Explores how community is defined and how it functions among Theravada Buddhists in South and Southeast Asia. Constituting Communities explores how community functions within Theravada Buddhist culture. Although the dominant focus of Buddhist studies for the past century has been on doctrinal and philosophical issues, this volume concentrates on discourses that produced them, and why and how these discourses and practices shaped Theravada communities in South and Southeast Asia. From a variety of perspectives, including historical, literary, doctrinal and philosophical, and social and anthropological, the contributors explore the issues that have proven important and definitive for identifying what it has meant, individually and socially, to be Buddhist in this particular region. The book focuses on textual discourse, how communities are formed and maintained within pluralistic contexts, and the formation of community both within and between the monastic and lay settings.

Constituting Communities: Theravada Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia (Suny Series in Buddhist Studies)

Religion & Spirituality

John Clifford Holt

Jacob N. Kinnard

Jonathan S. Walters

Buddhism

State Univ of New York Pr

State University of New York Press

Discipline: The Canonical Buddhism of the Vinayapitaka is a penetrating analysis of a heretofore neglected, yet centrally important portion of the Pali Canon. In identifying the pivotal role of discipline in the bhikkhu quest for nibbana Professor Holt finds that Vinaya rules represent a practical implementation of the Budha's Dhamma. Specifically, adherence to this monastic code theoretically facilitates an overcoming of asavas, mental dispositions that foster attachment to the "self" and thus perpetuate the process of samsaric kammic retribution. The formulation of Buddhist monastic law, therefore, need not be seen as the result of casuistry; rather, it is the consequence of a conscious attempt on the part of the early Buddhist tradition to identify behavioral expressions that at once generate and reflect a calmed, detached and disciplined mental and spiritual state.

Discipline: The Canonical Buddhism of the Vinayapitaka (Buddhist Tradition Series)

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Motilal Banarsidass

This Sinhala recension of the Anagatavamsa, here translated into English for the first time, is but one of several texts forming a genre of Buddhist apocalyptic literature generated by the cult of Maitreya in South and South-east Asia. It is a prophetic text revealing a rich religious imagination focussed upon the advent of the future Buddha in a time when those who have long persevered in the religious quest will gain an opportunity to realize the highest spiritual attainment.

Anagatavamsa Desana: The Sermon of the Chronicle-to-Be (Buddhist Tradition Series)

Udaya Prasanta Maddegama

The Buddhist Visnu: Religious Transformation, Politics, and Culture

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Books by John Clifford Holt