Nation, Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka

Name: Nation, Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

Nation, Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri LankaAuthor(s): Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Routledge\nISBN-13: 9781138575547, 978-1138575547\nSynopsis\nNation, Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka offers a new perspective on contemporary debates about Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka. In this book de Silva Wijeyeratne argues forcefully that Sinhalese Buddhism in the period prior to its engagement with the British colonial State signified a relatively unbounded (although at times boundary forming) set of practices that facilitated both the inclusion and exclusion of non-Buddhist concepts and people within a particular cosmological frame. Juxtaposing the premodern against the backdrop of colonial modernity, de Silva Wijeyeratne tells us that in contrast modern 'Sinhalese Buddhism/nationalism' is a much more reified and bounded concept, one imagined through a 19th century epistemology whos.