Sufism, the mystical expression of the Islamic tradition, has been for centuries a major cultural, social, political, and, of course, religious influence in diverse Muslim cultures. With modernity Sufism has been subjected to increased criticism, and in some cases repression and violent hostility, on the part of certain Muslim opponents. From another direction, secularizing reformers such as President Kemal Atatürk (d. 1937) of Turkey view Sufism as a repository of decadent behaviors and superstitions that are incompatible with modern values and rationality. It is also noteworthy that, in response to internal and external reactions to violent extremism especially post-9/11, political leaders in Muslim majority countries such as Morocco and Pakistan have attempted to promote Sufism as a potentially moderating and peaceful influence and therefore encouraged it in their societies. This approach has also been promoted by Western political interests that present Sufism as a moderating counter to violent extremism. These latter examples highlight the importance of the modern nation-state as it engages with Sufism and its institutions, especially in the postcolonial period.
Pre-modern forms of Sufism emphasized pledging allegiance (bay‘a) to a spiritual master and affiliating with a Sufi order (Arabic: ṭarīqa, pl. ṭuruq). Being part of a Sufi order was thus a communal, as well as a personal, commitment, and the hierarchy and sense of belonging they entailed led the orders to play an important social, and in some cases, political role. With modernity, esoteric elements of Sufi thought, as well as traditional folk practices of making vows and faith healing, along with earlier social forms of clientage and patronage, have become less relevant in increasingly urban environments. Some scholars of Sufism have therefore characterized the modern era as a time of decline and degeneration in Sufi social and political influence, as well as in Sufi intellectual production and literary and artistic creativity.
However, expectations that Sufism is on the wane are challenged by observations of how Sufis have adapted to changing circumstances in modernity, both in Muslim-majority societies and in the West. For example, some scholars document a Sufi renewal involving the rise of charismatic teachers and practices and the reach of new global networks. Sufi teachings are promoted through Internet sites and social media, while today’s Sufi teachers may draw on 20th century Western psychological frameworks to explain the spiritual and therapeutic impact of Sufi practices on individuals. Meanwhile Sufi ideas are disseminated to broader publics through music videos, conferences, and other cultural events, such that Sufism in these new configurations continues to inspire significant, if more diffuse, loyalties, both locally and globally. In an age of networking and social mobility, flows of individuals and ideas have created new transnational spheres for the influence and impact of Sufism. At the same time local conditions vary considerably in shaping its diverse contemporary expressions and adaptations.
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Sufism in the Modern World
Marcia Hermansen
Article
Synagogue Architecture: An Overview
Sergey R. Kravtsov
Architectural history acknowledges a variety of Jewish communal buildings, central among which are the synagogue and its ontological sources the Tabernacle and the Temple. The synagogue architecture of the Renaissance period steadily departed from medieval patterns, drawing instead on Renaissance, baroque, and neoclassicist forms to contextualize itself in the European cityscape. At the same time, it reflected visual interpretations of the Temple produced by theologians, Hebraists, artists, and architects of diverse religious affiliations. Following the emergence of Hegelian phenomenology and the rise of nationalism, synagogue architecture sought a balance between a unique Jewish “national spirit” and loyalty to host nations. More recently, 20th-century and postmodern synagogue architecture has employeda cosmopolitan design vocabulary to reflect themes of retrospection and modernity, mobility and gravity, and the loftiness of ritual space, all while also considering the sustainability of the building.
Article
Taixu
Eric Goodell
The Chinese Buddhist monk Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947) has been called a reformer, missionary, modernizer, mystic, failure, visionary, ethical pietist, public intellectual, great religious leader, and media personality. He is best known as the modernizer of Chinese Buddhism and the creator of Humanistic Buddhism, which emphasizes rational knowledge and ethical behavior. Taixu devoted his life to two activities: spreading Buddhism throughout society and reforming Buddhist monastic and lay institutions. A dynamic between reform and propagation is evident in all of his projects, including Humanistic Buddhism, establishing a pure land in the human realm, his Maitreya School, and his Buddhist academies. Although these projects are all “modern” in important ways, they represent Taixu’s vision for the continuity of Buddhism’s rich heritage as China moved beyond its imperial past.
