Demonstrates that Buddhists appropriated the practice, vocabulary, and ideology of sacrifice from Vedic religion, and discusses the relationship of this sacrificial discourse to ideas of karma in the Pali canon and in early Buddhism.
Introduction Question and Method; Part 1 Sacrifice and Karma in Didactic Verse and Discursive Prose; Chapter 1 The Discourse of Sacrifice; Chapter 2 The Discourse of Karma; Part 2 Sacrifice and Karma in Narrative; Chapter 3 The Centrality of Sacrifice in Vim?navatthu and Petavatthu; Chapter 4 The Commentaries’ Karmic Retelling of the Vim?navatthu and Petavatthu Narratives; Chapter 5 Giving as Sacrifice, Karma, and Heroic Generosity in S?ha?avatthuppakara?a; doctrine Doctrine and Narrative;
