Himalaya, the Journal of theAssociation for Nepal and

Himalayan StudiesVolume 26Number 1 People and Environment: Conservation andManagement of Natural Resources across the HimalayaNo. 1 & 2

Article 19

2006

Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movementin Twentieth-Century Nepal by Sarah LeVine andDavid N. Gellner; reviewed by Bruce OwensBruce OwensWheaton College

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Recommended CitationOwens, Bruce (2006) "Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal by Sarah LeVine and David N.Gellner; reviewed by Bruce Owens," Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: Vol. 26: No. 1, Article 19.Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol26/iss1/19

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ebuildinglddhism: Theleravadaovement inventieth-mtury Nepal

rah LeVine andvid N. Gellner

~mbridge: Harvardliversity Press,05.

REBUILDING BUDDHISM: THE THERAVADA

MOVEMENT IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY NEPAL

At the beginning and end of this volume, LeVineand Gellner compare their work on "rebuildingBuddhism," primarily among Newars of theKathmandu Valley, to Sherry Ortner's 1989 volumeon the development of celibate Sherpa monasteriesin Solu Khumbu. Though both concern similar shiftsin religious institutions, LeVine and Gellner contrasttheir approach to Ortner's, which they describe asincluding "only as much ethnography and history asis compatible with still making her theoretical case"to exemplify "the virtues of practice theory," statingthat they "have no such theoretical ambitions"but "seek to provide as rich and as many-sided anethnography and ethnographic history of this localform of Buddhist modernism as possible, in thebelief that contributing to the ethnographic recordis a good in itself, and because others may later wishto use our material and ask questions of it that wedid not think to ask ourselves" (x-xi). In the end,they also contrast their findings, concluding that theTheravada movement they describe "may have hada complex relationship to modernism, but it mostdefinitely had a connection. By contrast, the Sherparevival seems to have had no such connection"(289)

LeVine and Gellner's collaborative contributionto the ethnographiC record extends beyond theTheravada movement that its title speCifies, as itamounts to a valuable history and overview of thevarious sources of Buddhist traditions that have,in various ways, shaped the practices and beliefsof those who identify themselves as Buddhist inNepal today. It also traces how discourses aboutbeing Buddhist have been generated both withinand from without the various Buddhist communitiesas they have formed over time. Indeed, they makethe important point that the popularity of one ofthe most influential institutions that the authors

identify as Theravadin-Goenka's vipassana retreatat Dharmashringha-may well be due, in part, to itsself-designation as non-religiOUS.

This history does not take the traditional form ofstraightforward chronology, but engages a series ofkey issues, such as Bhikkuni Ordination, the tensionsbetween secular and religious education for novices,and the role of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism inshaping Newar Vajrayana and Theravada traditions,each set in often overlapping time frames. In eachinstance, the authors juxtapose historical overviewwith life histories that flesh out how particularreligious innovations, debates, and aspirations areengaged by individuals who are situated in specificsocially, culturally, and politically defined spaces.This gives vivid form to the dilemmas and paradoxesthat confront those who seek to promote TheravadaBuddhist institutions and practices and those whosupport them, particularly those who choose tobecome monks or nuns. One central issue thatmany of these chapters address is the relative statusof male and female renunciants, and the particularobstacles and possibilities that Nepal has presentedfor women who take ordination and seek to buildinstitutions. The increasing intensity and frequencyof global flows of ideas, funds, and people, and theireffects upon and deployment by local institutionsand people is also strikingly portrayed here, if notexplicitly problematized.The overall impression that this material produced

in this reader is of a few dedicated and deeplyinspired individuals (several of whom we get to knowin some detail) providing support and institutionsthat most individuals deploy for their own, oftensecular, self-serVing ends. LeVine and Gellner tell us,for example, that all women who choose ordinationas nuns "are motivated by the urgent desire toescape marriage and motherhood," and that, "[flor

