Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka
by Edmund Perry
The Journal of the America
Vol.117 No.2
Pp.339-342
April-June 1997
COPYRIGHT 1997 American Oriental Society
For reasons i will try to make apparent further along in this review
one should read these two books as a unit. They both treat the
phenomenon of change in the Theravada Buddhism preserved and
practiced by the Sinhala people of Sri Lanka. Their account and
their interesting explanations of changes in the Theravada from its
origin in ancient India up to the "transforming" innovations
recently introduced by Sinhala urbanites in and around Colombo are
rendered in a lucid prose and an engaging narrative construction
that make their authors' scholarship accessible to Sri Lanka
specialists, Buddhists and buffs alike. This literary excellence
will make pleasurable the repeated close readings that are necessary
for an ample grasp of the data and its interpretation presented here
by Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere.
Gombrich, an Indologist at the University of Oxford, and
Obeyesekere, a native of Sri Lanka who holds a professorship in
anthropology at Princeton University, have already established their
names as well as a canon of research literature in the study of the
religious life of Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka. One recalls at
once such notable book-length examples as Gombrich's Precept and
Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) and Obeyesekere's Medusa's Hair: An
Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1981).
In Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to
Modern Colombo, Gombrich develops social explanations for "three
major points of change" that have occurred in Theravada's history.
He selects the Buddha's founding of this Sasana (religion) in India
some 2500 years ago; its migration from India to Sri Lanka, where a
redefinition of Buddhist identity happened; and within the last 150
years, a configuration of responses and reactions to the Protestant
Christian missionary accouterment to Great Britain's colonization of
Sri Lanka, a development widely designated nowadays as "Protestant
Buddhism." It would be difficult to argue sensibly against the
choice of these three instances of "major change" in Theravada,
particularly since Gombrich gives a persuasive defense of his
selection without claiming that these are the only instances of
definitive change.
There is similarly no compelling reason to challenge the basic
assumptions of his concept of social history. He holds that the
social historian's primary responsibility is to explain change while
understanding that the historian, like every other human being,
cannot explain everything. He holds further that changes in a
religion arise in response to problem situations within a society
and are, hence, appropriate phenomena for empirical study and for
causal explanation in social terms that may conflict with the
metaphysical explanations proffered by the religion itself. He
considers the agents and subjects of innovation in social history to
be, typically, human individuals whose intended objectives evoke
group patronage, although disasters in nature exemplify notable
exceptions and some intended actions result in unintended
consequences.
Gombrich acknowledges here (p. 25) the limited usefulness of a
general definition of religion, as he did earlier in Precept and
Practice (p. 11). He accepts religion defined broadly as a system of
belief in and patterned interaction with superhuman beings. Gombrich
reasons that this general definition of religion will not suffice
when one investigates and writes the social history of a specific
religion. To understand Theravada in its particular social contexts
one has to probe beyond the marks that identify it as a religion in
the general sense. One must determine what the Theravadins
themselves define as their Buddhist identity, and as a scholar
Gombrich determines to find for himself "what exactly is involved in
being [this kind of] Buddhist" (pp. 15 and 25). He adverts to this
question of specifically Theravada identity five times (pp. 74-75,
138-39, 141-42, 178, 194) in the seven chapters that follow the
introduction. Although he characterizes his achievement in this book
as "essentially a presentation" of research results accomplished by
esteemed "predecessors" (p. ix), he allows that "if this book breaks
new ground it will mainly be in my treatment of this question" of
Theravada Buddhist identity (p. 23).
Gombrich demonstrates exemplary professional etiquette in his
generous acknowledgment of large dependence on other scholars, but
knowledgeable readers will readily discern that he has overstated
his disclaimer to originality in this book. The concept of a social
construction of Theravada's entire history in a single essay is as
highly original as it is ambitious. The introduction gives as
brilliant and as unpompous a discussion of theoretical
considerations as I have read anywhere, and the seven chapters
present an unprecedented construction of Theravada's story. This
book exemplifies laudable originality in another sense, probably a
consequence unintended by its author. It constitutes a widely usable
text in introductory courses in Buddhism. A listing of the chapter
titles will attest this evaluation: "Gotama Buddha's Problem
Situation," "The Buddha's Dhamma," "The Sangha's Discipline," "The
Accommodation Between Buddhism and Society in Ancient India," "The
Buddhist Tradition in Sri Lanka," "Protestant Buddhism," and
"Current Trends, New Problems." As an introduction Theravada
Buddhism differs from the two most often selected at the present
time. Walpola Rahula's What the Buddha Taught clings closely to the
Pali canon and commentaries in succinctly stating the definitive
teachings ascribed to the Buddha, and N. Ross Reat's Introduction to
Buddhism describes Buddhist religion in its several prisms, not
merely in that of the Theravada. Gombrich makes it easier than
either of these for beginning students of Buddhism to grasp the
meaning of the definitive teachings by presenting them in the
sequence of a historical narrative of Theravada's social contexts
and by limiting their meaning to that given by the Theravadin.
