A Buddhist manual of psychological ethics of the fourth century B. C. , being a translation, now made for the first time from the original Pali, of the first book in the Abhidhamma pitaka, entitled, Dhamma-sangani (Compendium of states or phenomena) with introductory essay and notes by the author. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. “The contents would no doubt yield no new matter of philosophic tradition. But they would certainly teach something respecting such points as pre-Aristotelian logical methods, and the procedure followed in one or more schools for rendering students conversant with the concepts in psychology," ethics and metaphysic accepted or debated by the culture of the age. Even a superficial inspection of the Manual should yield great promise to anyone interested in the history of psychology. When upwards of six years ago his attention was first drawn to it, and the desirability of a translation pointed out by the writer, he was at once attracted by the amount of psychological material embedded in its pages. The book contains an introduction, many textual notes, glossary, and index. |