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Tamil Militancy in Sri Lanka and the Role of Religion
Iselin Frydenlund
From the late 1970s to its defeat by the Government of Sri Lanka in 2009, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fought for Tamil independence in Sri Lanka. The ultimate aim of what was often considered to be one of the world’s most disciplined and efficient insurgency groups was to create an independent Tamil homeland (which they called Tamil Eelam) in the northern and eastern parts of the island. The LTTE based itself on a unique mix of Tamil nationalist, socialist, and feminist visions of a new future for the marginalized Tamil communities of Sri Lanka. The LTTE became feared for its extensive use of suicide missions, carried out by soldiers of both Hindu and Catholic backgrounds. Because of the marginalization of the Tamil-speaking Muslims from the Tamil nationalist project, none of the LTTE soldiers were Muslims. Generally speaking, religion played—and in the 21st century continues to play—a minor role in the ultimate nationalist goal of establishing Tamil Eelam. Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka centers around Tamil culture, language, literature, and regional identity, not religion. The LTTE’s official ideology was strictly secularist, expressing a clear separation between religion, the state, and politics. The LTTE accepted individual religious practices in its ranks—for example, having a personal crucifix or a holy picture within military camps, but did not facilitate institutionalized religious practice. Yet religious formations, controversies, and practices have been important, if not crucial, to Tamil separatism and, ultimately, to the LTTE itself. In a short period of time, the LTTE developed a unique martial culture and martyr cult, drawing on numerous cultural and religious sources in Tamil society. This martyr cult encompassed references to the Christian tradition of martyrdom, Hindu bhakti (devotional) literature, and classic Tamil heroic poetry. Each martyr’s self-sacrifice formed part of a symbolic universe that was fundamentally nationalistic, but Christian and Hindu references and ritual language were employed to help to legitimize the sacrificial act. The ideology of martyrdom transcended the martyrs’ religious backgrounds, and instead of a place in paradise or release from the cycle of reincarnation, it promised eternal life in the memory of the nation. Within the cultural and political universe of the LTTE, the nation and its territory became sacralized, and the LTTE’s meticulously articulated martial culture began to take on quasi-religious qualities. At the ideological level, the LTTE propaganda machinery managed to balance secularism, deep religious sentiment, and religious diversity, and religion functioned as a multilayered concept used for a variety of purposes by military and political leaders. Religion can also be identified as various “fields” within the movement: “civil religious,” “Śaiva religious,” and “Tamil Catholic religious,” allowing for overlapping yet distinct Hindu, Catholic, or nonreligious identities under the sacred canopy of Tamil nationalism.
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Tantra and the Tantric Traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism
David B. Gray
The term tantra and the tantric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism have been subjected to a great deal of misunderstanding in both India and the West. There is a diverse range of attitudes toward the tantric traditions, ranging from their emic understandings as paths to liberation to the relatively widespread associations of the tantric traditions with sorcery and libertine sexuality. Likewise, tantric traditions are also extremely diverse, which has made it difficult to develop a definition broad enough to cover the various tantric traditions without being overly broad. There have also been many attempts to discern the origins of the tantric traditions. While there is very little evidence supporting the hypothesis that any of the tantric traditions existed before the 5th century ce, there have been attempts to trace back these traditions much earlier, to the time of the Buddha or the ancient Hindu sages, or even back to the Indus Valley civilization. In overviewing various attempts to date these traditions, it appears that the first tantric traditions to emerge in a distinct form almost certainly first emerged in a Hindu context around the mid-first millennium ce.
An overview of the history of tantric traditions, then, should begin with a survey the development of the Hindu tantric traditions, from the mid-first millennium ce up to the colonial period, when tantric traditions in South Asia generally entered a period of decline, followed by a renaissance in the 20th century. The historical appearance of Buddhist tantric traditions occurs a few centuries later, during the 7th century. Buddhist tantric traditions were strongly influenced at their inception by preexisting Śaiva Hindu traditions, but they also drew on a growing body of ritual and magical practices that had been developing for several centuries, since at least the 5th century ce, in Mahāyāna Buddhist circles. The spread of tantric traditions quickly followed their development in India. They were disseminated to Nepal; Central, East, and Southeast Asia; and also, much later, to the West. Tantric Hindu and Buddhist traditions were also a significant influence on a number of other religious traditions, including Jainism, Sikhism, the Bön tradition of Tibet, Daoism, and the Shintō tradition of Japan.
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Tantric Buddhism in Japan: Kūkai and Saichō
David L. Gardiner
Many accounts place the origins of Tantric Buddhism in Japan in the hands of the two men, Saichō 最澄 (767–822) and Kūkai 空海 (774–835). (This article will use “Tantric” and “esoteric Buddhism” synonymously.) These were the founders, respectively, of the Tendai (天台) and Shingon (真言) schools, both of which contributed substantially to the early development of Japanese forms of Tantric theory and practice. Naturally, no tradition emerges from a vacuum; it always grows from existing roots and trunks to create new branches. Because the contributions of Saichō and Kūkai marked a major transition in the history of Japanese Buddhism, focusing on them is an appropriate way to frame important features of early Tantrism in Japan.
