Thailand's Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jataka and the Idea of the Perfect Man: The Vessantara Jātaka and the Idea of the Perfect Man - Softcover

Jory, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1438460880 ISBN 13: 9781438460888

Verlag: State University of New York Press, 2017

Über diesen Titel

Críticas:

..".the central contribution of Jory's innovative study [is] in providing invaluable historical context to the intensified absolutist royalism that has now become the official discourse of the country's national bureaucracy and authoritarian military regime." -- Sojourn

"Essential." -- CHOICE

Reseña del editor:

2016 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

Discusses the origins and cultural history of the Theravada Buddhist ideals behind the Thai institution of monarchy.

Since the 2006 coup detat, Thailand has been riven by two opposing political visions: one which aspires to a modern democracy and the rule of law, and another which holds to the traditional conception of a kingdom ruled by an exemplary Buddhist monarch. Thailand has one of the world’s largest populations of observant Buddhists and one of its last politically active monarchies. This book examines the Theravada Buddhist foundations of Thailand’s longstanding institution of monarchy. Patrick Jory states that the storehouse of monarchical ideology is to be found in the popular literary genre known as the Jatakas, tales of the Buddha’s past lives. The best-known of these, the Vessantara Jataka, disseminated an ideal of an infinitely generous prince as a bodhisatta or future Buddha—an ideal which remains influential in Thailand today. Using primary and secondary source materials largely unknown in Western scholarship, Jory traces the history of the Vessantara Jataka and its political-cultural importance from the ancient to the modern period. Although pressures from European colonial powers and Buddhist reformers led eventually to a revised political conception of the monarchy, the older Buddhist ideal of kingship has yet endured.

“Essential.” — CHOICE

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: State University of New York Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1438460880
• ISBN 13: 9781438460888
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 302