Stephen C Berkwitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 1266787 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen C Berkwitz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen C |
| FAMILY NAME | Berkwitz |
| SIGNATURE | BERKWITZ S C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Missouri State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5329-3888 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 52 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
What a Difference Conversion Makes: A Review of Neena Mahadev’s Karma and Grace
Routledge Handbook of Theravāda Buddhism
Reimagining Buddhist Kingship in a Sinhala Praśasti
The fifteenth-century Pärakumbā Sirita (Account of King Parākramabāhu VI) represents an early attempt to wed the praśasti genre to Sinhala court poetry (kavi). Drawing upon Sri Lankan and broader Indic traditions of eulogistic royal inscriptions, this work utilized the Sinhala language to transform a Buddhist king into a praiseworthy ruler who could rival the rulers of other lands. Panegyric writing in Sinhala is shown to have endowed local kings…
Bridging the gaps: A Better Future for the Study of Religion
A better future for the study of religion would incorporate innovative and engaging approaches to bridge the gaps between popular and scholarly understandings of what comprises religion and why it remains relevant and significant in our world. This article calls for studying religion in a manner that emphasizes how it is thoroughly enmeshed with other ways of acting and existing in the world. The study of religion appears here as the study of how…
Divine Kingship in Medieval Sri Lanka: Dynamics in Traditions of Power and Virtue in South Asia
The present article focuses on Sri Lankan views of divine kingship to illustrate how the figure of the king was developed in ways that borrowed and were shaped by the transfer of Hindu notions of kings and gods around the period of intensive Hindu interventions into the island from the tenth to thirteenth centuries CE. After discussing the paradigmatic figure of King Aśoka, the virtuous king (*dhammarāja*) held to be the model for all subsequent …
Dynamics and Stability in the Encounters between Asian Buddhists and European Christians
The aim of this paper is to theorize broadly about how cultural encounters between Asian Buddhists and European Christians spurred various efforts to demarcate, systematize, and stabilize religious traditions. It focuses on the dynamics seen in Buddhist responses to contact situations from the sixteenth century onwards in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Japan in order to map out some patterns of interaction among these communities. Theories of cultural …
Reading the Mahavamsa: The Literary Aims of a Theravada Buddhist History. By Kristin Scheible
Reading the Mahāvaṃsa: The Literary Aims of a Theravāda Buddhist History. By Kristin Scheible. South Asia across the Disciplines. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 223. $60 (cloth
Sinhala sandēśa poetry in a cosmopolitan context
Sinhala Buddhist Appropriations of Indic Cultural Forms: Literary Imitations and Conquests
The development of Sinhala literature and Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka between the tenth and sixteenth centuries ce reveals a complex negotiation of appropriating elements of Indic culture and distinguishing their Sinhala variants. Vernacular traditions of writing and worshipping emphasized the island’s differences from the mainland, despite (or perhaps because of) the invasions and cultural imports from South India. Examining the use of a liter…
Textbook Buddhism: Introductory books on the Buddhist religion
Textbooks on Buddhism comprise a large, varied genre and have long been used to introduce the religion to students in academic settings. This review essay examines ten textbooks on the subject, noting their distinctive features, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as the types of courses that are well suited to each work. Additional information from a survey on Buddhism textbooks conducted by the author is used to supplement our understanding of w…
Buddhist poetry and colonialism: Alagiyavanna and the Portuguese in Sri Lanka
Identity and Hybridity in The War of Constantino
The Kustantīnu Haṭana (War of Constantino) is the final work analyzed in the book. The chapter begins with a consideration of Alagiyavanna’s relationship with the Portuguese colonialists, wherein he is known to have converted to Catholicism and worked under the Portuguese revenue superintendent in the island. It considers modern scholarly opinions about the author and this work, deciding that its attribution to Alagiyavanna is justified. It explo…
The Cult of Emptiness: The Western Discovery of Buddhist Thought and the Invention of Oriental Philosophy, by Urs App, University Media: Rorschach, Switzerland, 2012
The Cult of Emptiness: The Western Discovery of Buddhist Thought and the Invention of Oriental Philosophy, by Urs App, University Media: Rorschach, Switzerland, 2012. Many modern historians of reli
The Expansion of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia
