The Sociology of Early Buddhism
£90.00
- Authors:
- Greg Bailey, La Trobe University, Victoria
- Ian Mabbett, Monash University, Victoria
- Date Published: November 2003
- availability: Available
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9780521831161
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Early Buddhism flourished because it was able to take up the challenge represented by buoyant economic conditions and the need for cultural uniformity in the newly emergent states in north-eastern India from the fifth century BCE onwards. This book begins with the apparent inconsistency of Buddhism, a renunciant movement, surviving within a strong urban environment, and draws out the implications of this. In spite of the Buddhist ascetic imperative, the Buddha and other celebrated monks moved easily through various levels of society and fitted into the urban landscape they inhabited. The Sociology of Early Buddhism tells how and why the early monks were able to exploit the social and political conditions of mid-first millennium north-eastern India in such a way as to ensure the growth of Buddhism into a major world religion. Its readership lies both within Buddhist studies and more widely among historians, sociologists and anthropologists of religion.
Read more- A scholarly analysis of the Buddhist monk as a cultural mediator
- Makes extensive use of archaeological and textual sources in writing early Buddhist history
- Throws light on the social - as opposed to the religious - role of the early Buddhist monk
Reviews & endorsements
'It is a scholarly and objective study, despite the fact that it tends to underrate other opinions.' Expository Times
See more reviews'This is a substantial work of scholarship, closely written, a mass of facts and arguments, with an impressive bibliography. It is certainly a useful compilation.' Bulletin of the SOAS
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×Product details
- Date Published: November 2003
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9780521831161
- length: 296 pages
- dimensions: 236 x 162 x 26 mm
- weight: 0.625kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. The problem: asceticism and urban life
Part I. Context:
2. The social elite
3. Economic conditions
4. Urbanization, urbanism and the development of large-scale political structures
5. Brahmins and other competitors
6. Folk religion and cosmology: meeting of two thought worlds
Part II. Mediation:
7. The holy man
8. Preparation of the monk for the mediatory role. Evidence from the Sutta Nipata
9. The Dhammapada and the images of the bhikkhu
10. The mediating role as shown in the Canon
11. Exchange
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.
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