A Name for Every Chapter

A Name for Every Chapter PDF Author: Bhadrajee S. Hewage
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781838222222
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description

A Name for Every Chapter

A Name for Every Chapter PDF Author: Bhadrajee S. Hewage
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781838222222
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


Figures of Buddhist Modernity in Asia

Figures of Buddhist Modernity in Asia PDF Author: Jeffrey Samuels
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824858581
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book introduces contemporary Buddhists from across Asia and from various walks of life. Eschewing traditional hagiographies, the editors have collected sixty-six profiles of individuals who would be excluded from most Buddhist histories and ethnographies. In addition to monks and nuns, readers will encounter artists, psychologists, social workers, part-time priests, healers, and librarians as well as charlatans, hucksters, profiteers, and rabble-rousers—all whose lives reflect changes in modern Buddhism even as they themselves shape the course of these changes. The editors and contributors are fundamentally concerned with how individual Buddhists make meaning and display this understanding to others. Some practitioners profiled look to the past, lamenting the transformations Buddhism has undergone in recent times, while others embrace these. Some have adopted a “new asceticism,” while others are eager to explore different religious traditions as they think about their own ways of being Buddhist. Arranging the profiles according to these themes—looking backward, forward, inward, and outward—reveals the value of studying individual Buddhists and their idiosyncratic religious backgrounds and attitudes, thus highlighting the diversity of approaches to the practice and study of Buddhism in Asia today. Students and teachers will welcome sections on further readings and additional tables of contents that organize the profiles thematically, as well as by tradition (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), region, and country.

Mahāvaṃsa, the Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka

Mahāvaṃsa, the Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka PDF Author: Mahānāma
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 1148

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Irish Buddhist

The Irish Buddhist PDF Author: Alicia Turner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019007308X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book Here

Book Description
""The Irish Buddhist tells the story of a poor Irishman who worked his way across America as a migrant worker, became one of the very first Western Buddhist monks, and traveled the length and breadth of Asia, from Burma and present-day Thailand to China and Japan, and from India and Sri Lanka to Singapore and Australia. Defying racial boundaries, he scandalized the colonial establishment of the 1900s. As a Buddhist monk, he energetically challenged the values and power of the British empire. U Dhammaloka was a radical celebrity who rallied Buddhists across Asia, set up schools, and argued down Christian missionaries - often using western atheist arguments. He was tried for sedition, tracked by police and intelligence services, and died at least twice. His early years and final days are shrouded in mystery despite his adept use of mass media. His story illuminates the forgotten margins and interstices of imperial power, the complexities of class, ethnicity and religious belonging in colonial Asia, and the fluidity of identity in the high Victorian period. Too often, the story of the pan-Asian Buddhist revival movement and Buddhism's remaking as a world religion has been told "from above," highlighting scholarly writers, middle-class reformers and ecclesiastical hierarchies. By contrast, Dhammaloka's adventures "from below" highlight the changing and contested meanings of Buddhism in colonial Asia. They offer a window into the worlds of ethnic minorities and diasporas, transnational networks, poor whites, and social movements, all developing different visions of Buddhist and post-imperial modernities. ""--

Return to Righteousness

Return to Righteousness PDF Author: Anagarika Dharmapala
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 1008

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Revival of Buddhist Pilgrimage at Bodh Gaya (1811-1949)

The Revival of Buddhist Pilgrimage at Bodh Gaya (1811-1949) PDF Author: Alan Trevithick
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
ISBN: 9788120831070
Category : Buddhist temples
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book Here

Book Description
Alan Trevithick spent three years researching primary documents in New Delhi, Sarnath, Colombo, and London, in order to present this history (1874-1949) of the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya. This is the first such account, and it details for the first time the administrative, legal and legislative activities which shaped the temple`s current status as one of the world`s most popular pilgrimage sites. Also included is an innovative biographical essay on Anagarika Dharmapala, the Sinhalese activist who first came to India in the late 19th century as a guest of the Theosohical society: his subsequent actions substantially affected the development of Bodh Gaya as a site of international importance.

