Where Jambudipa and Islamdom Converged

Résumé du livre

This dissertation makes two inter-related arguments. First, the Burmese Buddhist religious identity developed from a complex array of influences. Ecological, climatological, social, economic, and political factors all played important roles in determining the direction of and response to religious developments. Thus, Theravada Buddhism was not the ancient and monolithic religious identity that some have interpreted it to be. Rather, the Buddhist religious identity as it has emerged today developed gradually, and primarily from the end of the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries, during the periods of Burman and British rule. This was true also of the Arakanese Muslim identity. Second, Burmese-Buddhist communalism developed out of competition between Muslims and Buddhists for new agricultural lands and attempts to survive on shrinking land plots in the British colonial economy. British colonial authorities also reduced the vitality of patron-client relationships which meant the emergence of religious leaders as organizers of rural communities for collective action.