Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online

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Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, published both in print and online, is the first comprehensive academic reference work devoted to the plurality of Buddhist traditions across Asia, offering readers a balanced and detailed treatment of this complex phenomenon in seven thematically arranged volumes: Literature and Languages (I, publ. 2015), Lives (II, publ. 2019), Thought (III, forthcoming 2024), History: South Asia, IV-1 (forthcoming 2023), History: Central and East Asia, IV-2 (2023) Life and Practice, V (forthcoming 2026), index and remaining issues VI (forthcoming 2027).


Each volume contains substantial original essays by many of the world’s foremost scholars, essays which not only cover basic information and well-known issues but which also venture into areas as yet untouched by modern scholarship. An essential tool for anyone interested in Buddhism, the online resource will provide easy access to the encyclopedia’s ever-growing corpus of information.
The online edition of History: Central and East Asia, IV-2, has been published online in November 2023 with further volumes following after their original publication in print.


Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism is under the general editorial control of Jonathan Silk (Leiden University, editor-in-chief). Each volume has a dedicated board of specialist editors and in later volumes also a volume editor; in the series so far this includes Richard Bowring (University of Cambridge), Vincent Eltschinger (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris), Oskar von Hinuber (Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg) and Michael Radich (Heidelberg University).



More information: Brill.com

Abhidharma

(10,257 words)

Author(s): Vincent Eltschinger | Yoshifumi Honjō
As most traditional biographies of the Buddha have it, Śākyamuni spent the last 45 years of his ultimate existence preaching the law ( dharma) he had discovered in his awakening. Buddhist accounts of the Buddha’s dispensation agree in regarding it as a therapeutic and pragmatic approach to salvation adapted to the language, the religious needs, the social and psychological profiles as well as the intellectual capacities of the audience. However, while such “skill in means” ( upāyakauśalya) perfectly suited the needs of early Buddhism as a missionary religion, it made a …
Source: Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online

Āgama/Nikāya

(7,019 words)

Author(s): Anālayo
The āgamas/ nikāyas are collections of the Buddhist canonical scriptures found in the Sūtrapiṭaka (Basket of Discourses).The basic sense conveyed by the term āgama, transcribed in Chinese as āhán (阿含) and translated in Tibetan as lung, is what has “come down” by tradition. The term nikāya stands for a group, collection, or assemblage (which in the present context refers to texts, but elsewhere can denote an ordination lineage).The usage of the term āgama for the discourse collections is widespread among Buddhist schools, although the Theravāda tradition employs the term nikāya inste…
Source: Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online