Constituting Communities : Theravada Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia

by Holt, John; Kinnard, Jacob N.; Walters, Jonathan S.

• ISBN13: 9780791456910
• ISBN10: 0791456919
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

Constituting Communities explores how community functions within Theravada Buddhist culture. Although the dominant focus of Buddhist studies for the past century has been on doctrinal and philosophical issues, this volume concentrates on discourses that produced them, and why and how these discourses and practices shaped Theravada communities in South and Southeast Asia. From a variety of perspectives, including historical, literary, doctrinal and philosophical, and social and anthropological, the contributors explore the issues that have proven important and definitive for identifying what it has meant, individually and socially, to be Buddhist in this particular region. The book focuses on textual discourse, how communities are formed and maintained within pluralistic contexts, and the formation of community both within and between the monastic and lay settings.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(8)
John Clifford Holt
Jacob N. Kinnard
Communal Karma and Karmic Community in Theravada Buddhist History	9	(32)
Jonathan S. Walters
Toward a Theory of Buddhist Queenship: The Legend of Asandhimitta	41	(16)
John S. Strong
Beggars Can Be Choosers: Mahakassapa as a Selective Eater of Offerings	57	(14)
Liz Wilson
The Insight Guide to Hell: Mahamoggallana and Theravada Buddhist Cosmology	71	(14)
Julie Gifford
When the Buddha Sued Visnu	85	(22)
Jacob N. Kinnard
Minister of Defense? The Visnu Controversy in Contemporary Sri Lanka	107	(24)
John Clifford Holt
Localizing Lineage: Importing Higher Ordination in Theravadin South and Southeast Asia	131	(20)
Anne M. Blackburn
Preacher as a Poet: Poetic Preaching as a Monastic Strategy in Constituting Buddhist Communities in Modern Sri Lanka and Thailand	151	(20)
Mahinda Deegalle
``For Those Who Are Ignorant'': A Study of the Bauddha Adahilla	171	(18)
Carol S. Anderson
Interpretive Strategies for Seeing the Body of the Buddha	189	(20)
James R. Egge
List of Contributors	209	(2)
Index	211