Academic literature on the topic 'Buddhism Sri Lanka Rituals'

This paper focuses on the functions of English versus other languages in Sri Lankan Buddhist rituals. The framework for this paper is based on a previous work on the language of Hindu rituals by Pandharipande (2012). This study aims to examine the following research questions: what languages are used for practicing Buddhism? Is English used in Buddhist rituals? What mechanisms are used to sanction change? and (4) Will English replace Sinhala and Pali in the UK? In order to answer these research questions, I collected data by attending Sri Lankan Buddhist festivals and event in the UK and recording sermons and speeches used during these festivals to gather information regarding language use and language change. The study proved to be a worthy investigation, as unlike in Sri Lanka where only either Sinhala or Pali is sanctioned in Buddhist practice, in the UK, Sinhala is undergoing language shift and is being replaced by English during Buddhist sermons and other activities. Although prayers and ritual chantings are still in Pali, most of these are explained to the congregation using English. In addition, the use of English is also sanctioned by the Buddhist clergy, through the use of the internet and other media for purposes of promoting Buddhism and reaching young Sri Lankans born in the UK.

Western consciousness of Sri Lanka tends to be limited to bracketing the secessionist ‘Tamil Tigers’ among the ‘terrorist threats’ facing the world community. In truth, tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities of Sri Lanka go back two millennia, and Syed Jamil Ahmed argues here that the conflict is reflected in the myths of origin of both communities and the rituals through which they are still re-enacted. He believes that one of these, the ritual of Devol Māduā, offers a possible resolution to the problematic relationship between religious and moral law, or dharma, and the pragmatics of statecraft in Sri Lanka. After examining the historical context of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and the myths of origin associated with the three key deities in the ritual, he offers an episode-by-episode description of the event, and goes on to suggest that the function of the ritual in Sinhalese–Buddhist society is revealing in terms of the dialectics of pacifism and violence that Buddhism faces in Sri Lankan ethnic conflict. Syed Jamil Ahmed is a director and designer based in Bangladesh, where he is Associate Professor at the Department of Theatre and Music in the University of Dhaka. In 2001–2 he was a visiting faculty member at King Alfred's College, Winchester. He wrote on ‘Decoding Myths in the Nepalese Festival of Indra Jātrā’ in NTQ 74, and his full-length publications – Acinpakhi Infinity: Indigenous Theatre in Bangladesh (Dhaka University Press, 2000) and In Praise of Niranjan: Islam, Theatre, and Bangladesh (Dhaka: Pathak Samabesh, 2001) – catalogue the wide variety of indigenous theatre forms in Bangladesh.

Within the context of Ravanisation—by which I mean the current revitalisation of Ravana among Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka—multiple conceptualizations of Ravana are constructed. This article concentrates on two different Ravana conceptualizations: Ravana as a warrior king and Ravana as a healer. At the Sri Devram Maha Viharaya, a recently constructed Buddhist complex in Colombo, Ravana has become the object of devotion. In addition to erecting a Ravana statue in a shrine of his own, two annual rituals for Ravana are organized by this temple. In these rituals we can clearly discern the two previously mentioned conceptualizations: the Ravana perahera (procession) mainly concentrates on Ravana’s martial side by exalting Ravana as warrior king, and in the maha Ravana nanumura mangalyaya, a ritual which focusses on healing, his benevolent side as a healer is stressed. These conceptualizations from the broader Ravana discourse are ritualized in iconography, attributes, and sacred substances. The focus on ritual invention in this article not only directs our attention to the creativity within the rituals but also to the wider context of these developments: the glorification of an ancient civilization as part of increased nationalistic sentiments and an increased assertiveness among the Sinhalese Buddhist majority in post-war Sri Lanka.

