Zur Institutionalisierung des Buddhismus und der Suspendierung der ethischen Norm der Gewaltlosigkeit in Sri Lanka
The classical Sinhala-Buddhist historiography of Sri Lanka reveals a political and social ideology propagating the maintainment of Buddhist principles and the preservation of Buddhist institutions as collective tasks of Sinhalese society. The second point includes the duty of protecting Buddhism by...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | German |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Diagonal-Verlag
2012
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| In: |
Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft
Year: 2003, Volume: 11, Issue: 2, Pages: 149-165 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | The classical Sinhala-Buddhist historiography of Sri Lanka reveals a political and social ideology propagating the maintainment of Buddhist principles and the preservation of Buddhist institutions as collective tasks of Sinhalese society. The second point includes the duty of protecting Buddhism by violence if its institutions were (deemed to be) threatened with extinction by aggressive non-Buddhist enemies. Warfare against Tamil invaders from South India was usually presented as cases of this kind of religiously legitimated self-defense by historiographers of pre-colonial age. In the context of present day Sinhala-Tamil tensions, the reference to this ideology in anti-Tamil propaganda had a major impact on the escalation of the conflict. The contradiction between the Buddhist principle of non-violence and the propagation of violence in defense of religion was smoothed by a special legitimation strategy, which included a minimalisation of the bad karma resulting from the killing of a foe of Buddhism. |
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| ISSN: | 2194-508X |
| Contains: | In: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/zfr.2003.11.2.149 |