Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site

Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site PDF Author: David Geary
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415684528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Bodh Gaya in the North Indian state of Bihar has long been recognized as the place where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. This book brings together the recent work of twelve scholars from a variety of disciplines - anthropology, art history, history, and religion - to highlight their various findings and perspectives on different facets of Bodh Gaya's past and present. Through an engaging and critical overview of the place of Buddha's enlightenment, the book discusses the dynamic and contested nature of this site, and looks at the tensions with the on-going efforts to define the place according to particular histories or identities. It addresses many aspects of Bodh Gaya, from speculation about why the Buddha chose to sit beneath a tree in Bodh Gaya, to the contemporary struggles over tourism development, education and non-government organizations, to bring to the foreground the site's longevity, reinvention and current complexity as a UNESCO World Heritage monument. The book is a useful contribution for students and scholars of Buddhism and South Asian Studies.

Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site

Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site PDF Author: David Geary
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415684528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Bodh Gaya in the North Indian state of Bihar has long been recognized as the place where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. This book brings together the recent work of twelve scholars from a variety of disciplines - anthropology, art history, history, and religion - to highlight their various findings and perspectives on different facets of Bodh Gaya's past and present. Through an engaging and critical overview of the place of Buddha's enlightenment, the book discusses the dynamic and contested nature of this site, and looks at the tensions with the on-going efforts to define the place according to particular histories or identities. It addresses many aspects of Bodh Gaya, from speculation about why the Buddha chose to sit beneath a tree in Bodh Gaya, to the contemporary struggles over tourism development, education and non-government organizations, to bring to the foreground the site's longevity, reinvention and current complexity as a UNESCO World Heritage monument. The book is a useful contribution for students and scholars of Buddhism and South Asian Studies.

Buddhism, International Relief Work, and Civil Society

Buddhism, International Relief Work, and Civil Society PDF Author: H. Kawanami
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137380233
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Natural disasters in Asian countries have brought global attention to the work of local Buddhist communities and groups. Here, the contributors examine local Buddhist communities and international Buddhist organizations engaged in a variety of relief work in countries including India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, and Japan.

The Rebirth of Bodh Gaya

The Rebirth of Bodh Gaya PDF Author: David Geary
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295742380
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This multilayered historical ethnography of Bodh Gaya — the place of Buddha’s enlightenment in the north Indian state of Bihar — explores the spatial politics surrounding the transformation of the Mahabodhi Temple Complex into a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002. The rapid change from a small town based on an agricultural economy to an international destination that attracts hundreds of thousands of Buddhist pilgrims and visitors each year has given rise to a series of conflicts that foreground the politics of space and meaning among Bodh Gaya’s diverse constituencies. David Geary examines the modern revival of Buddhism in India, the colonial and postcolonial dynamics surrounding archaeological heritage and sacred space, and the role of tourism and urban development in India.

Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site

Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site PDF Author: David Geary
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136320687
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Bodh Gaya in the North Indian state of Bihar has long been recognized as the place where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. This book brings together the recent work of twelve scholars from a variety of disciplines - anthropology, art history, history, and religion – to highlight their various findings and perspectives on different facets of Bodh Gaya’s past and present. Through an engaging and critical overview of the place of Buddha’s enlightenment, the book discusses the dynamic and contested nature of this site, and looks at the tensions with the on-going efforts to define the place according to particular histories or identities. It addresses many aspects of Bodh Gaya, from speculation about why the Buddha chose to sit beneath a tree in Bodh Gaya, to the contemporary struggles over tourism development, education and non-government organizations, to bring to the foreground the site's longevity, reinvention and current complexity as a UNESCO World Heritage monument. The book is a useful contribution for students and scholars of Buddhism and South Asian Studies.

Sacred Sites, Rituals, and Performances

Sacred Sites, Rituals, and Performances PDF Author: Kiran Shinde
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3036518673
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
The conceptual territory of religious tourism is fluid. While recreation and leisure-based motivation and behaviors are evident in religious tourism, this volume reiterates its rootedness in tenets from religious traditions and pilgrimages. Using fresh perspectives on place-stories, rituals, performances, that are central to pilgrimage and sacred sites, essays in this volume explain contemporary expressions of religious tourism and illustrate the dynamic nature of religious tourism as an ecosystem embedded in religious practices, rituals and performances. The explanations will benefit researchers and practioners alike and they can find numerous examples that show the significance of religious tourism for sustainable development of destinations.