Irrespective of its merits as a prospective textbook, Theravada
Buddhism can serve scholars and other critical readers instructively
as an expanded preface to Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in
Sri Lanka. In this latter book, Gombrich and Obeyesekere "describe,
analyze and interpret recent changes in the religious life of
Sinhala Buddhists" (p. 3, italics added), changes they encountered
in the collaborated research project they began in the 1970s and
sustained for more than a decade. From a careful reading of
Theravada Buddhism one gets an informed historical perspective
suitable for locating and assessing the numerous innovations of
belief and practice that Gombrich and Obeyesekere found among urban
middle and working class Sinhala Buddhists living in the nation's
capital, Colombo, and its suburbs. Such a reading will also acquaint
one with the nuanced vocabulary and syntax of the social
description, analysis and explanation employed in Buddhism
Transformed.
Part, if not all, of Theravada Buddhism was written later than
Buddhism Transformed, and the sophisticated distinction it draws
between "communal religion" and "soteriology" helps us to understand
the two discrete components of "the religious life of Sinhala
Buddhists" analyzed in Buddhism Transformed. A whole generation of
investigators have noted that the religious life of these Buddhists
includes something broader than Theravada Buddhism. In 1963 Michael
Ames observed that "magical animism and Buddhism" coexist without
being confused in one Sinhalese religious system (Journal of Asian
Studies, 22.1: 21-53). He concluded that these two religious units
"do not lie on one continuum, but on two intersecting ones" and
serve respectively the worldly (laukika) and the supra-worldly
(lokottara) interests of the Sri Lankan Buddhists (pp. 22, 40). The
same year Gananath Obeyesekere himself published a study examining
the composite character of Sinhala Buddhism. He observed that some
Buddhist intellectuals as well as Western investigators are puzzled
by finding "magic and a polytheistic pantheon" combined in practice
with Theravada Buddhism. He cautioned against equating Sinhalese
Buddhism with Theravada and advised that it be seen instead "as a
fusion and a synthesis of beliefs derived from Theravada with other
non-Theravada beliefs to form one integrated tradition" ("The Great
Tradition and the Little Tradition in the Perspective of Sinhalese
Buddhism," Journal of Asian Studies, 22.2: 148). Other researchers
have tried unsuccessfully to make sense of the combination of
diverse and seemingly incompatible elements that make up the
religious life of Sinhala Buddhists.
In Theravada Buddhism and Buddhism Transformed Gombrich and
Obeyesekere enable us to see that "spirit religion" and Gotama
Buddha's recipe for individual salvation function commensally in a
single organic relationship. For matters pertaining to life, death,
and, in large measure, rebirth, Sri Lankan Buddhists have a form of
communal religion, the resources and options of "the spirit
religion," which includes gods and other supernatural beings with
varying powers and jurisdictions. For matters of a salvation that
will enable an individual to transcend life, death and rebirth, and
hence to transcend the jurisdiction and aid of all natural and
supernatural beings, these Sinhala Buddhists have the Buddha's
program for individuals as set forth in the Pali scriptures and
promulgated by the monks of the Sangha.
Gombrich and Obeyesekere found that Sinhala Buddhist urbanites have
recently innovated radical changes of beliefs and practice in both
the spirit religion and the soteriological component of their
religious life. The status and province of some of the gods have
been redefined and this is reflected in the positions they are given
at the Buddhist temples. Also changed in the spirit religion is the
introduction of darker aspects of some deities and the accepted
practice of black magic. Although there are hints that the worship
of the god Kataragama encroaches upon the Buddha's exclusive
provision for salvation, the Buddha remains sui generis and
unquestionably first in the Buddhists' perception and ranking of the
supra-naturals in their pantheon.
The truly arresting changes are those reported for the Buddhist unit
of the Sinhala religious life. Our two seasoned social scientists
refer to these as "startling," "important departures from
tradition," "the creation of tradition," and eventually, since they
are developments within and beyond Protestant Buddhism, these
changes constitute a "Buddhism transformed." In 1963 Michael Ames
discerned that "Sinhalese Buddhism appears to be facing a
fundamental transformation" ("Ideological and Social Change in
Ceylon," Human Organization, 22.1: 46). One does not have to be a
Sri Lanka specialist to understand that a transformation of
Theravada has occurred when lay meditation centers, patronized
generously by numerous lay people assuming responsibility for the
promulgation of the Buddha's doctrine and seeking to realize nirvana
themselves through their meditation regimen, rank equally with or
take precedence over temples and monasteries in the Sinhala society.
