A considerable part of this book is devoted to the study of the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita, one of the most important scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism. The analysis of the text is based on the key terms of the sutra. Other Buddhist texts are discussed as well, for example the Heart Sutra is used to explain the mechanism of the process of text-generation in Buddhism, and an analysis of the Bodhicaryavatara by Shantideva explicates the role of the dialogue in the structure of the text. Also some non-Buddhist texts are treated, the Bhagavadgita and the Daodejing are compared as the 'light path' and the 'dark path', respectively; the Daodejing is separately analysed as a schematic text. The book gives also an overview of Buddhist mythology and Tibetan cultural model. The last part of the book presents the concept of the humanistic base texts. It focuses on some of the texts that have emerged from Indian, Chinese, and Mediterranean cultures and observes their influence throughout the history following the principle that all these texts convey -the humanism.
Dr. Linnart Mäll is the leading figure of Estonian oriental studies. He has studied Buddhist texts as well as other Asian cultural base texts over forty years. Most of his articles in this book have been published first in Estonian or in Russian; only some recent articles have been published in English. This edition is his first book in English.