Several of the deities central to developed esoteric Buddhism in Japan were present during the Nara period (710–794), as were some of the key texts such as the Scripture of the Great Illuminator大日経 (Skt. Mahāvairocana-sūtra, Jpn. Dainichi-kyō), prior to Saichō and Kūkai’s bringing new materials back from China in 805 and 806, respectively. Significant among the new elements were mandalas, initiation or consecration ceremonies (kanjō灌頂) into ritual practice that employed them, and new texts, in particular of the Scripture of the Tip of the Thunderbolt (金剛頂経) (Skt. Vajraśekhara-sūtra, Jpn. Kongōchō-kyō) corpus, most of which had been translated into Chinese by Amoghavajra 不空 (705–774, Ch. Bukong; J. Fukū). While Saichō returned to Japan more than a year before Kūkai—and established the earliest foundation for the new Tantric tradition by performing Japan’s first kanjō and by making one of the two formal tracks for training Tendai monks a Tantric one (shana-gō遮那業)—Kūkai’s subsequent contributions had a much greater immediate impact on how the tradition unfolded.
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Tantric Buddhism in Japan: Shingon, Tendai, and the Esotericization of Japanese Buddhisms
David L. Gardiner
From the early 9th century a new orientation emerged in Japanese Buddhism that emphasized specific Tantric, or Vajrayāna characteristics of both doctrine and practice. While elements of the Vajrayāna (vehicle of the diamond/thunderbolt) Buddhist traditions of mature Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism were present in Japan in the 8th century, it was only in the new Buddhist schools of Tendai and Shingon that related practices recently imported from China were specifically identified as “esoteric” in nature and as different from the other schools of Buddhism that were newly designated as “exoteric” by these schools. The first to promote this distinction was the monk Kūkai, founder of the Shingon school. His contemporary Saichō, who founded the Tendai school, placed himself and several of his disciples under Kūkai’s tutelage to learn what the latter had brought back from an intensive study period in China. Yet Saichō’s approach was to place the esoteric teachings and practices on a par with his Tendai teachings, derived primarily from the Chinese Tiantai school. His difference from Kūkai on this matter drove both an eventual end to their cooperative relationship and, after Saichō’s death, innovations by Tendai school exegetes that aimed to reconcile the differences. The combined force of Tendai esotericism (Taimitsu) and Shingon esotericism (Tōmitsu) impacted greatly the development of subsequent centuries of Japanese Buddhism. The three major schools of Buddhism that dominated during the Nara period (710–794)—Sanron, Hossō, and Kegon—all incorporated esoteric elements into their practice during the Heian period (794–1185). By the time of the Kamakura period (1185–1333), when the new forms of Zen, pure land, and Nichiren Buddhism emerged, the esoteric paradigm was so ingrained in Japanese Buddhist thought that even though esoteric practice was at times explicitly criticized by the new schools, much of its worldview was implicitly affirmed.
Central to Japanese esoteric Buddhism is the understanding that through engaging in the ritual practices of reciting mantra, practicing symbolic hand gestures known as mudra, and imagining one’s self and all beings as being intrinsically awakened (one meaning of the term mandala), one can achieve the enlightened stage of buddhahood within one lifetime. These three are called the “practices of the three mysteries” (sanmitsu gyō三密業), through which a practitioner is able to unite with the enlightened energy of the cosmic buddha’s body, speech, and mind. More than anything else, it was this cosmological framework that influenced the development of many later Buddhist practices. Fundamental to this model was the affirmation that every living being is intrinsically endowed with the latent qualities of buddhahood. This concept of “original enlightenment” (hongaku本覚) framed an immanental, holistic vision that recognized the real presence of nirvāṇa (freedom, liberation) in the midst of one’s experience of saṃsāra (the cyclic world of ignorant suffering). The unfolding of various doctrinal and ritual means of articulating and verifying a practitioner’s intrinsic state of enlightenment spurred novel theological systems, artistic creativity of many forms, as well as sociopolitical opportunities for aristocrats who sought to invoke the buddha’s power for various mundane needs. Tendai and Shingon monks alike contributed to this growth in a myriad of ways.
