Sarkar, Anil Kumar. Changing Phases of Buddhist Thought: A Study in the Background of East-West Philosophy. New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1983.

Abstract

This work is a panoramic consideration of the Buddhist meditative psychology in contrast to the meditative psychology of the great Upanisadic thinkers of India, interpreting two important areas of experiential processes by way of contrast - the apparent (Samsara) and the transcendental (Nirvana). In the subsequent development of Buddhist thought, these meditative processes lose their enitative significance, which signalizes the process of the dissolution of Buddhism itself, conferring into it a new character to emerge again indicating novel possibility. This dissolving prospect or phase as set afloat by Buddhism in its three evolutionary processes of Hinayana, Mahayana, and Tantra - has been applied in this text upon the cultural contexts of early Indian thought, and also of the early cultural processes of the surrounding Asian countries - Ceylon, Tibet, China, and Japan, not excluding the major West-Asian countries as influencing the great Western thought of Europe and the Americas. After the Buddhist impace, all cultural processes share a common goal, by a detachment from their adherence to the first order of their cultural prospects, which is a restricted consciousness of some sort. The common goal, which is nothing but a new phase of not merely of Buddhism, but also of all cultural processes - is a process towards no Buddhism, no Zen, no Judaism, no Christianity, no Islam, no Hinduism, et al.