AbstractBuddhist preaching is one of the most neglected areas in modern scholarship. In Buddhist societies, though varieties of preaching rituals are found, existing scholarly literature contains only scattered and often inadequate or misleading references to Buddhist preaching. Since both historians of religions and Buddhologists have tended to ignore the role of Buddhist preachers and preaching in Theravāda Buddhism, this paper stresses the importance of paying attention to ‘preaching’ in developing a holistic understanding of Sinhala Buddhism.Focusing on the term ‘bana,’ this paper examines the development of Buddhist preaching in Sri Lanka. It demonstrates the way bana has functioned in the popularization of Theravāda since the thirteenth century. First, through an examination of inscriptions, it establishes the development of the term bana as an important religio-historical category in Sinhala Buddhism. Second, it examines the specific usage of the term bana in the sense of preaching in the thirteenth century Pūjāvaliya. Finally, focusing on the Butsarana, an early thirteenth century Sinhala text which contains extensive references to bana, it examines the way Vidyācakravartī innovated Theravāda Buddhist intellectual framework by employing an unconventional term such as ‘kāma’ (desire) to describe Theravāda religious concepts in order to popularize them. It argues that Buddhist preaching developed and grew in the context of Sinhala banapot, and functions as a rich cultural, educational, and religious resource influencing the attitudes and practices of Sinhala Buddhists.

Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean located to the south of India and separated from Indian subcontinent by a small straight. The island has been one of the major tourist attractions since antiquity. End of the protracted civil war is a blessing for the recent surge of tourist arrival and the rapid expansion of tourism facilities on the island. Although small, the island is rich in religious and cultural diversity with an immense attraction to the tourist. Buddhism is the main religion of the overwhelming majority of people even though Hinduism, Christianity and Islam are practiced side by side by several followers. The rich cultural heritage rotating around the religious practices, tolerance and beliefs ranges from historical monuments and ancient cities through meditation, yoga, folk music and dances, festivities, ceremonies and rituals. Special sites with multi-religious attractions reflect the diversity and uniqueness of a rich culture. North Central province is rich in religious and cultural resources than any other province in Sri Lanka. Only a small fraction of these vast resources has been utilized by the tourism industry so far. The promotion of the religious and cultural tourism products in the province will open new avenues for tourists as well as many people of the province.

We describe three patients from different religious backgrounds in Sri Lanka whose possession states were strongly influenced by their religious beliefs. Patient A was a Buddhist who claimed to have special powers given by a local deity named Paththini. Patient B was a Catholic who experienced spirits around her whom she believed were sent by Satan. Patient C was a Muslim and believed she was possessed by spirits. The religious beliefs also influenced the help-seeking behaviour and the rituals or treatments to which they responded.

