Mahayana Buddhism: A New Introduction

In the last ten years, many new discoveries were made about the origin and initial development of Mahayana Buddhism.

This course aims at reading major Mahayana texts against the historical and archeological background of Buddhism in ancient India, and by reading them in intertextual relationship to each other.

This way, students learn how to enjoy reading Mahayana scriptures—by looking at how they illustrate the Buddha's original enlightenment in the form of stories, parables, and poetic images.