Download or read book Locations of Buddhism written by Anne M. Blackburn and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modernizing and colonizing forces brought nineteenth-century Sri Lankan Buddhists both challenges and opportunities. How did Buddhists deal with social and economic change; new forms of political, religious, and educational discourse; and Christianity? And how did Sri Lankan Buddhists, collaborating with other Asian Buddhists, respond to colonial rule? To answer these questions, Anne M. Blackburn focuses on the life of leading monk and educator Hikkaduve Sumangala (1827–1911) to examine more broadly Buddhist life under foreign rule. In Locations of Buddhism, Blackburn reveals that during Sri Lanka’s crucial decades of deepening colonial control and modernization, there was a surprising stability in the central religious activities of Hikkaduve and the Buddhists among whom he worked. At the same time, they developed new institutions and forms of association, drawing on pre-colonial intellectual heritage as well as colonial-period technologies and discourse. Advocating a new way of studying the impact of colonialism on colonized societies, Blackburn is particularly attuned here to human experience, paying attention to the habits of thought and modes of affiliation that characterized individuals and smaller scale groups. Locations of Buddhism is a wholly original contribution to the study of Sri Lanka and the history of Buddhism more generally.
Download or read book Buddha in Sri Lanka written by Swarna Wickremeratne and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides both an erudite and intimate look at how Buddhism is lived in Sri Lanka. While India is known as the birthplace of Buddhism, Sri Lanka is its other home; Buddhism extends back over twenty-five hundred years on the island and remains at the center of its spiritual traditions and culture. Throughout the book, author Swarna Wickremeratne incorporates a personal view, sharing stories of herself, her family, friends, and acquaintances as they "lived Buddhism" both during her Sri Lankan girlhood and during more recent times. This personal view makes the traditions come alive as Wickremeratne details Buddhist beliefs, customs, rituals and ceremonies, and folklore. She also provides a fascinating discussion of the Sangha, the institutional monkhood in Sri Lanka, including its history, codes of conduct, and evolution and resilience over time. Wickremeratne explores the recent attempts by many monks to reinvent themselves in a society characterized by secularization, globalization, and a tide of aggressive Christian evangelization.
Download or read book Buddhism Betrayed written by Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1992-07-15 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume seeks to answer the question of how the Buddhist monks in today's Sri Lanka—given Buddhism's traditionally nonviolent philosophy—are able to participate in the fierce political violence of the Sinhalese against the Tamils.
Download or read book The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka written by George Doherty Bond and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1992 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1956, Theravada Buddhists in Sri Lanka and throughout Southeast Asia celebrated the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha`s entry into Nirvana and of the establishment of the Buddhist tradition. This book examines this revival of Theravada Buddhism among the laity of Sri Lanka, analysing its origins and its growth up to the present-day. Within the spectrum of reinterpretations that have comprised the revival, the book focuses on four important types or patterns of reinterpretation and response. It examines the rational reformism of the early Protestant Buddhists led by Anagarika Dharmapala and the conservative neotraditionalism of the Jayanti period.Particular attention is given to two of the most recent and dynamic reforms, the insight meditation movement, breaking with tradition, has opened the path of meditation to lay people, enabling them to seek Nirvana without renouncing the world. The sarvodaya Shramadana movement has addressed the social context, reinterpreting the Buddhist heritage to derive authentic forms of Buddhist social development. Comprising this series of interpretations and options for lay Buddhists, the Buddhist revival represents a new gradual path to Nirvana.
Download or read book Buddhism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka written by Patrick Grant and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2009-01-05 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patrick Grant explores the relationship between Buddhism and violent ethnic conflict in modern Sri Lanka using the concept of "regressive inversion." Regressive inversion occurs when universal teaching, such as that of the Buddha, is redeployed to supercharge passions associated with the kinds of group loyalty that the universal teaching itself intends to transcend. The book begins with an account of the main teachings of Theravada Buddhism and looks at how these inform, or fail to inform, modern interpreters. Grant considers the writings of three key figures—Anagarika Dharmapala, Walpola Rahula, and J. R. Jayewardene—who addressed Buddhism and politics in the years leading up to Sri Lanka's political independence from Britain, and subsequently, in postcolonial Sri Lanka. This book makes the Sri Lankan conflict accessible to readers interested in the modern global phenomenon of ethnic violence involving religion and also illuminates similar conflicts around the world.
