A Dictionary of Buddhism [Paperback]

For many years, "The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen" has been the best Buddhist dictionary in English. It now has a worthy competitor in Damien Keown's "Dictionary of Buddhism."

Keown's dictionary includes over 2,000 entries, as compared with the Shambhala dictionary's 1,500+, and is more up-to-date. Keown includes long and helpful entries on the history of Buddhism in particular places (e.g., Sri Lanka, Japan, Britain) and entries for issues like abortion, cloning, diet, and reincarnation. And Keown has more extensive coverage than Shambhala of Western Buddhism (including entries on, e.g., Alan Watts, Christmas Humphreys, the Buddhist Churches of America, and Naropa University).

But the coverage of Zen isn't as extensive in Keown as in Shambhala. E.g., Keown doesn't include entries for oryoki, rakusu, mokugyo, or tenzo--all in Shambhala. And Keown includes only the more prominent Zen teachers. E.g., there are no entries for two of Dogen's teachers (Myozen and T'ien-t'ung Ju-ching) or one of Hui-neng's two main successors (Ch'ing-yuan)--all in Shambhala. The Shambhala dictionary also includes a Ch'an/Zen lineage chart.

Keown includes many more cross-listings than Shambhala from English terms to their Sanskrit equivalents (e.g., if you look up "emptiness" in Shambhala, you'll find nothing, not even a cross-listing to the entry for "sunyata"; in Keown there's a cross-listing). Keown also includes a helpful chronology of important events in Buddhist history and a listing of the major Buddhist scriptures in the Pali, Chinese, and Tibetan canons. Keown's pronunciation guide is not nearly as helpful as Shambhala's and offers no help at all for Chinese terms.

Overall, I think the Keown dictionary is a bit better, but if you're particularly interested in Zen, you may want the Shambhala dictionary instead or in addition. Both are very good dictionaries, but I'm still wishing for one that combines the virtues of each and is even more comprehensive than either.

Compiled and edited Damien Keown (Senior Lecturer in Indian Religion, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, University of London), the Dictionary Of Buddhism is a straightforward, alphabetically arranged, "user friendly" reference filled cover to cover with succinct entries regarding people, places, religious terms, figures of history, meditative states, English translations of terms occurring in connection with Buddhism (such as "upasika", a female lay Buddhist). The 2,000 brief yet illuminated entries make Dictionary Of Buddhism a highly recommended consulting resource for studying about this ancient and honorable religion -- and an essential part of any personal, academic, or community library Buddhist Studies reference and resource collection.

I am of the opinion that this contemporary dictionary is the yet the most concise, comprehensive, updated and historically accurate work about Buddhism written in English.

At first impression, this dictionary may appear to be a book fully dedicated to a religious topic and written with an intention to reach a limited audience.

On close inspection,however, I am convinced that the author has done a marvelous job in this well researched work to qualify this dictionary as a must-have reference book and mini English dictionary on Buddhism for Buddhist readers, academics, students and researchers in Asian studies.

The book is concisely written and could be read as a little encyclopedia with topics arranged in alphabetical order.

The author has not only successfully dealt with a subject which may otherwise appeal only to interested readers with a religious, spiritual and philosophical background. But interestingly, the author has also nicely done it from a secular and historically accurately perspective for the layman who wishes to acquire more knowledge about Buddhism.

I have used this book for more than 1 year and have managed to find every Buddhist terminologies, historical characters, notes on practices, ceremonies,listed in English which I have encountered in other English and Chinese books on Buddhism.

This dictionary could be used as an INDEX and starting point to studies and readings into more detailed areas of Buddhism.

The book also a very international outlook as even Buddhist societies in America and United Kingdom and their brief history was entered into the 2000+ entries.

To add and make things more interesting to the average readers, the dictionary include concise history of the development of Buddhism in the countries which Buddhism is widely practised or has left its footprints.

Interested readers could find themselves read this book like a mini encyclopedia reference written in English in alphabetical order. Just to let off a secret, section "Q" has only 2 rather meaningless entries and cross references to other topic but it took only 1 page as a formality.

There is also a wealth of commentaries by the author in the book from what I would see as from a historical researcher's perspective.

I strongly believe that the author has done painstaking and extensive if not exhaustive research before putting every entries into his work.

Finally,this book could be easily updated and expanded into an encyclopedia comprising several volumes if most of the mainstream Buddhist sutra are to be included (in English) with interpretation. If so, this would be a challenging task for any author, an <Encyclopedia of Buddhism> in English.

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