This ceremony centres on the recitation—usually by Buddhist monks—of extracts fron the Pali Canon, collected in a text called the Gatubhāṇavārapāli, Paritta or in Siahala Piruvānāpotvahanse. Its objective is to ward off danger, ensure protection and bless the sponsors. It is prevalent in other Theravada Buddhist countries such as Burma and Thailand as well, but this work is confined to a study of the tradition preserved in Sri Lanka.
]]>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.
]]>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.
The Peak’s pluralism should not be read as pure romanticism. Some speak of the Peak as uniquely harmonious, but in reality it operates like any other human space, with continual negotiations and alliances among groups evolving over time. At present, the Peak is controlled by Buddhists, who make some accommodations for pilgrims of other religions, but still place many restrictions over the summit. Religious tensions can exist, as do divisions between Sinhala and Tamil ethno-linguistic groups. Nevertheless, the mountain can also encourage cooperation. The difficulty of the climb is a source of solidarity among strangers
A 97-slide Prezi presentation showing what it’s like to climb Sri Lanka’s most famous mountain along with teaching materials and a short bibliography of further resources.
]]>What happens to the meaning of Buddhist rituals in military spaces? Do the military confines and the political context alter the meaning of “non-violent” rituals? Can they become “violent” rituals?
During the Sri Lankan civil war, some extremist Buddhist monks espoused an explicitly violent “just war” ideology. While the majority of Sinhala monks did not go that far, they still demonstrated their support indirectly, through e.g. the chanting of pirits before major battles.
]]>Tantra finally gained official recognition and patronage during the reign of Sena 1 (833-853) who, we are told, had taken the bodhisattva vow. This monarch was interested enough in new trends in Buddhism to establish an ecumenical institute named Virankurarama, where 25 monks from each of the four major sects in Sri Lanka could study the new ideas coming from India.
While we usually think of Sri Lankan and Tibetan Buddhism as unrelated, this essay highlights that they have, in fact, had intermittent contact over the centuries.
]]>He is usually understood through the process by which Sri Lanka became independent, by which Sri Lankans who had become Christians returned to their Buddhist origins: an entirely Sri Lankan context. But reading the diaries, I realized he spent 80–90% of his adult life living outside of Sri Lanka.
A brief look at the life of a famous Buddhist advocate as he understood it.
]]>Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala was of interest to me because he was such an influential and active figure among Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Buddhists in other countries, scholars of Buddhism, as well as with colonial administrators…
A scholar reflects on the life of the colonial-era, Sri Lankan revivalist who, among others, taught Anagarika Dharmapala
]]>These were attempts in the first instance not to achieve liberation, but to revive the forest-dwelling way of life and re-establish hermitages, whence liberation could be sought. It is relatively recent history…
The biographies of several pioneering recluses.
]]>Our times are characterized by the sheer intensity and spread of bhakti religion; and while it starts among the urban poor, it gets accepted by others as a reaction to the fundamentalism and the puritan ethics of Protestant Buddhism.
An analysis of the parallel threads of modern Sri Lankan Buddhism: the “rational,” European-inflected forms of the educated, upper classes and the Hindu-inflected “devotional” forms of the masses.
While much has continued to change in Sri Lanka in the decades since their field work, the book remains a solid introduction to the modern history of Buddhism in Ceylon.
]]>The primary flower used in traditional offerings in modern Sri Lanka is not actually the Sal flower but rather the flower of the Cannonball Tree.
]]>Through the perspective of an elephant, the narrative reflects on the challenges of staying mindful and the impact of ego and attachment, drawing a comparison between the physical act of walking and the deeper lessons of inner peace and letting go of suffering. The author also recounts past memories, including moments of attachment, disappointment, and the eventual realization of the transient nature of these emotions.
]]>Learn well yourself this Law
That the Blessed One has taught;
Teach it to others in compassionate love
By the results of skillful acts performed.
Bar forever the roads to realms of woe
A 15th century, Sri Lankan poem beautifully exhorting the listener to the ethical life and to right view.
Listen to the poem in the original Sinhala on Archive.org.
And if this poetic translation is a bit hard to follow, see the more prosaic translation, Towards a Better World.
]]>It is everywhere enclosed by the lofty peaks of the Buddha’s Dhamma
This travel guide is designed for Buddhists or anyone interested in Buddhism visiting Sri Lanka. It offers insights into archaeological facts, art history, and legends, while also providing practical advice, maps, and illustrations.
]]>One of the ironies of the bhikkhuni controversy in Sri Lanka is that both sides seem to believe that the very integrity of Theravāda Buddhism is at stake in the bhikkhuni revival.
Despite controversy over its legitimacy, the bhikkhuni order in Sri Lanka has grown with increasing support from laypeople and even some monks, though challenges remain including the lack of formal recognition and tensions with the traditional dasasil nuns.
]]>Here are some points to consider about ordaining at Dambulla…
]]>While the specific forms of ritual and ceremony in Sri Lankan popular Buddhism doubtlessly evolved over the centuries, it seems likely that this devotional approach to the Dhamma has its roots in lay Buddhist practice even during the time of the Buddha
An outline—and defense—of Sri Lankan ritual practices.
]]>This article will use the case study of nuns’ training programs to examine the revival of the sangha in Sri Lanka and the role of exchange among devotees of different traditions in Asia. By cross-tradition I am referring to different traditions such as, in this case, the Theravāda tradition in Sri Lanka and the Mahayana Chinese tradition in Taiwan.
