"Anne Blackburn explores the emergence of a predominant Buddhist monastic culture in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka, while asking larger questions about the place of monasticism and education in the creation of religious and national traditions. Her historical analysis of the Siyam Nikaya, a monastic order responsible for innovations in Buddhist learning, challenges the conventional view that a stable and monolithic Buddhism existed in South and Southeast Asia prior to the advent of British colonialism in the nineteenth century. The rise of the Siyam Nikaya and the social reorganization that accompanied it offer important evidence of dynamic local traditions. Blackburn supports this view with fresh readings of Buddhist texts and their links to social life beyond the monastery. Comparing eighteenth-century Sri Lankan Buddhist monastic education to medieval Christian and other contexts, the author examines such issues as bilingual commentarial practice, the relationship between clerical and ""popular"" religious cultures, the place of preaching in the constitution of ""textual communities,"" and the importance of public displays of learning to social prestige.
Blackburn draws upon indigenous historical narratives, which she reads as rhetorical texts important to monastic politics and to the naturalization of particular attitudes toward kingship and monasticism.
Moreover, she questions both conventional views on ""traditional"" Theravadin Buddhism and the ""Buddhist modernism"" / ""Protestant Buddhism"" said to characterize nineteenth-century Sri Lanka. This book provides not only a pioneering critique of post-Orientalist scholarship on South Asia, but also a resolution to the historiographic impasse created by post-Orientalist readings of South Asian history."
By:
Anne M. Blackburn PhD
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Volume: 2
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 15mm
Weight: 510g
ISBN: 9780691070445
ISBN 10: 069107044X
Series: Buddhisms: A Princeton University Press Series
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 28 August 2001
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Author's Note viii Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Chapter One: ""Destroying the Thick Darkness of Wrong Beliefs"" 3 Chapter Two: Contextualizing Monasticism 23 Chapter Three: Marks of Distinction 41 Chapter Four: ""They Were Scholars and Contemplatives"" 76 Chapter Five: ""He Benefited the World and the Sasana"" 107 Chapter Six: Readers, Preachers, and Listeners 139 Chapter Seven: ""Let Us Serve Wisdom"" 197 Appendix A: Contents of the Monastic Handbook Attributed to Saranamkara 205 Apperndix B: Level Four Subject Area and Texts 209 Appendix C: Siyam Nikaya Temple Manuscript Collections 213 Appendix D: List of Manuscripts Brought from Siam in 1756 217 Glossary 219 References 223 Index 235"
Anne M. Blackburn is Assistant Professor of South Asia and Director of the Sinhala Program in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University.
Reviews for Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture
An impressive accomplishment... Blackburn's study of practices and texts associated with Buddhst education is an innovative work that recasts our understanding of religious change prior to the intensive colonization of Sri Lanka in the nineteenth century. -- Stephen C. Berkwitz The Journal of Religion
