Buddhism
The Encyclopedia of World Religions series has been designed to provide comprehensive coverage of six major global religious traditions—Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant Christianity. The volumes have been constructed in an A-to-Z format to provide a handy guide to the major terms, concepts, people, events, and organizations that have, in each case, trans-formed the religion from its usually modest begin-nings to the global force that it has become. Each of these religions began as the faith of a relatively small group of closely related eth¬nic peoples. Each has, in the modern world, become a global community, and, with one nota¬ble exception, each has transcended its beginning to become an international multiethnic com¬munity. Judaism, of course, largely defines itself by its common heritage and ancestry and has an alternative but equally fascinating story. Surviving long after most similar cultures from the ancient past have turned to dust, Judais...