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Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture / Anne M. Blackburn.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Buddhisms: A Princeton University Press Series ; 12Publisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2020]Copyright date: ©2001Description: 1 online resource (248 p.) : 3 halftones, 2 mapsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691215877
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 294.3/657/095493
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Author's Note -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- CHAPTER ONE. "Destroying the Thick Darkness of Wrong Beliefs" -- CHAPTER TWO. Contextualizing Monasticism -- CHAPTER THREE. Marks of Distinction -- CHAPTER FOUR. 'They Were Scholars and Contemplatives' -- CHAPTER FIVE. 'He Benefited the World and the Sasana1 -- CHAPTER SIX. Readers, Preachers, and Listeners -- CHAPTER SEVEN. "Let Us Serve Wisdom" -- APPENDIX A. Contents of the Monastic Handbook Attributed to Saranamkara -- APPENDIX B. Level Four Subject Areas and Texts -- APPENDIX C. Siyam Nikaya Temple Manuscript Collections -- APPENDIX D. List of Manuscripts Brought from Siam in 1756 -- Glossary -- References -- Index
Summary: 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.
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)9780691215877

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Author's Note -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- CHAPTER ONE. "Destroying the Thick Darkness of Wrong Beliefs" -- CHAPTER TWO. Contextualizing Monasticism -- CHAPTER THREE. Marks of Distinction -- CHAPTER FOUR. 'They Were Scholars and Contemplatives' -- CHAPTER FIVE. 'He Benefited the World and the Sasana1 -- CHAPTER SIX. Readers, Preachers, and Listeners -- CHAPTER SEVEN. "Let Us Serve Wisdom" -- APPENDIX A. Contents of the Monastic Handbook Attributed to Saranamkara -- APPENDIX B. Level Four Subject Areas and Texts -- APPENDIX C. Siyam Nikaya Temple Manuscript Collections -- APPENDIX D. List of Manuscripts Brought from Siam in 1756 -- Glossary -- References -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

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

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.

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 29. Jul 2021)