Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India

The present volume provides an essential foundation for a social history of Indian Buddhist monasticism. Challenging the popular stereotype that represented the accumulation of merit as the domain of the layperson while monks concerned themselves with more sophisticated realms of doctrine and meditation, Professor Schopen problematizes many assumptions about the lay-monastic distinction by demonstrating that monks and nuns, both the scholastic elites and the less learned, participated actively in a wide range of ritual practices and institutions that have heretofore been judged 'popular, ' from the accumulation and transfer of merit; to the care of deceased relatives; to serving as sponsors and donors, rather than always the recipients, of gifts; to (possibly) the coining of counterfeit currency. Taken together, the studies contained in this volume represent the basis for a new historiography of Buddhism, not only for their critique of many the idées reçues of Buddhist Studies but for the compelling connections they draw between apparently disparate details.

Author: Gregory Schopen
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 04/01/1997
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.07lbs
Size: 9.14h x 6.03w x 0.79d
ISBN: 9780824818708

About the Author
Schopen, Gregory: - Gregory Schopen is Rush C. Hawkins Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University and Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to his international appointments, Schopen has served on the faculties of Indiana University, Bloomington, and the University of Texas, Austin. His publications include Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks (1997), Buddhist Monks and Business Matters(2004), and Figments and Fragments of Mahayana Buddhism in India (2005), all published by the University of Hawai'i Press.

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