Download or read book Buddhism Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka written by Mahinda Deegalle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book explores the dilemmas that Buddhism faces in relation to the continuing ethnic conflict and violence in modern Sri Lanka. Prominent scholars in the fields of anthropology, history, Buddhist studies and Pali examine multiple dimensions of the problem. Buddhist responses to the crisis are discussed in detail, along with how Buddhism can help to create peace in Sri Lanka. Evaluating the role of Buddhists and their institutions in bringing about an end to war and violence as well as possibly heightening the problem, this collection puts forward a critical analysis of the religious conditions contributing to continuing hostilities.
Download or read book Popularizing Buddhism written by Mahinda Deegalle and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the ritual practice of Buddhist preaching.
Download or read book Buddhism Politics and the Limits of Law written by Benjamin Schonthal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-17 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining Sri Lanka's religious and legal pasts, this is the first extended study of Buddhism and constitutional law.
Download or read book Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka written by Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This examination of Sri Lanka's ethnic and religious minorities links the past with the present through a treatment of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalist development in the late nineteenth century and its hegemony in the late twentieth.
Download or read book Nation Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka written by Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nation, Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka offers a new perspective on contemporary debates about Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka. In this book de Silva Wijeyeratne argues forcefully that ‘Sinhalese Buddhism’ in the period prior to its engagement with the British colonial State signified a relatively unbounded (although at times boundary forming) set of practices that facilitated both the inclusion and exclusion of non-‘Buddhist’ concepts and people within a particular cosmological frame. Juxtaposing the premodern against the backdrop of colonial modernity, de Silva Wijeyeratne tells us that in contrast modern 'Sinhalese Buddhism/nationalism' is a much more reified and bounded concept, one imagined through a 19th century epistemology whose purpose was not so much inclusion, but a much more radical exclusion of non-‘Buddhist’ ideas and people. In this insightful analysis modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, then, emerges through the conjunction of discourse, power and knowledge at a distinct moment in the trajectory of the colonial State. An intrinsic feature of this modernist moment is that premodern categories (such as the cosmic order) were subject to a bureaucratic re-valuation that generated profound consequences for State-society relations and the wider constitutional/legal imaginary. This book goes onto explore how key constitutional and nation-building moments were framed within the cultural milieu of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism – a nationalism that reveals the power of a re-valued Buddhist cosmic order to still inform the present. Given the intensification of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist project following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, this book is of interest to scholars of nationalism, South Asian studies, the anthropology of ritual, and comparative legal history.
Download or read book Attracting the Heart written by Jeffrey Samuels and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2010-07-06 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An idealized view of the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk might be described according to the doctrinal demand for emotional detachment and, ultimately, the cessation of all desire. Yet monks are also enjoined to practice compassion, a powerful emotion and equally lofty ideal, and live with every other human feeling—love, hate, jealousy, ambition—while relating to other monks and the lay community. In this important ethnography of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Jeffrey Samuels takes an unprecedented look at how emotion determines and influences the commitments that laypeople and monastics make to each other and to the Buddhist religion in general. By focusing on "multimoment" histories, Samuels highlights specific junctures in which ideas about recruitment, vocation, patronage, and institution-building are dynamically negotiated and refined. Positing a nexus between aesthetics and affect, he illustrates not only how aesthetic responses trigger certain emotions, but also how personal and shared emotions, at the local level, shape notions of beauty. Samuels uses the voices of informants to reveal the delicately negotiated character of lay-monastic relations and temple management. In the fields of religion and Buddhist studies there has been a growing recognition of the need to examine affective dimensions of religion. His work breaks new ground in that it answers questions about Buddhist emotions and the constitutive roles they play in social life and religious practice through a close, poignant look at small-scale temple and social networks. Throughout, Samuels makes the case for the need to account for emotions in making intelligible the behavior of religious participants and practitioners. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork that includes numerous interviews as well as an examination of written and visual sources, Attracting the Heart conveys the manner in which Buddhists describe their own histories, experiences, and encounters as they relate to the formation and continuation of Buddhist monastic culture in contemporary Sri Lanka. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of religion, Buddhist studies, anthropology, and South and Southeast Asian studies.
