New Books in Buddhist Studies

Scott A. Mitchell‘s recent monograph, Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts (Bloomsbury, 2016), provides a much-needed up-to-date overview of Buddhism in the United States. To tackle such a large topic, Mitchell draws on Thomas Tweeds work and approaches American Buddhism as comprising worldviews and sets of practices that are born of local circumstances but which can be firmly located within global cultural networks that extend far beyond the local and beyond America. The book is usefully divided into three sections. In the first, Mitchell provides a short introduction to Buddhism and then discusses the history of Buddhism in the US up to around the 1960s. Here he also touches on the nineteenth-century European interest in Buddhism, on the ways in which US immigration policy influenced Buddhist demographics, and on the Zen boom of the 1950s. The second section presents a rich overview of Buddhism in the US, organized according to a tripartite distinction between Theravada traditions, East Asian Mahayana traditions, and Vajrayana traditions, including Japanese esoteric Buddhism. For anyone who wants to know who established what temple or group and when, this is essential reading. A third section then addresses a handful of themes or developments through which to examine American Buddhism more broadly. Here Mitchell sheds fresh light on a number of issues that will be familiar to anyone involved with Buddhism in the US. For example, he examines commercial uses of Buddhist ideas and imagery, but goes beyond characterizing such use as mere cultural appropriation for monetary ends by providing examples in which it is practicing Buddhists themselves who are behind the commercial use. Here he also looks at visual art and literature that straddles the border between Buddhist and non-Buddhist, thus bringing our attention to the gray areas in which readers notions of what is and is not Buddhism are challenged. Other topics addressed in this third section include issues around identity, pan-Buddhist and secular Buddhist movements, and various forms of socially-engaged Buddhism. In the interview we only touch on a few of these topics, and readers will have to pick up a copy for themselves to appreciate the full scope of this volume. The book is in part designed to be used in the classroom, and each chapter is accompanied by a useful chapter overview, discussion questions, and a list for further reading. That being said, the book offers a wealth of information, and is thus a must-read for any scholar wanting to know about the history and current state of American Buddhism. Furthermore, written in clear prose as it is, the book can also be enjoyed by those without a prior understanding of Buddhism, and it will provide anyone who is interested with the most up-to-date and comprehensive account of American Buddhism currently available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

In The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia: Transformation in Buryatia (Central European University Press, 2014), Melissa Chakars reveals not only how Soviet policies disrupted traditional Buryat ways of life, but also how Buryats adapted to build a modern educated society in the post-war period. Ethnic Buryats were proportionally over-represented in cultural, educational and media positions in the region, giving a much greater influence than their numbers (20% of the population) would indicate. Chakars analyzes the ways in which Buryats were able to benefit from modernization and their engagement with the Soviet system. This book contributes to a better understanding of both Soviet policies in Siberia and the relationship between central governments and indigenous peoples. Melissa Chakars is Associate Professor of History at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

