scholarly journals Dynamics and Stability in the Encounters between Asian Buddhists and European Christians

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Berkwitz
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
The Face ◽  
Patterns Of Interaction

The aim of this paper is to theorize broadly about how cultural encounters between Asian Buddhists and European Christians spurred various efforts to demarcate, systematize, and stabilize religious traditions. It focuses on the dynamics seen in Buddhist responses to contact situations from the sixteenth century onwards in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Japan in order to map out some patterns of interaction among these communities. Theories of cultural imitation and independence do not suffice to theorize interreligious encounters in these cases. Using select examples, this paper will contend that Asian Buddhists often responded to various kinds of European interventions by redefining and reimagining the Buddhist tradition in new ways in order to argue for its continued validity and to secure its stability in the face of external encounters and pressures.

scholarly journals Small Deity Worship in Sri Lanka: A Comparative Study Based on Hindu and Buddhist Religious Traditions

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 99-107
Author(s):  
Gunapalasingam V
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Psychological Needs ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Hindu Tradition ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Buddhist Tradition

The People who have not only multi ethnic, multi -religious and multi -languages in Sri Lanka but also, they follow different beliefs and cultural traditions as well.  Hindu and Buddhist religious and cultural traditions are very prominent in Sri Lanka. Even though India is the root cause for the prevailing Hindu and Buddhist traditions in Sri Lanka, both the traditions and its worships and beliefs have unique and independent characteristics different from India. Small deity worship comprises of unique and independent characteristics in Sri Lanka. Small Deity worship in Hindu tradition: Kazhippu ritual, temple ritual, Kumara Deiva worship, Vairava worship, Pathini Amman worship, tree worship, Naga thampiran worship and small deity worship in Buddhist tradition: Thovil, Magapirith, katharagama deio, Bahirava, Pathini Deio, Bothi tree, Maga Naga are compared and identified unique and innovative characteristics among them.  In this research, historical method, comparative method and descriptive method have been used. Data gathered from field work are considered as primary sources and data gathered from literature, research articles, manuscripts, etc. considered as secondary sources.  Knowing origin and background of Hindu and Buddhist religion, identifying characteristics of small deity worship in Hindu and Buddhist tradition in Sri Lanka, discovering unique and innovative characteristics of small deity worship of Hindu and Buddhist traditions and evaluating values revealed by the two traditions are objectives of the research. Research area for this study is Magoya Divisional Secretary and Eravur Pattu Divisional Secretary.  The conclusion of the research is that the small deity worships of the above two traditions fulfills psychological needs of the concerned people and small deity worship beliefs and traditions of Hindu and Buddhist religions will continue for long time.

(Dis)connected Empires

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Biedermann
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of

(Dis)connected Empires takes the reader on a global journey to explore the triangle formed during the sixteenth century between the Portuguese empire, the empire of Kōtte in Sri Lanka, and the Catholic Monarchy of the Spanish Habsburgs. It explores nine decades of connections, cross-cultural diplomacy, and dialogue to answer one troubling question: why, in the end, did one side decide to conquer the other? To find the answers, this book explores the imperial ideas that shaped the politics of Renaissance Iberia and sixteenth-century Sri Lanka. It argues that, whilst some of these ideas and the political idioms built around them were perceived as commensurate by the various parties involved, differences also emerged early on. This prepared the ground for a new kind of conquest politics, which changed the inter-imperial game at the end of the sixteenth century. The transition from suzerainty-driven to sovereignty-fixated empire building changed the face of Lankan and Iberian politics forever, and is of relevance to global historians at large. Through its scrutiny of diplomacy, political letter-writing, translation practices, warfare, and art, (Dis)connected Empires paints a troubling panorama of connections breeding divergence and leading to communicational collapse. It explores a key chapter in the pre-history of British imperialism in Asia, highlighting how diplomacy and mutual understandings can, under certain conditions, produce conquest. It also connects the histories of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. This is a timely intervention in the current debate on the future of Global History.

Mechanisms for Unity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Black Death ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

This chapter investigates changes in mentalities after the Black Death, comparing practices never before analysed in this context—funerary and labour laws and processions to calm God’s anger. While processions were rare or conflictual as in Catania and Messina in 1348, these rituals during later plagues bound communities together in the face of disaster. The chapter then turns to another trend yet to be noticed by historians. Among the multitude of saints and blessed ones canonized from 1348 to the eighteenth century, the Church was deeply reluctant to honour, even name, any of the thousands who sacrificed their lives to succour plague victims, physically or spiritually, especially in 1348: the Church recognized no Black Death martyrs. By the sixteenth century, however, city-wide processions and other communal rituals bound communities together with charity for the poor, works of art, and charitable displays of thanksgiving to long-dead holy men and women.

