueling was the scourge of Europe, banned by popes on threat of excommunication, and by kings who then couldn’t keep themselves from granting pardons—in the case of Louis XIV, in the thousands. Evidence of this passion is all around us: We shake hands to show that we are not reaching for our sword. A gentleman offers a lady his right arm because his sword was once attached to his left hip. Men button their jackets to the right to give them swifter access to their sword. In his sweeping narrative, Cohen takes us from the training of gladiators to the tricks of the best Renaissance masters, from the exploits of musketeers to swashbuckling Hollywood by way of the great moments in Olympic fencing. A young George Patton competed in the 1912 Olympics. In 1936, a Jewish champion fenced for Hitler. Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone were ardent swordsmen. We meet their coaches and the man who staged the fight scenes in Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and James Bond’s Die Another Day. Richard Cohen has the rare distinction of being both a compelling writer and a champion sabreur. He lets us see swordplay as graceful and brutal, balletic and deadly, technically beautiful and fiercely competitive—the most romantic of martial arts. By the Sword is a virtuoso performance that is sure to beguile history lovers, sports fans, military buffs, and anyone who ever dreamed of crossing swords with Darth Vader.

By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

History

Americas

Random House]

Happy Families

Arts & Photography

CLEESE, John

Methuen Publishing, Ltd.

Beyond Enlightenment (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)

The vast majority of books on Buddhism describe the Buddha using the word enlightened, rather than awakened. This bias has resulted in Buddhism becoming generally perceived as the eponymous religion of enlightenment. Beyond Enlightenment is a sophisticated study of some of the underlying assumptions involved in the study of Buddhism (especially, but not exclusively, in the West). It investigates the tendency of most scholars to ground their study of Buddhism in these particular assumptions about the Buddha’s enlightenment and a particular understanding of religion, which is traced back through Western orientalists to the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation. Placing a distinct emphasis on Indian Buddhism, Richard Cohen adeptly creates a work that will appeal to those with an interest in Buddhism and India and also scholars of religion and history.

Beyond Enlightenment: Buddhism, Religion, Modernity (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)

The vast majority of books on Buddhism describe the Buddha using the word enlightened, rather than awakened. This bias has resulted in Buddhism becoming generally perceived as the eponymous religion of enlightenment.   Beyond Enlightenment is a sophisticated study of some of the underlying assumptions involved in the study of Buddhism (especially, but not exclusively, in the West). It investigates the tendency of most scholars to ground their study of Buddhism in these particular assumptions about the Buddha’s enlightenment and a particular understanding of religion, which is traced back through Western orientalists to the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation.  Placing a distinct emphasis on Indian Buddhism, Richard Cohen adeptly creates a work that will appeal to those with an interest in Buddhism and India and also scholars of religion and history.

The prize was power, the price, everything he had

Seduction of Joe Tynan

Dell Pub. Co.]

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