A Buddhist Bible

The copy right on this little gem has not been renewed and the full text is available online at sacred-texts dot com. Free - is the Buddhist ideal for the cost of dharma.

This book is by far the best collection of Buddhist scriptures I've ever seen. While it is perhaps not the best book to serve as an introduction to Buddhist teachings, it does an outstanding job of introducing the westerner to Buddhist scriptures. I recommend that you have some basic understanding of Buddhist teachings before delving into the sutras, but the translations presented here do not require you to know much beforehand. Goddard uses a variety of English translations of the sutras, some of them his own. Generally speaking I consider them to be relatively easy to read while also being (as far as I can tell) scholastically accurate. There seems to be a good balance between scholastic accuracy and poetic sensibility. In my opinion both the letter and the spirit of these works are presented in these translations. Goddard includes various sutras from different Buddhist schools: Theravada, Mahayana, Tibetan, Chinese, and more. These include such notable texts as the Dhammapada, Diamond Sutra, Heart Sutra, Tao Te Ching, and many more (even including a couple of more modern texts). The primary shortfall of this book is that it was first published well over 50 years ago when there was not as much Buddhist scholarship in the west. Today I imagine we have more texts and better scholarship that would give us better translations. Still, I could not recommend this book more. It would be nice to have a companion book featuring modern Buddhist writings by people such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Alan West, and the Dalai Lama.

Dwight Goddard's collection of Buddhist Sutras and related texts, first published in 1932, is available in paperback with introductions by Robert Aitken and Houston Smith. The importance of this book lies in its role in the development of American Buddhism as well as, of course, in the texts themselves.Dwight Goddard, according to Aitken's introduction, was an enigmatic figure with training first as an engineer (where he became wealthy as a result of an invention) and as a Christian minister. In the latter role, he travelled to the East and became interested in Eastern Religions -- a seeker in the true sense of the term. In the 1930s, while in his 60s he produced this collection of texts, many of which he translated himself, which give a broad view of the nature of the teachings of Buddhist schools. The book helped teach Buddhism to Americans beginning in the 1930s.In the 1950s, Jack Kerouac, then living in San Jose, California discovered Goddard in the public library. He carried the book with him wherever he went and used it as the basis of whatever knowledge of Buddhism he had. The beats in the 1950s were one of the sources leading to the growth of American Buddhism, and Goddard's book was Kerouac's teacher. The main value of this book, though, is not in its role in Buddhist History in the United States but lies in the texts themselves. Goddard presents in one volume a selection of primary source materials from the Theravada, Manayana, Zen, Tibetan, and and other Buddhist traditions. Many of these texts have been more recently translated, but the translations in this book are readable, at the least and they are all in one volume. They are not easy reading and will require many rereadings, but they do present a compliation of basic Buddhist materials for those wishing to benefit from them. My own familiarity with Buddhist texts is primarily with the earlier texts in Theravada Buddhism. This book is comparatively light on Theravada texts but gave me the opportunity to read the texts of other Buddhist Schools.This is a very fine anthology and is of historical interest for the transmission of the Buddha's teaching to the United States. I have found that many people interested in Buddhism restrict themselves to the practice of meditation or to books setting out Buddhist teachings rather than availing themselves of the original source materials. This book is a great way to read the original texts. There will be something of meaning in them for you.

I have to agree with the reviewer below me (even though he stole most of it from the book's introduction). The language the translators use is sometimes less than modern and more often nonstandard, but the sutras just feel right. It's hard to find a better collection of introductory sutras than this. A warning: the texts focus on Mahayana Buddhism (though not exclusively), and even the Tao Te Ching is in here, so old-time Theravadans might feel a little left out, but I think the diversity is a good thing.Don't take this book as a literal bible--it's too personal to Goddard. It's also not the best intoduction to Buddhist thought out there: if you want a basic intro to Buddhist thought, I'd suggest Rahula's _What the Buddha Taught_. If you like what you've seen elsewhere and want to start delving into the sutras, this is the place to start.

This book is unlike the other books I've been reading on Buddhism. Its much more like it's title than I expected...a Bible! If that challenges your approach, I say try it! It's written with much more spiritual/evangelical language than most Buddhist manuals. It's certainly a labor of love and it crosses a wide variety of topics and sources! A must have to balance out those intellectually focused manuals that crowd the shelves.