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Reading the Mahāvamsa : The Literary Aims of a Theravada Buddhist History / Kristin Scheible.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: South Asia Across the DisciplinesPublisher: New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2016]Copyright date: ©2016Description: 1 online resource (240 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780231171380
  • 9780231542609
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 294.3824 23
LOC classification:
  • BQ2607 .S35 2016
  • BQ2607 .S35 2017
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note On Transliteration And Translation -- Introduction -- 1. Instructions, Admonitions, And Aspirations In Vamsa Proems -- 2. Relocating The Light -- 3. Nāgas, Transfigured Figures Inside The Text, Ruminative Triggers Outside -- 4. Nāgas And Relics -- 5. Historicizing (In) The Pāli Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Vamsa is a dynamic genre of Buddhist history filled with otherworldly characters and the exploits of real-life heroes. These narratives collapse the temporal distance between Buddha and the reader, building an emotionally resonant connection with an outsized religious figure and a longed-for past. The fifth-century Pali text Mahavamsa is a particularly effective example, using metaphor and other rhetorical devices to ethically transform readers, to stimulate and then to calm them. Reading the Mahavamsa advocates a new, literary approach to this text by revealing its embedded reading advice (to experience samvega and pasada) and affective work of metaphors (the Buddha's dharma as light) and salient characters (nagas). Kristin Scheible argues that the Mahavamsa requires a particular kind of reading. In the text's proem, special instructions draw readers to the metaphor of light and the nagas, or salient snake-beings, of the first chapter. Nagas are both model worshippers and unworthy hoarders of Buddha's relics. As nonhuman agents, they challenge political and historicist readings of the text. Scheible sees these slippery characters and the narrative's potent and playful metaphors as techniques for refocusing the reader's attention on the text's emotional aims. Her work explains the Mahavamsa's central motivational role in contemporary Sri Lankan Buddhist and nationalist circles. It also speaks broadly to strategies of reading religious texts and to the internal and external cues that give such works lives beyond the page.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780231542609

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note On Transliteration And Translation -- Introduction -- 1. Instructions, Admonitions, And Aspirations In Vamsa Proems -- 2. Relocating The Light -- 3. Nāgas, Transfigured Figures Inside The Text, Ruminative Triggers Outside -- 4. Nāgas And Relics -- 5. Historicizing (In) The Pāli Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Vamsa is a dynamic genre of Buddhist history filled with otherworldly characters and the exploits of real-life heroes. These narratives collapse the temporal distance between Buddha and the reader, building an emotionally resonant connection with an outsized religious figure and a longed-for past. The fifth-century Pali text Mahavamsa is a particularly effective example, using metaphor and other rhetorical devices to ethically transform readers, to stimulate and then to calm them. Reading the Mahavamsa advocates a new, literary approach to this text by revealing its embedded reading advice (to experience samvega and pasada) and affective work of metaphors (the Buddha's dharma as light) and salient characters (nagas). Kristin Scheible argues that the Mahavamsa requires a particular kind of reading. In the text's proem, special instructions draw readers to the metaphor of light and the nagas, or salient snake-beings, of the first chapter. Nagas are both model worshippers and unworthy hoarders of Buddha's relics. As nonhuman agents, they challenge political and historicist readings of the text. Scheible sees these slippery characters and the narrative's potent and playful metaphors as techniques for refocusing the reader's attention on the text's emotional aims. Her work explains the Mahavamsa's central motivational role in contemporary Sri Lankan Buddhist and nationalist circles. It also speaks broadly to strategies of reading religious texts and to the internal and external cues that give such works lives beyond the page.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 02. Mrz 2022)