Following the spectacular disintegration of the Soviet Union, popularand academic interest in nationalism and religion gathered momentum. Inaddition to recent ethnic clashes and religious conflicts in many parts of theworld, particularly the Balkans, Central Asia, the Middle East, and manyAfrican states, questions have been raised about the relation betweennationalism and religion. What, if any, is the relationship between nationalismand religion? To what extent can religion influence the emergenceand maintenance of nationalism? Can religious beliefs and sentiments legitimizea nationalist ideology? What is meant by “religious nationalism,” andhow is it related to nation-states, resistance, and violence? These questionswere addressed during a one-day conference held at the London School ofEconomics, University of London on 22 March 1996. The well-attendedconference was organized by the Association for the Study of Ethnicity andNationalism, which was established in 1990 and has published the journalNations and Nationalism since March 1995.The first paper at the Nationalism and Religion conference was presentedby Bruce Kapferer (University College of London, London, UK).In his paper “Religious and Historical Metaphors in the Context ofNationalist Violence,” he addressed political action, the force of ideologies,and the relevance of mythological schemes to religious and ritual practiceby means of a case study of Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka and theevents of 1989-90. In his own words, his focus was “the dynamics ofremythologization, or the process . . . whereby current political and economicforces are totalized within mythological schemes constructed in historicalperiods relatively independent of the circumstances of contemporarynationalism” and “the force of such ideological remythologizations, that is,how such remythologizations can became a passionate dimension of politicalactivity and give it direction.”According to Kapferer, the relation of mythologization to routine religiousbeliefs and ritual practice is significant. In his paper, he argued that“nationalism is the creation of modernism and it is of a continuous dynamicnature whose power is embedded in and sanctified by the culture that hasoriginated in the rituals of religion which provide a cosmology for nationalism.Cosmology of religion as diverse as nationalism itself that is far fromuniversal claims but exists in diversity.” Kapferer’s theorization is based onhis research in Sri Lanka where, he thinks, continuing conflict is related tonationalism based on cosmologies. The case of Sri Lanka provides anSeminars, Conferences, Addresses 425excellent example of how the construction of state ideology is influencedby religious forces, in this case Buddhism. Kapferer asserted that religionhad a deep territorialization aspect and that nationalism, in this sense, mighthave functioned as reterritorialization of a particular land and postcolonialstate. One can discern from his statements that, in the construction of stateideology in Sri Lanka, myths written by monks and religious rituals wereused to create a nationalist movement that eventually developed into a violentand destructive force in the context of Sri Lanka. Kapferer believes thatthe hierarchical order of the Sri Lankan state is embedded in the cosmologyof ancient religious chronicles.Christopher Cviic (The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London,UK) analyzed another phenomenon taking place in WesternEurope. His paper, “Chosen Peoples and Sacred Territories: TheBalkans,” discussed the relationship between religion, nation, and statein the Balkans throughout history and analyzed how these forces haveplayed themselves out in current events. According to Cviic, historicaldevelopments in the Balkans can provide important clues to understandingthe ongoing Balkan crisis, in which the Orthodox Church hasassumed the status of a nationalist institution representing the Serbiannation. The roots of these developments and the creation of a mythical“chosen” Serbian nation legitimized by religion can be traced to thedefeat and fall of medieval Serbia at Kosova by the Ottomans. Thisdefeat meant that they lost the land.However, under the Ottoman millet system, non-Muslim communitieswere allowed to organize their religious life and legal and educationalinstitutions. This allowed the Serbs to preserve and develop their ethnicand religious identities under the leadership of the Orthodox Church.Thus, religion and identity became inextricably linked, and the OrthodoxChurch assumed an extremely important role in the public life of individualBalkan nations. Cviic pointed out that “in the case of the Serbs, theirOrthodox Church played an important role in the formation of the modemSerbian nation-state by nurturing the myth of Kosova, named after theKosova Polje defeat by the Turks. Essential to that myth was the view thatby choosing to fight at Kosova Polje, the Serbs had opted for the Kingdomof Heaven. Later on the myth grew into a broader one, representing theSerbs as the martyr/victim people with a sacred mission of wresting theirHoly Territory of Kosova from the infidel Muslims to whom it had fallen.A later variant of that myth defined Serbia in terms of wherever Serbiangraves were to be found.” ...

Lumbini—the birthplace of Buddha—was declared a World Heritage Site (WHS) in 1997. This recognition came following sustained efforts by many international organizations and the UN-led master plan that was prepared in the 1970s. Almost 50 years in the making, the Lumbini sacred precinct (WHS) is still a work in progress. Based on the fieldwork conducted in December 2019, this paper examines international and domestic visitation patterns and the complexities of tourism management in Lumbini, and explores the challenges it faces in attracting an international community of Buddhist followers and those interested in Buddhist heritage. Situated amidst a rural hinterland comprising non-Buddhist populations, the Lumbini Sacred Garden master plan covers an area of about 4.5 km2. It has a special “monastic zone” for the construction of 39 international monasteries (13 plots for followers of Theravada and 29 plots for Mahayana monasteries) of which 13 have been built (notable are the Thai, Japanese, Burmese, Sri Lankan, Chinese, Bhutanese, Korean, and European monasteries). The unique architectural styles and following of rituals and cultural practices traditional to the sponsoring native country make these international monasteries into “attractions” for foreign and domestic tourists. This mixing pot of Buddhist cultural heritage can be understood using the conceptual approach of co-creation. However, in practical terms, it is perceived as “imported Buddhism”, based on the resources (both tangible and intangible) that international communities bring to Lumbini. The active role of international monasteries constrains opportunities for the participation of local businesses in the religious tourism economy. Moreover, the limited opportunities for interpretation of this co-created heritage reinforces a sense of alienation for the local community, and poses challenges for the sustainability of tourism and the vitality of Lumbini as a WHS.

