The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka: Religious Tradition, Reinterpretation and Response byGeorge D. BondReview by: Richard GombrichJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 109, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1989), pp. 661-664Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/604094 .

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Reviews of Books 661

Nor are we on different ground with regard to the "economy." If Om Prakash is a soft, or modified, feudalist, as it appears, then it is for him to specify the entailed economic conditions. Is it the "natural economy" often assumed in feudal constructions, and, if so, what are we to make of the widespread monetization and high standing of merchants shown by his analysis?

This book implies that grants of land by kings (which means any ruler) represent the calculations of rather paltry royal financial advantage-a world, in short, of artha, or interest, rather than dharma, or morality. His plausible scepticism about dharma-texts and their inconsistencies as well as the disguises of their Brahman authors appears to free Om Prakash from the need to make sense of them in the context of worldly affairs involving landholding, postulating in place of that a "state economy" which is without content, or any more content than is necessary to discover the petty venality of Indian kings.

BURTON STEIN

SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, LONDON

The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka: Religious Tradition, Reinterpretation and Response. By GEORGE D. BOND.

Columbia, S.C.: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS,

1988.

Of the many encounters between the rich religious tradi- tions of Asia and the modern West, and the religious responses to those encounters, few if any can have been better documented or more intelligently analyzed than the response of the Theravada Buddhism of Sri Lanka to its encounter with Protestant Christianity and modern culture as purveyed by the British colonial power. Scholarship on the topic had its serious beginning with the publication of the first volume of Heinz Bechert's Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Landern des Theravada-Buddhismus. (The title means: "Buddhism, State and Society in the Countries of Theravada Buddhism," and the first volume, published in 1966, contained the first two parts: "General and Theoretical Foundations" and "Ceylon.") Bechert de- fined, documented and discussed what he called "Buddhist modernism." Because he published in German, Bechert's book has to this day not had the influence and recognition it deserves. In 1970 Obeyesekere gave a sharper definition to "modernism" by coining the term "Protestant Buddhism." The term indicates that the Buddhist response both arose as a protest against the Christian missionaries and imitated

important features of Protestant Christianity; the latter aspect has outlasted the need for the former. Obeyesekere's term has been widely accepted since, and his work in this area has been complemented by several excellent contribu- tions from other Sinhala scholars, notably Malalgoda.

To this distinguished lineage it is a pleasure to welcome this book by Professor Bond, who has absorbed the work of his predecessors and added valuable information and in- sights. The information derives from three periods of field- work in Sri Lanka during 1983-85, and in particular from a great many interviews with religious activists; the insights derive from Professor Bond's background as a scholar of Theravada Buddhism in general and Buddhist hermeneutics in particular (his doctoral dissertation was on the Netti- pakarana) plus a sound judgment, always sympathetic but not wholly uncritical.

After setting the background in his first chapter, Bond describes four trends in modern Sinhala Buddhism which he calls "four patterns of reinterpretation and response." They are:

1. Protestant Buddhism: the response of the early re- formers who began the revival by both reacting against and imitating Christianity.

2. The return to traditionalism or neotraditionalism during the Buddha Jayanti period (c. 1956).

3. The Insight Meditation (vipassand bhdvand) Movement: the reinterpretation and resurgence of meditation among the laity.

4. The social ethical interpretation of Buddhism: the re- interpretation that regards social development and so- cial equality as the fulfillment of the Buddhist ideal.

(pp. 5-6)

These movements are treated in the sequence given and accorded a chapter each, except that lay meditation gets three chapters. I regard the section on meditation, which takes up just over a third of the book, as quite its most interesting, valuable and original part. Chapter one, which sets the stage, is occasionally marred by a verbosity which the author later sheds and by some repetition, even verbatim (p. 12 repeats p. 4; pp. 38-39 repeat from pp. 5-6). Identify- ing a "dilemma of identity and responsiveness" (p. 34), which I find as vapid as "continuity and change," Bond plays around with a metaphor from Mary Douglas about "cost structure" (pp. 12-14); it is a relief that this never reappears in the rest of the book. This seems to be the ritual genuflec- tion to "theory" which academic books are sometimes felt to need.

But this is soon behind us. The chapters on early Pro- testant Buddhism and on the Jayanti period are extremely competent and well-written, even if they cover fairly familiar

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662 Journal of the American Oriental Society 109.4 (1989)

territory. A glance at the numerous references in the foot- notes will suggest, correctly, that Bond is mainly summarizing

the work of his predecessors. Nevertheless, he makes good

use of the primary documents and produces some telling

quotations from the Buddhist Catechism by the Theosophist

Col. H.S. Olcott and from the writings of Dharmapala.

