Buddha in Sri Lanka

Buddha in Sri Lanka PDF Author: Swarna Wickremeratne
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 079148114X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
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.

Buddha in Sri Lanka

Buddha in Sri Lanka PDF Author: Swarna Wickremeratne
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 079148114X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Locations of Buddhism

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

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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.

Buddhism Betrayed?

Buddhism Betrayed? PDF Author: Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226789500
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
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.

Buddhism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka

Buddhism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka PDF Author: Patrick Grant
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791493679
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
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.

Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law

Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law PDF Author: Benjamin Schonthal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107152232
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Examining Sri Lanka's religious and legal pasts, this is the first extended study of Buddhism and constitutional law.

Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka

Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka PDF Author: Mahinda Deegalle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134241887
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
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.

Popularizing Buddhism

Popularizing Buddhism PDF Author: Mahinda Deegalle
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791481026
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Explores the ritual practice of Buddhist preaching.

The Work of Kings

The Work of Kings PDF Author: H. L. Seneviratne
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226748665
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
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.

Militant Buddhism

Militant Buddhism PDF Author: Peter Lehr
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030035174
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
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.

Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka

Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka PDF Author: Tessa J. Bartholomeusz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495868
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka explores Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalist ideology and its power to shape the identities of Sri Lanka's ethnic and religious minorities. Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalists in contemporary Sri Lanka share an ideology that asserts a vital link between the island of Sri Lanka and the Sinhala people, especially in their role as curators of Buddhism, and often at the exclusion of the minorities. Minority responses to Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism are manifold, ranging from assimilation to the formation of rival fundamentalisms. The authors provide views of history markedly different from most scholarly reflections on Sri Lanka; thus, the history of shifting perceptions of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism offered here constitutes an important contribution to the subaltern history of Sri Lanka. By treating both the development of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism in the late nineteenth century and its hegemony in the late twentieth, this study links the present to the past.