Haunting the Buddha : Indian popular religions and the formation of Buddhism / Robert DeCaroli.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

DeCaroli, Robert.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Buddhism--India--History.

Buddhism.

India.

History.

Buddhist art--India.

Buddhist art.

Buddhist gods in art.

Art and mythology.

Physical Description:

viii, 230 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University, 2004.

Summary:

Early European histories of India frequently reflected colonialist agendas. The idea that Indian society had declined from an earlier Golden Age helped justify the colonial presence. It was said, for example, that modern Buddhism had fallen away from its original identity as a purely rational philosophy that arose in the mythical 5th-century BCE Golden Age unsullied by the religious and cultural practices that surrounded it. In this book Robert DeCaroli seeks to place the formation of Buddhism in its true social and political contexts. It is necessary, he says, to acknowledge that the monks and nuns who embodied early Buddhist ideals shared many beliefs of the communities in which they were raised. In becoming members of the monastic society these individuals did not abandon their beliefs in the efficacy and the dangers represented by minor deities and spirits of the dead. Their new faith, however, gave them revolutionary new mechanisms with which to engage those supernatural beings.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [189]-220) and index.

ISBN:

0195168380

OCLC:

53006857