San Antonio College Library

A history of Buddhism's journey and entry into the western world explores such topics as the early exchanges between the classical Greeks and the Buddhists of India, the influence of Buddhism on western philosophers, and the current fascination with the Dalai Lama.

"Imperial Manchu support and patronage of Buddhism, particulary in Mongolia and Tibet, has often been dismissed as cynical political manipulation. Empire of Emptiness questions this generalization by taking a look at the huge outpouring of Buddhist painting, sculpture, and decorative arts that Qing court artists produced for distribution throughout the empire. It examines some of the Buddhist underpinning of the Qing view of rulership and shows just...

In this book, Donald Lopez provides the first cultural history of the strange encounter between Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Charting the flights of Western fantasies of Tibet and its Buddhist legacy, Lopez presents fanciful visions of Tibetan life and religion, ranging from the utopian to the demonic. He examines, among much else, the politics of the term "Lamaism," a pejorative name for Tibet's religion; the various theosophical, psychedelic,...