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In This Issue JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF RELIGION March 2011 Volume 79, Number 1 The image of a monk or a novice in ratty old robes with rubber-sap stains, riding a motorcycle into the woods to collect sap is not the standard image of a Theravāda monk, either in the popular imagination or in the scholarly community. In the popular imagination, expressed in lit- erature and in the visual sphere of movies and the web, monks tend to be portrayed as modest, demure even. They have their robes wrapped properly around their bodies and their faces are often blank. Perhaps they are chanting, on an alms round or receiving gifts from laity. They are not riding motorcycles, wearing spattered robes, or performing activities for commercial purposes. Thomas Borchert, “Monastic Labor: Thinking about the Work of Monks in Contemporary Theravāda Communities” It is more accurate, and ultimately more rewarding, to recognize that in Christianity, as in every organization, there are “hawks” and “doves.” To explain how the one prevails over the other calls for political and social, not theological, tools. In the case of post-Constantinian Christianity, this requires a close look at a worldview shared by Christians and those adherents to traditional religions that, for convenience, I will label “pagans.” Both groups shared a belief in the active intervention of deity in human affairs that made it harder than it is today to separate “religious” from “secular” functions. H.A. Drake, “Intolerance, Religious Violence, and Political Legitimacy in Late Antiquity” The commentarial and broader Hindu tradition has focused on the salvific aspects of this text and for obvious reasons: it is the religious goal of immortality or transcendence that is the fundamental end-goal for a believer. Scholars have generally focused on the same. Of course, it is important to do so to understand the needs and motivations of those for whom such texts were and are impor- tant, but in doing so, scholars have glossed over the main discussion that brings about the need for salvation in the first place: the very real fact that people die. Steven E. Lindquist, “Literary Lives and a Literal Death: Yājñavalkya, Śākalya, and an Upanişadic Death Sentence” We do not often think of the Buddha as a literary character. Most of us tend to think of him instead as the founder of a religion, a historical figure who happens to appear in the religious litera- ture of ancient India and elsewhere. In recent years, a few scholars have begun to address the Buddha’s literary role in the Pāli and early Sanskrit traditions. One result is that we now recognize the importance of reading the Buddha within a narrative frame made up of past and future Buddhas, whose careers all resemble each other uncannily. Sara L. McClintock, “Compassionate Trickster: The Buddha as a Literary Character in the Narratives of Early Indian Buddhism” Our author Śaunaka is a persona of commanding proportions—or, if you like, a name around which has grown a cultural repertoire of great richness. The stereotype of ancient Indian author- ship is that, due to the frequency with which names attach to schools and manuscripts, we cannot trust anything like a “stable” idea of an author. If Śaunaka is any example, however, one might say the idea of the author is not absent in early India, but rather is even more present than we might imagine—involving, as it does, a set of authorial capacities as much as an author himself. Laurie L. Patton, “Traces of Śaunaka: A Literary Assessment” http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of the American Academy of Religion Oxford University Press

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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© Published by Oxford University Press.
Subject
Cover/Standing Material
ISSN
0002-7189
eISSN
1477-4585
DOI
10.1093/jaarel/lfr011
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF RELIGION March 2011 Volume 79, Number 1 The image of a monk or a novice in ratty old robes with rubber-sap stains, riding a motorcycle into the woods to collect sap is not the standard image of a Theravāda monk, either in the popular imagination or in the scholarly community. In the popular imagination, expressed in lit- erature and in the visual sphere of movies and the web, monks tend to be portrayed as modest, demure even. They have their robes wrapped properly around their bodies and their faces are often blank. Perhaps they are chanting, on an alms round or receiving gifts from laity. They are not riding motorcycles, wearing spattered robes, or performing activities for commercial purposes. Thomas Borchert, “Monastic Labor: Thinking about the Work of Monks in Contemporary Theravāda Communities” It is more accurate, and ultimately more rewarding, to recognize that in Christianity, as in every organization, there are “hawks” and “doves.” To explain how the one prevails over the other calls for political and social, not theological, tools. In the case of post-Constantinian Christianity, this requires a close look at a worldview shared by Christians and those adherents to traditional religions that, for convenience, I will label “pagans.” Both groups shared a belief in the active intervention of deity in human affairs that made it harder than it is today to separate “religious” from “secular” functions. H.A. Drake, “Intolerance, Religious Violence, and Political Legitimacy in Late Antiquity” The commentarial and broader Hindu tradition has focused on the salvific aspects of this text and for obvious reasons: it is the religious goal of immortality or transcendence that is the fundamental end-goal for a believer. Scholars have generally focused on the same. Of course, it is important to do so to understand the needs and motivations of those for whom such texts were and are impor- tant, but in doing so, scholars have glossed over the main discussion that brings about the need for salvation in the first place: the very real fact that people die. Steven E. Lindquist, “Literary Lives and a Literal Death: Yājñavalkya, Śākalya, and an Upanişadic Death Sentence” We do not often think of the Buddha as a literary character. Most of us tend to think of him instead as the founder of a religion, a historical figure who happens to appear in the religious litera- ture of ancient India and elsewhere. In recent years, a few scholars have begun to address the Buddha’s literary role in the Pāli and early Sanskrit traditions. One result is that we now recognize the importance of reading the Buddha within a narrative frame made up of past and future Buddhas, whose careers all resemble each other uncannily. Sara L. McClintock, “Compassionate Trickster: The Buddha as a Literary Character in the Narratives of Early Indian Buddhism” Our author Śaunaka is a persona of commanding proportions—or, if you like, a name around which has grown a cultural repertoire of great richness. The stereotype of ancient Indian author- ship is that, due to the frequency with which names attach to schools and manuscripts, we cannot trust anything like a “stable” idea of an author. If Śaunaka is any example, however, one might say the idea of the author is not absent in early India, but rather is even more present than we might imagine—involving, as it does, a set of authorial capacities as much as an author himself. Laurie L. Patton, “Traces of Śaunaka: A Literary Assessment”

Journal

Journal of the American Academy of ReligionOxford University Press

Published: Mar 1, 2011

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