Article
Tantric Revival in China
Cody R. Bahir
The modern reclamation of Esoteric Buddhism by Chinese Buddhists, commonly referred to as “The Tantric Revival,” began in China during the waning days of the Qing dynasty (1664–1912) and has since blossomed into a global phenomenon consisting of both independent and loosely interconnected communities in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Unites States. Despite this diversity, the architects of the revival are united by their desire to resurrect what they perceive as an extinct form of Chinese religiosity—referred to as “Tang-dynasty esotericism” (tangmi唐密), “the esoteric school” (mizong密宗), or more commonly “Zhenyan” (真言)—that they believe disappeared from the Chinese Buddhist landscape after the Tang dynasty. The revival began during the late Qing dynasty and early Republican period (1912–1949), when Chinese Buddhists started studying Esoteric Buddhism in Japan and Tibet, where forms of Esoteric Buddhism have thrived unabated for centuries. However, interest in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism quickly waned, and the popularity of Tibetan Vajrayāna eventually superseded the desire to resurrect Tang-dynasty Zhenyan. Moreover, no independent Chinese chain of Esoteric Buddhist transmission was established during this time. Thus, the first phase of the Tantric Revival, in a sense, failed.
Beginning in the 1970s, however, the importation of Tibetan Buddhism to Taiwan renewed the desire to resurrect—as they saw it—Tang-dynasty Chinese Esoteric Buddhism and essentially revived the revival. Similar to the early Qing-dynasty and Republican-period revivalists who left China to study Esoteric Buddhism abroad, a number of Taiwanese monks traveled to Kōyasan, Japan, where they were ordained as priests within the Japanese Buddhist tradition of Shingon, which descends from the original form of Esoteric Buddhism in China. However, unlike their Chinese-revivalist predecessors, some of these monks were successful in establishing independent and self-propagating Zhenyan lineages. Moreover, a number of their students went on to establish their own Chinese Esoteric Buddhist communities throughout the world.
Article
Technology and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome
Tatiana Bur
Coupling together “technology” and “religion” might, to the modern mind, sound rather antithetical. The former, as we know it, is based in scientific knowledge and produces tangible results; the latter is phenomenological and spiritual. Yet this does not do justice to the full character of ancient science, or of ancient religion. Technologies in Greco-Roman antiquity could, and did, help create and sustain a sense of the divine, whether this was in the context of sanctuary space, or as part of religious occasions or rituals, for example. The kinds of evidence available to unearth the realities of the relation between technology and religion in ancient Greece and Rome span literature, material culture, and, importantly, ancient technical manuals. This final genre tends not to be as familiar to students of the Greco-Roman world in general and especially to students of ancient religion. Yet by combining these dry, and at times abstruse, texts with anecdotal evidence, technical realities and issues of viewership which surround the use of technology in ancient religious contexts can be better understood.
One of the more familiar instances of religious technologies from ancient Greece is that of the theatrical crane (mēchanē). There, epiphanies of gods were fabricated using a conspicuous mechanical construction which speaks to the fundamentally mediated nature of ancient epiphany. The sense of sacred presence within ancient temples in the Greco-Roman world was enhanced using various technical methods including catoptrics—the science of reflection. Religious processions in antiquity involved parading a vast array of objects through the cityscape and technologies of automation began, in the Hellenistic period onward, to feature as part of this conspicuous display of the marvelous. Various other rituals which formed the very basis of Greek religious life, such as divination and dedication, relied on technical, including mechanical, expertise to create, enhance, or authenticate connection with the divine.
Traces of the intersection between religion and technology in Greco-Roman antiquity can be found not only from the Classical institution of the theater but even earlier, including in the Homeric epics. Yet the formalization of the discipline of mechanics in the Hellenistic period gave new shape and vigor to the relation between religion and technology. Subsequently, the Roman period saw increased meta-discourse on the phenomenon, especially thanks to the culturally vibrant “Second Sophistic,” as well as the rise of Christianity, where the word (logos) of god was privileged above anything material.
Article
Terrorism and Violence in North America
Atiya Husain
Even among those most invested in defining “terrorism,” there is an inability to agree on a shared definition. This suggests the political nature of the concept. Terrorism is best understood in relation to other social phenomena, particularly colonialism and capitalism. This essay discusses several questions on the topic of terrorism and violence: What is at stake in the definition of terrorism? What is the relationship of Muslims and Islam to terrorism? What is the scope of counterterrorism? In addressing these questions, the article discusses a range of topics including Black Power, paper terrorism, “Barbary” pirates, the Christian Identity Movement, black identity extremism, racially motivated violent extremism, and the permeation of terrorism concerns into sectors, including education and natural disaster management.
