{"title":"Monastic Authority and Legitimizing Religio-Political Activism: Buddhist Nationalist Monks in Myanmar","authors":"Niklas Foxeus","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20231705","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nThe Buddhist nationalist movements that emerged during the political and economic liberalization of the second parliamentarian period (2011–2021) in Burma/Myanmar provide unique material for the study of monastic authority. The aim of this article is to examine two overlapping dynamics regarding how monastic authority is established and undermined. As for the first dynamic, the article examines three strategies in Buddhist nationalist sermons aiming to provide legitimacy for the nationalist monks. The second dynamic is a political outgroup criticism that became more common during the period in question. The article makes a distinction between generic monastic authority, which is the fundamental one, and nationalist monastic authority, as they are legitimized and established in different ways. Finally, the article argues that recognition of monastic authority by laypeople is based not merely on trust and respect but tends to be a more complex process.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20231705","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The Buddhist nationalist movements that emerged during the political and economic liberalization of the second parliamentarian period (2011–2021) in Burma/Myanmar provide unique material for the study of monastic authority. The aim of this article is to examine two overlapping dynamics regarding how monastic authority is established and undermined. As for the first dynamic, the article examines three strategies in Buddhist nationalist sermons aiming to provide legitimacy for the nationalist monks. The second dynamic is a political outgroup criticism that became more common during the period in question. The article makes a distinction between generic monastic authority, which is the fundamental one, and nationalist monastic authority, as they are legitimized and established in different ways. Finally, the article argues that recognition of monastic authority by laypeople is based not merely on trust and respect but tends to be a more complex process.
期刊介绍:
Numen publishes papers representing the most recent scholarship in all areas of the history of religions. It covers a diversity of geographical regions and religions of the past as well as of the present. The approach of the journal to the study of religion is strictly non-confessional. While the emphasis lies on empirical, source-based research, typical contributions also address issues that have a wider historical or comparative significance for the advancement of the discipline. Numen also publishes papers that discuss important theoretical innovations in the study of religion and reflective studies on the history of the discipline.