The fieldwork on which this dissertation is based was done in Sri Lanka from 1984 to 1986 when the critique of the of the anthropologist as 'Knower of the Other' was surfacing in the literature (Fabian, 1983, Clifford and Marcus, 1986, Marcus and Fisher 1986). When I returned from the field most works of this genre were generally unknown in Adelaide. However, I began by writing with the insights of Bakhtin who himself had inspired central dimensions of the burgeoning critique of anthropological practice. Like Bakhtin's work, the debates about ethnographic authority continue to invite us to reflect upon the methods employed in the production of any text which claims to define the world of others. It therefore seems appropriate for me to preface this dissertation by highlighting relevant features of the processes which have culminated in this work, Cosmic Horizons and Social Voices. The nature of my fieldwork was distinctive. I did not work in a spatially constrained community. Rather my work was anchored by the work of specialist ritual practitioners, both deity priests and performers. Because the practitioners themselves not only live in dispersed locations but are also highly mobile in relation to the work that they do, my work entailed extensive travel in and between urban centres and rural areas across several provincial divisions. In the course of eighteen months of this kind of fieldwork, I attended in excess of fifty rituals of different types and scale. Over time, I developed personalized networks with more than fifty ritual practitioners privileging me to a broad span of rituals. I worked regularly, and often intimately, with a core of five priests and ten performers to give depth to my understandings. Many of these practitioners appropriated me to themselves at rituals where they publicly announced the purpose of my presence to ritual audiences as being to document Sinhala culture. I was claimed by them as 'our madam' ('ape noona') and as a university lecturer, which they knew very well I was not. This public acknowledgement legitimated my documentation of performances which were, after all, paid for by others. It also had the effect that the sponsors largely treated me as a member of the performing troupe. My growing familiarity with ritual practitioners had the further ramification that some of them insisted that I discuss the meanings of the rituals I documented with those people whom they considered specialists in their field. Soon, therefore, in addition to attending rituals, I spent a great deal of my time entertaining, and being entertained by, ritual specialists with whom I discussed deeper levels of their knowledge and work. In this way, and through my own unique constellation of relationships, I accumulated ritual knowledge, albeit at the theoretical, not practical, level. Some people shared esoteric and valued information with me that they would not disseminate to others with whom they were in competition. This field exercise provided a singular vantage point from which I have interpreted Sinhalese Buddhist ritual practices. While the final selection of rituals interpreted in the dissertation is mine, and represents only aspects of the larger body of knowledge carried collectively by Sri Lanka's ritual practitioners, the interpretations are based not simply on my observations, but on this body of knowledge which was shared with me even as it was constantly discussed, disputed, disseminated and transformed by ritual practitioners. My understandings of the meanings of ritual were consolidated in both quasi-formal and informal social settings, at my home and theirs, with people renowned as ritual experts by their peers. I collected ritual knowledge like ritual practitioners, in bits and pieces from different people. And, like practitioners who publicly acknowledge only one gurunnanse, I acknowledge mine formally, in the public arena of my own world, in the Introduction. There is another dimension of my field experience that I want to mention before discussing how it was metamorphosed by writing. My three children, Grant, Vanessa and Mark accompanied me to Sri Lanka at the ages of 9, 11 and 12 respectively. Their beautiful, inquisitive and effervescent youth attracted many people to us as a family which meant that they became wonderful sources of new friends and colloquial information. Both of the boys were fascinated with the unique rhythms of Sri Lanka's ritual music and dance and before long, they were keen to learn these for themselves. Grant was deeply disappointed that he could not because, like Vanessa, he was committed to his schooling and, even at 12, he was taller than many of the ritual practitioners. Mark was younger and, in any case, of a much smaller build so he became a pupil of Elaris Weerasingha, a ritual practitioner with international fame, who became my husband. Mark left school to work with Elaris and his sons, often at rituals other than those I attended. With Elaris as his gurunnanse, Mark made his ritual debut just as novice Sinhala performers do. The Sri Lankan press discovered this unique cross-cultural relationship in late December 1986 just as we were preparing to return to Australia. Memorable photographs appeared in both English language and Sinhala papers accompanied by full-page stories praising Elaris for his teaching and acclaiming Mark for proficiency in dance and fluency in Sinhala language and verse. We were delighted. Mark and Elaris continued to perform together in Adelaide at the Festival of Arts, on television and at multicultural art shows before Elaris returned to Sri Lanka to live for family reasons early in 1988. I remember Elaris for both the joy of our union and the pain of our parting. I want to thank him here for sharing his culture with us and especially for the way he supported me to believe in my understandings of the rituals he knew so well. I transcribed my field experience with the help of Bakhtinian insights. The rituals I studied are analysed for their performative value under the heading Cosmic Horizons with faithful reference to what their producers, including Elaris, consider to be one of their most important dimensions if they are to be efficacious; where and when they should occur. I call these facets of ritual their time-space co-ordinates and I employ Bakhtin's conception of the chronotype, in conjunction with practitioner's naming practices, to give them the analytical emphasis they deserve. Using elaborations of ritual meanings articulated to me by ritual specialists and colloquial understandings of words rather than their linguistic etymologies, I variously explore the chronotopic dimensions of the names of supernatural. beings, myths, ritual boundaries and segments to render explicit those unifying symbolic dimensions of a ritual corpus which would otherwise remain implicit to all except ritual practitioners. In particular, the Bakhtinian conceptions I use to analyse ritual serve to reveal and crystallize an integral relationship between the time-space co-ordinates inherent in ritual performance and the oscillations of the sun, moon and earth. Part 1 is my synthesis but it is based on the time-space co-ordinates of ritual; it is deliberately constructionist but it elaborates what I learned from ritual practitioners in the ways I have described. Part 2 is deconstructionist, it is an attempt to represent rituals as events with complex and indirect discursive reference to the elegant symbolic dimensions of the ritual performances themselves. As its title, Social Voices, suggests, Part 2 of the thesis privileges discourse about ritual - by ritual practitioners, ritual sponsors, Buddhist monks, the media and scholars - above the structural symmetry or chronotopic logic of the ritual corpus. It is in this domain, just to offer one example, that religion (agama) is distinguished from culture (sanskruthaiya) and exploited to make value judgements about people's participation in orthodox or unorthodox ritual practices, a judgement which is a possibility of the comic horizons constituted in ritual but which is not, as I argue, determined by them. This dissertation is ultimately an attempt to represent, in written form, fragments of an-Other world through a prosaic Bakhtinian focus on the way particular people named and talked about that world to me. Although I chose not to identify individuals in the text for personal reasons, my methodology is purposeful, giving value to Sinhalese performative ritual as the product of specialist knowledge. And, in keeping with the new imperatives for writing ethnography, this preface describing my field experience is intended to make explicit the way the dissertation explores its foundation in relationships between Self and Other, Observer and Observed, without abrogating the responsibility of authorship. Not pretending to be the voice of the Other, Cosmic Horizons and Social Voices is my voice, echoing the voice of Sri Lanka as it spoke to me.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Social Sciences, 1990.