Anagarika Dharmapala, as specialists will know, was Olcott's

disciple and the leading figure of Protestant Buddhism, to

such an extent that his life and writings may be said to

summate it. (Bond is a bit careless about his dates: he was

born in 1864, so that two statements on p. 53 are slightly

wrong. And while on this topic of dates I should point out

that T. W. Rhys Davids could not have been educated at

Vidyodaya (p. 93), since that institution-which is founded

twice under different names on pp. 46-47-was founded in

the year he left Sri Lanka for good.) The long chapter on Buddhist social development is

almost wholly devoted to the Sarvodaya movement founded

and still led by A. T. Ariyaratne, and though it is based

both on participant observation and on interviews with the

leadership, the latter so dominate the presentation that we

mainly learn about the movement's self-image. Bond's ac-

count is sensitive and readable, but the Sarvodaya ideology

and programme have already been presented several times in

the literature both of the movement itself (it mostly publishes

in English) and of friendly observers. By contrast, the

meditation movement is not presented through official spokes-

men; here Bond relies mostly on his own fieldwork, which

included over 150 interviews with lay meditators, and as a

result produces material both original in substance and fresh

in flavor. Should any reader in a hurry want to sample the

best in this book, I particularly recommend chapter 5, with

its sympathetic and perceptive accounts of various lay medi-

tators. It is only in this chapter that Bond draws attention to

some important social factors: the new religious opportuni-

ties for women (pp. 184ff.); the typical class gap between

monks from villages and middle-class urban meditators

(p. 190); and the disproportionate influence of foreign Bud-

dhists and well-wishers (p. 191). The salient characteristic of the new, "Protestant" Bud-

dhism is its view of the religious life appropriate to the laity.

The Theravadin Sangha, like the Roman Catholic clergy of

medieval western Europe, had a virtual monopoly of re-

ligious expertise. This was questioned and then broken by the introduction of printing and the spread of literacy; in Sri

Lanka the break was the sharper because the new education

was in English and so introduced a whole new world of

ideas. Nominally the source of authority did not change: for

Christians it is God's word recorded in the Bible, and for

Theravada Buddhists, analogously, the Buddha's word re-

corded in the Pali Canon. Reform, conscious change, has

always been justified by reference to these ultimate authori-

ties. But traditionally the selection and interpretation of the scripture was in the hands of the clerisy, whereas once the texts became widely available every believer could have a go

for himself. The fundamentalist rejection of the layers of interpretation which have accreted between the "original" scripture and the present is a corollary of repudiating allegiance to a human hierarchy who based their claim to authority on privileged access to the highest truths.

While all the modern Buddhists about whom Bond writes share this basic Protestant characteristic and claim that the layman has both the right and the duty to be actively religious, they do differ over whether the religious roles of

layman and monk should be sharply differentiated or whether Buddhism should be lived in the same way by everyone. The

point on which Bond very reasonably focuses is the difference of opinion over whether one can attain salvation, nirvana, in this life-whether it is possible and therefore whether it is

worth attempting. Theravadin tradition as old as a classical (but post-canonical) text had it that it is very difficult for a layman to attain nirvana, and should one achieve it he would either enter the Sangha immediately or die within the day; in other words, it is impossible to live a lay life as an enlightened being (arhant). A second tradition, of later origin, held that in fact no one had attained nirvana in Sri Lanka since a

certain monk called Maliyadeva, who lived around 100 B.C.

This latter tradition was part of a wider pessimistic view that Buddhism was inevitably declining and would continue to

decline until it disappeared from the face of the earth five thousand years after the Buddha's death, and that conse-

quently religious progress was becoming ever rarer and more

difficult. The general view of the village Buddhist was that

one should aspire to be reborn in the time of the next

Buddha, Maitri, and attain nirvana then; in the interim, one

merely aimed for good rebirths. Such pessimism is anathema to Protestant Buddhists.

Bond aptly quotes the Buddhist Catechism:

There is in Ceylon a popular misconception that the

attainment of Arhatship is now impossible; that the

Buddha had himself prophesied that the power would

die out in one millennium after his death. This

rumor ... I ascribe to the ingenuity of those who

should be as pure and . . . psychically wise as were their predecessors, but are not, and who therefore seek an excuse. (p. 51)

On the same page Bond quotes from the same source: "The mere wearing of yellow robes, or even ordination, does not

of itself make a man pure or wise or entitle him to

reverence." Dharmapala "clearly went against the tradition

in encouraging lay Buddhists to practice meditation in order

to realize the truth" (p. 59), but believed that only a monk

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Reviews of Books 663

could attain nirvana (p. 58), and indeed took the robe himself near the end of his life.

