Jazeel, T; (2018) Building Sacred Modernity: Buddhism, secularism and a geography of religion in southern Sri Lanka. In: Bartolini, N and Mackian, S and Pile, S, (eds.) Spaces of Spirituality. (pp. 54-66). Routledge: Abingdon, UK.

Preview	Text (Chapter) Buliding Sacred Modernity R1[1].pdf - Accepted Version Download (183kB) | Preview
Preview	Image (Figure 1) Figure 1.jpg Download (1MB) | Preview
Preview	Image (Figure 2) Figure 2.JPG Download (1MB) | Preview
Preview	Image (Figure 3) Figure 3.JPG Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Although revisions to the Sri Lankan constitution in 1972 and 1978 respectively were notable for the ways that they, first, accorded Buddhism the foremost place amongst Sri Lanka's other religions. Second, they offered it special protection in the national polity, the country still to this day professes a notional secularism through its commitment to parliamentary democracy and political modernity. A closer look at the parliament building itself, however, reveals more clearly the forms of neither religious, nor entirely secular, sacred modernity that Bawa has built at Kotte. Buddhism then is mobilized not as a 'religion', or religious influence, but instead as an ornamental facet of the broader effort to historiographically realign the nation-state in and with its own native modernity. A rooted Sinhala ethnos intractably linked to a historical narrative of Buddhist practice was part of this anti-colonial modernity. That is part of this space's sacred modernity.

Download activity - last month

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as XMLJSONCSV

Archive Staff Only

View Item