Article
19th-Century American Freethinkers
Eric M. Stephen
Over the course of the 19th century, “freethought,” as both a term and a movement, witnessed profound transformations in the United States. From the cosmopolitan deism of turn-of-the-century revolutionary Thomas Paine to the so-called “Golden Age of American Freethought” that blossomed between 1876 and 1914, various skeptics, nonbelievers, atheists, and radical religionists in the 1800s all worked to carve out a space for themselves and their beliefs in the American landscape. A brief overview of this topic shows the wide range of individuals, organizations, and intellectual currents found in the 1800s that have been classified in the historiography under the umbrella of “American freethought.” This survey also underscores that the concept of “freethought” is not a self-evident category. The ideas and sensibilities framed as expressions of “freethought” were constantly being reimagined and renegotiated in dynamic response to the dramatic changes within American intellectual and social life that similarly occurred throughout the century.
Article
The Body of the Buddha
John Powers
Buddhist discussions of the body, particularly in South Asia, encode a number of ambiguities and conceptual tensions. A pervasive trope in this literature characterizes bodies as foul, oozing fluids, prone to offensive smells, decaying and causing pain, and as containing a range of disgusting substances within a bag of skin, including urine, feces, mucus, and bile. People are warned of the dangers of emotional investment in their bodies because this leads to inevitable suffering and loss. On the other hand, beautiful bodies are proof of past or present moral cultivation and of success in religious practice. The most exalted bodies—surpassing those of all other beings, even gods—are those of buddhas, and their perfect physiques proclaim their supreme attainments.
Article
The Bön Tradition of Dzogchen
Jean-Luc Achard
Dzogchen (“Great Perfection”) is a philosophical and yogic tradition largely developed within the Bönpo tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Its first datable sources surface on the religious scene of Tibet sometime around the late 10th to the early 11th century with the discoveries of Treasure text (gter ma) that are supposed to have been hidden during the 8th century and earlier, as well as with the seminal composition of texts and commentaries that are based on these Treasures. Some of its teachings are also presented as having been transmitted orally from archaic, undatable times through an uninterrupted lineage of masters. Groups of lay Bönpo practitioners, later followed by monastics of the same tradition, started to gather around the discoverers and authors of these works, thus creating the first postdynastic religious communities of Bön dispersed throughout Tibet. Deeply enriched by the integration of a vast amount of traditional Buddhist literature, the Bön tradition absorbed teachings from all other Tibetan Buddhist lineages. The core of these teachings is made up of profoundly secret instructions said to enable practitioners to reach the state of total Buddhahood in a single lifetime. The quintessence of these teachings focuses upon yogic techniques centered on the contemplation of light sources, such as the sun, the moon, or a butter lamp. Particular methods are also applied in a completely dark room in which special visualizations are combined with yogic devices that lead to visionary experiences which are unique throughout Buddhist teachings. These practices based on colored visions produce various signs manifesting at the end of the practitioner’s life such as the famed Rainbow Body (‘ja’ lus).
Article
The Book of Isaiah
Jacob Stromberg
The book of Isaiah is perhaps best known through its long history of reception in descriptions of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, beginning with the New Testament. In the Hebrew Bible, the book of Isaiah begins with the latter prophets. There, it is followed by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the book of the Twelve (the minor prophets). Together, these books portray the messages and activities of the prophets of ancient Israel from the period of the late divided monarchy during the rise of the Assyrian Empire through the era of Babylonian domination and on into the Persian period, when, beginning with the rise of the Persian king Cyrus, there arose the opportunity for return to the land and a restoration of what had been lost. Standing at the head of this prophetic collection, the book of Isaiah straddles this entire history. The first half of the book portrays the fate of the northern kingdom of Israel and that of the southern kingdom of Judah in the days of Isaiah the prophet under the power of the Assyrians, whereas the second half of the book looks forward to days beyond the prophet, to restoration and renewal after the fall of Babylon at the hands of King Cyrus.
Known as the latter prophets, this collection of books follows the primary history of the Hebrew Bible, a sequence there divided up into “the Torah” and “the former prophets” (Genesis–Deuteronomy and Joshua–2 Kings, respectively). Beginning with the creation of the world and the story of the garden of Eden, this primary history came to be the context within which the message of the prophet Isaiah was understood. Thus, the book of Isaiah ends with an evocation of the “messianic” hopes of Isaiah 11 alongside the expectation for a new creation and the punishment of that serpent, who was to eat dust because of his role in the fall of the first humans (Gen. 1:1; 3:14; Isa. 11:6–9; 65:17–18, 25; 66:22).
In the modern era, scholarship turned its attention to reconstructing various aspects of the history behind the book of Isaiah and its place in the Hebrew Bible. Initial efforts focused on reconstructing the authentic words of the prophet himself in their genuine historical context within the cultures of the ancient Near East and the various streams of ancient Israelite tradition. In the early 21st century, this interest has been joined by robust efforts at understanding the process that saw the words of the prophet turned into a book related to the Hebrew Bible more broadly.
