Sacred Economies has a descriptive side and a theoretical side, and the two work together beautifully. The descriptive side gives us new data from gazetteers and a wide range of miscellaneous sources that includes the land holdings and economic enterprises of Buddhist temples. The theoretical side hinges on the question of merit, an invisible quantum utilized in the exchange of wealth and karma (or even salvation)." -- Eric Reinders, Emory University, author of Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion.
