The Buddha's tooth : western tales of a Sri Lankan relic / John S. Strong.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Strong, John, 1948- author.

Series:

Buddhism and modernity

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gautama Buddha.

Buddhism and state--Sri Lanka.

Buddhism and state.

Relics.

Gautama Buddha--Relics--Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka.

Physical Description:

xi, 351 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Summary:

"Hair, teeth, fingernails, pieces of bone-bodily fragments supposedly from the Buddha himself have a complicated history. These relics have long served as objects of veneration for many Buddhists, and unsurprisingly, when Western colonial powers subjugated populations in South Asia, they used, manipulated, and even destroyed these relics to exert control. In this account of colonial Portuguese and British dealings with one of the most famous relics of the Buddha-the tooth relic-John S. Strong treats us to a masterful analysis of this relic's contested origins, its manipulation by colonial powers, and its multiple functions across several colonial contexts. Strong revisits two well-known stories about the West's encounter with Buddhism in South Asia. The first story concerns a tooth identified by the Portuguese as being a relic of the Buddha in the mid-sixteenth century. This tooth was taken by the Portuguese from Sri Lanka back to Goa where it was publicly crushed, burned, and thrown into a river as a display of colonial power. The second story concerns another tooth, also identified as a relic of the Buddha and first enshrined at the end of the sixteenth century. After the British conquered Kandy in the second decade of the nineteenth century, they realized the value of this tooth for furthering their colonial ambitions, and what followed was a long and complicated history of British interactions with the tooth up through Sri Lankan independence in 1948 and beyond. Through a meticulous study of these two encounters, Strong reveals the importance of multicultural cosmopolitan objects for understanding the history of Buddhism in South Asia"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. I THE PORTUGUESE AND THE TOOTH RELIC

One. The Tale of the Portuguese Tooth and Its Sources

Two. Where the Tooth Was Found: Traditions about the Location of the Relic in Sri Lanka

Three. Whose Tooth Was It? Traditions about the Identity of the Relic

Four. The Trial of the Tooth

Five. The Destruction of the Tooth

Conspectus Of Part One / The Storical Evolution of the Tales of the Portuguese Tooth

pt. II THE BRITISH AND THE TOOTH RELIC

Six. The Cosmopolitan Tooth: The Relic in Kandy before the British Became Aware of It

Seven. The British Takeover of 1815 and the Kandyan Convention

Eight. The Relic Returns: The Tooth and Its Properties Restored to the Temple

Nine. The Relic Lost and Recaptured: The Tooth and the Rebellion of 1817

1818

Ten. The Relic Disestablished: Missionary Oppositions to the Tooth

Eleven. Showings of the Tooth: The Story of the King of Siam's Visit (1897)

Twelve. Showings of the Tooth: The Story of Queen Elizabeth's Shoes (1954).

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226789118

022678911X

9780226801735

022680173X

OCLC:

1235903422

Publisher Number:

99988701978