A Comparative Sociology of World Religions: Virtuosi, Priests, and Popular Religion

6. Nirvana and Spirits: Buddhism and Animism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia

Nirvana and Spirits Buddhism and Animism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia Unlike Hinduism, whose great majority of adherents are to be found in a single nation, Buddhism is associated with many Asian societies , either as the dominant religion or as a prominent tradition alongside other religions. Beginning in the northern fringes of Indian civilization , the diffusion of Buddhism throughout the Indian subcontinent and beyond occurred under the emperor Asoka (268–239 b.c.e.), who ruled over northern and central India. Buddhism lasted longer in southern India than in the north, but without continuing royal patronage and in competition with devotionist forms of Hinduism, it began to decline from the late seventh and early eighth centuries c.e. The Muslim destruction of Buddhist monasteries left little of Buddhist culture, and by the late fourteenth century, only vestiges of Buddhism were left in India. With the exception of Nepal, where Indian Buddhism survived in an unbroken continuity, albeit with considerable Hindu influence, Buddhism became associated with societies outside the cultural area of its origins. What came to be known as Theravada (the Way of the Elders) Buddhism spread into Sri Lanka around the middle of the third century b.c.e., and for more than one thousand years it existed mainly in Sri Lanka and Southeast India. In the eleventh century c.e. it spread from Sri Lanka to Burma (now Myanmar), and over the next two centuries it entered those countries now known as Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. The adoption of Buddhism in these countries was in large part a consequence of the conversion of kings, who cooperated with the Buddhist monks and used royal power to propagate the religion. The acceptance of Buddhism by the kings, their courts, and the upper stratum of the urban centers was facilitated by the fact that no other soteriological religion or established literate religious culture existed in these countries to challenge Buddhism.1 The time frame over which 6 131 Theravada Buddhism spread from the religious elites and upper lay stratum to the masses is uncertain; one estimation is that the “downward spread” began in the thirteenth century, but some historians maintain that Theravada Buddhism has become a popular or peasant religion only over the last two centuries.2 Canon and Sangha Although Buddhism has taken diverse forms, a historical founding figure and a codified canon have provided foci of a common Buddhist identity. This is especially the case for Theravada Buddhism, the focus of this chapter, which presents a far more unified picture than Mahayana, the other major stream in Buddhism. Buddhists trace the historical origin of their religion to Siddhartha Gautama , who was born in what is now Nepal in the sixth or fifth century b.c.e. Buddhists believe Gautama’s birth was the last of a great number of incarnations , and that he became the Buddha, the “awakened” or “enlightened,” when he achieved knowledge of the ultimate truth and thereby freed himself from all suffering. The Buddha is believed to have taught his truths and the path to salvation to disciples, who transmitted his teachings orally for some centuries before they were committed to writing in the Pali language in Sri Lanka in the second half of the first century b.c.e.3 The Buddhist canon and its commentaries were the work of a religious elite, the learned monks of the Sangha, the “gathering,” “community,” or “order.” In contrast with Hinduism, Buddhist religious elites have not been associated with a caste hierarchy. (Sri Lanka is a partial exception.) The Buddha accepted the structure of the social world, including the caste system, but he did not sanction the religious authority of the Brahmans or the notion that birth in the Brahman caste was advantageous to salvation.4 Another basis of religious elite status in India was renunciation of the world, and whereas Brahmans sought to link renunciation to their caste, Buddhism denied any such connection and made renunciation the single basis for religious status. Buddhist soteriology differed considerably from that of Hinduism, but like Hinduism, the division between the Buddhist religious elite and others was established by a hierarchical separation of soteriological goals: only renouncers had any hope of achieving nirvana, and the realistic soteriological goal of householders was a good re-rebirth. By establishing 132 | Nirvana and Spirits the Sangha as the common organizational context of renouncers, however , the Buddhist religious elite developed a sense...