Buddhist Tourism in Asia

Buddhist Tourism in Asia PDF Author: Courtney Bruntz
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824882822
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This innovative collaborative work—the first to focus on Buddhist tourism—explores how Buddhists, government organizations, business corporations, and individuals in Asia participate in re-imaginings of Buddhism through tourism. Contributors from religious studies, anthropology, and art history examine sacred places and religious monuments as they have been shaped and reshaped by socioeconomic and cultural trends in the region. Following an introduction that offers the first theoretical understanding of tourism from a Buddhist studies’ perspective, early chapters discuss the ways Buddhists and non-Buddhists imagine concepts and places related to the religion. Case studies highlight Buddhist peace in India, Buddhist heavens and hells in Singapore, Thai temple space, and the future Buddha Maitreya in China. Buddhist tourism’s connections to the state, market, and new technologies are explored in chapters on Indian package tours for pilgrims, thematic Buddhist tourism in Cambodia, the technological innovations of Buddhist temples in China, and the promotion of pilgrimage sites in Japan. Contributors then situate the financial concerns of Chinese temples, speed dating in temples in Japan, and the diffuse and pervasive nature of Buddhism for tourism promotion in Ladakh, India. How have tourist routes, groups, sites, and practices associated with Buddhism come to be possible and what are the effects? In what ways do travelers derive meaning from Buddhist places? How do Buddhist sites fortify national, cultural, or religious identities? The comparative research in South, Southeast, and East Asia presented here draws attention to the intertwining of the sacred and the financial and how local and national sites are situated within global networks. Together these findings generate a compelling comparative investigation of Buddhist spaces, identities, and practices.

Shifting Stones, Shaping the Past

Shifting Stones, Shaping the Past PDF Author: Catherine Becker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199359393
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
In a wide-ranging exploration of the creation and use of Buddhist art in Andhra Pradesh, India, from the second and third centuries of the Common Era to the present, Catherine Becker shows how material remains and visual experiences shape and reveal essential human concerns. Shifting Stones, Shaping the Past begins with an analysis of the ornamentation of Andhra's ancient Buddhist sites, such as the lavish limestone reliefs depicting scenes of devotion and lively narratives on the main stupa at Amaravati. As many such monuments have fallen into disrepair, it is temping to view them as ruins; however, through an examination of recent state-sponsored tourism campaigns and new devotional activities at the sites, Becker shows that the monuments are in active use and even ascribed innate power and agency. Becker finds intriguing parallels between the significance of imagery in ancient times and the new social, political, and religious roles of these objects and spaces. While the precise functions expected of these monuments have shifted, the belief that they have the ability to effect spiritual and mental transformation has remained consistent. Becker argues that the efficacy of Buddhist art relies on the careful attention of its makers to the formal properties of art and to the harnessing of the imaginative potential of the human senses. In this respect, Buddhist art mirrors the teaching techniques attributed to the Buddha, who often engaged his pupils' desires and emotions as tools for spiritual progress.

Shiva's Waterfront Temples

Shiva's Waterfront Temples PDF Author: Subhashini Kaligotla
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300258941
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
This handsomely illustrated volume explores the medieval Deccani temple complexes at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Pattadakal, with careful attention to their makers. The vibrant red sandstone temples of India's Deccan Plateau, such as the Pattadakal temple cluster, have attracted visitors since the eighth century or earlier. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and the coronation place of the Chalukya dynasty, Pattadakal and its neighboring sites are of major historical importance. In Shiva's Waterfront Temples, Subhashini Kaligotla situates these buildings in the cosmopolitan milieu of Deccan India and considers how their makers and awestruck visitors would have seen them in their day. Kaligotla reconstructs how architects and builders approached the sites, including their use of ornamentation, responsiveness to courtly values such as pleasure and play, and ingenious juxtaposition of the first millennium's Nagara and Dravida aesthetics, a blend largely unique to Deccan plateau architecture. With over 130 color illustrations, this original book elucidates the Deccan's special place in the lexicon of medieval South Asian architecture.

The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice

The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice PDF Author: Kevin Trainor
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190632925
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 689

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Book Description
"This Handbook provides a state-of-the-art exploration of several key dynamics in current studies of the Buddhist tradition with a focus on practice. Embodiment, materiality, emotion, and gender shape the way most Buddhists engage with their traditions, in contrast to popular representations of Buddhism as spiritual, disembodied, and largely devoid of ritual. This volume highlights how practice often represents a fluid, dynamic, and strategic means of defining identity and negotiating the challenges of everyday life. Essays explore the transformational aims of practices that require practitioners to move, gesture, and emote in prescribed ways, including the ways that scholars' own embodied practices are integral to their research methodology. The chapters are written by acknowledged experts in their respective subject areas and taken together offer an overview of current thinking in the field. The volume is of particular value to scholars who seek an orientation to current perspectives on important conceptual, theoretical, and methodological concerns that are shaping the field in areas outside their primary expertise. The inclusion of substantial, up-to-date bibliographies also makes the volume an important guide to current scholarship"--

Battling the Buddha of Love

Battling the Buddha of Love PDF Author: Jessica Marie Falcone
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501723472
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
No detailed description available for "Battling the Buddha of Love".