Article
The Book of Revelation: The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ
Christopher Rowland
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, or the Apocalypse of John, has been extraordinarily influential in Christian life and theology. For example, because of the many hymns sung by the heavenly host, Revelation has, like Isaiah 6:3, been particularly influential on liturgy and also music, for instance, the setting of Revelation 5:12, “Worthy is the Lamb that was Slain,” in Handel’s Messiah. It is one of two biblical apocalyptic texts (the other being the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible). Apart from the opening words, a dominant theme of Revelation is prophecy, and its imagery emphasizing what John “saw” on Patmos suggests that the form of prophecy in the first century ce included a significant visionary element, akin to earlier biblical exemplars such as Ezekiel 1:40–48 and Zechariah 1–8. The interpretation and reception of Revelation are closely linked. Like other biblical prophetic books, it became a reservoir for understandings of the future, but alongside it there developed a role as a way of unmasking the imperfections in church and society. This article uses the evidence of its reception to understand the nature and meaning of the book, its theological antecedents, and its relationship to other early Christian writings. Its role as an eschatological guide as well as its importance for political theology, complementing what we find in Daniel, are considered. It has also inspired artists down the centuries, from the time of the first illuminated Apocalypses, and this rich visual tradition captures something of importance about the book itself and the visionary stimulus it has provided.
Article
The Economics of Buddhism
Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg
The economics of Buddhism brings to the fore a conundrum with which Buddhists have had to contend since the time of the Buddha: how should Buddhists engage in economic activity in order to provide for their individual lifestyles and the Buddhist monasteries that support Buddhism? The widespread image of a monk or nun sitting deep in meditation in a cave may exemplify a religion that values nonattachment to materiality and disengagement with economic action. However, when looking more closely at how Buddhist monastics maintain these austere lifestyles, one sees a complex Buddhist economic engagement throughout the history of Buddhism. The economics of Buddhism examines how Buddhists must necessarily engage in economic relations not only to support their lifestyles, but also to establish and expand Buddhist institutions across the world.
A large part of Buddhist economic engagement involves an economy of merit. Buddhists have been dependent on dāna, a system of donation and sponsorship, that has aided the building and expansion of Buddhism since the time of the Buddha. This merit-based economy involves a system of exchange in which virtuous actions such as generosity are rewarded with an accumulation of merit (puñña), leading to beneficial circumstances in this life or the next life to come. Based on this system of exchange, monks and nuns receive remuneration from the lay community for their services. It is due to this merit economy that monks and nuns have been able to pursue a monastic lifestyle and monasteries have been built, some of which have become economic epicenters for the surrounding community. Historically, large monasteries across Asia have acquired large plots of land, accumulated large storehouses of grains and goods, and engaged in various other economic endeavors, such as lending money, running businesses, hiring laborers, and so forth. In order to maintain these at times very large Buddhist institutions that have supported monks and nuns, and in essence the survival of Buddhism, this system of exchange—money for merit—has been a crucial aspect of Buddhism.
Since the time of the Buddha, the spread and survival of Buddhism has been reliant on economic exchanges and the economic environment of the time. This is very much the case in the early 21st century, with the spread of global capitalism affecting how Buddhist images, goods, and services have been adopted and altered in new environments. For example, with changing economic conditions and the rise of the consumer society, Buddhist monasteries have found new sources of income, such as through tourism. Global sentiments regarding Buddhism as primarily positive, furthermore, have led to the proliferation of Buddhist-inspired objects for sale in the mass consumer society. Instead of seeing Buddhist economic engagement as a paradox, or hypocrisy even, when looking closely at how Buddhism and economic relations are necessarily entwined, one sees a complex relationship that provides the basis for the survival and spread of Buddhism worldwide.
Article
The Expansion of African American Muslim Movements beyond the United States
Philipp Bruckmayr
Following the emergence of a variety of African American Muslim movements in the United States since the 1920s, Islam began to spread among African American and African Caribbean communities in a number of states in the Americas and the Caribbean as well as in Great Britain. There is little evidence for the expansion of early African American Muslim movements, such as the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam (NOI), beyond the United States in the first decades of their existence, but the process gained traction in the second half of the 20th century. By the 1970s, different originally US-based African American Muslim movements had acquired followings in Canada, England, and various Caribbean and South American states. These included not only the NOI, and its successor organization, the World Community of al-Islam in the West (later known as the American Society of Muslims), but also the Islamic Mission to America, the Dar-ul-Islam movement, the Ansaaru Allah Community, and the Islamic Party in North America. In addition, African Americans and African Caribbeans in different countries embraced Islam on a more individual basis, inspired by famous African American Muslims, such as Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. This transnational expansion of African American Islam represents a conversion process among African-descended populations, which has radiated not from the Muslim world but the United States across the western hemisphere and into Europe. Despite the international connections of some of the concerned movements, African American and African Caribbean Muslim communities outside the United States initially exhibited only limited discursive and personal links to either the Muslim world or established local Muslim communities of South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern descent.
