Donald S. Lopez, Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. Read more about his latest book, and the new series from Princeton University Press called "Lives of Great Religious Books" below.

 

The Life, Death and Rebirth of The Tibetan Book of the Dead

"The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography is part of a new series from Princeton University Press called “Lives of Great Religious Books.” The volumes in the series describe the origins and legacies of some of the most famous religious works from around the world.  I was invited to write about The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is a particularly apt work for the series, because in addition to its great fame, it raises a number of questions about how religious books come to life, how they gain—or claim—canonical status, and how they die and are reborn, often at unexpected times and places..."

 

What happens when religious texts move across time and across cultures

"Princeton University Press has started a new series entitled “Lives of Great Religious Books,” and my book is one of the three inaugural volumes. The idea behind the series is that books have lives, that in addition to the particular time and place of their composition, they also move through time and across space, where they meet unexpected fates and fortunes. Scholars call this the “reception history” of a text..."