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Buddhist Tourism in Asia (Hardcover)
Courtney Bruntz, Brooke Schedneck; Series edited by Mark Michael Rowe; Contributions by David Geary, John Marston, …
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R2,315
Discovery Miles 23 150
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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This innovative collaborative work-the first to focus on Buddhist
tourism-explores how Buddhists, government organizations, business
corporations, and individuals in Asia participate in re-imaginings
of Buddhism through tourism. Contributors from religious studies,
anthropology, and art history examine sacred places and religious
monuments as they have been shaped and reshaped by socio-economic
and cultural trends in the region. Following an introduction that
offers the first theoretical understanding of tourism from a
Buddhist studies' perspective, early chapters discuss the ways
Buddhists and non-Buddhists imagine concepts and places related to
the religion. Case studies highlight Buddhist peace in India,
Buddhist heavens and hells in Singapore, Thai temple space, and the
future Buddha Maitreya in China. Buddhist tourism's connections to
the state, market, and new technologies are explored in chapters on
Indian package tours for pilgrims, thematic Buddhist tourism in
Cambodia, the technological innovations of Buddhist temples in
China, and the promotion of pilgrimage sites in Japan. Contributors
then situate the financial concerns of Chinese temples, speed
dating in temples in Japan, and the diffuse and pervasive nature of
Buddhism for tourism promotion in Ladakh, India. How have tourist
routes, groups, sites, and practices associated with Buddhism come
to be possible and what are the effects? In what ways do travelers
derive meaning from Buddhist places? How do Buddhist sites fortify
national, cultural, or religious identities? The comparative
research in South, Southeast, and East Asia presented here draws
attention to the intertwining of the sacred and the financial and
how local and national sites are situated within global networks.
Together these findings generate a compelling comparative
investigation of Buddhist spaces, identities, and practices.
Southeast China is a traditional stronghold of Buddhism, but little
scholarly attention has been paid to this fact. Brian Nichols’s
pioneering book, Lotus Blossoms and Purple Clouds, centers on a
large Buddhist monastery in Quanzhou and combines ethnographic
detail with stimulating analysis to examine religion in post-Mao
China. Nichols conducted more than twenty-six months of field
research over a fourteen-year period (2005–2019) to develop a
re-description of Chinese monastic Buddhism that reaches beyond
canonical sources and master narratives to local texts, material
culture, oral history, and living traditions. His work decenters
normative accounts and sheds light on how Buddhism is lived and
practiced. It introduces readers to Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery and
its community of clergy striving to revive traditions after the
turmoil of the Maoist era; the lay Buddhists worshiping in the
monastery’s courtyards and halls; the busloads of tourists
marveling at the site’s buildings and artifacts, some dating as
far back as the Tang Dynasty (ninth century); and the local
officials dedicated to supporting—and restricting—the return of
religion. Using gazetteers, epigraphy, and other archival sources,
Nichols begins by tracing the history of Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery
from the Tang Dynasty to the present, noting the continued
relevance of preternatural events like the lotus-blooming mulberry
trees and auspicious purple clouds associated with the founding of
the monastery. The contemporary monastery is then explored through
ethnographic participation/observation and interviews. Nichols
uncovers a number of unexpected features of Buddhist religious
life, making a case for the fundamentally liturgical nature of
Buddhist monastic practice—one marked by a program of daily
dharaṇi (sacred text) recitation, esoteric traditions, and
ancestor veneration. Finally, he presents an innovative spatial
analysis of the Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery temple that reveals how
different groups engage with the site to create a place of
religious practice, a tourist attraction, and a community park.