By the 1980s, however, many of the US-based movements were in a state of disarray and disintegration. As a result, the ties of African American and African Caribbean Muslims to the United States were weakened and local tendencies toward emancipation from US organizations and models intensified. Concomitantly, at least in some locations, interactions with larger and longer-established local Muslim communities of South Asian, Southeast Asian, and/or Middle Eastern descent increased. Another major development during the period was the general growing exposure to transnational impulses from the Muslim world, particularly from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Iran, and South Asia. Against this background, African American and African Caribbean Muslim communities outside the United States have embarked on various paths of transformation, including toward more widely recognized Sunni (including Salafi) and Shiite expressions of Islam. Many communities have nevertheless retained a distinctly Afro-centric character, either in orientation or just in membership, without subscribing to a racialist theology. Notable cases in point are Trinidad’s Jamaat al-Muslimeen, the Afro-Colombian Shiite community of Buenaventura, and Suriname’s Sadaqatul Islam, as well as London’s Salafi Brixton Mosque. Individual African American and African Caribbean Muslim scholars and leaders, such as the Trinidadian Shiite Shaykh Ahmed Haneef or the Jamaican Jihadist preacher Abdullah el-Faisal, have, however, acquired followings and influence extending way beyond African-descended constituencies. Arguably, the most well-known African Caribbean scholar to date is the Jamaica-born Bilal Philips, one of the key figures of Salafi preaching in English.
Article
The Imamura Families and the Making of American Buddhism
Michihiro Ama
The Imamura families primarily refer to Emyō Imamura (1867–1932) and Kanmo Imamura (1904–1986), who each made great contributions to “American Buddhism.” Although a definition of American Buddhism is open to discussion, it began to develop at the turn of the 20th century because of the efforts of Euro-American Buddhist converts and ethnic Buddhists. While serving the Nikkei (persons of Japanese descent) Shin Buddhist community in Hawaii, Emyō introduced Buddhism to a group of Euro-Americans and a member of the royal Hawaiian family. Emyō maintained traditional Japanese temple practices and the political ideology of imperial Japan for the Issei (the first generation, referring to Japanese immigrants), emphasized Buddhist education for the Nisei (the second generation, referring to the children of the Japanese immigrants), and created a Nisei ministry program. He related Buddhist egalitarianism to American democracy and pluralism, which allowed him, together with his congregation, to oppose discriminatory and oppressive policies of the then territory of Hawaii. Emyō defined Buddhism as a form of cosmopolitan religion and spread the universal aspect of Shin Buddhist doctrine. For him, creating American Buddhism was inseparable from redefining Shin Buddhism.
Emyō Imamura’s progressive Buddhist vision and conservative Buddhist practices were supported by his family. His wife, Kiyoko Hino Imamura (1884–1962), helped him in his ministerial duties and led the largest association of Buddhist women in Hawaii. Their first son, Kanmo Imamura, served a Buddhist community in Berkeley, California, and promoted the interaction between Japanese American Buddhists and Euro-American Buddhist converts in the Bay Area during the 1950s and 1960s. Kanmo was greatly supported by his wife, Jane Matsumura Imamura (1920–2011). The Buddhist propagation of Emyō and Kanmo exemplified the practice of a Shin Buddhist temple family by which husband and wife work together to promote Shinran’s teaching and the father is succeeded by the first son. At the same time, their efforts created a tension between a sectarian form of Buddhism that persons of Japanese descent practiced in America and a Universal Buddhism that Euro-American Buddhist converts sought. As leaders of the largest ethnic Buddhist organizations in the United States, Emyō and Kanmo responded to the needs of fellow immigrants and Japanese American Buddhists and Euro-American Buddhist converts and sympathizers. The demand of Euro-American Buddhists, together with the strong presence of Christianity and the sociopolitical conditions in the United States at the time, caused Emyō and Kanmo to maintain, redefine, and transform Shin Buddhist practice.
