Little Buddhas

Consideration of children in the academic field of Religious Studies is taking root, but Buddhist Studies has yet to take notice. This collection is intended to open the question of children in Buddhism. It brings together a wide range of scholarship and expertise to address the question of what role children have played in the literature, in particular historical contexts, and what role they continue to play in specific Buddhist contexts today. Because the materialis, in most cases, uncharted, all nineteen contributors involved in the project have exchanged chapters among themselves and thereby engaged in a kind of internal cohesion difficult to achieve in an edited project. The volume is divided into two parts. Part One addresses the representation ofchildren in Buddhist texts and Part Two looks at children and childhoods in Buddhist cultures around the world. Little Buddhas will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of Buddhism and Childhood Studies, and a catalyst for further research on the topic.

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.

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