General Introduction

Abstract

This chapter, a general introduction to the book as a whole, provides a broad summary of its aims, methodology and structure. Firstly, it considers its purpose in engaging the question of the Buddhist prohibition of killing, with respect to existing secondary literature (provided in some detail), and how that question is generally contextualised within existing studies. Secondly, in describing the methodology developed in the text, it highlights the distinction between it and preceding general or area-specific studies of the subject, and explains the sense in which its own philosophical focus has not yet been attempted, and what it adds in terms of a new level of systematisation and overall conceptual enquiry to existing studies. It engages the senses of the difference and complementarity between textual and religious studies approaches in Buddhist hermeneutics, and the philosophically and conceptually driven approach of the book. Thirdly, it provides a broad overview of the structure and content of the book, before, fourthly and finally, summarising its essential aims and noting terminological conventions in use throughout the text.