PREFACE XVguided us in the final stages of revision and production, as did Kathy Hartlove,
former Religious Studies Editor for Wadsworth. We are grateful for their di-
rection. We also wish to thank Michelle Filippini for her copyediting of the
manuscript, and we thank the many reviewers of previous versions of this
fourth revision, including Douglas R. Brooks, University of Rochester; Helen
Hardacre, Princeton University; Karen Lang, University ofVirginia; Todd T.
Lewis, Holy Cross College; Dan Lusthaus, Macalester College; John Strong,
Bates College; Donald Swearer, Swarthmore College; and Paul B. Watt,
DePauw University. We also thank Charles Prebish; Geoff Martin; Kathryn
Tsai; Dan Lusthaus; Sarah Dubin-Vaughn; the nuns and monks of Fo Kuang
Shan English Buddhist College, Taiwan, especially Venerable Man Jen; Mu
Soeng of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies; Donald Swearer; and William
Harman for their help.
In some ways this new edition is unlike its predecessors. We have dropped
the former edition's illustrations and reduced the bibliography to allow us to
develop the text more extensively. We hope that students and professors alike
will appreciate this new edition, that it will assist them in their endeavors, and
that it will please them as it has pleased us to revise it. We expect to produce
new editions of this textbook with more regularity in the future and request
that any suggestions for improvement be sent to us via the publisher.
Willard L. Johnson
San Diego State University