women, ordination is more an act of emancipation than ofrenunciation" (273). This act of renunciation on the part ofboys, however, is also not as self-sacrificing as it might seem,as "many of the young monks joined the Sangha as novices inthe first place primarily in order to gain an education" (272).Moreover, once they acquire that education, approximatelyfifty percent apparently disrobe (269), often on the basisof the understanding that they had upon "going intohomelessness," that they may break their vows with relativeimpunity. The authors also note that monks and nuns inNepal often find that the roles that those outside the celibatecommunities envision for them are often at odds with theirown aspirations. More and more laymen are requesting thatthe members of the monastic community perform ritualservices that interfere with their contemplative life. Thosetrained in Thailand, in particular, find that the role of monkor nun that they knew in that country does not, for all intentsand purposes, exist in the social imaginary of their society,even as their monastic status is increasingly valorized inNepal.

Given the miniscule size of the Theravadin monasticcommunity in Nepal, one of the authors' more radical claimsis that "Theravada Buddhists have succeeded in defining theterms and discourse in which most educated Buddhists inNepal define themselves today"(16). After reading this book,one might concede their point, but I can do so only if oneinterprets "defining the terms and discourse" to mean thatno one in Nepal can define one's position vis-a.-vis Buddhismwithout using coordinates that are located, at least in part, inTheravadin terms. To say that these terms must be includedin the equation of identity, is not necessarily to concede thatTheravadin identity is the only plausible one for a NewarBuddhist to adopt, however.

Gellner and LeVine nicely review the consequences of thecontroversy that Colin Rosser (1966) has described in detail,in which Vajracharyas took recourse to Rana rules regardingcaste and commensality to shore up their own authority,which they viewed at the time as threatened by the popularTibetan Nyingmapa, Kyangste Lama. Playing the hand ofcaste in deference to their Rana oppressors, the Vajracharyaelite refused to take rice from their jajmans who hadaccepted prasad from this Tibetan interloper. This ruptureof traditional commensality between purohit and jajman fedinto the larger conjucture d'histoire that included the arrivalof the new options of Tibetan and Theravadin Buddhistpractices, and began to undermine critically Vajracharyaauthority and the tradition of which they were exemplarsand guardians. Citing this assertion of caste exclusivity andhierarchy as a kind of beginning of the end, the authorsclaim that because the Vajrayana tradition in Nepal "is fullyembedded in a traditional caste system, and because it lacksthe full time, permanent, celibate option, and because,therefore, it provides no religious or priestly vocation eitherfor women or for non-Vajracharyas, it cannot retain itshereditary adherents if they feel moved to renounce," and,

"it cannot retain the deepest allegiance of lay adherents whenthey acquire modern-style education and become reflexiveabout their own tradition" (262).

However, the recent massive public initiations presidedover by Naresh Vajracharya, with the bleSSings of his guru,Badri Ratna Vajracharya (see Bangdel 2005), suggest thatVajracharya officiants are beginning the work of disembeddingtheir tradition from the caste system, and opening upopportunities for participation for both women and men ofmany castes and ethnicities. Given the small size and fragilityof the monastic Theravadin community in Nepal, it strikes thisreader as odd that the celibate option need play such a vitalrole, particularly since one of the most influential institutionsthat the authors identify as part of what Lauren Leve hasdescribed as the "Theravada turn" (2007) are proponents ofVipassana meditation, in which monks and nuns play littlepart. Gellner has himself argued that traditional Vajrayanapractitioners see no contradiction in occupying the roles of"Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest" (1992), suggestinga local version of temporary assumption of vows knownelsewhere in Southeast Asia; hereditary adherents can "feelmoved to renounce" and sustain those aspects of theirtradition that are at odds with renunciation. With respect tothe tensions between "modernity and tradition" cited here,the authors provide the important example of Min BahadurSakya (among others) as one who has benefited from "modernstyle education" (currently a Professor of Mathematics at anengineering college) and certainly who has "become reflexiveabout" his own tradition, yet who seeks to revitalize Vajrayanatradition, if not, necessarily, in the form presently practiced.Finally, it is not at all clear to me that "only some Newarsidentify strongly with a Newar identity as opposed to a morebroadly based Nepali identity" (267), or that Newar Buddhismis unimportant to Newar identity, as the authors claim. Thisis all to say that the complex picture of Buddhism in Nepalthat LeVine and Gellner portray may be even more complexthan they suggest, and that others will find (as the authorsexpressly hope!) a great deal of rich material here with whichto ask (and answer) questions as they explore this fertile fieldof Buddhist innovation and transformation in the land of theBuddha's birth.

