On stūpas, soldiers and interesting ideas

Here's an update of some recent scholarly and academic publications by Triratna Buddhist Order members.

First, Kulamitra David Zukas's new article, ‘Early Indian Buddhist Monasteries: Bhaja, Bedsa, and Karla from 200 BCE to 700 CE’, condenses his 2022 PhD thesis down into a very readable narrative, revealing the historical development of Buddhist monasticism in western India.

Second, Dharmacārin Siṃhanāda last year had an article published on ‘The Buddhist Soldier: A Madhyamaka Inquiry’, exploring in a complex dialectical way the various qualities of a Buddhist soldier – a unique contribution to Buddhist ethical enquiry, in our view.

Third, Dhivan Thomas Jones has had some articles published: one on ‘“This Being, That Becomes”: Reconsidering the Role of the imasmiṃ sati Formula in Early Buddhism’, on an aspect of the Buddha's teaching of dependent arising; another on ‘From Nothing to No-thing-ness to Emptiness: the Buddhist Recycling of an Old Jain Saying’, on a particular teaching of the Buddha in the Pāli canon; and a third on Madhayamaka philosophy, ‘Candrakīrti on the Use and Misuse of the Chariot Argument’.