Marco Pallis

Marco Pallis (1895-1989) was a Renaissance man: a gifted musician, composer, mountaineer, translator of "perennialist" works and a widely respected author on Tibetan Buddhism. Pallis travelled extensively in the Himalayas, where at first he climbed mountains and, later, studied Buddhism from Lamas within the tradition. From 1936 onwards, he was a practising Buddhist with the Tibetan name of Thubden Tendzin. This book is a selection of his most important writings on Tibetan Buddhism, backed by his universalist approach to religious belief. Pallis focuses on the Tibetan tradition but situates it in the wider context of the perennial wisdom and the spiritual life which this entails. He provides the keen observations of a Westerner as he makes sense of spiritual practices, moral systems, modes of dress and other traditions that are often hard to understand unless described by an open and seeking soul. Pallis was just such an observer and the traditional world of Tibet that he encountered comes to life in much greater intelligibility for Western readers.

A new publication of the classic text that blends mountain climbing with Buddhism and observations of Tibet offers readers a holistic insight into the Western drive to climb peaks in the Himalayan Mountains as it intersects with the local religion and culture. Reprint.

A BUDDHIST SPECTRUM is at once one of the most readable works on Buddhism and a major work on comparative religion and living spirituality. It is the fruit of thought and meditations of a man whose authoritative exposition during several decades of religions in general and Buddhism in particular, especially in its Tibetan form, have had a profound influence upon many scholars and practitioners of religion in both East and West. The ten essays found in A BUDDHIST SPECTRUM cover a wide range of topics which are both specific to Buddhism as well as being pertinent to other religious traditions, most notably Christianity. Collectively they represent a crowning achievement of one of the most eminent traditionalist authors, and the only one of these who was formally attached to Buddhism. Pallis' writing, like Buddhism itself, possesses at the same time the gentleness of a flowing stream and the implacable rigour of a mountain. Like all of Pallis' books, A BUDDHIST SPECTRUM combines the wisdom gained from a lifetime of scholarship with the luminous insights of a seasoned spiritual traveller.