]]>This paper explores some of the reasons behind the general reticence concerning higher ordination felt by many of the silmātas interviewed, and focuses specifically on some of the socio-economic factors that may be affecting their decision-making
]]>Ideally, a Buddhist temple must have certain symbols and facilities. These include a shrine room with a Buddha statue and statues of Buddha’s main disciples, a bo tree and a small shrine, a pagoda with relics, living quarters for the monks, a preaching hall, and a compound for people to gather and offer flowers. It is also customary to have a small deity shrine within the temple premises.
A matter-of-fact, anthropological description of a typical Sri Lankan temple.
]]>The modern idea of religion as divorced from power succeeded in dislodging the influence that Buddhism had over Sri Lankan politics, but only for a short time…
]]>The Sinhalese Sangha refused to be “privatized” by the British government, or overpowered by the Sri Lankan elites. Using its immense historical knowledge, the Buddhist Sangha took its totalizing vision of Sri Lankan society public with pamphlets and preaching, leading up to the 1940’s Colombo college-monks’ movement…
the link between Sinhala nationalism and Buddhist religion based on the conceptual framework of “Geopiety.”
]]>The defining characteristic of the Saṁsthāva as a monastic organization is taking the texts seriously and trying to put them into practice. They profess a strict adherence to the Pali canon and the Theravada commentarial literature.
A look at the conservative, forest tradition of Sri Lanka as conservators not only of ascetic orthodoxy, but of the forests themselves.
]]>All three works, previously published independently, are here compiled into a single volume.
]]>What we can take from this history is the precarious thread by which Theravāda came down to us today. It only survived by a very narrow margin in more than one instance.
An introduction to the trials and tribulations of the Saṅgha in Sri Lanka.
]]>Being perceived as a good Buddhist woman worked as a powerful form of career capital for the respondents in the sample, who used their faith to combat gender disadvantage in their work settings.
]]>Ranjani de Silva has been described as the “person most responsible for the Theravāda bhikkhunī revival,” and “the prime mover in the re-establishment of the bhikkhunī sangha in Sri Lanka.” Yet her full story—including her account of the revival—had never [before] been told.
]]>… the general Buddhist public even in Sri Lanka do not seem to know of what stuff the newly “resurrected” bhikkhunis are made.
A biography of the Venerable Badalgama Dhammanandani, Head Bhikkhuni of Visakharamaya Temple about seven kilometers into the hinterland of Veyangoda, Sri Lanka.
]]>When we adopt a Buddhist perspective on the wounds that afflict our world today, we soon realize that these wounds are symptomatic: a warning signal that something is fundamentally awry with the way we lead our lives.
You can also listen to this book on Pariyatti’s website.
]]>He legitimised the secularisation of the modern Sangha and its interpretation of Buddhism as exclusively Sinhala
]]>… the situation of the nuns who are neither strictly lay, nor monastic, allows for a variety of ways of learning and conveying Buddhisms - ways that are both molded by and in turn define contemporary religious changes
]]>… independence was perceived as an opportunity for a particular ethnic group
]]>In the interests of conservatism it has had to compromise with modernity in such features as the veneer of bureaucratically efficient procedures and also the multiplication of interstitial roles. But the groups of devout men firmly penned into their quarters and lectured daily on the Jatakas pose no threat to traditional Buddhist order
]]>… the evidence found in early printed liturgical booklets that promote Buddha-vandanā points to a different kind of modernization. This article reveals how Buddhist activists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries made use of the capabilities presented in the colonial context, including print technology, to promote this devotional ritual practice as a principal marker of a newly constructed Buddhist identity.
]]>Much as a soaking in good oil will prime a lamp’s wick for the lighting, miracle stories prepare the audience for the cultivation of potent emotions and resultant ethical transformation.
]]>Since July 20, 1985, a new higher ordination (upasampadā) movement has emerged at the Dambulla Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka. The architect of this movement, a Sinhala Buddhist monk named Inamaluwe Sumangala, challenges the contemporary Buddhist monastic practice of ordaining monks on the basis of their castes
]]>On the face of it, the movement seems to involve a debate about the irrelevance of caste to higher ordination between Sumangala and the monks of the Asgiriya temple, one of several chapters of the Siyam Nikāya that ordains only high-caste Buddhist males. However, the challenge constituted by the new ordination can be seen as part of a broader attempt on Sumangala’s part to redefine monastic identity
… there are at least three major orientations within Sinhalese religion: 1) Bodh Gaya, commemorating the enlightenment experience; 2) Kataragama, where access to transformative “this-worldly” sacral power is sought; and 3) Kandy, where religion legitimates a people’s cultural and political past and present through civil ceremony
]]>What all three pilgrimages have in common is functional in nature: the need to cope with various manifestations of dukkha
Over 15,000 photographs of Buddhist archeological sites, pilgrimage centres, and temples in SE Asia, as well as Videos, Maps, Posters, etc.
]]>I, too, am a bhikkhuni. The bhikkhuni sangha did not perish, but long ago spread from here to China
]]>… a historically and contextually sensitive understanding of elite lay Buddhist women in Sri Lanka, bringing a “critical yet empathetic look” at their participation in ethno-nationalist Sinhala Buddhist hegemony
]]>… valuable material for the contemplation of the transit of ideas between South Asia and Korea
A Chinese monk visits medieval Sri Lanka and perhaps influences Korean sculpture, challenging our notions of nationalized Buddhisms.
]]>This essay will help the Buddhist lay follower to understand, from a practical angle, the main points of the Buddha’s teachings as they bear on the conduct of daily life. Constant practice of these principles will ensure that they are built into his character, enabling him to develop into a well-rounded human being, a centre of sanity in a confused world adrift in fashionable philosophies full of empty promises.
You can also listen to this book on YouTube.
]]>