Rewriting Buddhism

Rewriting Buddhism PDF Author: Alastair Gornall
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1787355152
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Rewriting Buddhism is the first intellectual history of premodern Sri Lanka’s most culturally productive period. This era of reform (1157–1270) shaped the nature of Theravada Buddhism both in Sri Lanka and also Southeast Asia and even today continues to define monastic intellectual life in the region. Alastair Gornall argues that the long century’s literary productivity was not born of political stability, as is often thought, but rather of the social, economic and political chaos brought about by invasions and civil wars. Faced with unprecedented uncertainty, the monastic community sought greater political autonomy, styled itself as royal court, and undertook a series of reforms, most notably, a purification and unification in 1165 during the reign of Parakramabahu I. He describes how central to the process of reform was the production of new forms of Pali literature, which helped create a new conceptual and social coherence within the reformed community; one that served to preserve and protect their religious tradition while also expanding its reach among the more fragmented and localized elites of the period.

Buddhist Masculinities

Buddhist Masculinities PDF Author: Megan Bryson
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231558430
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
While early Buddhists hailed their religion’s founder for opening a path to enlightenment, they also exalted him as the paragon of masculinity. According to Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha’s body boasts thirty-two physical features, including lionlike jaws, thighs like a royal stag, broad shoulders, and a deep, resonant voice, that distinguish him from ordinary men. As Buddhism spread throughout Asia and around the world, the Buddha remained an exemplary man, but Buddhists in other times and places developed their own understandings of what it meant to be masculine. This transdisciplinary book brings together essays that explore the variety and diversity of Buddhist masculinities, from early India to the contemporary United States and from bodhisattva-kings to martial monks. Buddhist Masculinities adopts the methods of religious studies, anthropology, art history, textual-historical studies, and cultural studies to explore texts, images, films, media, and embodiments of masculinity across the Buddhist world, past and present. It turns scholarly attention to normative forms of masculinity that usually go unmarked and unstudied precisely because they are “normal,” illuminating the religious and cultural processes that construct Buddhist masculinities. Engaging with contemporary issues of gender identity, intersectionality, and sexual ethics, Buddhist Masculinities ushers in a new era for the study of Buddhism and gender.

Rewriting Buddhism

Rewriting Buddhism PDF Author: Alastair Gornall
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1787355152
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Rewriting Buddhism is the first intellectual history of premodern Sri Lanka’s most culturally productive period. This era of reform (1157–1270) shaped the nature of Theravada Buddhism both in Sri Lanka and also Southeast Asia and even today continues to define monastic intellectual life in the region. Alastair Gornall argues that the long century’s literary productivity was not born of political stability, as is often thought, but rather of the social, economic and political chaos brought about by invasions and civil wars. Faced with unprecedented uncertainty, the monastic community sought greater political autonomy, styled itself as royal court, and undertook a series of reforms, most notably, a purification and unification in 1165 during the reign of Parakramabahu I. He describes how central to the process of reform was the production of new forms of Pali literature, which helped create a new conceptual and social coherence within the reformed community; one that served to preserve and protect their religious tradition while also expanding its reach among the more fragmented and localized elites of the period.

The Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register

The Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register PDF Author: John M. Senaveratna
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sri Lanka
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description


Ancient Ceylon

Ancient Ceylon PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sri Lanka
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society PDF Author: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Ceylon Branch, Colombo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 1200

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Book Description
Contains the Society's Proceedings.

Temples to the Buddha and the Gods

Temples to the Buddha and the Gods PDF Author: Sujatha Arundathi Meegama
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824894960
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Temples to the Buddha and the Gods analyzes the patronage of diverse image houses built in the transnational Drāviḍa tradition of architecture in Sri Lanka—an architectural tradition that has been adopted across the Indian Ocean, from the premodern to the contemporary. Although the Drāviḍa tradition is generally associated with Hindu temple architecture, in Sri Lanka it was deployed to build temples to the Buddha as well as to Hindu and Buddhist deities. Framed along ethno-religious binaries, it is seen as “foreign” or “provincial” in previous studies of Sri Lanka’s art histories. In contrast, this book argues that temples constructed in the Drāviḍa architectural tradition in the medieval and the early modern periods in Sri Lanka should be understood as part of the larger transnational architectural tradition. Sujatha Arundathi Meegama brings together different types of image houses built by various patrons (e.g., monarchs, monks, ministers, and merchants) that were previously considered in isolation and rarely included in the Sri Lankan art historical canon. Examining a range of evidence—architecture, inscriptions, and poetry—and synthesizing disparate scholarship on the religious cultures and the art histories of Sri Lanka, the author illustrates that there was a strong presence of shared architectural traditions, shared patterns of patronage, and shared religious practices among the diverse communities on this island. Generally, scholarship on South Asian architecture focuses on the role of rulers and other secular or religious elites as agents of religious architecture; in addition to these actors, this study highlights the roles of architects who specialized in the Drāviḍa tradition and those who experimented with it in stone, brick, and timber in different time periods. Revealing the centrality of this architectural tradition, Temples to the Buddha and the Gods offers a new perspective that contextualizes the cultural tradition of Sri Lanka and its place in the interconnected world of the Indian Ocean.

The Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland

The Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Tropical Agriculturist

Tropical Agriculturist PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 1388

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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Asia
Languages : en
Pages : 1100

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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 956

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Book Description