Bringing together an international cohort of scholars from Bangladesh, Thailand, Canada, and the United States, this roundtable reflects on how Buddhist monastic communities mobilize ethical frameworks, ritual technologies, and disciplinary ideals to shape social life, negotiate authority, and enact religious reform across Buddhist regions. While monastic ethics are often imagined as inward‑facing or primarily concerned with internal discipline and maintaining monastic distance from lay society, the contributors discuss ways in which monastic ideals shape public life more broadly. From lineage reconstruction in nineteenth‑century Bengal, to robe controversies in pre‑modern Myanmar, to ritual technologies that blur lay–monastic boundaries in Vajrayāna communities, to the experiences of female renunciates ( thilashin) during the Japanese Occupation of Burma, to contemporary reform movements in Ladakh and the Indian Himalayas, these reflections reveal how monastic actors continually reinterpret ethical norms to address crisis, assert legitimacy, and bring monastic perspectives into debates shaping public spheres throughout Asia.
This contribution reflects on the nineteenth‑ and early‑twentieth‑century reinstallation of Theravāda Buddhism in Bangladesh, situating monastic reform within the long history of Buddhist transmission in Bengal. While southeastern Bengal had survived as a marginalized Buddhist region with weakened ordination lineages and fragmented institutional authority, reformers such as Sāramedha Mahāsthabir and Saṅgharāj Ācāriya Purṇāchār Chandramohan Mahāsthabir sought to restore continuity, legitimacy, and doctrinal coherence. Drawing on historical sources, regional Buddhist historiography, monastic narratives, and institutional records, the speaker reflects on how lineage reform functioned as the central mechanism through which religious authority was renegotiated and restored. In a context where doubts concerning higher ordination, Vinaya observance, and ritual propriety had eroded communal confidence, revitalization was framed as both a return to canonical orthodoxy and a moral purification of the Saṅgha. These reflections also consider how reform unfolded within a dynamic environment shaped by transregional mobility across the Bay of Bengal and renewed connections with Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia, ultimately producing the Saṅgharāj Nikāya and Mahāsthabir Nikāya as structured systems of monastic governance.
This presentation explores the Atin–Ayone robe controversy, a dispute over whether monks should wear the robe over one shoulder (ekaṃsika) or cover both shoulders (pārupana), which emerged in the early eighteenth century and intensified during the Konbaung period. The Ayone faction introduced the Cūḷagandhi sub‑commentary to resolve scriptural ambiguities, while the Atin group was unable to provide authoritative textual support. In 1784, King Bodawpaya intervened, imposing the pārupana style across the entire Sangha and establishing an eight‑member council of Saṅgharājās to supervise monastic discipline and purify the Sangha. Drawing on Weber’s theory of legitimate authority and Bourdieu’s concepts of the religious field and symbolic capital, the speaker reflects on how the resolution of the controversy marked a shift from local monastic pluralism to state‑sponsored orthodoxy, transforming the Cūḷagandhi into a decisive legal instrument. By privileging this sub‑commentary over other Pāli sources, the monarchy and monastic elite jointly produced a specialized textual authority that facilitated institutional reform and doctrinal uniformity in pre‑modern Myanmar.
This speaker offers reflections on the theg chen gso sbyong (Mahāyāna Poṣadha) ritual as a technology of temporary lay monasticism practiced across the Tibeto‑Himalayan region and in communities of converts. Although the vows of the ritual closely mirror the one‑day lay vows of the Prātimokṣa, the gso sbyong uniquely allows both lay practitioners and fully ordained monastics to receive and practice the vows together. Drawing on textual analysis and commentary from teachers such as Trijiang Rinpoche and Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, the speaker considers how the ritual temporarily suspends the hierarchical logic of Prātimokṣa ranking, creating a sanctioned space in which monastic and lay boundaries are blurred. In some cases, lay practitioners holding the gso sbyong may even sleep in monastery prayer halls, accessing spaces normally restricted to monastics. These reflections highlight how the ritual functions as a “great equalizer,” opening monastic spaces to laypeople and imbuing Śrāvakayāna vows with the Mahāyāna bodhisattva spirit.
This speaker reflects on how Buddhist monasticism enters the public sphere in Ladakh, focusing on reform movements in the post‑Partition nation‑state. The contribution considers how monastic and lay reformers forged alliances to confront practices they identified as “social evils,” including animal sacrifice, alcohol consumption, and polyandry. These reform campaigns generated new discourses of normative Buddhism that often conflicted with vernacular traditions associated with local spirit practices, creating tensions between monastic authorities and lay ritual specialists such as oracles, astrologers, and tantric practitioners. The speaker further reflects on how Buddhist communities navigate the complexities of being Buddhist Indian citizens, negotiating religious identity, national belonging, and the rise of new public spheres shaped by media, state policy, and shifting communal expectations. Through these dynamics, the contribution highlights how monastic ethics become tools for social intervention, moral regulation, and the redefinition of Buddhist identity in contemporary India.