In his recent monograph, Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law: The Pyrrhic Constitutionalism of Sri Lanka (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Benjamin Schonthal examines the relationship between constitutional law and religious conflict in Sri Lanka during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Situating his study alongside broader conversations in the field of constitutional law and specifically debates about law’s effects on religion, Schonthal challenges the widely-held idea that constitutional law, properly administered, is a useful tool for reducing conflict between and within religious communities. Drawing on unpublished and previously unexamined archival materials written in Tamil, Sinhalese, and English, Schonthal argues that in the case of Sri Lanka constitutional law has actually hardened pre-existing religious conflicts and encouraged religious actors to use the law and courts to frame a variety of legal fights in explicitly religious terms. The pyrrhic constitutionalism in the subtitle of the book is the term that Schonthal has coined to describe how, in this case, the practice of constitutional law actually exacerbates the very problems it was designed to resolve. In the first half of the book, Schonthal details the fascinating history of two of Sri Lankas most important constitutions–an initial one in 1948, and a revised version ratified in 1972–focusing specifically on the section that addresses Buddhism and religion. Many familiar with the post-independence history of Sri Lanka might interpret this section as but a product of Buddhist chauvinism and Sinhala nationalism. However, by looking at an impressive number of drafts and archival materials, Schonthal reveals that the process of drafting this religious clause was in fact a messy back-and-forth between several competing parties, including those who wanted the government to completely remove itself from religious affairs, those who wanted the government to proactively protect religious rights, and those who hoped the state would grant Buddhism a special, protected status in post-colonial Sri Lanka. He further shows that even among those who wanted Buddhism to enjoy special protection there was much disagreement about how the government should execute such protection, and to what degree the government should assume responsibilities traditionally allocated to the saṅghas elders or sometimes to the king. The second half of the book provides case studies that detail precisely how it is that constitutional law exacerbates extant conflicts within and between religious groups. After providing a number of examples of the way in which the Buddhism and religion clause created an incentive for Buddhist groups to use the courts as a space for publicly airing their grievances, Schonthal then moves on to the case of a monk who applied for a driving license but, after a long legal process, was eventually denied. Scholars of Buddhism will find this case fascinating regardless of their area or period of expertise, for this highly contentious case, which captivated the Sri Lankan media and public, gets to the heart of a perennial issue within Buddhist societies, namely the degree to which secular rulers should be involved in enforcing Buddhist monastic rules. In the book’s penultimate chapter, Schonthal looks at Buddhist anxiety over religious conversion–specifically cases of Buddhists converting to Christianity–and again argues that constitutional law has inadvertently intensified this controversy. In the interview we barely scratch the surface of the book, and listeners interested in following Schonthal’s arguments in greater detail and reading the case studies, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

In his recent monograph, Deathpower: Buddhism’s Ritual Imagination in Cambodia (Columbia University Press, 2015), Erik W. Davis explores funerary ritual in contemporary Cambodian Buddhism and the way in which Buddhist monks manage death such that its negative power is harnessed and used for the reproduction of morality and of a particular social reality. The book is organized around two themes, which serve as the warp over and under which Davis skillfully weaves the ethnographic detail resulting from his many years of fieldwork in Southeast Asia. The first of these two themes is binding. In the funeral itself binding is both symbolic, as when the funerary ritualists contain the potentially malevolent spirits exiting the corpse, and physical, as when the corpse is bound with consecrated string. Davis sees this image of binding extending far beyond the funeral rite, however, and discusses the way in which Khmer culture itself is founded in part upon the binding or controlling of water–necessary in rice agriculture as practiced in Cambodia–and the binding of people, which is actualized as the enslavement of highland non-agricultural peoples by lowland-dwelling Cambodians. The second theme that runs throughout the book is the dichotomy between civilization and its other. Thus, we find in the Khmer imagination a distinction made between the civilized, moral, agricultural, deforested lowlands and the wild, amoral, forested highlands. In its firm association with civilization, agriculture, and social hierarchy, Cambodian Buddhism legitimates this imagined dichotomy and renders the social world of the lowlands moral. Because Davis explains the nitty-gritty of the many rituals he discusses in larger theoretical terms, the book will be of great interest to both specialists and those with no knowledge of Cambodian Buddhism. On the more detailed side, he discusses not only funerals, but also the sīmā ceremony, the domestication of ghosts by Buddhist monks, the feeding of ghosts and ancestors, witchcraft, the ordination of novice monks, slavery in Cambodia, Khmer origin legends, fertility rituals associated with rice cultivation, nāgas, apotropaic tattoos, Khmer views of leftovers (of food, that is), and a fascinating amulet that is supposedly created by ripping a fetus out of a living woman. But all of this is explained with reference to broader perennial themes, including Buddhism’s management and power over death, reciprocity within the family and (more broadly) human society, the relationship between kingship and Buddhism, human sacrifice, the ambiguity that so often characterizes attitudes towards the deceased, the relationship between agriculture and social hierarchy, and the way in which Buddhism defines itself in opposition to an imagined, amoral other. Specialists will learn something new about the particulars of Cambodian Buddhist ritual, Cambodian society, and funerary practice, while scholars of Buddhism and other religions will surely recognize familiar patterns even as they appreciate the idiosyncratic nature of Cambodian Buddhism. Furthermore, in addition to his rich, first-hand accounts of various rituals and his examination of these rituals through a number of theoretical lenses, Davis includes at the end of each of the book’s nine chapters a vignette relating either a legend or an episode from his own time in the field that illustrates a particular point he is trying to make. This, along with the inclusion of sixteen black and whitephotographs from the author’s fieldwork and a Khmer glossary, make this a very accessible book despite its complexity and depth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

