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For centuries, Burmese have looked to the authority of their religious tradition, Theravada Buddhism, to negotiate social and political hierarchies. Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar examines those moments in the modern history of this Southeast Asian country when religion, culture, and politics converge to chart new directions. Arguing against Max Weber's characterization of Buddhism as other-worldly and divorced from politics, this study shows that Buddhist practice necessitates public validation within an economy of merit in which moral action earns future rewards. The intervention of colonial modernity in traditional Burmese Buddhist worldviews has created conjunctures at which public concerns critical to the nation's future are reinterpreted in light of a Buddhist paradigm of power. Author Juliane Schober begins by focusing on the public role of Buddhist practice and the ways in which precolonial Buddhist hegemonies were negotiated. Her discussion then traces the emergence of modern Buddhist communities through the colonial experience: the disruption of traditional paradigms of hegemony and governance, the introduction of new and secular venues to power, modern concerns like nationalism, education, the public place of religion, the power of the state, and Buddhist resistance to the center. The continuing discourse and cultural negotiation of these themes draw Buddhist communities into political arenas, either to legitimate political power or to resist it on moral grounds. The book concludes with an examination of the way in which Buddhist resistance in 2007, known in the West as the Saffron Revolution, was subjugated by military secularism and the transnational pressures of a global economy. A skillfully crafted work of scholarship, Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar will be welcomed by students of Theravada Buddhism and Burma/Myanmar, readers of anthropology, history of religions, politics, and colonial studies of modern Southeast Asia, and scholars of religious and political practice in modern national contexts.

AbstractThe paper delineates stages in the interpretation of religion in Burma. Beginning with colonial constructions, the discussion moves to subsequent studies in anthropology and history from which emerged an emphasis on localised articulations of Theravada Buddhist traditions. Others examined religion as a site for colonial resistance and as a means for engaging issues of modernity. More recent interpreters focused on Buddhist voices in the public domain of contemporary Burma and some recent studies moved beyond received boundaries of inquiry to consider religions among ethnic minorities and diaspora communities. The final section charts future development in the study of religion in Burma.

In the Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia, that is Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and, to some extent, Vietnam, the articulation of secular and religious authority developed in historically particular ways. Scholars have explained these historical changes in terms of religious and political modes of constructing and negotiating power characteristic of the galactic polities of Southeast Asia and their Theravāda Buddhist tradition, such as state-saṇgharelations and the notion that one's position within the social hierarchy is perceived as a function of, and hence validated by, one's ability to engage in merit-making ritual exchange to support the Buddhist dispensation generally and thesaṇghain particular. Trevor Ling has argued that the differences created by country-specific developments in the social history of Buddhism in Southeast Asia are more significant than communalities found in the Pali scriptural tradition.

Theravada cultural hegemony in precolonial Burma -- The emergence of the secular in modern Burma -- Educating the other : Buddhism and colonial knowledge -- Civil Buddhism in a colonial context -- The politics of the modern state as Buddhist practice -- Buddhist resistance against the state -- The limits of Buddhist moral authority in the secular state -- Potential futures