Author Description

This is a rather unusual reference work. With elements of index, dictionary, encyclopaedia, concordance, and collection of quotations, it has been designed to act as a comprehensive and accessible guide to the whole of the Complete Works. Sangharakshita's life of creative engagement with the world of reading, writing, and knowledge began with the years he spent, confined to bed by a childhood illness, absorbed in the many volumes of an encyclopaedia, and he once declared that 'the most useful book in the world, leaving aside the scriptures, is the dictionary'. There's a pleasing symmetry in the completion of his Complete Works by a reference work of his own. Sangharakshita once said that a dictionary is full of interesting surprises, and that is certainly true of this concordance. It answers one's questions, raises other questions, and above all it is full of signposts to help the reader find their own particular way through the vast forest of the Dharma.