The essays in Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup’s new edited volume, Recovering Buddhism in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2016), collectively make a compelling argument that Buddhism and Buddhists played important roles in the modern transformations of China from the twentieth century through today. Though history scholarship has, relatively speaking, neglected to pay attention to the roles of Buddhism in these transformations part of a more general tendency to marginalize the significance of Chinese religion in China’s modern period Kiely and Jessup’s volume is part of an emerging field of scholars who are beginning to change that. The essays cluster around several key themes. Many pay special attention to revivalist projects of clerics and laity, some of which helped make Buddhism the Chinese religion that was most legible to the modern state. Some explore the broad significance of lay Buddhists and lay Buddhist associations to the making of modern China. Some seek to understand Buddhism and Buddhists as part of larger histories of nationalism and projects of nation-building in modern China. Some focus on the significance of studying Buddhism in modern China in local contexts and from the perspective of local society. Taken together, its a great collection that deserves a wide readership! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

In Thailand’s Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jataka and the Idea of the Perfect Man (SUNY Press, 2016; in paperback from 2017), Patrick Jory offers a compelling reinterpretation of religious text as political theory. The Vessantara Jataka is one of the most historically significant stories of Gautama Buddha’s previous births. Rather than reading the jataka as religious narrative or folktale, Jory convincingly resituates it at the centre of statecraft and ruling ideology in pre-modern Thailand. Tracking the jataka’s rising popularity from the period of early state formation, he shows how its preeminence gradually came to an end with European empire in the 1800s, when the country’s elites undertook to save Buddhism by recasting the religion and its larger traditions to fit with colonial forms of knowledge. Although the jatakas lost favour in the capital they remained popular in the countryside. Today their relationship to the Thai monarchy has been partly restored, with the idea of the perfect man embodied in recently deceased King Bhumibol. Patrick Jory joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to discuss gift giving, Southeast Asian conceptions of power, the idea of literature, superficially modernized monarchy, and the many uses of history. Nick Cheesman is a fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and in 2016-17 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He can be reached at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

The words “Buddhism” and “enlightenment” are, at least in the West, tightly connected. “Everyone” knows that the goal–or at least one of the goals–of Buddhist practice is “enlightenment.” But what the heck is “enlightenment,” exactly? It’s a tough question, but Dale S. Wright takes it on in his aptly named book What is Buddhist Enlightenment? (Oxford University Press, 2016). Using a kind of Zen approach (my characterization, not his), Wright doesn’t slice and dice the concept in order to come up with some Platonic ideal of “enlightenment.” You won’t find any pithy definition of the idea in the pages of this book. Rather, you’ll discover a wide-ranging exploration of “Buddhist enlightenment”–what it has meant, what it now means, and what it might and even should mean in the future. Buddhists teach that everything is changing all the time, like it or not. So it is, Wright argues, with “Buddhist enlightenment.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

