The maverick dialogics of religious rivalry in Sri Lanka: inspiration and contestation in a new messianic Buddhist movement

Abstract

A strand of Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalism that emerged in 2008 offers an unconventional rejoinder to evangelical efforts to intensify conversions. Pentecostals assert that Christ offers instantaneous salvation whereas Theravāda Buddhism demands slow passage through many lifetimes of suffering. In contrast to concomitant political efforts to curb conversions, one maverick Buddhist monk implicitly responded to such competitive theological provocations by enlisting devotees to engage in ritual and moral cultivation to foreshorten the far‐future arrival of the messianic Bodhisatva Maitreya. Neither derivative, nor ‘syncretic’, the maverick's efforts to fortify Buddhism are nevertheless dialogically responsive to multiple sources of religious competition. Following the traffic of aspiration, contestation, and charismatic affinity between Buddhism and rival religiosities, on one side, and within Buddhism, on the other, the ethnography discloses a multi‐religious milieu. Within it, several competing religiosities stir the anxieties of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists. Old and new rivalries pose constraints, even as they provide fodder for religious innovation.

Circulating in difference: performances of publicity on and beyond a Yangon train

“…Singh 2011). In an apt example, Mahadev turns to it in her study of the ‘rivalry’ between Pentecostals and Buddhists in contemporary Sri Lanka, arguing that the two religions have entered into an ‘agonistic and anxious encounter’ (2016: 128). Mahadev describes a situation of ‘competitive theologizing’ in which Pentecostals offer Jesus as a ‘shortcut’ for Buddhists wanting to escape their endless cycle of rebirths.…”

“…She focuses on how one particular monk offers a direct rejoinder, claiming to be able to hasten the arrival of Maitreya, the future Buddha, thereby rendering Jesus redundant. In presenting Maitreya's arrival as a kind of Buddhist ‘second coming’, this monk engages in a polemical and agonistic interplay between Pentecostals and Buddhists – a ‘dialogics of religious rivalry’ (2016: 142).…”

Cleaning Up Bodhgaya: Conflicts over Development and the Worlding of Buddhism

“…See, for example, Blackburn (), Geary (2011), and Trevithick (). It's worth noting, however, that such connections preceded the colonial period (see Chatterjee ; Lahiri ), though the delineation of “Buddhism” as a distinct “religion” is a relatively recent discourse, one that occludes important distinctions (Almond ; Lahiri ; Mahadev ).…”