Details

Subject(s)

• Nationalism—Sri Lanka [Browse]
• Nationalism—Sri Lanka—Religious aspects—Buddhism [Browse]
• Sri Lanka—Politics and government [Browse]

Series

• Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series [More in this series]
• Routledge contemporary South Asia series ; 72

Summary note

"Focusing on Sri Lanka, this book offers a new perspective on contemporary debates about nationalism in South Asia. It looks at the 'capture' of Buddhism by militant Sinhalese nationalism in the colonial and postcolonial periods, and the framing of subsequent key constitutional legal moments. The book combines the dynamics of constitutionalism with the orbit of historical, political and anthropological scholarship on the cosmology of Sinhalese Buddhism and its relation to Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. It explores four cases of legal-constitutional moments and offers a unique contribution to the politics and history of devolution in Sri Lanka. The book goes on to examine the way in which Buddhism, and particularly the Asokan state model, may in fact provide the intellectual resources for decentralized government beyond Sri Lanka in other parts of the Theravada Buddhist world, such as Thailand and Burma. Presenting a timely analysis given the intensification of Sri Lanka's civil war since the election in 2005 of President Mahinda Rajapakse on an overtly ultra nationalist Sinhalese Buddhist platform, this book is of interest to scholars of South Asian Studies, anthropology, sociology, ethnicity and political science"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes

Description based upon print version of record.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Source of description

Description based on online resource; title from title page (ebrary, viewed September 03, 2013).

Language note

English

Contents

• The mythic life of Sinhalese BuddhismOntology, evil and the state; 3. Textual practices, Sinhalese Buddhist consciousness and dissonance; Introduction; Dissonance and continuity in Sinhalese Buddhist consciousness; The aesthetic, oral and cultural consolidation of Sinhalese Buddhist consciousness; The inside and outside of Sinhalese Buddhist consciousness; 4. Galactic polities, cosmography and Buddhist sovereignty; Introduction; A genealogy of the galactic polity; Landscape, cosmography and the city of the gods; Galactic devolution, virtual sovereignty and the rituals of state
• Kingship and contested cosmic orders5. The transformation of Sinhalese Buddhist consciousness in its colonial and postcolonial relation; Introduction; The European encounter with Ceylon; The British encounter with the Asokan Persona; Colonial modernity, bureaucracy and the Buddhist imaginary; Orientalism and race; Constitutional reformism and nationalism; 6. Independence, land, citizenship and the cosmic order; Introduction; Onwards to independence; Enter modernist Buddhism; Senanayake, the Buddhist imaginary, land and the Indian Tamils
• 7. Sinhalese revolutionaries, linguistic nationalism and Buddhism reimaginedIntroduction; Sinhalese nationalist capture; Tamil nationalist response; 8. Cosmology, constitutionalism and the Tamil other; Introduction; Republicanism, Tamil separatism and Sinhalese insurrection; UNP rule, Buddhist righteousness and authoritarianism; 9. Centralization, decentralization and the cosmology of Buddhism; Introduction; The 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord and the beginning of the end; Stumbling towards federalism; Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist resurgence; Towards the apothiosis of 1956
• 10. Conclusion: rethinking community in Sri LankaNotes; Bibliography; Index

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ISBN

• 1-138-57554-2
• 1-138-67964-X
• 1-135-03834-1
• 0-203-77163-X
• 1-135-03835-X

OCLC

• 855970194
• 859159569
• 900088455

Doi

• 10.4324/9780203771631

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