In the vipassand movement, which began in the 1950s and is evidently mushrooming, laymen meditate in the belief, for the most part, that by doing so they can attain nirvana. Indeed, some of them even consider that laity are better placed than monks to do so. Individual monks have played important parts in the movement, but there are also groups which go so far as to exclude monks. Most of Chapter 6 describes such a lay group, somewhat analogous to a Protes- tant sect, the Saddhamma Friends Society (SFS). This group has also been described, more briefly, in Buddhism Trans- formed by Gananath Obeyesekere and myself. (We used a pseudonym for the leader but Bond has revealed his true name.) As we reported, the SFS is somewhat anti-clerical. Bond, whose information is more recent, says that they have appointed "a well-respected forest monk as their patron and adviser" (p. 222). It is a pity that he gives no more details, for it would be interesting to learn what advice has been given. The SFS has beliefs which would raise any traditional eyebrow: as Bond politely puts it, they "might be said to have moved beyond the bounds of reformism" (p. 235). Rather than reinterpret the Pali Canon as we have it, they acquire their knowledge of Buddhist doctrine direct from gods, who "know the Dhamma independently of the Bud- dha" (p. 218). This goes beyond what we were able to report: that the deity who teaches them Buddhism heard it from the Buddha himself (B.T., p. 317). It seems that in the years (I believe 5 years) between Bond's fieldwork and ours the SFS became even more heterodox, for Bond reports that through its leader the group receives from the gods suttas (Buddhist sermons) which the Buddha did not teach (examples are on pp. 226-27 and 230-31). The gods have revealed that the Canon "is unreliable because in the past Brahmins infiltrated the Sangha and corrupted the texts" (p. 222). This moves the SFS very close to the next sectarian group described in Buddhism Transformed, in which young Buddhist "nuns" are recomposing the entire Pali Canon by alleged clair- audience (B. T. pp. 325-52, especially 340-42, 349, 352). Since the SFS knew about the second group, direct influence is rather likely. However, there is an important difference: the second group composes its "Canon" in what sounds like hieratic Pali, but is in fact gibberish, whereas the SFS, more consistently anti-hieratic, opposes the use of dead languages and receives its divine messages in plain Sinhala. The claim that the scriptures have been corrupted by a clerical con- spiracy (already virtually postulated by Olcott) has here led to remedial action: direct knowledge, by supernatural means, of the pristine version! To me this appears almost a caricature of fundamentalism, an extrapolation of "Protestant" trends to the point at which religious egalitarianism, which seems a move towards rationality, turns into palpable irrationality

and social fragmentation. Bond does not mention the present occupation of the leader of the SFS, but when we did our fieldwork he was teaching Buddhism at a teachers' training college. Is it not noteworthy that an official teacher of Buddhism should be engaged in private life in re-inventing its basic scriptures?

An active Protestant himself, Bond naturally likes the "reformists," those who see no important difference between the religious roles of monk and layman. (For a very clear statement of approval see p. 123.) Meditation and develop- ment are the "complementary Buddhist themes" which "con- stitute the vitality of the revival today" (p. 8). This is to deny vitality to the Sinhala Buddhist nationalism which has been making the headlines, and the political running, for most of the last thirty years. Of that Bond says: "By taking too literally the symbols and the mythology linking Buddhism with the Sinhalese people, the politicians and others ren- dered authentic neotraditionalist interpretations inauthentic" (p. 9). The theme barely recurs till the Conclusion, where he remarks: "although the conjunction of Buddhism and na- tionalism may have been a necessary way to revitalize both the tradition and the nation after independence, it led to the tragic distortions that have resulted in the Sinhala-Tamil ethnic conflict" (p. 304). Morally this is fine, but intellectually I find it weak. Bond brackets nationalism under "neotradi- tionalism," which in turn he sometimes equates with "tradi- tionalism" (e.g., on p. 172) and sometimes not. But both work (by Ernest Gellner, for example) on nationalism in general and specific knowledge of Dharmapala's nastier writings suggest that the connection between aggressive nationalism and Protestant-type religious movements may well be more than adventitious. It may be rather too facile to sweep the bits of contemporary Sinhala Buddhism one does not like under the "traditionalist or neotraditionalist" carpet and endow all the "reformists" with politico-moral purity.

So finally let us return to Mr. Ariyaratne's Sarvodaya movement. The movement aims to bring about development by following a middle path between materialistic capitalism and purely other-worldly spirituality. It is all about life in the world, but Ariyaratne has also said that "[t]he ultimate goal of Sarvodaya is Nibbana" (p. 261). The movement's romantic rhetoric makes skillful use of terminology largely derived from English-language Buddhism, yet at times Ari- yaratne and his colleagues deny that the movement is specifically Buddhist. At first blush this looks surprising, but in fact it is rather a common feature of Protestant Buddhism to deny that Buddhism is a religion and hence to claim that what outsiders may think of as Buddhist is no more than a common sense reflecting the best in all religions. In all this, Ariyaratne is consciously following in the footsteps of Dharmapala; though Bond does not explicitly draw the comparison, one can turn back to chapter 2 and find

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664 Journal of the American Oriental Society 109.4 (1989)

Dharmapala saying, "Greater than the bliss of sweet Nirvana

is the life of moral activity" (p. 58) and "It was as much my

hope to revive industry and inspire an interest in education

of a modern type as to preach Buddhism. After all, this hope was in keeping with the teachings of Gautama" (p. 60).