This research focuses on the role of Buddhism in the changing lives of rural women in Sri Lanka since Independence from the British in 1948 up to the present time. In this thesis I pose two questions: firstly, how important is Buddhism in the everyday lives of rural women and secondly, what impact has changes in Buddhism since Independence had upon laywomen and renunciants. I have chosen the rural village Athale, in the dry zone of southeast Sri Lanka as my area of investigation. The history of the village dates back to the times of the great hero King Dutugemunu (I61-137BCE) and it is part of a complex of villages that form a socioeconomic unit. This research investigates the lives of the rural women who belong to this village and whose religious background is Sinhalese Theravada Buddhism, a way of life embedded in their culture. The thesis examines cultural, political, educational and religious changes since Independence, especially changes in Buddhism. The socioeconomic problems of contemporary Sri Lanka resulted in the changes adapted to the spirit religion. The meditative tradition of Buddhism still flourishes under lay as well as the renunciants, in Sri Lanka. Fieldwork in Sri Lanka took place in December 1997- February 1998 and in July 2000- September 2000. The Non Government Organisations have been active in the village since 1988. The data collection method used for this research was qualitative: personal interviews, participant observation, direct observation, informal conversations and surveys were used to gather personal and demographic details and how women practise Buddhism. The findings indicate that women have incorporated different methods of practising Buddhism to suit their needs at a particular time of their lives.

