A strand of Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalism that emerged in 2008 offers an unconventional rejoinder to evangelical efforts to intensify conversions. Pentecostals assert that Christ offers instantaneous salvation whereas Theravāda Buddhism demands slow passage through many lifetimes of suffering. In contrast to concomitant political efforts to curb conversions, one maverick Buddhist monk implicitly responded to such competitive theological provocations by enlisting devotees to engage in ritual and moral cultivation to foreshorten the far-future arrival of the messianic Bodhisatva Maitreya. Neither derivative, nor 'syncretic' the maverick's efforts to fortify Buddhism are nevertheless dialogically responsive to multiple sources of religious competition. Following the traffic of aspiration, contestation, and charismatic affinity between Buddhism and rival religiosities, on one side, and within Buddhism, on the other, the ethnography discloses a multi-religious milieu. Within it, several competing religiosities stir the anxieties of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists. Old and new rivalries pose constraints, even as they provide fodder for religious innovation.
目次
Virtuosity and Religious Attraction 130 Situating Maitrī Bōsat in Sri Lanka 132 Iconography and Theography of Maitreya 134 Time in Decline: Messianic Theologies of Maitrī Bōsat 136 Merit as Ritual Currency 138 The Maverick Goes Rogue 139 The Dialogics of Religious Rivalry 142 References 145
