This general introduction sets out a very broad framework, both historical and methodological, for the account of nirvana and other Buddhist felicities to be offered in the main part of the book. It raises a large number of heterogeneous, complex and difficult issues, making connections between my approach to them and those of other scholars. I hope that both what it says, and the point of saying it, will become clear during the course of the book. What I have to say falls into three parts:

1. the first outlines a model for thinking about Theravāda Buddhism from the perspective of world history in general, and the history of civilizations in particular. It offers an analytical account of ideology and power in premodern agrarian states, and of the processes of culture-making in them which produced texts such as those of the Pali imaginaire. What is said here about the discursive enunciation of order and the cultural logic of asceticism provides an essential part of both the conceptual and the sociological grounding for the Buddhist discourse of felicity, and for the particular role of nirvana within it.

2. The second part discusses the provenance of the ideas, images and stories dealt with in Chapters 1 through 7.

3. […]