Karma and Sociopolitical Theory

This panel on “Karma and Sociopolitical Theory” brings together diverse methodological and theoretical approaches to explore the resonances or tensions between Buddhist concepts and human societies. The four papers are united by an interest in fostering conversation across areas and traditions about the implications of doctrinal theory on everyday life, and vice versa, the potential for social and political practices to illuminate Buddhist thought. They address evidence from royal ceremonial in contemporary Ladakh, philosophical theories of action, early modern Tibetan religio-political discourse, and contemporary Vietnamese Buddhist society. Together, these papers call attention to key questions that overlap philosophical, historical, and anthropological approaches to Buddhism, including the individual and social dimensions of karma, the relationship of human society to the larger cosmos, the intersection of cosmological or philosophical discourses with everyday articulations of karma, and the general relevance of this Buddhist concept as both object and source of theory.