Buddhist gaze and power in a post-war destination: case study of Jaffna, Sri Lanka
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This study explores how Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism is constructed in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, a post-war reunified state, through post-war travels. Sri Lankan government and the military forces have recreated Buddhist temples and monuments that were destroyed in the war and have re-introduced Buddhist signs and symbols. Thus, Sinhalese Buddhists visiting Jaffna gaze upon the region with a sense of ownership fueled by the triumphalism. This study adopts Michel Foucault’s discourse on power to reach its objectives and employs discourse analysis and ethnographic analysis to analyze the descriptive data. The study finds that the Sinhalese Buddhist Gaze in Jaffna is abstracted as omnipresent in a tripartite system extracted from ancient Sinhalese Buddhist notions: Rata (country), Jathiya (ethnicity), and Aagama (religion).Keywords:
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Abstract This article examines the place of caste in Buddhism in India and Sri Lanka. In addition to suggesting a way of reconciling divergent attitudes toward caste in the Pali canon and several Sanskrit texts, this article explores the role that caste has played in the creation of new monastic lineages in eighteenth‐, nineteenth‐, and twentieth‐century Sri Lanka, as well as its role in monastic patronage and temple building in contemporary Sri Lanka.
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Traces the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka as depicted in the Pali language chronicles which date from the 4th century BC onwards. This title describes about Vamsa Literature, short history of the Pali chronicles, royal patronage of Buddhism, monastic life in Ceylon, Buddhist festivals and ceremonies in Ceylon.
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Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka. Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and Chandra R. de Silva. eds. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. 212 pp.
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Taking a comparative approach, this fieldwork-based study explores the lives and thoughts of Buddhist nuns in present-day Taiwan and Sri Lanka. The author examines the postcolonial background and its influence on the modern situation, as well as surveying the main historical, economic, and social factors which influence the position of nuns in society. Based on original research, including interviews with nuns in both countries, the book examines their perspectives on controversial issues and in particular those concerning the status of women in Buddhism. Concerns discussed include allegedly misogynist teachings relating to women's inferior karma, that they cannot become Buddhas, and that nuns have to follow additional rules that monks do not. Bridging the gap between feminist theory and the reality of women in religion, the book makes a distinct contribution to the study of women in Buddhism by focusing on nuns from both of the main wings of Buddhism (Theravada and Mahayana) as well as furthering feminist studies of Buddhism and religion in general.
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Examines the turbulent modern history and sociology of the Sri Lankan Buddhist Monkhood and its effects upon contemporary society. Using translated Sinhalese documents and 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-20th century, which called for monks to take on a more activist role in the community, Seneviratne shows how the monks have graduallyu revised their role to include involvement in political and economic spheres. The altruistic, morally pure monks of Dharmapala's dream have become, Seneviratne argues, self-centered and arrogant, concealing self-aggrandizement behind a facade of social service.
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Abstract The South Asian island of Sri Lanka continues to be an important field site for the study of contemporary Buddhism. Numerous scholars in the field of religion base their arguments about the modern rise of Buddhist revivalism and fundamentalism on ethnographic data from Sri Lanka's long tradition of Theravāda Buddhism. This article, based on fieldwork in Colombo during summer 2002, serves to update previous knowledge on Sri Lankan Buddhism by reporting on newer developments in this religious tradition. I argue that many of the recent trends in Sri Lankan Buddhism are linked in part to broader political and economic realities observed in the island today. Notes This article was written shortly after my return from three months of research and fieldwork in Sri Lanka during the summer of 2002. This fieldwork was funded in part by a Summer Faculty Fellowship awarded by the Graduate College at Southwest Missouri State University. I wish to thank Imali Berkwitz, Yolanda Foster and Jack Llewellyn for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this work. Corresponding author. Tel.: +1‐417‐836‐4147; fax: +1‐417‐836‐6792 E‐mail address: scb919f@smsu.edu (S.C. Berkwitz).
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The ethical concerns generated by transactions in human tissue touch on fundamental ideas of the body, society, and the nature of giving. These issues have generally been discussed using Euro-American terms of reference. Drawing on fieldwork carried out in Sri Lanka, this article describes the ways in which a distinctively Theravada Buddhist notion of giving and charity has been linked to the development of strategies to encourage the donation of human tissue. Eye and blood donation are used as illustrations of the linkages that have been forged between religious duty, other-wordly aspirations, and nationalist sentiment in the development of national donation services. The key question which is then addressed is how these distinctive beliefs and values inform attempts to frame donations of sperm and ova which are now beginning to take place in Sri Lanka. In religious and cultural terms the candidacy of sperm and ova as gifts appears to be evaluated very differently. Explaining these differences opens up the possibility of a more thoroughgoing anthropological critique of bioethics and the manner of its diffusion both within and beyond the Euro-American context.
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