Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Theravada Buddhism and The British Encounter: Religious, Missionary, and Colonial Experience in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka (review)

Theravada Buddhism and The British Encounter: Religious, Missionary, and Colonial Experience in... BOOK REVIEWS THERAVADA BUDDHISM AND THE BRITISH ENCOUNTER: RELIGIOUS, MISSIONARY, AND COLONIAL EXPERIENCE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY SRI LANKA. By Elizabeth Harris. London: Routledge, 2006. 274 pp. Of all the facets of the multifaceted interactions among Buddhists and Christians, the one sure to generate the most heat is mission: Christians spreading the gospel, Buddhists spreading the dhamma, Christians preaching and Buddhists preaching at the same time in the same places. This is the central topic of Elizabeth Harris's Theravada Buddhism and the British Encounter: Religious, Missionary, and Colonial Experience in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka. By throwing light on this crucial encounter, Harris greatly reduces the heat generated by these competing missions and makes greater understanding possible. At least, that would be one hoped-for outcome. Harris challenges the standard postcolonial critique (SPC) of what happened to Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhism and Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhists when Christian missionaries, riding on the coattails of the Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonialists, invaded the peaceful and pristine island of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. SPC posits Western colonial missionaries gaining power through their political proxies, shaping Western understandings of Theravada Buddhism to fit their Puritan and http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Buddhist-Christian Studies University of Hawai'I Press

Theravada Buddhism and The British Encounter: Religious, Missionary, and Colonial Experience in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka (review)

Buddhist-Christian Studies , Volume 28 (1) – Nov 14, 2008

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-hawai-i-press/theravada-buddhism-and-the-british-encounter-religious-missionary-and-QKb4ce1nHx

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of Hawai'I Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 University of Hawai'i Press
ISSN
1527-9472
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS THERAVADA BUDDHISM AND THE BRITISH ENCOUNTER: RELIGIOUS, MISSIONARY, AND COLONIAL EXPERIENCE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY SRI LANKA. By Elizabeth Harris. London: Routledge, 2006. 274 pp. Of all the facets of the multifaceted interactions among Buddhists and Christians, the one sure to generate the most heat is mission: Christians spreading the gospel, Buddhists spreading the dhamma, Christians preaching and Buddhists preaching at the same time in the same places. This is the central topic of Elizabeth Harris's Theravada Buddhism and the British Encounter: Religious, Missionary, and Colonial Experience in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka. By throwing light on this crucial encounter, Harris greatly reduces the heat generated by these competing missions and makes greater understanding possible. At least, that would be one hoped-for outcome. Harris challenges the standard postcolonial critique (SPC) of what happened to Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhism and Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhists when Christian missionaries, riding on the coattails of the Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonialists, invaded the peaceful and pristine island of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. SPC posits Western colonial missionaries gaining power through their political proxies, shaping Western understandings of Theravada Buddhism to fit their Puritan and

Journal

Buddhist-Christian StudiesUniversity of Hawai'I Press

Published: Nov 14, 2008

There are no references for this article.