The subject of this chapter requires that a distinction be made between the history of the expansion of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia and the narration of that history in Buddhist sources. Any examination of this subject must reckon with questions concerning the often teleological nature of histories of the Buddha's sāsana (Dispensation), which comprises his Teachings and the institutions he founded to sustain and disseminate them. Thus, f…
An Ugly King and the Mother Tongue: Notes on Kusa Jātaka in Sinhala Language and Culture
Buddhist Manuscript Cultures: Knowledge, Ritual, and Art
Resisting the Global in Buddhist Nationalism: Venerable Soma's Discourse of Decline and Reform
This article examines Buddhist nationalism as an effort to resist the intrusion of globalizing forces into local religious and cultural heritage. By analyzing the discourse, persona, and life of Venerable Gangodawila Soma (1948-2003), a renowned and controversial Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka, the author demonstrates that Buddhist nationalism is largely a discursive formation that affirms an essential relationship between Buddhism and nation over …
The History of the Buddha's Relic Shrine: A Translation of the Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa
Buddhist chronicles have long been had a central place in the study of Buddhism. Scholars, however, have relied almost exclusively on Pali works that were composed by elites for learned audiences, to the neglect of a large number of Buddhist histories written in local languages for popular consumption. The Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa, composed by Parakama Pandita in 13th-century Sri Lanka, is an important example of a Buddhist chronicle written in the ver…
Buddhism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives
A comprehensive overview of modern Buddhism across cultures, showing how this ancient religion has adapted to recent social and political change. Collecting the work of leading authorities on Buddhism in different societies around the world, this book details the state of the religion in Asian countries where it is a major cultural influence and in North America. The religion has changed to meet the challenges of modernity; its practitioners have…
Buddhism in world cultures: Comparative Perspectives
Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture . Anne M. Blackburn
Recent trends in Sri Lankan Buddhism
The South Asian island of Sri Lanka continues to be an important field site for the study of contemporary Buddhism. Numerous scholars in the field of religion base their arguments about the modern rise of Buddhist revivalism and fundamentalism on ethnographic data from Sri Lanka's long tradition of Theravāda Buddhism. This article, based on fieldwork in Colombo during summer 2002, serves to update previous knowledge on Sri Lankan Buddhism by repo…
What the Buddhologists Taught
The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka
Examines the turbulent modern history and sociology of the Sri Lankan Buddhist Monkhood and its effects upon contemporary society. Using translated Sinhalese documents and interviews with monks, Sri Lankan anthropologist H.L. Seneviratne unravels the inner workings of this New Buddhism and the ideology on which it is based. Beginning with Anagarika Dharmapala's rationalization of Buddhism in the early-20th century, which called for monks to take …
Emotions and Ethics in Buddhist History: TheSinhala Thūpavamsaand the Work of Virtue
While literature is often thought to be a product of culture, the writing of history in medieval Sri Lanka was based on the assumption that texts themselves can produce changes in culture by making people into virtuous devotees. A study of the Sinhala Thūpavamsa, a Theravāda Buddhist chronicle written in Sinhala around the thirteenth century, provides new material with which to examine the ways historical narratives can be crafted to manipulate a…
The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka
Examines the turbulent modern history and sociology of the Sri Lankan Buddhist Monkhood and its effects upon contemporary society. Using translated Sinhalese documents and interviews with monks, Sri Lankan anthropologist H.L. Seneviratne unravels the inner workings of this New Buddhism and the ideology on which it is based. Beginning with Anagarika Dharmapala's rationalization of Buddhism in the early-20th century, which called for monks to take …
Resisting the Global in Buddhist Nationalism: Venerable Soma's Discourse of Decline and Reform
This article examines Buddhist nationalism as an effort to resist the intrusion of globalizing forces into local religious and cultural heritage. By analyzing the discourse, persona, and life of Venerable Gangodawila Soma (1948-2003), a renowned and controversial Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka, the author demonstrates that Buddhist nationalism is largely a discursive formation that affirms an essential relationship between Buddhism and nation over …
Recent trends in Sri Lankan Buddhism
The South Asian island of Sri Lanka continues to be an important field site for the study of contemporary Buddhism. Numerous scholars in the field of religion base their arguments about the modern rise of Buddhist revivalism and fundamentalism on ethnographic data from Sri Lanka's long tradition of Theravāda Buddhism. This article, based on fieldwork in Colombo during summer 2002, serves to update previous knowledge on Sri Lankan Buddhism by repo…
The History of the Buddha's Relic Shrine: A Translation of the Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa
Buddhist chronicles have long been had a central place in the study of Buddhism. Scholars, however, have relied almost exclusively on Pali works that were composed by elites for learned audiences, to the neglect of a large number of Buddhist histories written in local languages for popular consumption. The Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa, composed by Parakama Pandita in 13th-century Sri Lanka, is an important example of a Buddhist chronicle written in the ver…
Reimagining Buddhist Kingship in a Sinhala Praśasti
The fifteenth-century Pärakumbā Sirita (Account of King Parākramabāhu VI) represents an early attempt to wed the praśasti genre to Sinhala court poetry (kavi). Drawing upon Sri Lankan and broader Indic traditions of eulogistic royal inscriptions, this work utilized the Sinhala language to transform a Buddhist king into a praiseworthy ruler who could rival the rulers of other lands. Panegyric writing in Sinhala is shown to have endowed local kings…
Textbook Buddhism: Introductory books on the Buddhist religion
Textbooks on Buddhism comprise a large, varied genre and have long been used to introduce the religion to students in academic settings. This review essay examines ten textbooks on the subject, noting their distinctive features, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as the types of courses that are well suited to each work. Additional information from a survey on Buddhism textbooks conducted by the author is used to supplement our understanding of w…
What the Buddhologists Taught
What the Buddhologists Taught
The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka
Examines the turbulent modern history and sociology of the Sri Lankan Buddhist Monkhood and its effects upon contemporary society. Using translated Sinhalese documents and interviews with monks, Sri Lankan anthropologist H.L. Seneviratne unravels the inner workings of this New Buddhism and the ideology on which it is based. Beginning with Anagarika Dharmapala's rationalization of Buddhism in the early-20th century, which called for monks to take …
Emotions and Ethics in Buddhist History: TheSinhala Thūpavamsaand the Work of Virtue
While literature is often thought to be a product of culture, the writing of history in medieval Sri Lanka was based on the assumption that texts themselves can produce changes in culture by making people into virtuous devotees. A study of the Sinhala Thūpavamsa, a Theravāda Buddhist chronicle written in Sinhala around the thirteenth century, provides new material with which to examine the ways historical narratives can be crafted to manipulate a…
Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture . Anne M. Blackburn
Recent trends in Sri Lankan Buddhism
The South Asian island of Sri Lanka continues to be an important field site for the study of contemporary Buddhism. Numerous scholars in the field of religion base their arguments about the modern rise of Buddhist revivalism and fundamentalism on ethnographic data from Sri Lanka's long tradition of Theravāda Buddhism. This article, based on fieldwork in Colombo during summer 2002, serves to update previous knowledge on Sri Lankan Buddhism by repo…
Buddhism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives
A comprehensive overview of modern Buddhism across cultures, showing how this ancient religion has adapted to recent social and political change. Collecting the work of leading authorities on Buddhism in different societies around the world, this book details the state of the religion in Asian countries where it is a major cultural influence and in North America. The religion has changed to meet the challenges of modernity; its practitioners have…
Buddhism in world cultures: Comparative Perspectives
The History of the Buddha's Relic Shrine: A Translation of the Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa
Buddhist chronicles have long been had a central place in the study of Buddhism. Scholars, however, have relied almost exclusively on Pali works that were composed by elites for learned audiences, to the neglect of a large number of Buddhist histories written in local languages for popular consumption. The Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa, composed by Parakama Pandita in 13th-century Sri Lanka, is an important example of a Buddhist chronicle written in the ver…
Resisting the Global in Buddhist Nationalism: Venerable Soma's Discourse of Decline and Reform
This article examines Buddhist nationalism as an effort to resist the intrusion of globalizing forces into local religious and cultural heritage. By analyzing the discourse, persona, and life of Venerable Gangodawila Soma (1948-2003), a renowned and controversial Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka, the author demonstrates that Buddhist nationalism is largely a discursive formation that affirms an essential relationship between Buddhism and nation over …
Buddhist Manuscript Cultures: Knowledge, Ritual, and Art
The Expansion of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia
The subject of this chapter requires that a distinction be made between the history of the expansion of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia and the narration of that history in Buddhist sources. Any examination of this subject must reckon with questions concerning the often teleological nature of histories of the Buddha's sāsana (Dispensation), which comprises his Teachings and the institutions he founded to sustain and disseminate them. Thus, f…
An Ugly King and the Mother Tongue: Notes on Kusa Jātaka in Sinhala Language and Culture
Buddhist poetry and colonialism: Alagiyavanna and the Portuguese in Sri Lanka
Identity and Hybridity in The War of Constantino
The Kustantīnu Haṭana (War of Constantino) is the final work analyzed in the book. The chapter begins with a consideration of Alagiyavanna’s relationship with the Portuguese colonialists, wherein he is known to have converted to Catholicism and worked under the Portuguese revenue superintendent in the island. It considers modern scholarly opinions about the author and this work, deciding that its attribution to Alagiyavanna is justified. It explo…
The Cult of Emptiness: The Western Discovery of Buddhist Thought and the Invention of Oriental Philosophy, by Urs App, University Media: Rorschach, Switzerland, 2012
The Cult of Emptiness: The Western Discovery of Buddhist Thought and the Invention of Oriental Philosophy, by Urs App, University Media: Rorschach, Switzerland, 2012. Many modern historians of reli
Textbook Buddhism: Introductory books on the Buddhist religion
Textbooks on Buddhism comprise a large, varied genre and have long been used to introduce the religion to students in academic settings. This review essay examines ten textbooks on the subject, noting their distinctive features, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as the types of courses that are well suited to each work. Additional information from a survey on Buddhism textbooks conducted by the author is used to supplement our understanding of w…
Sinhala sandēśa poetry in a cosmopolitan context
Sinhala Buddhist Appropriations of Indic Cultural Forms: Literary Imitations and Conquests
The development of Sinhala literature and Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka between the tenth and sixteenth centuries ce reveals a complex negotiation of appropriating elements of Indic culture and distinguishing their Sinhala variants. Vernacular traditions of writing and worshipping emphasized the island’s differences from the mainland, despite (or perhaps because of) the invasions and cultural imports from South India. Examining the use of a liter…
Dynamics and Stability in the Encounters between Asian Buddhists and European Christians
The aim of this paper is to theorize broadly about how cultural encounters between Asian Buddhists and European Christians spurred various efforts to demarcate, systematize, and stabilize religious traditions. It focuses on the dynamics seen in Buddhist responses to contact situations from the sixteenth century onwards in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Japan in order to map out some patterns of interaction among these communities. Theories of cultural …
Reading the Mahavamsa: The Literary Aims of a Theravada Buddhist History. By Kristin Scheible
Reading the Mahāvaṃsa: The Literary Aims of a Theravāda Buddhist History. By Kristin Scheible. South Asia across the Disciplines. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 223. $60 (cloth
Divine Kingship in Medieval Sri Lanka: Dynamics in Traditions of Power and Virtue in South Asia
The present article focuses on Sri Lankan views of divine kingship to illustrate how the figure of the king was developed in ways that borrowed and were shaped by the transfer of Hindu notions of kings and gods around the period of intensive Hindu interventions into the island from the tenth to thirteenth centuries CE. After discussing the paradigmatic figure of King Aśoka, the virtuous king (*dhammarāja*) held to be the model for all subsequent …
Bridging the gaps: A Better Future for the Study of Religion
A better future for the study of religion would incorporate innovative and engaging approaches to bridge the gaps between popular and scholarly understandings of what comprises religion and why it remains relevant and significant in our world. This article calls for studying religion in a manner that emphasizes how it is thoroughly enmeshed with other ways of acting and existing in the world. The study of religion appears here as the study of how…
Reimagining Buddhist Kingship in a Sinhala Praśasti
The fifteenth-century Pärakumbā Sirita (Account of King Parākramabāhu VI) represents an early attempt to wed the praśasti genre to Sinhala court poetry (kavi). Drawing upon Sri Lankan and broader Indic traditions of eulogistic royal inscriptions, this work utilized the Sinhala language to transform a Buddhist king into a praiseworthy ruler who could rival the rulers of other lands. Panegyric writing in Sinhala is shown to have endowed local kings…
Routledge Handbook of Theravāda Buddhism
What a Difference Conversion Makes: A Review of Neena Mahadev’s Karma and Grace
Buddhism (20 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (18 works) · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography (17 works) · History (16 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Archaeology (13 works) · Art (13 works) · History (11 works) · Literature (11 works) · Philosophy (9 works)