Bangdel, Dina. 2005. Ritual, Performance, and Art: VisualConstructions of Religious Identity in Contemporary NewarBuddhism. Paper presented at the International Associationof Buddhist Studies, University of London, September 2005.

Gellner, David. 1992. Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest:Newar Buddhism and its Hierarchy of Ritual. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Janet Gyatso andHanna Havnevik, eds.

London: Hurst &Co., 2005.

Buddhism, Globalization, and the Theravada Turn.Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of theAssociation for Asian Studies, Boston, Massachusetts,March 23,2007.Ortner, Sherry B. 1989. High Religion: A Cultural

and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism. Princeton,N.].: Princeton University Press.

WOMEN IN TIBET

Rosser, Colin. 1966. Social Mobility in the NewarCaste System. In Caste and Kin in Nepal, India andCeylon, ed. C. von Fllrer-Haimmendorf. New York:Asia Publishing House, 68-139.

Bruce Owens is Associate Professor of Anthropology atWheaton College.

JANET GYATSO AND HANNA HAVNEVIK, EDS.

With its concise yet broad-sweeping title, JanetGyatso and Hanna Havnevik's edited volumeon Women in Tibet is positioned as a definitivecontribution to the literature on women's experiencesin the Tibetan cultural area. The composition of thevolume reflects the diversity of contemporary TibetanStudies, with chapters by historians, philologists,scholars of comparative religion, and anthropologists,who apply their diverse methodological approachesto a range of chronologically and geographicallydisparate subjects. This diversity makes for anuneven read: some chapters are in themselveslengthy mini-monographs that present importantnew ethnographic research (those by Diemberger,Henrion-Dourcy and Barnett); others are tightlyargued pieces clearly situated within the author'sown discipline (Schaeffer and Makley); while theremaining chapters are lists of notable women withincertain domains of Tibetan life (Uebach; Martinand Tsering). Although Gyatso and Havnevik'swell-crafted introduction works hard to provide acoherent framing structure by raising overarchingtheoretical questions about cultural relativism ingender studies, and the methodological challengesof accessing women's experiences, as a whole thebook does not live up to its promising title as acomprehensive survey of Tibetan women. Instead, asGyatso and Havnevik themselves admit, the volume"only provides fragments of the history and diversityof women in Tibet" (24).

Studies of the Tibetan world have generallyoveremphasized the religious sphere, and theavailable literature on Tibetan women is noexception In particular, there is a plethora of booksand articles by Western Buddhist women about thepower of feminine deities in Tibetan Buddhism,but relatively little material about the lives of actualwomen in Tibetan contexts. This book is a healthycorrective, with chapters about women in medicine,the performing arts, and politics, in addition to themore predictable contributions on nuns, yoginis,and oracles. The volume also enters new territoryby including several scholars conducting ground-breaking research within the contemporary TibetanAutonomous Region (TAR) of the People's Republicof China (PRC), rather than relying solely onhistorical sources and/or field research conducted inHimalayan areas outside of political Tibet.

After the introduction, the book is divided into twoparts, with Part I focusing on "Women in TraditionalTibet." Helga Uebach looks at how noblewomen of theTibetan empire from the seventh to ninth centuriesare represented in textual materials. Of particularnote are her analyses of their political roles andcontributions to important monasteries like Samye.Moving ahead chronologically, Dan Martin's articlebegins by considering the methodological challengesof identifying religious women in the biographicalliterature of the eleventh to twelfth centuries. Hethen lists all those whom he has identified, placing

Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies2006

Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal by Sarah LeVine and David N. Gellner; reviewed by Bruce OwensBruce OwensRecommended Citation

Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal by Sarah LeVine and David N. Gellner; reviewed by Bruce Owens