The Sociology of Early Buddhism
The Sociology of Early Buddhism
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This volume analyzes the remarkable ability of Buddhism to survive within a strong urban environment despite its renunciant nature. 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 northeastern India from the fifth century BCE onwards. 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 book offers reasons for this apparent inconsistency.
- 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
"Bailey and Mabbett...have done a remarkable job..." Studies in Religion
Product details
December 2003Hardback
9780521831161
296 pages
236 × 162 × 26 mm
0.625kg
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.
