UBC Faculty Research and Publications

Introduction : Placing the Past, Envisioning the Future : Buddhist Memory, Material Traces, and the Politics of Reinvention in Modern India Ober, Douglas; Geary, David, 1976-

Abstract

This Special Issue of CSSAAME ties together a series of modern histories and contemporary ethnographies of Buddhist spaces spread across the Indian subcontinent. Underlining each of the four essays is a concern for the modern fashioning and reimagining of India as a Buddhist “homeland.” In the past century and a half, Buddhist homeland discourses in South Asia have fostered heightened contact between national leaders, Buddhist royalty, entrepreneurs, artists, monastics and pilgrim-travelers in ways that build upon historical and ritual precedents while simultaneously crafting new paradigms within a transnational, postcolonial arena. Taking inspiration from this translocative orientation, the contributors explore pre-colonial histories of Buddhist movement alongside more recent networks of Buddhist restoration in the subcontinent, with particular focus on the role of social memory and material culture in shaping the modern episteme. The essays gathered here further these inquiries by exploring how these connections have changed in the context of modern India and how the textures of these encounters cut across national, ethnic, religious, linguistic and doctrinal lines.

Item Citations and Data

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International