Mārga. Paths to Liberation in South Asian Buddhist Traditions: Papers from an international symposium held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, December 17–18, 2015

The “Path” to attain liberation (“mārga”), a central notion of Buddhist praxis and thought, designates specific patterns of behaviour and methods of practice connected with transformative powers and soteriological goals. This volume shows the plurality and complexity of Buddhist views on the Path found in Buddhist doctrinal, narrative and philosophical literature, epigraphic sources and iconographic programmes from South Asia. Through new analyses—rather than general pictures—of different kinds of sources, this volume examines how the Path was interpreted, discussed and represented in Buddhist traditions of South Asia. It traces the contours of ideologies of the Path that have variously influenced the formation and development of Buddhist identities in the religious and intellectual landscape of premodern South Asia and contributes to revisiting modern descriptions of the Buddhist Path.