Buddhism Transformed

by Richard F. Gombrich, Gananath Obeyesekere

In this study a social and cultural anthropologist and a specialist in the study of religion pool their talents to examine recent changes in popular religion in Sri Lanka. As the Sinhalas themselves perceive it, Buddhism proper has always shared the religious arena with a spirit religion. While Buddhism concerns salvation, the spirit religion focuses on worldly welfare. Buddhism Transformed describes and analyzes the changes that have profoundly altered the character of Sinhala religion in both areas.

Genres: Buddhism

504 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

What they teach you in school about the Buddha is that he sat beneath the bodhi tree and was enlightened, discovering release from the cycle of birth and death. Those who dig a little further find the split between Theraveda (which speaks to the individual's search for enlightenment) and Mahayana, which is more democratic, to choose a political metaphor. Or Zen, one of the Japanese offshoots, with its emphasis on meditation (and stylized ritual, which people don't talk about much). But Buddhism as it is actually practiced is really something else again, cross-pollinating with the ancestral religion of Tibet, with Shinto in Japan, with Hinduism in Sri Lanka (it is largely extinct in its homeland of northern India); this may be more consistent with the Buddha's own approach than it would seem. He achieved enlightenment in an age of great religious ferment. In addition to the development of Jainism, in that era philosophers of the broad religious continuum we call Hinduism began writing the revolutionary Upanishads. "Buddhism Transformed" is about Buddhism as experienced in Sri Lanka, both in response to Protestant evangelism of the British and as experienced in village shrines, where there are gods, who may be former demons or minor gods whose stock rises in response to cultural and economic change. The prayer style is in some ways not very different than what one finds in Catholic Latin America, and cross-pollination with Hinduism is evident. But one cannot read it without some sadness. The research was conducted in an era before the Hindu Tamil minority escalated to extreme violence and well before the nominally Buddhist Sinhalese crushed them.