Divine Kingship in Medieval Sri Lanka: Dynamics in Traditions of Power and Virtue in South Asia
The present article focuses on Sri Lankan views of divine kingship to illustrate how the figure of the king was developed in ways that borrowed and were shaped by the transfer of Hindu notions of kings and gods around the period of intensive Hindu interventions into the island from the tenth to thir...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
[2019]
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| In: |
Entangled Religions
Year: 2019, Volume: 8 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Sri Lanka
/ Sacred kingship
/ Hinduism
/ Interfaith dialogue
/ Buddhism
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| IxTheo Classification: | AX Inter-religious relations BL Buddhism KBM Asia |
| Further subjects: | B
Buddhism
B Gods B Poetry B A´soka B Bodhisattva B Metaphor B Kingship |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | The present article focuses on Sri Lankan views of divine kingship to illustrate how the figure of the king was developed in ways that borrowed and were shaped by the transfer of Hindu notions of kings and gods around the period of intensive Hindu interventions into the island from the tenth to thirteenth centuries CE. After discussing the paradigmatic figure of King Asoka, the virtuous king (*dhammarāja*) held to be the model for all subsequent monarchs in the tradition, we will examine inscriptional and poetic writings that conflated Sri Lankan kings with Hindu gods. The dynamics of comparing kings with gods has ancient roots in India, and these notions were adopted by Sri Lankan Buddhists during the long "medieval" period of roughly the tenth to the sixteenth centuries CE. The dynamic introduction of new strands of Buddhist kingship expanded upon the figure of the king. I argue that this development was primarily metaphorical in nature, and it was further enhanced by eulogizing kings as bodhisattvas, or future Buddhas. By incorporating much of the language and notions of divine kingship from the Hindu tradition, Sri Lankan Buddhism made kingship into the dynamic site for cultural borrowing. Yet it stabilized and reinforced its local traditions by comparing kings with gods and bodhisattvas, presenting them as being *like* extraordinary beings in the context of praise for their power and virtue. |
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| ISSN: | 2363-6696 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Entangled Religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.13154/er.8.2019.8312 |