The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism – L. Austine Waddell

S$68.00

The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism – L. Austine Waddell

S$68.00

Title: The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism

Author: L. Austine Waddell

Publisher: W. Heffer and Sons, Cambridge, 1971.

Condition: Hardcover, no dust jacket. Former college library book, with library stamp only on top edge, back cover and title page. Else fine. With foldout diagrams, and numerous illustrations. A reprint of the 1895 edition. 598pp. App 9″ by 6″.

SKU: waddell-tibet Categories: , ,

Contents include:

The Sects of Lamaism
Metaphysical Sources of the Doctrine
Scriptures and Literature
The Order of Lamas
Hierarchy and Re-Incarnate Lamas
Monasteries
Temples and Cathedrals
Shrines and Relics
Pantheon and Images
Sacred Symbols
Worship and Ritual
Astrology and Divination
Sorcery and Necromancy

About the author (from Wikipedia):

Lieutenant Colonel Laurence Austine Waddell (1854–1938) was a British explorer, Professor of Tibetan, Professor of Chemistry and Pathology, Indian Army surgeon, collector in Tibet, and amateur archaeologist. Waddell also studied Sumerian and Sanskrit; he made various translations of seals and other inscriptions. His reputation as a Assyriologist gained little to no academic recognition and his books on the history of civilization have caused controversy. Some of his book publications however were popular with the public, and he is regarded by some today to have been a real-life precursor of the fictional character Indiana Jones.

Waddell traveled extensively in India throughout the 1890s (including Sikkim and areas on the borders of Nepal and Tibet) and wrote about the Tibetan Buddhist religious practices he observed there. Stationed with the British army in Darjeeling, Waddell learned the Tibetan language and even visited Tibet several times secretly, in disguise. He was the cultural consultant on the 1903-1904 British invasion of Tibet led by Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, and was considered alongside Sir Charles Bell as one of the foremost authorities on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. Waddell studied archaeology and ethnology in-between his military assignments across India and Tibet, and his exploits in the Himalayas were published in his highly successful book Among the Himalayas (1899). Various archaeological excavations were also carried out and supervised by Waddell across India, including Pataliputra, of which he did not receive recognition of discovery until long after his death, in 1982, by the government of Bengal. His discoveries at Pataliputra were published in an official report in 1892.

During the 1890s Waddell specialised in Buddhist antiquities and became a collector, between 1895-97 he published “Reports on collections of Indo-Scythian Buddhist Sculptures from the Swat Valley”, in 1893 he also read a paper to the International Congress of Orientalists: “On some newly found Indo-Grecian Buddhistic Sculptures from the Swat Valley”. In 1895 Waddell published his book Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism, which was one of the first works published in the west on Buddhism. As a collector, Waddell had come across many Tibetan manuscripts and maps, but was disappointed to not find a single reference to a lost ancient civilization, which he had hoped to discover.