Article
The Kadampa: A Formative Movement of Tibetan Buddhism
Ulrike Roesler
The Bka’ gdams pa (pronounced “Kadampa”) emerged as a distinct tradition of Tibetan Buddhism in the 11th century ce. The most common understanding of the name in Tibetan sources is that this tradition taught the complete word of the Buddha (bka’) as explained in the instructions (gdams) of the Indian teacher Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (982–1054). This is sometimes specified as referring to his instructions on the graded path (lam rim) toward Buddhahood that were later adopted and propagated by the Dge lugs pa (pronounced “Gelugpa”) school, beginning with Tsong kha pa’s (1357–1419) influential Lam rim chen mo. It is commonly assumed that during the 15th century, the Bka’ gdams pa were absorbed into Tsong kha pa’s reform movement of the “new Bka’ gdams pa” (bka’ gdams gsar ma), later known as the Dge lugs pa, but further research is needed on this issue.
Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna, also known by his Indian honorific title Atiśa[ya] or Adhīśa, was invited to western Tibet by its rulers and arrived there in 1042. At the request of King Byang chub ’od (984–1078), he composed his famous “Lamp on the Path to Awakening” (Bodhipathapradīpa; Tib. Byang chub lam sgron), which became an important model for Tibetan works on the graded path to awakening. He then accepted an invitation to central Tibet where he spent the rest of his life. He passed away in Snye thang near Lhasa in 1054.
Several of Atiśa’s Tibetan students played an important role in the development of Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau. However, it is his student ’Brom ston Rgyal ba’i ’byung gnas (pronounced “Dromtön Gyelway Jungnay,” 1004–1064) who is traditionally regarded as the founding father of the Tibetan Bka’ gdams pa lineage since his students became instrumental in spreading the Bka’ gdams pa teachings in central Tibet. In addition to the lam rim, they became famous for their instructions on “mental purification” or “mind training” (blo sbyong, pronounced “Lojong”), which is meant to free the mind from attachment to the ego and generate the attitude of the “awakening mind” (Skt. bodhicitta). Lam rim and blo sbyong became highly popular doctrinal and didactic genres and have had an impact on Tibetan Buddhism far beyond the Bka’ gdams pa and Dge lugs pa traditions.
The Bka’ gdams pa are often perceived as a tradition with an emphasis on monasticism and Mahāyāna ethics, rather than on yogic and tantric practice. However, it should be kept in mind that Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna himself had grown up in the tantric traditions of Bengal. His work on the stages of the path to awakening includes instructions on tantra, but states that tantric practice may not contradict the vows taken (thus excluding antinomian practices for monastics). The early Tibetan Bka’ gdams pa masters take the same stance and promote the idea that Pāramitānaya (i.e., non-tantric Mahāyāna Buddhism) and tantra have the same validity and lead to the same goal, thus trying to strike a balance between the two approaches.
Article
The Life and Works of Longchenpa
Albion M. Butters
Longchen Rabjam (Klong chen rab ’byams pa, 1308–1363/1364) is regarded as one of the most important figures in the Nyingma (Rnying ma) school of Tibetan Buddhism. He is especially renowned for his writings on Dzogchen (Rdzogs chen), or the Great Perfection, and his revelations and codification of the various Nyingtik (Snying thig) or Seminal Essence cycles, penned in a clear, direct, and often poetic style. Longchenpa also wrote in depth on Buddhist philosophy, in particular exploring the nature of the two truths through a Madhyamaka lens, and the soteriological significance of the respective paths in the Buddhist tradition, from Sūtrayāna to Mantrayāna. His overall oeuvre, from which hundreds of texts survive, evidences a practical effort to provide students and readers with a wide range of entry points to awakening, depending on their respective inclination and ability. Longchenpa has historically been respected as both a scholar and a yogi, accorded by tradition with the rare title of Omniscient One (Kun mkhyen). He began his studies at an early age, studied with the great masters of his time at Samye (Bsam yas) and Sangpu Neutok (Gsang phu ne’u thog), and received ascetic tutelage from his guru Kumārādza (1266–1343). Through focus on the Vima Nyingtik (Bi ma snying thig) and Khandro Nyingtik (Mkha’ ’gro snying thig) cycles, receiving visions and discovering treasure texts (gter ma), his connection to his previous reincarnation as Pema Ledrel Tsal (Padma las ’brel rtsal, 1291–1315) was revealed. Even though the political tumult of 14th-century Tibet forced Longchenpa to leave for Bhutan, he was able to continue to write and build monasteries. Longchenpa returned home for the final years of his life, which were alternately spent in retreat or giving teachings to large audiences seeking wisdom from the famous master. Over the centuries, the majority of his literary corpus was preserved, and due to the attention of later Nyingma lamas such as Jigme Lingpa (’Jigs med gling pa, 1730–1798) and Mipam (Mi pham, 1846–1912), his legacy was ensured. The timeless writings of Longchenpa comprise a rich treasure for Tibetan scholars and Buddhist practitioners alike.
