John S. Strong
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780226789118
- eISBN:
- 9780226801872
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226801872.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book examines Western stories, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, surrounding two significant Sri Lankan sacred objects, in order to illuminate and concretize colonial attitudes toward ...
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This book examines Western stories, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, surrounding two significant Sri Lankan sacred objects, in order to illuminate and concretize colonial attitudes toward Asian religions. Part One analyzes a tale about the Portuguese capture and public destruction, in the mid-sixteenth century, of a tooth later identified as a relic of the Buddha. Part Two switches gears to look at the nineteenth- and twentieth-century saga of British dealings with another tooth relic of the Buddha—the famous Dalada enshrined in a temple in Kandy—from the start of the Colonial era until the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The book as a whole shows how the stories of both the Portuguese tooth and the Kandyan tooth reflect nascent and developing Western understandings of Buddhism, realizations of its cosmopolitan dimensions, and the role of objects in tensions between secular and religious interests.Less
This book examines Western stories, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, surrounding two significant Sri Lankan sacred objects, in order to illuminate and concretize colonial attitudes toward Asian religions. Part One analyzes a tale about the Portuguese capture and public destruction, in the mid-sixteenth century, of a tooth later identified as a relic of the Buddha. Part Two switches gears to look at the nineteenth- and twentieth-century saga of British dealings with another tooth relic of the Buddha—the famous Dalada enshrined in a temple in Kandy—from the start of the Colonial era until the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The book as a whole shows how the stories of both the Portuguese tooth and the Kandyan tooth reflect nascent and developing Western understandings of Buddhism, realizations of its cosmopolitan dimensions, and the role of objects in tensions between secular and religious interests.
Rescued from the Nation
A Monastery in Time
Bonds of the Dead
Heartwood
The Holy Land Reborn
The Madman's Middle Way