Rather than discuss and evaluate the significance of changes I find
interesting in Buddhism Transformed, I will reiterate some
observations expressed by Aggamahapandita Walpola Sri Rahula, the
Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka. Across a
monastic career that spans most of this century, the Ven. Dr. Rahula
has opposed the provision for deity worship at Buddhist temples and
has maintained that pristine Buddhism preserved in the Pali
scriptures by monks in Sri Lanka is utterly rational and without
analogue among other religions. He has disparaged field research
studies of Buddhism as dealing with matters extraneous to the
substance of authentic Buddhism.
In the Daily News, Colombo, Monday, April 22, 1991, the Ven. Dr.
Rahula published an appeal entitled "Protect Buddhism from
Pollution." He begins with the declaration that "in the whole
history of Buddhism throughout the world, the oldest, most authentic
and unbroken tradition is the Theravada" which began at the First
Council "three months after the Buddha's Parinirvana." This "pure
and genuine Theravada" was brought to Sri Lanka "in the third
century B.C." by Mahinda Thera, the son of Emperor Asoka of India.
"From that time up to this day, the Maha Sangha and the devout
Buddhists of this country have preserved it." Although occasional
"extraneous influences" have entered the culture, "all those
pollutions were repulsed by a firm opposition from both the Sangha
and the laity," as was the "attempt to introduce into this country a
Mahayana Sect of the Japanese clergy" as recently as 1990.
Rahula names "various forms of pollution to pure Theravada teaching"
that contaminate the current Buddhist scene in Sri Lanka. Although
his list is much shorter, he cites practices and beliefs treated by
Gombrich and Obeyesekere as ingredients of a Buddhism in
transformation. He scolds those who "say all religions teach the
same thing" when, in fact, the "similarities between Buddhism and
other religions ... are peripheral and superficial," while "the
difference is central, deep and fundamental." He berates those who
advocate and practice "the new-fangled bodhipuja ... which is
tantamount to taking refuge in a tree, a practice which the Buddha
condemned," and he laments that "these days one hardly hears of
Buddha-puja." In his observation of the religious scene in Sri Lanka
today he sees that "what is flourishing is not Buddhism, but
pollution, superstition, and ignorance in the name of Buddhism."
Rahula scores those who "venerate and worship Sai Baba," not only
"in private houses," but also "in some temples led by Buddhist monks
in yellow robes." Sai Baba performs magic "behind a religious garb,
in a religious place," and "whether magic or miracle, his
demonstrations" according to the Buddha's own "attitude towards
magic and miracles" are "improper, unsuitable and unworthy of a
religious man." Gombrich and Obeyesekere assess the veneration of
Sai Baba as truly ominous, though noting carefully that it is at
present only a minor phenomenon in Sri Lanka. They tell us that some
Sri Lankan Buddhists venerate this contemporary Indian religious
leader as only a guru, that others worship him as a god, and that
still others receive him as the boddhisattva incarnation of the
coming Maitreya Buddha. "When Sai Baba, both god and guru, is
identified as a Buddha," theistic devotion, they reckon, has been
cobbled "into the frame of orthodox soteriology" (p. 455), and that
transforms Buddhism.
Even from this brief comparison one can see that the Ven. Rahula
regards the beliefs and practices of certain Sri Lankan Buddhists to
deviate radically from the received Theravada tradition. The
substance of his evaluation amounts to an insider's affirmation,
even if not specifically intended, that Gombrich and Obeyesekere
have described a Buddhist reality, not a matter extraneous to
Buddhism, that exists in Sri Lanka today. For what amounts to an
insider's rejection of Buddhism Transformed, one can read Vijitha
Rajapakse's review published in the Journal of the International
Association of Buddhist Studies, 13.2 (1990): 139-51. For a study of
some of the same Sri Lankan Buddhist movements, conducted more
recently than that of Buddhism Transformed, it is instructive to
read George D. Bond's The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka (Columbia,
S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1988). As the word
"revival" in his book's title indicates, Bond takes a more
sympathetic view of the innovations, emphasizing continuity more
than accretion, while Gombrich and Obeyesekere conclude that some of
the innovations are rendered acceptable by rationalizing their
continuity with what is only an imagined part of the obscured
tradition.