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.
Contributions by:
Stephen C. Berkwitz,
Marcus Evans,
Ward Keeler
Edited by:
Megan Bryson,
Kevin Buckelew
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231210461
ISBN 10: 0231210469
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 05 September 2023
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: Masculinities Beyond the Buddha, by Megan Bryson Part 1: Masculine Models 1. Middle Way Masculinity: The Bodhisattva Siddhārtha as a Renunciant in Early Buddhist Texts and Art, by Dessislava Vendova 2. How Chan Masters Became “Great Men”: Masculinity in Chinese Chan Buddhism, by Kevin Buckelew 3. Men of Virtue: Reexamining the Bodhisattva King in Sri Lanka, by Stephen C. Berkwitz Part 2: Mighty Masters 4. The Siddha Who Tamed Tibet: Padmasambhava’s Tantric Masculinity, by Joshua Brallier Shelton 5. Building a Nation on the Dharma Battlefield: Lay Zen Masculinities in Modern Japan, by Rebecca Mendelson 6. Macho Buddhism (Redux): Gender and Sexualities in the Diamond Way, by Bee Scherer Part 3: Making Men 7. Being a Man vs. Being a Monk: Alternative Versions of Burmese Buddhist Masculinity, by Ward Keeler 8. Hanuman, Heroes, and Buddhist Masculinity in Contemporary Thailand, by Natawan Wongchalard 9. Buddhism and Afro-Asian Masculinities in The Man with the Iron Fists, by Marcus Evans Part 4: Breaking Boundaries 10. The Afterlife of the Tang Monk: Buddhist Masculinity and the Image of Xuanzang in East Asia, by Geng Song 11. Real Monks Don’t Have Gṛhastha Sex: Revisiting Male Celibacy in Classical South Asian Buddhism, by Amy Paris Langenberg Appendix: Character Glossary Contributors Index
Megan Bryson is associate professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Kevin Buckelew is assistant professor of religious studies at Northwestern University.
Reviews for Buddhist Masculinities
In a series of fascinating essays, . . . scholars contend with how Buddhists have negotiated with masculine ideals and the effect that this has had on Buddhist culture. * Buddhadharma: Lion's Roar * This is the first book to critically explore masculinity across such a broad swath of the Buddhist tradition in different periods and cultures. The authors—experts in fields as diverse as philology, ethnography, archeology, art history, the study of popular culture, and film studies—provide us with new and important insights into the diverse and sometimes competing notions of maleness in different parts of the Buddhist world and how these notions have often functioned to subordinate women. A theoretically sophisticated yet accessible book, Buddhist Masculinities is must read for anyone interested in Buddhism and the comparative study of gender. -- José Ignacio Cabezón, author of <i>Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism</i> This volume brings much needed attention to the diversities and continuities of Buddhist masculinity throughout Asia and beyond. Across four sections, Buddhist Masculinities shows how Buddhists generated masculine ideals, performed machismo, adapted to culturally specific definitions of masculinity, and responded to transgressive masculinities. This is a welcome and timely addition to the study of Buddhism and gender for a new generation of scholars. -- Bernard Faure, author of <i>The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality</i> and <i>The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender</i> Buddhist Masculinities sheds light on masculinity as an object of analysis, refusing to allow it to go unmarked as it so often does in Buddhist texts and scholarship. The book is bound to become an important reference for future work in this burgeoning field, as it maintains an expansive and critical definition of masculinity, engaging masculinity theorists to think about diverse Buddhist texts and contexts. -- Sarah Jacoby, author of <i>Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro</i> A groundbreaking work that offers a fresh perspective on the concept of male gender in Buddhism. * Religious Studies Review *
