Rev. Danny Fisher

Princeton University’s Jacqueline I. Stone offers a useful post for Buddhist caregivers and chaplains, as well as those interested in death and dying, at The Buddhist Scholars Information Network (H-Buddhism) this week:

I would like to introduce four recent essays on death in Buddhism, for the benefit of anyone interested in this topic. All four appear in Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara, eds., Heroes and Saints: The Moment of Death in Cross-cultural Perspectives, ed. (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007). They are:

• James Benn, “Spontaneous Human Combustion: Some Remarks on a Phenomenon in Chinese Buddhism,” 101-33.

• Kurtis R. Schaeffer, “Death, Prognosis, and the Physician’s Reputation in Tibet,” 159-72.

• Koichi Shinohara, “Writing the Moment of Death in Biographies of Eminent Monks,” 47-65.

• Jacqueline I. Stone, “Dying Breath: Deathbed Rites and Death Pollution in Early Medieval Japan,” 173-246.In addition, while not specifically focused on Buddhism, Phyllis Granoff’s essay in the same collection, “Fasting or Fighting: Dying the Noble Death in Some Indian Religious Texts,” 73-100, contains some illuminating Hindu and Jain parallels.

Find out more about Heroes and Saints: The Moment of Death in Cross-cultural Perspectives here.