Marvelous Stories from the Perfection of Wisdom: 130 Didactic Stories from Arya Nagarjuna's Exegesis on the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (English and Chinese Edition)

This book of "teaching" stories from Arya Nagarjuna's famous sastra was so engrossing that I could not put it down. These stories, while concise, are fascinating, engaging, sometimes even funny, but always enlightening. They offer a higher understanding of subtle Buddhist principles, as they answer FAQs about details of the Buddha's life, past lives, and disciples, which are highlighted by the Chinese Tripitaka. For instance, they shed light on the origin of Shariputra's name, the controversy surrounding Yasodhara's pregnancy, and why Subhuti was the one who spoke the Vajra Sutra.These stories bring ancient Indian Buddhist civilization to life, in spite of being filtered through the Chinese language (for historical reasons), and in fact the book is considerably enhanced by having the original Chinese text, in both regular and simplified characters, right next to the English on facing pages.

GREAT

I bought 2 of these and love this text. These stories are from a very important Buddhist text, "Exegesis on the Great Perfection of Wisdom," which totals 100 fascicles.The text can be very hard reading, because Nagarjuna can get quite detailed in his teaching. But the stories in the text are really witty, insightful and a great read. If you want to gain some insights into the beauty of Buddhism, these stories are a great entry point in to the vast Buddhist cannon.