I Want More of You: The Politics of Christian Eroticism in Postwar Guatemala

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Lewis O'Neill
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Jacques Lacan ◽  
Teenage Girl ◽  
Media Relations ◽  
Intense Pain ◽  
Eyes Closed ◽  
The Face ◽  
Mystical Experiences ◽  
Great Love ◽  
The Church

The image appeared on the cover of a Sunday bulletin, produced and distributed by one of Guatemala City's most conservative neo-Pentecostal mega-churches. The picture presented the face of a young teenage girl, her eyes closed, lips wet, and skin kissed by a soft, transcendent light; the young woman's head was even tilted to the side in what Jacques Lacan would call jouissance (1998). Across her pink lips read Psalm 4:6: “In peace, I lay myself down.” This image, stitched together by the church's media relations department, makes a sly reference to Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture, St. Teresa in Ecstasy (1652). The statue in Rome presents one of Teresa of Ávila's (1515–1582) mystical experiences of God, which the sixteenth-century Spanish saint narrates with unblinkingly erotic imagery. In her autobiography, St. Teresa writes how “the great love of God” often left her “utterly consumed,” “penetrated to [her] entrails,” and made her “utter several moans” for both the “intense pain” and its “sweetness” (Peers 1927: 197). With St. Teresa in mind, my own reaction to the church bulletin parroted Jacques Lacan's response to Bernini's statue. “She's coming,” Lacan commented, “There's no doubt about it” (1998: 76).

Ties That Bind

2021 ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Elaine Howard Ecklund ◽  
David R. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Standing ◽  
Religious Schools ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Large Subset ◽  
Religious Services ◽  
Patterns Of Interaction ◽  
The U.S

Many assume that atheists and atheist scientists rarely interact with religious individuals. Yet, a large subset of atheist scientists—29 percent in the U.S. and 21 percent in the U.K.—have sustained patterns of interaction with religious individuals and organizations, making them the most unlike the New Atheists. This group includes scientists raised within religious traditions such as Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam who now belong without believing, an orientation that often involves secular participation in religious services and practices. Others participate in services or send their children to religious schools as a way to cultivate cultural capital and social standing. Another dimension of culturally religious atheism involves partnering with or marrying someone who is religious.

Modern Hindu Diaspora(s)

2019 ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
Vineeta Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Hindu Temples ◽  
Modern Hinduism ◽  
Religious Syncretism ◽  
Liberal Approach ◽  
Ritual Practices

A key characteristic of modern Hinduism has been its interaction with forces of globalization. This interface has produced creative expressions of the religion globally. This chapter outlines the global movement of Indians (and Hindus) from the colonial period onwards and focuses on their everyday lives to reveal how Hindu religiosities have been reconfigured in new locales. Specifically, devotional Hinduism—seen in the persistence of domestic worship, growth of Hindu temples, and enactment of festivals and processions—has marked the life of overseas Hindu communities. In diasporic spaces, popular Hinduism is defined by religious syncretism and hybridity in a liberal approach to deities, symbols, philosophies, and ritual practices associated with non-Hindu religious traditions. An inclusive and plural notion of ‘Hindu diaspora’ needs to attend to more than ‘Indian’ variations of Hinduism abroad and to focus also, for example, on Sri Lanka and Nepalese diasporic Hindu experiences.

Processes of Constitutional Transitions in the Face of Territorial Cleavages

2019 ◽  
pp. 330-351
Author(s):  
Cheryl Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
Constitutional Amendments ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Postponement

This chapter discusses the implications of territorial cleavages for the process of constitutional transition by drawing on the experiences of various countries such as Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Nepal, Philippines, Scotland, Spain, Sri Lanka, and Ukraine. It first considers four variables that are likely to affect the process for constitutional transition within a state in which there are significant cleavages along territorial lines: the nature of transition, the nature of territorial cleavage, the challenges confronting statehood, and the involvement of international actors. It then examines four dimensions of the processes of transition that may be influenced by territorial cleavages: phases of the transition process, agenda setting, deliberation and ratification, and implementation and other matters. Finally, it explains how constitutional transitions are shaped by the postponement of final decisions on key matters through deliberate ambiguity, incomplete prescription or reliance on the future operation of rules on constitutional amendments.

The Catholic Recusancy of the Yorkshire Fairfaxes. Part I.

1956 ◽  
Vol 3 (02) ◽  
pp. 68-114
Author(s):  
Hugh Aveling
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Personal Choice ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Landed Gentry

In the middle ages the Fairfaxes ranked amongst the minor landed gentry of Yorkshire. They seem to have risen to this status in the thirteenth century, partly by buying land out of the profits of trade in York, partly by successful marriages. But they remained of little importance until the later fifteenth century. They had, by then, produced no more than a series of bailiffs of York, a treasurer of York Minster and one knight of the shire. The head of the family was not normally a knight. The family property consisted of the two manors of Walton and Acaster Malbis and house property in York. But in the later fifteenth century and onwards the fortunes of the family were in the ascendant and they began a process of quite conscious social climbing. At the same time they began to increase considerably in numbers. The three main branches, with al1 their cadet lines, were fixed by the middle of the sixteenth century – the senior branch, Fairfax of Walton and Gilling, the second branch, Fairfax of Denton, Nunappleton, Bilhorough and Newton Kyme, the third branch, Fairfax of Steeton. It is very important for any attempt to assess the strength and nature of Catholicism in Yorkshire to try to understand the strong family – almost clan – unity of these pushing, rising families. While adherence to Catholicism could be primarily a personal choice in the face of family ties and property interests, the history of the Faith in Yorkshire was conditioned greatly at every point by the strength of those ties and interests. The minute genealogy and economic history of the gentry has therefore a very direct bearing on recusant history.

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