Buddhism in the Modern World : Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition

Buddhism in the Modern World : Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition PDF Author: Steven Heine Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Asian Studies Florida International University
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198033578
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
The history of Buddhism has been characterized by an ongoing tension between attempts to preserve traditional ideals and modes of practice and the need to adapt to changing cultural conditions. Many developments in Buddhist history, such as the infusion of esoteric rituals, the rise of devotionalism and lay movements, and the assimilation of warrior practices, reflect the impact of widespread social changes on traditional religious structures. At the same time, Buddhism has been able to maintain its doctrinal purity to a remarkable degree. This volume explores how traditional Buddhist communities have responded to the challenges of modernity, such as science and technology, colonialism, and globalization. Editors Steven Heine and Charles S. Prebish have commissioned ten essays by leading scholars, each examining a particular traditional Buddhist school in its cultural context. The essays consider how the encounter with modernity has impacted the disciplinary, textual, ritual, devotional, practical, and socio-political traditions of Buddhist thought throughout Asia. Taken together, these essays reveal the diversity and vitality of contemporary Buddhism and offer a wide-ranging look at the way Buddhism interacts with the modern world.

Building the Buddhist Revival

Building the Buddhist Revival PDF Author: Gregory Adam Scott
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190930721
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book Here

Book Description
Between 1850 and 1966, tens of thousands of Buddhist sacred sites in China were destroyed, victims of targeted destruction, accidental damage, or simply neglect. During the same period, however, many of these sites were reconstructed, a process that involved both rebuilding material structures and reviving religious communities. The conventionally accepted narrative of Chinese Buddhism during the modern era is that it underwent a revival initiated by innovative monastics and laypersons, leaders who reinvented Buddhist traditions to meet the challenges of modernity. Gregory Adam Scott shows, however, that over time it became increasingly difficult for reconstruction leaders to resist the interests of state actors, who sought to refashion monastery sites as cultural monuments rather than as living religious communities. These sites were then intended to serve as symbols of Chinese history and cultural heritage, while their function as a frame for religious life was increasingly pushed aside. As a result, the power to determine whether and how a monastery would be reconstructed, and the types of activities that would be reinstated or newly introduced, began to shift from religious leaders and communities to state agencies that had a radically different set of motivations and values. Building the Buddhist Revival explores the history of Chinese Buddhist monastery reconstruction from the end of the Imperial period through the first seventeen years of the People's Republic. Over this century of history, the nature and significance of reconstructing Buddhist monasteries changes drastically, mirroring broader changes in Chinese society. Yet this book argues that change has always been in the nature of religious communities such as Buddhist monasteries, and that reconstruction, rather than a return to the past, represents innovative and adaptive change. In this way, it helps us understand the broader significance of the Buddhist "revival" in China during this era, as a creative reconstruction of religion upon longstanding foundations.

Locations of Buddhism

Locations of Buddhism PDF Author: Anne M. Blackburn
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226055094
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Lion’s Roar

The Lion’s Roar PDF Author: Sarath Amunugama
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199096155
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Get Book Here

Book Description
Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933) was a leading Sinhalese Buddhist reformer and national activist who ranks high among the makers of modern Buddhism. The Lion’s Roar is one of the first detailed accounts of Anagarika Dharmapala’s life and the pioneering role he played in the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism at a time when resistance to colonial rule was mainly confined to the elite. The book explores his lifelong struggle for re-establishing Buddhist management of their own sacred places under Hindu control, particularly the Mahabodhi site in Bihar, India. Dharmapala’s association with the Bengali intelligensia, the ‘bhadralok’, and close interactions with Gandhi and Nehru in India, where he spent a greater part of his life, form an interesting part of the narration. Using a rich variety of primary sources, most importantly, Dharmapala’s diaries, the book situates his life within the socio-political and cultural ethos of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and chronicles the zealous efforts of a Buddhist crusader and monk who wished to reform the religion in his native land and propagate it in the Western world.