Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780824818708)

The present volume provides an essential foundation for a social history of Indian Buddhist monasticism. Challenging the popular stereotype that represented the accumulation of merit as the domain of the layperson while monks concerned themselves with more sophisticated realms of doctrine and meditation, Professor Schopen problematizes many assumptions about the lay-monastic distinction by demonstrating that monks and nuns, both the scholastic elites and the less learned, participated actively in a wide range of ritual practices and institutions that have heretofore been judged 'popular, ' from the accumulation and transfer of merit; to the care of deceased relatives; to serving as sponsors and donors, rather than always the recipients, of gifts; to (possibly) the coining of counterfeit currency. Taken together, the studies contained in this volume represent the basis for a new historiography of Buddhism, not only for their critique of many the id馥s re輹es of Buddhist Studies but for the compelling connections they draw between apparently disparate details.

Author: Gregory Schopen
ISBN-10: 0824818709
ISBN-13: 9780824818708
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Language: English
Published: 04/01/1997
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.07lbs
Size: 9.14h x 6.03w x 0.79d