15. Some Reflexions on the Study of Sinhalese Buddhism

1979 ◽  
pp. 487-513
Keyword(s):  
Sinhalese Buddhism

A Political Geography of Deities: Space and the Pantheon in Sinhalese Buddhism

1984 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Winslow
Keyword(s):  
Political Geography ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Local People ◽  
Political Integration ◽  
Administrative Units ◽  
Sinhalese Buddhism ◽  
Administrative Structures ◽  
Territorial Integration ◽  
The Relationship

The author of this article examines the role of Sinhalese Buddhist deities within the long Sinhalese tradition of using Buddhism to support political authority. Extensive contemporary information on deity territories suggests that because state political integration involves territorial integration localized deities have both reflected and been used to bring about an integration of local people into state administrative structures. However, this integration is not brought about by having the territories of the deities parallel administrative units (which they do not); it is brought about by having people think that they do, think that the territories of the gods correspond level by level to the administrative villages, districts, and provinces. As the relationship between these levels and the state has changed historically, that is, when center-hinterland integration has gone from strong to weak to strong again, people's understanding of the pantheon appears to have changed as well.

scholarly journals Misreading and re-reading: interpretation in comparative religion

1999 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
René Gothóni
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Beliefs ◽  
The Social ◽  
Marco Polo ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Holistic Conception ◽  
Sinhalese Buddhism ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Christian Discourse

Religion should no longer only be equated with a doctrine or philosophy which, although important, is but one aspect or dimension of the phenomenon religion. Apart from presenting the intellectual or rational aspects of Buddhism, we should aim at a balanced view by also focusing on the mythical or narrative axioms of the Buddhist doctrines, as well as on the practical and ritual, the experiential and emotional, the ethical and legal, the social and institutional, and the material and artistic dimensions of the religious phenomenon known as Buddhism. This will help us to arrive at a balanced, unbiased and holistic conception of the subject matter. We must be careful not to impose the ethnocentric conceptions of our time, or to fall into the trap of reductionism, or to project our own idiosyncratic or personal beliefs onto the subject of our research. For example, according to Marco Polo, the Sinhalese Buddhists were 'idolaters', in other words worshippers of idols. This interpretation of the Sinhalese custom of placing offerings such as flowers, incense and lights before the Buddha image is quite understandable, because it is one of the most conspicuous feature of Sinhalese Buddhism even today. However, in conceiving of Buddhists as 'idolaters', Polo was uncritically using the concept of the then prevailing ethnocentric Christian discourse, by which the worshippers of other religions used idols, images or representations of God or the divine as objects of worship, a false God, as it were. Christians, on the other hand, worshipped the only true God.

Ideological and Social Change in Ceylon

1963 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ames
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Fundamental Transformation ◽  
Sinhalese Buddhism ◽  
First Time

The Buddhism of Ceylon, known as Theravada or Hinayana in contrast to the Mahayana of China, Japan, and other northern countries, was according to tradition first introduced to the island 2300 years ago by King Asoka of India. It was adopted by the Sinhalese-speaking inhabitants as their national and state religion. Despite periodic invasions, civil wars, conflict with heretical faiths, and a series of monastic scandals, the Sinhalese have managed to maintain a continuity of religious tradition until the present time. But now, perhaps for the first time in its long history, Sinhalese Buddhism appears to be facing a fundamental transformation or "reformation."

Empirical Buddhism : A Novel Aspect of Sinhalese Buddhism Made Explicit

1978 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-265
Author(s):  
A.D.P. Kalansuriya
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Sinhalese Buddhism

