Buddhism, Power and Political Order Book

Contents: 1. Introduction-Buddhism, power and politics in Theravada Buddhist lands/Ian Harris. 2. Idealism and pragmatism: a Dilemma in the current monastic education systems of Burma and Thailand/Khammai Dhammasami. 3. Rajadhamma confronts Leviathan: Burmese political theory in the 1870s/Andrew Huxley. 4. Colonial knowledge and Buddhist education in Burma /Juliane Schober. 5. Reconstructing the Cambodian polity: Buddhism, Kingship and the quest for legitimacy/Peter Gyallay Pap. 6. The Cambodian Hospital for Monks/John Marston. 7. Buddhism, power, and political order in pre twentieth century Laos/Volkar Grabowsky. 8. Past, present, and future in Buddhist prophetic literature of the Lao/Peter Koret. 9. In Defence of the nation: the cult of Nag Thoranee in Northeast Thailand/Elizabeth Guthrie. 10. King, Sangha, and Brahmans: Ideology, ritual, and power in pre-modern/Siam Peter Skilling.

"This volume brings together the brightest minds in the study of Buddhism in Southeast Asia. Their contributions create a more coherent account of the relations between Buddhism and political order in the late pre-modern period by questioning the contested relationship between monastic and secular power. In doing so, they expand the very nature of what is known as the ‘Theravada’."