[INDOLOGY] New book from PTS: The Ornament of Lay Followers translated by Giulio Agostini

[Rupert Gethin]

The Pali Text Society is pleased to announce the publication of the 
following new book:

The Ornament of Lay Followers: Ānanda’s Upāsakajanālaṅkāra translated 
from the Pali into English by Giulio Agostini
(Bristol: Pali Text Society, 2015), xiv, 346 pp. £20.00 ISBN 9780860135067

 From the back cover:
Confronted with warfare and the urgency of spreading Buddhist teachings, 
in the 12th century the Sinhalese monk Ānanda, himself a refugee in 
South India, composed a work addressing lay persons. What beliefs and 
practices define a lay Buddhist, and how do they inform her or his daily 
life to the point of shaping the relationship between husband and wife 
or employers and employees? And what beliefs and practices are 
incompatible with Buddhism? The result, the most detailed treatise on 
lay followers (upāsaka) handed down by the tradition, is here translated 
into English in its entirety for the first time. Ānanda marshals an 
impressive number of otherwise scattered canonical and post-canonical 
passages, encompassing in nine chapters many aspects of Buddhism, 
including the philosophically important doctrine of “no-self”, often 
considered the domain of learned monks because of its subtlety and the 
unattached outlook it requires on one’s property, life and person.

pts at palitext.com
www.palitext.com

Rupert Gethin

University of Bristol
Department of Religion and Theology
3 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TB, UK

Email: Rupert.Gethin at bristol.ac.uk