{"product_id":"9780824895730-countless-sands","title":"Countless Sands","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMedieval Buddhists and Their Environments\u003cbr\u003ePresents engaging analyses of the diverse relationships between Buddhism and the environment that existed in medieval Asia. As the chapters collectively demonstrate, there was no singular, consistently \"\"Buddhist\"\" understanding of the natural world, but innumerable, varied engagements preserved in discrete texts, images, and artifacts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eCountless Sands\u003c\/em\u003e presents engaging analyses of the diverse relationships between Buddhism and the environment that existed in medieval Asia. Recent years have witnessed a surge in publications across the humanities that advance powerful ethical and political arguments to account for the human failure to respond effectively to global climate change. While the contributors to this volume are attuned to this challenge, rather than present explicit political arguments, they pursue a subtler effort to historicize the environment as a site and subject of Buddhist practice while providing research grounded in rigorous analysis of complex and fragmentary sources. The volume thereby mitigates against the Orientalist, East-West binaries that have long informed the invocation of Buddhism in Euro-American environmental discourses. As the chapters collectively demonstrate, there was no singular, consistently \"Buddhist\" understanding of the natural world, but innumerable, varied engagements preserved in discrete texts, images, and artifacts. We title the volume \u003cem\u003eCountless Sands\u003c\/em\u003e to echo the Buddhist metaphor of \"sands of the Ganges\" that implies an uncountable number. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough specific case studies, the authors consider such questions as: How did premodern Buddhists understand what we today call \"the environment\"? How did they think about their earth? How, when, and where did the various processes of the earth actually impinge on the practices of historical Buddhists? What kinds of \"environmental imaginations\" informed specific Buddhist practices? In so doing, the authors explore the connections between the ways in which historical Buddhist communities interacted with their environments and how they understood those environments. In the broader field of Buddhist studies, \u003cem\u003eCountless Sands\u003c\/em\u003e contributes to ongoing efforts to expand the locus of inquiry from textually based investigations of Buddhist doctrine to a broader examination of the complex and varied place of Buddhism in the lives of historical communities. The book furthers this broader process by casting it in environmental terms and will engage readers looking for models of thought-provoking historical analysis on environmental themes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57169178591606,"sku":"9780824895730","price":61.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_13308072_20561407_20250129014031.jpg?v=1769651055","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780824895730-countless-sands","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}