The nucleus of the Therav?da exegetical literature was introduced to Sri Lanka with the introduction of Therav?da Buddhism. It developed in the subsequent centuries. Its extant literature consists of the following works: *Vimuttimagga, Visuddhimagga, A??hakath?-s, ??k?-s, Ga??hipada-s, G??apada-s, Pi?apot/pi?apat-s, and Sannaya-s. These works contain divergent doctrinal interpretations and discussions relating to their authenticity. Many views have been expressed by modern scholars with regard to these divergences. Some scholars believe that they do not greatly affect the Therav?da doctrinal position as they represent minor differences that existed between the exegetes who followed one or the other Therav?da fraternity. But other scholars take a different position. They consider Buddhaghosa, the first P?li commentator, either as the founder of the Therav?da, or as the one who introduced new doctrinal concepts to Sri Lankan Therav?da from Buddhist schools in India. Moreover, some of these scholars believe that the orthodox Therav?da exegesis preserved at the Mah?vih?ra was changed by Buddhaghosa and by his contemporaries and successors. The present study begins with a discussion of the Therav?da exegeses and shows how divergent doctrinal interpretations contributed to their development. It examines divergent Therav?da exegeses as can be gathered from P?li and Si?hala exegetical works. These are arranged here under four main headings: (1) the canonical authenticity of the Abhidhamma-pi?aka: origin of the Abhidhamma and its canonical treatises; (2) Abhidhamma analysis of mind into consciousness (citta) and mental factors (cetasika): history of the notion of momentariness in Therav?da, the static moment of consciousness, some mental factors, such as vitakka, vic?ra, the three virati-s, iss?, macchariya, karu??, and mudit?; (3) cognitive process (cittav?thi): history of the theory of life-continuum (bhava?ga), five-door cognitive process, mind-door cognitive process, different stages of the cognitive processes; (4) analysis of matter (r?pa): number of material dhamma-s, life-span of matter, distribution of primary elements in the physical sense-organs, physical objects and their impingement on the sense-organs, the two faculties of gender, and middha in relation to matter. Divergences on the above teachings have, in fact, existed among the Sri Lankan Therav?dins since the S?ha?a-a??hakath? period. Proponents and opponents of these divergences followed either the Mah?vih?ra or the Abhayagiri. Some of the exegetes of these two fraternities sometimes agreed, and sometimes disagreed. Both parties sought to establish the authenticity of their interpretations on the basis of different authorities, namely, sutta (original discourse), sutt?nuloma (conformity to sutta), ?cariyav?da (teachers’ view), and attano mati (one’s own personal opinion). Influence of non-Therav?da doctrinal interpretations can be discerned in some divergences. Proponents and opponents of these divergences dealt seriously with them. It is not correct to say that Therav?da doctrines of momentariness, life-continuum, and the cognitive process were created by Buddhaghosa, or that they were introduced by him to Sri Lankan Therav?da. They were a part of the Mah?vih?ra exegesis that existed prior to his arrival in Sri Lanka.
published_or_final_version
Buddhist Studies
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy