Leading historian of Buddhism Donald S. Lopez Jr. tells the story of how various idols carved in stone variously named Beddou, Codam, Xaca, and Fo became the man of flesh and blood that we know simply as the Buddha. He reveals that the positive view of the Buddha in Europe and America is rather recent, originating a little more than a hundred and fifty years ago. For centuries, the Buddha was condemned by Western writers as the most dangerous idol of the Orient. He was a demon, the murderer of his mother, a purveyor of idolatry.

Lopez provides an engaging history of depictions of the Buddha from classical accounts and medieval stories to the testimonies of European travelers, diplomats, soldiers, and missionaries. He shows that centuries of hostility toward the Buddha changed dramatically in the nineteenth century, when the teachings of the Buddha, having disappeared from India by the fourteenth century, were read by European scholars newly proficient in Asian languages. At the same time, the traditional view of the Buddha persisted in Asia, where he was revered as much for his supernatural powers as for his philosophical insights.

From Stone to Flesh follows the twists and turns of these Eastern and Western notions of the Buddha, leading finally to his triumph as the founder of a world religion.

From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha, Donald Lopez, University of Columbia Press, Hardcover, 289 pages, $26.00

Donald S. Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. His books include Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra; Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West; The Story of Buddhism; The Madman�s Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chopel; Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed; In the Forest of Faded Wisdom: 104 Poems of Gendun Chopel; The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography; The Scientific Buddha: His Short and Happy Life; From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha; and, with Robert Buswell, The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. His edited volumes include Buddhist Hermeneutics; Buddhism in Practice; Religions of Tibet in Practice; Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism Under Colonialism; Buddhist Scriptures; and Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism. In 2000 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.