Little Buddhas

Professor of Comparative Religion ,Marianopolis College; Research Fellow, Department of Biblical and Religious Studies, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa; Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion, McGill University

Vanessa Sasson's Little Buddhas is a brilliant and engaging work in an emerging area of study: Buddhism and childhood studies. Written by leading scholars, the nineteen articles here explore ideas about childhood, textual representations of children, together with the actual lives of children throughout the history and diversity of Buddhist traditions. This volume challenges common assumptions about Buddhism in provocative ways, and should be a classic for years to come.

• Contributors ; Introduction: Charting New Territory: Children and Childhoods in Buddhist Texts and Traditions - Vanessa R. Sasson ; Part One: Children and Childhoods in Buddhist Texts ; Chapter One: A New Hat for Hariti: On "Giving" Children for their Protection to Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Early India - Gregory Schopen ; Chapter Two: Scarecrows, Upasakas, Fetuses, and Other Child Monastics in Middle Period Indian Buddhism - Amy Paris Langenberg ; Chapter Three: The Buddha's "Childhood": The Foundation for the Great Departure - Vanessa R. Sasson ; Chapter Four: The Inheritance of Rahula: Abandoned Child, Boy Monk, Ideal Son, and Trainee - Kate Crosby ; Chapter Five: The Precocious Child in Chinese Buddhism - Miriam Levering ; Chapter Six: Picturing Childhood in Chinese Buddhism: The Sujati Jataka in Text and Image - Winston Kyan ; Chapter Seven: "What Children Need": Making Childhood with Technologies of Protection and Healing - Frances Garrett ; Chapter Eight: Picturing Buddhism: Nurturing Buddhist Worldviews through Children's Books - Karen Derris ; Part Two: Children and Childhoods in Buddhist Traditions ; Chapter Nine: Ordination (Pabbajja) as Going Forth?: Social Bonds and the Making of a Buddhist Monastic - Jeffrey Samuels ; Chapter Ten: Monk and Boy: Becoming a Novice in Contemporary Sipsongpanna - Thomas Borchert ; Chapter Eleven: Buddhism as a Vehicle for Girls' Safety and Education in Thailand - Monica Lindberg Falk ; Chapter Twelve: Superheroes and Slapstick: New Media and the Teaching of Buddhist Children in Thailand - Justin McDaniel ; Chapter Thirteen: Once We Were...: Former Child Nuns in Taiwan Reflecting Back - Wei-Yi Cheng ; Chapter Fourteen: Zen-Boy Ikkyu - Melissa Anne-Marie Curley ; Chapter Fifteen: Marrying the "Thought Of Enlightenment": The Multivalency of Girls' Symbolic Marriage Rites in the Newar Buddhist Community of Kathmandu, Nepal - Todd Lewis & Christoph Emmrich ; Chapter Sixteen: Children in Himalayan Monasteries - Karma Lekshe Tsomo ; Chapter Seventeen: The Westernization of Tulkus - Elijah Ary ; Chapter Eighteen: "Give Me My Inheritance": Western Buddhists Raising Buddhist Children - Kristin Scheible ; Chapter Nineteen: Young Lord Maitreya: The Curious Case of Jiddu Krishnamurti - Hillary Rodrigues ; Bibliography ; Index