Intended as a methodological and theoretical contribution to the study of religion and society, this book examines Buddhist monasticism in Myanmar. The book focuses on the Shwegyin, one of the most important but least understood monastic groups in the country. Analyzing the group as a tradition constructed around ideas of continuity and disruption/rupture, the study illuminates key aspects of monastic and wider Burmese Buddhist thought and practice, and ultimately argues for the distinctiveness of elements of that thought and practice in comparison to the Buddhist cultures of Sri Lanka and Laos. After situating the Shwegyin within the history of Buddhist monasticism more generally, and within the vicissitudes of modern Burmese political history, the book proceeds along two scholarly avenues. It adopts an interdisciplinary method with attention to biographical, administrative, doctrinal, and ethnographic evidence. Theoretically, the book engages scholarly discussion about “traditions” and their “traditionalisms” and advances a specific type of interpretive approach built on bringing the viewpoints and practices of the Shwegyin into conversation with the enterprise of understanding larger historical and cultural patterns in the Buddhist societies of South and Southeast Asia.
目次
Frontmatter I Acknowledgements V Contents IX Abbreviations XII Figures and Tables XIII A Note on the Name Myanmar XIV Conventions for Transliterations, etc. XV Map of Myanmar XVII Introduction: From the kyamuni Buddha to the Shwegyin Tradition 1 Chapter One: The Shwegyin Tradition and Its Traditionalism 32 Chapter Two: Institutional Moorings 73 Chapter Three: Classic Ritual Permutations 107 Chapter Four: Existential Ruminations 139 Conclusion: Continuities and Ruptures 169 Epilogue: A Comment on Continuity and Rupture, from Afar 188 Bibliography 223 Index of Authors 236 Index of Burmese Terms 239 Index of Pali and Sanskrit Terms 241 Index of Subjects 244
