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Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture (Buddhisms: A Princeton University Press Series, 12) by Anne M. Blackburn is a book available to read on EtoBox.

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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 indigenou

Author

Anne M. Blackburn

Publisher

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

Published

2001

Language

EN

ISBN

9780691215877

Subjects

Buddhism, Religion, History