L'Auteur de cet article revient sur le problème du bouddhis me singhalais tel qu'il a été abordé par P.A.S. SARAM dans le n° 1976/4 de Social Compass. Il remarque que les socio logues qui traitent du bouddhisme singhalais se réfèrent large ment à certaines formes de bouddhisme dont la définition demeure soit inexistante, soit très vague. Ces sociologues ne tiennent pas compte du « bouddhisme empirique », développe ment nouveau au sein du bouddhisme singhalais. Sans avoir compris quelle est la nature de cette tendance nouvelle, il est impossible d'élaborer un cadre conceptuel alternatif pour une analyse du bouddhisme et de la société à Sri Lanka. Le bouddhisme singhalais contemporain est une « religion en de venir », alors que le bouddhisme ancien (le dhamma) est le formalisme éthique tel qu'il a été formulé par le Bouddha. Mais on peut se demander pourquoi les sociologues, dans ce domaine, tentent d'établir une comparaison et une distinction entre le « bouddhisme ancien » et le « bouddhisme singhalais ». Il faudrait à cet égard clarifier et expliciter la logique inhérente au formalisme éthique bouddhiste. Enfin, il faut remarquer que l'on ne peut pas ajuster un formalisme sans changer en toute logique sa structure con ceptuelle. De même, on ne peut pas étendre la portée du dhamma (formalisme) à d'autres phénomènes sans changer sa structure fondamentale. C'est pourquoi l'affirmation de Saram est inexacte. Conceptuellement, le dhamma n'a qu'un seul but : la libération devant l'angoisse.

Weberian Buddhism and Sinhalese Buddhism

1976 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.A.S. Saram
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Sinhalese Buddhism

L'Auteur de cet article se propose de fournir quelques observations sociologiques au sujet du Bouddhisme à Sri Lanka (Ceylan). Il fait référence tout particulièrement à la tradition théorique wébérienne.

Westernization or Modernization : the Case of the Sinhalese Buddhism

1973 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael M. Ames
Keyword(s):  
Il Y A ◽  
Sinhalese Buddhism

La thèse émise par l'auteur est qu'il n'y a pas de coinci dence entre occidentalisation et modernisation. Dans la rela tion entre l'Occident et les sociétés traditionnelles de l'Asie, deux aspects méritent d'être distingués; d'une part les insti tutions, attitudes, idéaux et pratiques liés fonctionnellement avec le développement technologique et. d'autre part, les élé ments qui ne sont qu'accidentellement liés à ces facteurs. Les premiers sont appelés la modernisation et les seconds l'occi dentalisation : il s'agit de pratiques et d'institutions unies symboliquement avec la modernisation, mais qui n'en font point partie intégrale. On commet une confusion en identifiant les deux. Car, en fait, dans la société ceylanaise actuelle, il y a occidentalisation sans modernisation. Cette thèse est vérifiée dans l'histoire récente de la société singhalaise bouddhiste. C'est d'abord un bref rappel des chan gements politiques et économiques, puis l'histoire de l'occiden talisation par le biais du système scolaire. Le contenu de cette éducation de langue anglaise, pratiquement monopolisée par les Eglises chrétienncs. est un des facteurs-clés de l'occiden talisation sans modernisation. La réaction bouddhiste est pro gressive, mais elle se heurte aux classes occidentalisées — et en grande partie chrétiennes — qui sont les groupes internes dominants et plus tard, avec l'indépendance, ceux qui mono polisent le pouvoir. C'est le début du " Buddhist Revival", initiative du laicat bouddhiste. Ce prélude mènera à la victoire électorale de Mme Bandaranaike en 1956.

The Great Tradition and the Little in the Perspective of Sinhalese Buddhism

1963 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gananath Obeyesekere
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Central Values ◽  
Shared Meanings ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
The People ◽  
Peasant Society ◽  
Great Community ◽  
The Common ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Sinhalese Buddhism

Our central assumption in the foregoing analysis is that cultures are integrated; therefore, the view that peasant cultures are compounded of empirically and conceptually separable great and little traditions is unfounded. We recognize the utility of the terms “great tradition” and “great community”; these abstractions are useful for describing the intellectual thought and interests of civilizations, and groups of individuals who promote and further these interests. The little tradition by contrast, we agree with Dumont and Pocock, is the whole culture of the little community or peasant society. Peasant cultures are “wholes”; but we agree with Redfield that they are not isolates. Peasant cultures or little traditions are linked with the great tradition through a common cultural idiom, which establishes channels of communication between the two traditions and sets up standards of mutual reference and influence. There are common sets of concepts and a common terminology. Though the substantive content of the terminology and the emphases given may be different in each tradition, there is a core of shared meanings associated with the terminology which facilitates movement between the two traditions. This is because the common idiom is derived historically from a great tradition, though refashioned to fit the peasant world view. The common idiom not only links the little tradition with the great, but also links the little traditions with one another. This represents an important aspect of the cultural unity of a civilization: a shared commonality of meanings which define the central values of the people and constitute their governing ethos.

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