Download or read book The Work of Kings written by H. L. Seneviratne and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Work of Kings is a stunning new look at the turbulent modern history and sociology of the Sri Lankan Buddhist Monkhood and its effects upon contemporary society. Using never-before translated Sinhalese documents and extensive interviews with monks, Sri Lankan anthropologist H.L. Seneviratne unravels the inner workings of this New Buddhism and the ideology on which it is based. Beginning with Anagarika Dharmapala's "rationalization" of Buddhism in the early twentieth century, which called for monks to take on a more activist role in the community, Seneviratne shows how the monks have gradually revised their role to include involvement in political and economic spheres. The altruistic, morally pure monks of Dharamapala's dreams have become, Seneviratne trenchantly argues, self-centered and arrogant, concealing self-aggrandizement behind a façade of "social service." A compelling call for reform and a forceful analysis, The Work of Kings is essential to anthropologists, historians of religion, and those interested in colonialism, nationalism, and postcolonial politics.
Download or read book Buddhism Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka written by Mahinda Deegalle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book explores the dilemmas that Buddhism faces in relation to the continuing ethnic conflict and violence in modern Sri Lanka. Prominent scholars in the fields of anthropology, history, Buddhist studies and Pali examine multiple dimensions of the problem. Buddhist responses to the crisis are discussed in detail, along with how Buddhism can help to create peace in Sri Lanka. Evaluating the role of Buddhists and their institutions in bringing about an end to war and violence as well as possibly heightening the problem, this collection puts forward a critical analysis of the religious conditions contributing to continuing hostilities.
Download or read book Militant Buddhism written by Peter Lehr and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-30 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against the backdrop of the ongoing Rohingya crisis, this book takes a close and detailed look at the rise of militant Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand, and especially at the issues of ‘why’ and ‘how’ around it. We are well aware of Christian fundamentalism, militant Judaism and Islamist Salafism-Jihadism. Extremist and violent Buddhism however features only rarely in book-length studies on religion and political violence. Somehow, the very idea of Buddhist monks as the archetypical ‘world renouncers’ exhorting frenzied mobs to commit acts of violence against perceived ‘enemies of the religion’ seems to be outright ludicrous. Recent events in Myanmar/Burma, but also in Thailand and Sri Lanka, however indicate that a militant strand of Theravada Buddhism is on the rise. How can this rise be explained, and what role do monks play in that regard? These are the two broad questions that this book explores.
Download or read book Buddhism Transformed written by Richard Gombrich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study a social and cultural anthropologist and a specialist in the study of religion pool their talents to examine recent changes in popular religion in Sri Lanka. As the Sinhalas themselves perceive it, Buddhism proper has always shared the religious arena with a spirit religion. While Buddhism concerns salvation, the spirit religion focuses on worldly welfare. Buddhism Transformed describes and analyzes the changes that have profoundly altered the character of Sinhala religion in both areas.
Download or read book Buddhist Monks and the Politics of Lanka s Civil War written by Suren Raghavan and published by Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies Monographs. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The war in Sri Lanka was violent and costly in human and material terms. This was one of the longest wars in modern South Asia. Often referred to as an 'ethnic' conflict between the majority Sinhalas and the minority Tamils, the war had a profound religious dimension. The majority of Sinhala Buddhist monks (the Sangha) not only opposed any meaningful powersharing but latterly advocated an all-out military solution. Such a nexus between Buddhism and violence is paradoxical; nevertheless it has a historical continuity. In 2009 when the war ended amid serious questions of war crimes and crimes against humanity, monks defended the military and its Buddhist leadership. Taking the lives of three key Sangha activists as the modern framework of a Sinhala Buddhist worldview, this book examines the limitations of Western theories of peacebuilding and such solutions as federalism and multinationalism. It analyzes Sinhala Buddhist ethnoreligious nationalism and argues for the urgent need to engage Buddhist politics - in Lanka and elsewhere - with approaches and mechanisms that accommodate the Sangha as key actors in political reform. Sinhala Buddhism is often studied from a sociological or anthropological standpoint. This book fills a gap by examining the faith and practice of the Sinhala Sangha and their followers from a political science perspective.
Download or read book Women Under the Bo Tree written by Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-08-25 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively examination of female world-renunciation on Buddhist Sri Lanka.