Southeast China is a traditional stronghold of Buddhism, but little
scholarly attention has been paid to this fact. Brian Nichols’
pioneering book, Lotus Blossoms and Purple Clouds, centers on a
large Buddhist monastery in Quanzhou and combines ethnographic
detail with stimulating analysis to examine religion in post-Mao
China. Nichols conducted more than twenty-six months of field
research over a fourteen-year period (2005–2019) to develop a
re-description of Chinese monastic Buddhism that reaches beyond
canonical sources and master narratives to local texts, material
culture, oral history, and living traditions. His work decenters
normative accounts and sheds light on how Buddhism is lived and
practiced. It introduces readers to Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery and
its community of clergy striving to revive traditions after the
turmoil of the Maoist era; the lay Buddhists worshiping in the
monastery’s courtyards and halls; the busloads of tourists
marveling at the site’s buildings and artifacts, some dating as
far back as the Tang Dynasty (ninth century); and the local
officials dedicated to supporting—and restricting—the return of
religion. Using gazetteers, epigraphy, and other archival sources,
Nichols begins by tracing the history of Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery
from the Tang to the present, noting the continued relevance of
preternatural events like the lotus-blooming mulberry trees and
auspicious purple clouds associated with the founding of the
monastery. The contemporary monastery is then explored through
ethnographic participation/observation and interviews. Nichols
uncovers a number of unexpected features of Buddhist religious
life, making a case for the fundamentally liturgical nature of
Buddhist monastic practice—one marked by a program of daily
dhara?i (sacred text) recitation, esoteric traditions, and ancestor
veneration. Finally, he presents an innovative spatial analysis of
the Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery temple that reveals how different
groups engage with the site to create a place of religious
practice, a tourist attraction, and a community park.
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Buddhist Tourism in Asia (Paperback)
Courtney Bruntz, Brooke Schedneck; Series edited by Mark Michael Rowe; Contributions by David Geary, John Marston, …
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R924
Discovery Miles 9 240
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
This innovative collaborative work-the first to focus on Buddhist
tourism-explores how Buddhists, government organizations, business
corporations, and individuals in Asia participate in re-imaginings
of Buddhism through tourism. Contributors from religious studies,
anthropology, and art history examine sacred places and religious
monuments as they have been shaped and reshaped by socioeconomic
and cultural trends in the region. Following an introduction that
offers the first theoretical understanding of tourism from a
Buddhist studies' perspective, early chapters discuss the ways
Buddhists and non-Buddhists imagine concepts and places related to
the religion. Case studies highlight Buddhist peace in India,
Buddhist heavens and hells in Singapore, Thai temple space, and the
future Buddha Maitreya in China. Buddhist tourism's connections to
the state, market, and new technologies are explored in chapters on
Indian package tours for pilgrims, thematic Buddhist tourism in
Cambodia, the technological innovations of Buddhist temples in
China, and the promotion of pilgrimage sites in Japan. Contributors
then situate the financial concerns of Chinese temples, speed
dating in temples in Japan, and the diffuse and pervasive nature of
Buddhism for tourism promotion in Ladakh, India. How have tourist
routes, groups, sites, and practices associated with Buddhism come
to be possible and what are the effects? In what ways do travelers
derive meaning from Buddhist places? How do Buddhist sites fortify
national, cultural, or religious identities? The comparative
research in South, Southeast, and East Asia presented here draws
attention to the intertwining of the sacred and the financial and
how local and national sites are situated within global networks.
Together these findings generate a compelling comparative
investigation of Buddhist spaces, identities, and practices.
With well over a 100 million adherents, Buddhism emerged from
near-annihilation during the Cultural Revolution to become the
largest religion in China today. Despite this, Buddhism's rise has
received relatively little scholarly attention. The present volume,
with contributions by leading scholars in sociology, anthropology,
political science, and religious studies, explores the evolution of
Chinese Buddhism in the post-Mao period with a depth not seen
before in a single study. Chapters critically analyze the effects
of state policies on the evolution of Buddhist institutions; the
challenge of rebuilding temples under the watchful eye of the
state; efforts to rebuild monastic lineages and schools left broken
in the aftermath of Mao's rule; and the development of new lay
Buddhist spaces, both at temple sites and online. Through its
multidisciplinary perspectives, the book provides both an extensive
overview of the social and political conditions under which
Buddhism has grown as well as discussions of the individual
projects of both monastic and lay entrepreneurs who dynamically and
creatively carve out spaces for Buddhist growth in contemporary
Chinese society. As a wide-ranging study that illuminates many
facets of China's Buddhist revival, Buddhism after Mao will be
required reading for scholars of Chinese Buddhism and of Buddhism
and modernity more broadly. Its detailed case studies examining the
intersections among religion, state, and contemporary Chinese
society will be welcomed by sociologists and anthropologists of
China, political scientists focusing on the role of religion in
state formation in Asian societies, and all those interested in the
relationship between religion and social change.
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