Anthropology 244/Religion 263

Buddhism and the Social Order

How This Electronic Syllabus Works

I am putting this syllabus on the web to give you a better way to get at it and to provide with a set of links to electronic sources in Buddhist studies. You can reach the syllabus by going to the Bates Home Page on Netscape (www.bates.edu), clicking on Faculty, then going to Anthropology, and Courses offered in Winter Semester 1998.

The Course

BUDDHISM AND THE SOCIAL ORDER approaches the religion that has grown around what the Buddha taught as both a set of teachings about human being and moral behavior and as a social and political formation. Roughly speaking, the course divides into four parts, the first concerned with Buddhism as it developed in its original civilizational context, the second with Buddhism as a teaching, the third with Buddhism's traditional relationship to the social order, and the fourth with Buddhism as practiced in Southeast Asia nowadays. The Buddha's life provides a focus for the first half; and the lives of Buddhist monks and laypeople--especially in Thailand --play the same role in the second, serving as examples of the contradictory pressures that weigh on men who follow the example of the Buddha and the householders who support them.

Any religious doctrine comes to be domesticated as clerics, kings, and householders adapt it to the exigencies of the world they inhabit. Because Buddhism is an ancient and intellectually precocious religion, its domestication offers a powerful example of the way religions get pulled into this world. By focusing on Theravada Buddhism--"the way of the elders"--this course follows out this domestication in early India, Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. This year I will pay special attention to the popular practice of Theravada Buddhism in Thailand.

Required Books

1. Ling, The Buddha
2. Strong,The Experience of Buddhism
3. Rahula,What the Buddha Taught
4. Swearer, The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia

1. Introduction

January 6 (T)

The Course Quick Reference to Buddhism: Buddhist Basics Buddhist Links

2.Buddhism as Civilization

The Indus and beyond:

• The Myth of the Aryan Invasion

• Brahmi Script

• Coins of Ancient India

January 15 (TH)

The Vedas and their World Ling, The Buddha, chapter 4.

January 20 (T)

Moving Eastward Ling, The Buddha, chapter 5.

January 22 (TH)

The Buddha as Hindu Ling, The Buddha, chapter 7. Hinduism: A Summary

January 27 (T)

The Life Story of the Buddha Strong The Experience of Buddhism, pp. 3-44. A Contemporaneous Religion: Jainism

January 29 (TH)

EXAMINATION

3.Buddhism as Teaching

4. The Social Order

March 3 (T)

The Wheel of Power Swearer, The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia, pp. 63-104.

March 5 (TH)

Asoka Ling, The Buddha, chapter 9.

March 10 (T)

Buddhism and State Strong, The Experience of Buddhism, pp. 80-6.

March 12

5. Buddhism in Southeast Asia

March 17 (T)

The People's Buddhism Swearer,The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia, pp. 5-61. Contemporary Thai Buddhism: Sangha and Laity

March 19 (TH)

Southeast Asian Buddhism Observed

March 24 (T)

Popular Practice Strong,The Experience of Buddhism,pp. 215-55.

March 26 (TH)

Modernization Swearer, The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia, pp. 107-61.

March 30-April 3

Reading Week Buddhism in the World: Buddhist Activists Disseminating Buddhism: Obstacles and Strategies

The material requirements for this course include an examination (25%), commentary (25%), final examination (40%), and class participation (10%).

I value what students have to say, sometimes to the extent of letting people go off on tangents. Hanging 10% of final grades on class participation is a form of coercion, but I believe learning to talk in an academic setting is as important as learning to think analytically or use a computer. Students usually assume that they are being judged on the content of their comments. I judge students merely on whether they say something. There are no dumb comments--there are only students who do not contribute to class and students who do. In my experience, the only mistake a student makes in class is imagining her or his comments are worth airing on every topic. If you are a verbal person, let other people have a chance at it. If you are not verbal, recognize that your ideas are often more incisive than those of people who talk regularly. Make an effort to make your ideas known, whether it is the first day of class or late November.

The balance (25%) of final grades depends on the commentary which I want you to write on one of the readings for the course.

What I would like you to do for the only non-orthodox requirement for this course is to write a paper--of some 6-8 pages--summarizing one particular reading and commenting on that reading in an adverturesome way. The first part of the assignment is to simply reiterate the main points in the reading; the second part of the assignment requires research on your part.

I would like you to put the reading in some larger intellectual context, which means I want you to do one of several things, beginning with important points raised in the article or book you've chosen:

1. Compare the issue under discussion to some other part of the Buddhist tradition--another time or place. We've been reading about the continuing importance of the paradigm of Asokan kingship. Are there contemporary examples of South and Southeast Asian leaders invoking Asoka?
2. For some readings, you can put the issue in that context by thinking about the competing claims of text and context, What does the textual tradition, for instance, say about relic worship? Are there movements in Theravada Buddhism to reform the practice?
3. Simply go more deeply into the material by way of further readings in the library.

Doing well on this assignment requires taking on an issue from your reading and expanding on it--not by way of your feelings about it by investigating other sources.

What other questions need to be asked of this material and why? Approaching the paper from this perspective requires more argumentation than simply asserting, "I think Ling should have discussed the position of women in early Buddhism" because that is interesting (to me or to you). Of course it is entirely legitimate to say that Ling should have discussed women's roles more thoroughly, but for the commentary you are writing it is legitimate only to the extent that what he does not say about women diminishes, contradicts, or recasts what he does say (about men and Buddhism and so on).

The paper, in short, needs to have more than a topic. It needs a problematic--a connection to a body of academic argument, a reason for taking it seriously other than one's own curiosity, a context that requires you to do more than report on the phenomenon.

Ladd Library has a superb collection of Buddhist materials. You will not be thwarted by lack of material, and the assignment requires not simply speaking about the readings, but commenting on those readings by way of your own efforts to sort out a particular issues that emerges in the reading by looking at other readings. You can also get some ideas by visiting the various Buddhist newsgroups and sites on the web.

My office hours are MW 2:00-4:00, but I work in my office every afternoon, and you are welcome to try to find me them or to make an appointment. If you are having trouble (or pleasure) with the readings, the course, or me, please come see me straightaway, 7 Libbey Forum. My policy on late papers is to grant extensions, but to assess a penalty relative to how delinquent the paper turns out to be.

Final Exam: 10:30 a.m., Thursday, April 9th

All students are responsible for reading and understanding the Bates College statements on academic honesty, crediting of sources, and plagiarism.