In her recent monograph, Thailand’s International Meditation Centers: Tourism and the Global Commodification of Religious Practices (Routledge, 2015), Brooke Schedneck examines Buddhist meditation centers in Thailand and draws our attention to the way in which these institutions have creatively (though not always intentionally) altered Buddhist meditation and the meditation retreat format so as to make them accessible to the large number of non-Thai meditators who come to these centers. While at first sight the topic of meditation centers in Thailand might appear fairly narrow and easy to delimit, Schedneck shows that to understand both the histories of these centers and the ways in which they currently operate, one must locate these institutions in the broader contexts of Southeast Asian history, European intellectual and colonial history, and Buddhism’s encounter with modernity. After covering the rise of mass meditation movements (a process that can be traced in part to developments in late nineteenth-century Burma), Schedneck turns to the way in which the meditation centers where she conducted her fieldwork have created two systems within a single institution: one for Thai retreatants, and the other for foreigners. Not only does the social interaction between teacher and student differ in the two systems, but so too does the way in which meditation is taught. Thai participants understand meditation as but one of a number of activities that are meaningful according to a worldview based on Buddhist ideas and values, and they are taught accordingly. Non-Thai meditators, who are almost exclusively from the West, are instead presented with meditation as a secular practice that is to be understood in psychological and universalistic terms, and is largely a matter of individual development. This difference is in turn related to the motivations and preconceptions about Buddhism and Asia that foreign meditators bring to the retreat. Schedneck positions such motives and assumptions in the larger contexts of Buddhist modernism, Orientalism, and the history of European views of Buddhism (both of the Enlightenment and Romantic varieties). As part of this discussion, she clarifies the way in which many first-time retreatants’ associate Buddhist meditation with nature, or, alternatively, see it as a form of therapy through which individual transformation and healing can be realized. However, Western objectifications of Buddhism constitute but one aspect of Schedneck’s multi-faceted exploration of the international meditation centers. Her novel research into the ways in which individual meditation centers, the World Buddhist Federation, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand have portrayed and promoted these centers, is the “commodification” in the subtitle of the book. Schedneck demonstrates that the repackaging of Buddhist meditation is neither a wholesale adaptation of Western modernity nor a conscious attempt at securing tourist spending, but rather a creative adaptation through which Buddhism and meditation are rendered intelligible and meaningful to those who are culturally unfamiliar with both. And Schedneck is careful to point out that this dynamic is as old as Buddhism itself, for Buddhism’s two-and-a-half-millennia survival was possible only because Buddhism was translated into the languages of, and adapted to the thinking of, those cultures to which it spread. One of the most satisfying features of the book is the inclusion of excerpts from some of the interviews that Schedneck conducted with over sixty international meditation teachers and students. In addition, we find fascinating descriptions of the retreat centers at the center of her research and of the details of daily life during a retreat: schedu... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

Erik J. Hammerstrom‘s new book looks carefully at “what Chinese Buddhists thought about science in the first part of the twentieth century” by exploring what they wrote in articles and monographs devoted to the topic in the 1920s and early 1930s. The Science of Chinese Buddhism: Early Twentieth-Century Engagements (Columbia University Press, 2015) grounds its analysis in writings that appeared in the Buddhist periodical press between 1923-1932, tracing the development of ideas about the relationship between science and Buddhism that had their genealogy in the 1890s. Hammerstrom takes readers into some of the landmark moments and places that shaped the discourse of this period, from debates over the material basis of life itself and anti-superstition campaigns, to seminaries, to the places where Buddhist canon and subatomic particles meet. Here you will find a careful and measured analysis that places the histories of Buddhism, psychology, social evolutionism, physics, and logic into dialogue. It will be of interest to readers of the histories of science, Buddhism, and China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

What role do images play in the enlightenment experience? Can Buddha images, calligraphy, mandalas, and portraits function as nodes of access for a practitioner’s experience of enlightenment? Or are these visual representations a distraction from what ultimately matters? Pamela D. Winfield‘s recent award-winning monograph, Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism: Kukai and Dogen on the Art of Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2013), explores these major Japanese Buddhist figures artistic and textual productions in order to answer these questions. Bringing together her expertise in the fields of art history and Buddhist studies, Winfield guides the reader to more nuanced understandings of Kukai as a promoter of icons and Dogen’s seemingly iconoclastic stance. In addition, she offers a model for bridging textual studies and studies of material cultures that opens paths for further explorations of the relationship of practice, text, and image. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies