The Anthropology of Buddhism

Anthropologists of Buddhism encounter marginalia constantly, from scribbled notes in a book or the smudge of pigment in a ritual manual, to figurative ducking in and out of the crowd at a possession event. Beyond encounter, these notes, smudges, and passages betwixt and between research sites have found their way into the kind of sturdy foundational books upon which anthropology as a whole, let alone a sub-field, can and has been built. The participants on this panel demonstrate that there are researchers deploying anthropological methods and theories in their pursuit of Buddhist phenomena. This panel asks why, given both lineage and current scholarly practice, has an Anthropology of Buddhism struggled to materialize?

The reality is that the stunted development of an anthropological sub-field within Buddhist Studies (and of Buddhist Studies within Anthropology) is partly attributable to a pejorative view of this ethnographic project as the marginal scribbles to normative text critical and philological work. Anthropologists Gellner (1990) and Silhé and Ladwig (2017) have successively called for a development of an ethnographic, comparative, and inter-textual Anthropology of Buddhism. More recently, as Toffin (2021) and Michaels (2022) have remarked on the study of Buddhism in Nepal, Buddhist Studies scholars and anthropologists mutually owe each other. As they have explained, the promising Anthropology of Buddhism that lost momentum in the 1990s can only be revived once anthropologists of Buddhism engage in a shared comparative project without getting embroiled in debates regarding Buddhist identities. As Gellner (1990, 2017) notes, the question is taken to the extreme of positing Buddhist identity as an artificial conceptual imposition. Developing a unity of purpose is as much a matter of concern in framing research projects as it is of forming a field of scholars invested in one another’s work.

Heeding Gellner, Silhé, and Ladwig’s calls, this panel breathes new life into the project of developing a comparative Anthropology of Buddhism by rethinking the relationship between text and context; the goal being to illuminate various forms and social contexts of Buddhism. We take marginalia to be spontaneous, vital and, after De Certeau’s (1984) ‘reading as poaching’, as exemplifying the tactics of the revolutionary. As we will demonstrate, using anthropologist Karin Barber’s (2007) definition of a text as an “utterance (oral or written) that is woven together in order to attract attention and to outlast the moment,” (2) texts are forms of social behaviour that are central to people’s experiences (Ibid., 4). Texts, conceptualized as encounters, are dialogic and relational. They help shape social relationships. As a fundamentally comparative project, we must also look to vibrant anthropologies of other ‘world religions,’ such as the Anthropologies of Christianity and Islam (Asad 1986; Robbins 2003), in how they have fostered a community of researchers despite differences in research sites and arguments.

Each paper in this panel examines a different ethnographic context from the Buddhist world to explore Buddhist practices that have been marginalized. However, they do so in a way that does not oppose ethnographic approaches to historical or text-based ones, but rather suggest that this assumed opposition needs to be rethought in a way that brings text and context together, while remaining a comparative endeavour. Collectively, they attempt to bring Buddhist voices to bear on the AAR 2024 presidential theme of “Violence, Non-Violence, and the Margin.”

The first paper addresses the challenge posed by multi-sectarian Buddhist cultures of textual expertise and literate intellectualism in Nepal, that put into question the testimonial and analytical role of the ethnographer as writer. The response it offers is a complementary application of a Buddhological sustained engagement with the intellectual achievements of its interlocutors, and an Anthropological recognition of different modes, performances, and social identities of who and what gets to count as a knowing Buddhist subject.

The second paper examines the practical importance of supernatural powers known as abhiññā by focusing on the development of a Buddhist meditation technique formulated by the Burmese monk Pa-Auk Sayadaw. While practices involving the development of supernatural powers have been treated as marginal to the goal of Buddhist liberation by both scholars and the government of Myanmar, through engagement with teachers and practitioners, this paper considers how these people value these types of practices as essential to journeying on the path to liberation.

The third paper considers what gets to count as “real” Theravada Buddhism by engaging with lay-Sri Lankan Buddhists practicing merit-making and American convert-Buddhists who practice mindfulness to explore racialized suffering. Through comparative ethnographic research in these different socio-historical contexts, this paper investigates the tendency in Buddhist Studies to relegate these examples of Buddhist social life to the margins of “real” Buddhism by judging them against canonical expressions of Buddhist orthodoxy.

The fourth paper explores the Tibetan Buddhist category of hagiographies by examining two ethnographic examples of oral histories, one delivered by a 25-year-old lama and another by his teacher. In doing this, this paper considers oral history as a dialectic process between intersubjective interlocutors, while at the same time destabilizing the category of the hagiographic text, previously defined as a written expression that is both stylized and distinct from history, thereby imagining the narrative interests of hagiographic-ethnographers of the past.

The fifth paper engages with Myanmar Buddhist nuns by looking at their practices of chanting, marginalia, and intertextuality in preparation for their government monastic exams. This paper demonstrates the need to understand both the Buddhist texts and the embodied context of their use to understand the changes that have occurred in the transfer of knowledge within the last few decades in Myanmar. Without this approach, the scribbles might appear meaningless.

The sixth and final paper asks, ‘who gets to count as a Buddhist in Buddhist Studies’ by exploring the practice of spirit possession by Newar Buddhist women in the Kathmandu Valley known as dyaḥmāṃ. It considers the history of the marginalization, in Buddhist Studies, of possession practices performed by self-defined Buddhists in a comparative fashion, while simultaneously integrating an anthropology of texts by looking at vernacular texts composed by dyaḥmāṃ and their devotees.