LibGuides: Buddhist philosophy resources: Reference sources

What are reference sources?

Reference sources are resources used to locate basic information and secondary literature.

There are many types of reference sources, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, handbooks, guides, and style manuals.

They are a fantastic places to begin your research, especially if you are exploring a new topic.

Reference sources can help you to:

define your topic in general terms
find background information, including themes and key points
identify keywords and alternative terms for conceptualising your subject, and for database searching.

Buddhist philosophy - key resources

Buddhist philosophy has a long history in the Western Canon of Buddhist literature.

If a researcher was to look specifically for publications on Mādhyamika or Yogācāra philosophy they would find multiple resources from the present day going back decades in time. However, when searching for reference texts specifically on Buddhist philosophy, source materials are more difficult to find and limited in their publication frequency.

Therefore, this LibGuide has taken the approach of promoting textual materials from the early 2000s to the present. This year range will allow the user of this guide to find the most useful reference texts on the topic of Buddhist philosophy.

Key resources

Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings by William Edelglass
Call Number: View online [ANU staff and students only]
Publication Date: 2009
This volume is an ideal single text for an intermediate or advanced course in Buddhist philosophy, and makes this tradition immediately accessible to the philosopher or student versed in Western philosophy coming to Buddhism for the first time.
Buddhism As Philosophy by Mark Siderits
Call Number: View online [ANU staff and students only]
Publication Date: 2017
This introduction into Buddhist thought is written by a philosopher and it shows how the Buddhist tradition deals with the same sorts of problems that get treated in Western philosophy and employs the same sorts of methods.
Indian Buddhist Philosophy by Amber Carpenter
Call Number: View online [ANU staff and students only]
Publication Date: 2014
Organised in broadly chronological terms, this book presents the philosophical arguments of the great Indian Buddhist philosophers of the fifth century BCE to the eighth century CE. Each chapter examines their core ethical, metaphysical and epistemological views as well as the distinctive area of Buddhist ethics that we call today moral psychology.
The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy by Jan Westerhoff
Call Number: View online [ANU staff and students only]
Publication Date: 2018
Jan Westerhoff describes the history of Indian thought, the development of Buddhist philosophy in the first millennium CE up to the time of Dharmakirti in the sixth century. It allows the reader to get a better systematic grasp of key Buddhist concepts such as non-self, suffering, reincarnation, karma, and nirvana.
A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy by Steven M. Emmanuel (Editor)
Call Number: View online [ANU staff and students only]
Publication Date: 2015
A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy is the most comprehensive single volume on the subject available; it offers the very latest scholarship to create a wide-ranging survey of the most important ideas, problems, and debates in the history of Buddhist philosophy.