Monks, Money, and Morality: The Balancing Act of Contemporary Buddhism

Description

Vibrantly engaging contemporary Buddhist lives, this book focuses on the material and financial relations of contemporary monks, temples, and laypeople. It shows that rather than being peripheral, economic exchanges are key to religious debate in Buddhist societies. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in countries ranging from India to Japan, including all three major Buddhist traditions, the book addresses the flows of goods and services between clergy and laity, the management of resources, the treatment of money, and the role of the state in temple economies. Along with documenting ritual and economic practices, these accounts deal with the moral challenges that Buddhist adherents are facing today, thereby bringing lived experience to the study of an often-romanticized religion.

Christoph Brumann is Head of Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, and Honorary Professor of Anthropology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Beata Switek is Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Monks, Money, and Morality provides intimate cases studies from around the Buddhist world to show the complex consideration of money and ethics that monks must negotiate for their temples to survive. It offers insights into the way in which national politics and economics affect the practicalities of those seeking to pursue a monastic life. This eye-opening study will change perceptions of Buddhism and understandings of the role of monks in their communities. * Kate Crosby, Professor of Buddhist Studies, King's College London, UK * At the heart of Buddhism stands the relationship between monastics and laypeople. These diverse and fascinating case studies, with their sophisticated ethnographic analyses, demonstrate that what is often thought of as an asymmetrical and hierarchical symbiosis is, in actually existing Buddhism, far more complex, far more variable, and far more interesting than that. * David N. Gellner, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK * The book is very much about the dilemmas that a religious tradition faces when it comes to issues of money, exchange and incorporation into the capitalist economy ... a very rich collection of studies. -- Jovan Maud * Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology *