Buddhist History in the Vernacular

The Power of the Past in Late Medieval Sri Lanka

Bibliographic Data

ID8094492
AuthorsStephen Berkwitz (corresponding author)
Year2004
Publication date2004-04-29
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueBuddhist History in the Vernacular (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/9789047413479
OpenAlexW4234561786
ISBN9789047413479
LanguageEN
Citations received9

This is a careful study about the power attributed to historical narratives in early medieval Sri Lanka. On the basis of Sinhala histories of the Buddha and his relics this work sheds new light on historiography at work in a vernacular setting. Arguing that historical texts were both ethically and socially constructive, the author demonstrates that narrative representations of the past served the purpose to transform writers, readers, and listeners of history into virtuous persons, and therewith to generate moral communities. Focusing on the thirteenth-century Sinhala Thupavamsa, this book problematizes modern interpretations of Buddhist histories, compares the production of Pali and Sinhala texts, and examines how historical works were directed towards religious ends. A significant contribution to scholarship in Buddhist Studies, Comparative Literature, and Historical Criticism

Aesthetics · Art · Buddhism · Gautama Buddha · Historiography · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Power (physics · Scholarship · Vernacular · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Asian Studies and History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · History · Law

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