Mapping Monastic Geographicity Or Appeasing Ghosts of Monastic Subjects1 (original) (raw)
Related papers
2021
Julia Shaw, 2021. The Late History of Buddhist Monasticism and the Unfolding of a Multi-Religious Landscape in Central India: patterns from the Sanchi Survey Project, Paper given at Conference on Monasteries in Asia: The Vihara Project. Kyoto University. 13-14 November 2021. https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/8800082/different-perspectives-monasteries-india See summary in Vihara Project Newsletter, vol 7, March 2022 (p. 10) https://mie-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=pages\_view\_main&active\_action=repository\_view\_main\_item\_detail&item\_id=15064&item\_no=1&page\_id=13&block\_id=21 ABSTRACT In this paper I outline the history and chronology of Buddhist monasteries and monasticism in Central India, based on archaeological landscape data from the Sanchi Survey Project. I will begin by discussing the distribution and morphology of monastic provisions that range from simply modified ‘natural’ rock-shelters to towering platformed monasteries, and the significance that the early appearance of courtyard-style planning has for scholarly understanding of the development of institutionalised monasticism. I will go on to present key arguments regarding associated models of governmentality (including links with water and land administration) based on the relative configuration of habitational settlements, and land and water resources in the surrounding area. The third part of the paper will focus on the later history of Buddhist monasticism and consider how the Sanchi Survey Project data relate to extant models of Buddhist decline in central and eastern India. A key argument here is that the Buddhist monastery needs to be viewed within the context of changing agrarian and economic conditions on the one hand, and changing dynamics within the broader multi-religious landscape including the proliferation of Hindu temple construction from the Gupta period onwards, on the other. I conclude by offering several suggestions for how changing perspectives on the dissolution of medieval Christian monasteries in Europe might benefit discourse on the late history of Indian Buddhism, including critiques of the traditional model of an increasingly degenerate institution whose demise was inevitable, as opposed to one whose crucial economic function and embeddedness in the local socio-economic fabric of life lent itself open to appropriation from competing forces.
2018
The paper would aim to look at the historical, conceptual and monastic development of the Buddhist monasteries (mahāvihāras), built under the aegis of the Pala and Bhaumakara rulers (8th-12th century CE) of the Eastern India, while outlining the cultural, artistic and architectural interrelationships which these religious edifices shared with the contemporaneous Buddhist buildings of Southeast Asia. These edifying buildings stood the test of time as the cultural landmarks reminiscent of the religious, pedagogic and artistic endeavours and served an archetypal model for the Southeast Asian traditions. While serving as institutional strongholds, these monastic universities upheld the idea of faith, peace and harmony. Grounded on the ideals of Vajrayana Buddhism, they ministered the notion of all-inclusiveness, gradually eliminating the patriarchy and misogyny as seen in their radical approach. They also efficaciously manifested the notion of geographical diffusionism by encouraging th...
South Asian Studies 27 (2): 111-130, 2011
Shaw, J.,2011. Monasteries, monasticism, and patronage in ancient India: Mawasa, a recently documented hilltop Buddhist complex in the Sanchi area of Madhya Pradesh, South Asian Studies 27(2);111-130. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02666030.2011.614409 ABSTRACT: This paper presents data from a recently documented hilltop Buddhist complex called Mawasa, in the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh, central India, about 15 km to the east of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Sanchi. It was documented during the Sanchi Survey Project, a multi-phase exercise aimed at relating the histories of Buddhist monasticism and urbanism as represented by the sequences at Sanchi and nearby Vidisha respectively to archaeological patterns within their hinterland. The dataset at Mawasa offers a well-preserved and representative sample of many of the main architectural types found at Phase II (c. 2nd - 1st century BC) Buddhist sites in the study area. It includes a well-preserved stūpa, a carved slab with an early and unusual Brahmi donative inscription (attesting to an individual donation in the causative form), and a group of interesting platformed monasteries with well-preserved internal details. All of these provide important new insights into the nature of patronage and the history and chronology of Buddhist monasticism and monastery architecture during this early period of Buddhist propagation. Further, an enigmatic structure, the precise function of which remains unclear is located within the site. It may be a very early shrine of a hitherto unstudied form, and thus has potential relevance for the wider history of early temple architecture.
The facets of architecture have special significance in the arena of religious education happening within a religious building affecting the nature of the self through sensory perception, training, and control. Ancient India saw the growth of the major Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā, Vikramaśīlā, Odantapurī, Valabhī and more affiliated to different sects of Buddhism. Interestingly, all monasteries acted as an educational institution in itself simultaneously with a religious center showing a profound relationship between religion and education. Buddhist monasteries were engaged in the organized transmission of spiritual knowledge, which is evident from the available beautiful balance of study and veneration reflected from the campus architecture. The archaeological excavations have brought out a good example of highly developed, arranged, durable and comfortable architecture of monasteries sharing with each other, for instance, see the graph of the plan of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra below. The aim of the monastic learning and training was to produce devout Buddhists through the cultivation of Buddhist self, where the architecture of the religious complex played a s ignificant role comparatively not less than teachers. These religious complexes were consciously planned in such a way that students feel the sacred aura every time and at every place within the campus from their living quarter to walking pathways. The habitation areas were either surrounded by stūpas or temples or situated in particular places within the school with images on the four quarters, sides of the entrance and facing the door to create the transformative power of architecture. The created religious atmosphere provided space and reminded residents to perform worship, rituals, and prayers, deeply embedded in the learning process. This paper will share and learn the necessary more than half role of the peculiar monastic architecture played in the generation of the ideal Buddhist self or individual through implanting Buddhist way of morality and life. This historical study will explore the educational role of the invisible aura of religious compound experienced and perceived by the participants and how it helped in transforming non-believers into upāsakas.
Monastic Wanderers. Nath Yogis Ascetics in Modern South Asia draft, full-text
Manohar, 2017
How have the premodern Shaiva ascetic sect of the Nāth Yogīs (known also as the Yogīs with splitted ears) succeeded in maintaining its presence and importance until today ? This book intends to give a general survey of this sampradāya which is said to have been founded by the Siddha Gorakhnāth, known for his strong link to Haṭha Yoga. However, rather than to Yoga, the history and expansion of the Nāth sect are linked to its rich legendary corpus. Dealing first with the marks of belonging (such as the huge earrings weared by the fully initiated Yogīs) which give the sect its unity, the book then focuses on its organization and explores the dialectics between the wandering Yogīs and the monastic settlements. The author’s argument is that, in renunciatory tradition of India, monasteries give cohesiveness and duration to outworldly movements which otherwise could easily become fragmented and loose their identity. The Nāth monasteries belong to two categories : the pañcāyati maṭhs, collectively owned and managed by the sectarian authorities, which ensure the permanency of the sect, and the nījī maṭhs, owned on a personal basis and transmitted from guru to disciple, which permits innovative initiatives. The book gives a detailed account of two pañcāyati monasteries, the Kadri Maṭh of Mangalore where its head’s enthronement is spectacularly performed every twelve years, and the Caughera Maṭh of Dang Valley in Nepal, the royal foundation of which gives a glimpse of the complex relationships that can exist between monasteries and kingdoms. It then focuses on three nījī maṭhs: Amritashram in Fatehpur (Rajasthan), Ashtal Bohar in Rohtak (Haryana) and the Gorakhpur mandir (UP). Each of them shows a different mode of adaptation to a modern context and attests of the present importance and continuity of this pluri-secular tradition of asceticism.