Abstract
Pious offerings (dana) to religious elites in South Asian societies has always been treated as either an falsifying exception to Mauss' dictum that all gifts require reciprosity, or a reciprocal exchange obscured by a religious ideology of generosity. This article examines the patterns of communal economic transfer between laity and Tibetan Buddhist sangha in the Western Himalayan region of Ladakh, specifically during the large scale New Year excorcism of the regional capital, Leh. It is argued that such transfers do not constitute exchanges between legal persons (in Mauss' classical rendition), but forms of collective work engaging laity and Buddhist sangha as ritual dividuals, a reinterpretation that suggests an inverted dynamics of agency in Buddhist ritual.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Monks, Money and Morality |
| Subtitle of host publication | The Balancing Act of Contemporary Buddhism |
| Editors | Christoph Brumann, Saskia Abrahams-Kavunenko, Beata Świtek |
| Place of Publication | London, UK |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Chapter | 6 |
| Pages | 109-124 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Edition | 1 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-3502-1379-1 , 978-1-3502-1378-4 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1-3502-1375-3 , 978-1-3502-1376-0 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 20 May 2021 |
| Event | Sangha Economies: Temple Organisation and Exchanges in Contemporary Buddhism - Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany Duration: 21 Sept 2017 → 22 Sept 2017 https://www.eth.mpg.de/4573178/news_2017_09_14_01 |
Conference
| Conference | Sangha Economies |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Germany |
| City | Halle |
| Period | 21/09/17 → 22/09/17 |
| Internet address |
Keywords
- Buddhism
- ECONOMIC-ANALYSIS
- Tibetan Buddhism