Dharmapala was sometimes rude about the Sangha (not

quoted by Bond); in that mood he could have made Ari- yaratne's remark that the Buddhist temples only "look after

the souls of people after death.... We are not getting full

use out of them" (quoted by Bond pp. 255-56 and again

p. 284). The incongruous use of Christian language ("souls") is particularly typical of Anglophone Protestant Buddhism,

an aroma surviving from its earliest days. It is only after many pages of Sarvodaya declarations that

Bond allows himself to ask "whether the theory has made any difference in village development activities" (p. 290).

Even then, his answer is "based on observations and discus- sions with Sarvodaya's leaders and workers" (p. 291). Evalu-

ation, we are told, is difficult, for "the whole thrust of the

Sarvodaya movement . . . dictates that its approach to de-

velopment cannot be measured by the same standards as

Western or materialist development. The overall objective is

awakening, not productivity or economic growth" (p. 292).

Though at first reading I took this to be Ariyaratne speaking,

closer scrutiny reveals that it is Bond. It then comes as no

surprise when he continues: "While Sarvodaya's programs

may not have turned Sri Lanka overnight into the perfect DhammadTpa, they undoubtedly have created places in the

country where the dhamma can be both heard and lived.

These communities facilitate the goal of a dual awakening, and we cannot doubt that at least mundane awakening has

occurred for many people." Bond reports without comment some statistical claims:

that in the movement's first eight years (1958-66) more than

300,000 volunteers participated in their voluntary work

camps (p. 245); that it has continued to grow; and that in

1984 they "claimed to have undertaken the development of

five thousand villages" (p. 248)-a very significant proportion of the villages in the country. With evident approval he

quotes Ariyaratne as saying, "By personal experience I know

that tens of thousands of our rural people have awakened

... to build up a better Sri Lanka" (p. 292). I approve of good manners and dislike facile cynicism, but

I do think Bond might have ventured to be a bit more critical. Once during his exposition he goes so far as to

remark that Sarvodaya's "advice about how to arrange 'the

visitor's room"' might not go down too well with the very

poor and that the recommendation that everyone should

own (only) six sets of clothes similarly betrays a bourgeois background (p. 282). But his patience has not really snapped: he derives this sally from a paper by Obeyesekere. Elsewhere

he reports, apparently in all seriousness:

A Sarvodaya village leader who also happened to be a bhikkhu explained to me how Sarvodaya's idea of development, which he called "Buddhist development", differs from that of the government. The government's idea of development is to come into an area and construct hospitals, police stations, and such. Sarvo- daya's idea, he said, is to bring about a form of development and awakening that eliminates the need for hospitals and police stations (pp. 265-66).

This to me reads like the blackest of humor. Putting together Sarvodaya's statistical and its ideological claims, one would expect that it has harnessed the idealism of the country's youth so as to turn the island, for better or for worse, into the Buddhist equivalent of a boy scout camp. Few people can be unaware how far this is from the truth.

Sinhala youth carried out a violent revolution in the name of Marxism in 1971; most of the rebels were well under 30 and fairly well educated. These trends have continued: in the North, the Tamil terrorist movements are largely manned by schoolboys, and the answering Sinhala terrorist movement in the South, the JVP, is similarly youthful. In an attempt to control the violence which holds most of the country outside Colombo in thrall, the government recently closed not merely the universities (as had often happened before) but also all the high schools. Sarvodaya has no doubt done much worthy work in building village roads and latrines. It is precisely in the less material aspects of its work, on which it would wish to be judged, that it would prima facie appear to be a massive failure.

RICHARD GOMBRICH

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme

in Hindu Medicine. By FRAtiCIS ZIMMERMANN. Compara-

tive Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care, 20.

Berkeley and Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

PRESS, 1987. Pp. xiv + 254.

Zimmermann in this luscious book (originally published as

La Jungle et le fumet des viandes [Paris, 1982]) hones the

dry bone of the geographical contrast jungle/marsh, used in

ayurveda as one criterion to classify plants and animals, until

it becomes a sharp analytical knife that can penetrate to the

very rasa of the Indian views of the natural world and man's

relations to it. He demonstrates the ecological significance of

jangala and anupa, investigates their distribution in Bhara-

tavarsa, establishes which living things, sthira and jahgama,

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