Outline and Impressions of "From Ruins to 'Sacred Sites': Buddhist Sacred Sites for Living Globalization" by Noriko Maejima - Shocking Facts about Buddha's Sacred Site of Enlightenment, Bodh Gaya.
I am pleased to present "From Ruins to 'Sacred Sites' - Buddhist Sacred Sites for Living Globalization" by Noriko Maejima, published by Hozokan in 2018.
Let's take a quick look at the book.
How did Bodh Gaya, the greatest Buddhist holy site, come back to life? This remarkable book rethinks the "holy land" not only from a religious perspective but also from the perspective of its relationship with various social phenomena, and develops a new "theory of the holy land.
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This book is a work that lets you know the shocking facts about Bodh Gaya, a sacred Buddhist site in India.
Bodh Gaya is a world-famous holy site where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
But what if this sacred place has been forgotten for a long time and was only recently discovered?
What this means is explained as follows.
Buddhagaya is known as the place where Buddha attained enlightenment. For whom, and in what sense, is Bhattagaya a "holy place"? This question cannot be considered without asking who the people involved in Bhattagaya are and how they have worked with Bhattagaya.
In fact, many different actors with different interests and agendas were involved in the process of awakening Bodh Gaya from its long slumber and regaining people's interest in it. The British archaeologists involved in the discovery of the site, which had been forgotten with the decline of Buddhism, the Buddhists seeking to restore the sacred site, the Indian government, which became a modern nation after independence and is seeking economic development and the resolution of religious tensions, the professional organizations responsible for the management of the site, and UNESCO, which is involved in heritage registration and advocates the conservation and protection of heritage sites.... The government of India, which has become a modern nation after gaining independence, is aiming for economic development and the resolution of religious tensions. Above all, there are the living Hindus and Muslims who have been overlooked and relegated to the periphery behind the too obvious assumption that Bouddh Gaya is "the holiest site in Buddhism. In the first place, the existence of people who have been involved with the site of Buttagaya even after it has been forgotten and lost its meaning as a "Buddhist holy site," and who have protected it from their own standpoints, the ideal image they seek for Buttagaya, the meaning of realizing that image, and how other entities involved in the way of life in Buttagaya respond to those local ideas and voices. Without considering the existence of the people who have protected Bhuddhagaya, their ideal vision of the place, and what it means to realize that vision, and how other actors involved in Bhuddhagaya respond to their local ideas and voices, how can we answer the question of in what sense Bhuddhagaya is a "Buddhist holy place" and in what sense it is a "world heritage site"?
This book unravels the process by which Bhattagaya, a land of globalization, is created by the people who have been involved in and interacted with the land, sometimes in conflict with each other and sometimes coming to terms with each other, in other words, the process by which Bhuddhagaya now rises and takes shape with its unique locality that cannot be simply dismissed as a "Buddhist holy place. The present day Buddhagaya is not simply a "Buddhist sanctuary," but a process of rising and taking shape with its own unique locality.
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We Japanese tend to think of India as the land of Buddha and the home of Buddhism, but it is a strict fact that Buddhism in India died out in the early 13th century and there are almost no Buddhists in India today. (*New Buddhists have emerged in the form of Ambedkar, but only as a new entity, and they are an exception.)
Hindus and Muslims make up the majority of India's population. Culturally, Buddhism was largely forgotten.
The same is true of Bodhgaya.
Buddha became so familiar to Hindus as an incarnation of Lord Krishna that Buddha was no longer worshipped as a Hindu temple. In such a Hindu and Islamic-dominated city, a Buddhist sanctuary suddenly appeared.
In this book, you will learn more about its history and background.
In the late 19th century, as part of the British rule policy, Buddhist monuments were surveyed throughout India, and among the discoveries were the Mahabodhi Pagoda and the Vajrapani of Bodh Gaya. Then, from the end of the 19th century, the Sri Lankan monk Dharmapala began a campaign to recover the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya.
This Dharmapala is an "ooh" person for me as well.
I say this because I studied Sri Lankan Buddhism and actually visited Sri Lanka last year.
This Dharmapala is one of the great figures of Sri Lankan Buddhism. There are so many aspects to this man that it is difficult for me to say a single word about him here, but the following Yoshio SugimotoThe Legacy of Buddhist Modernism."His life and ideas are discussed in detail in
In Sri Lanka, Buddhist sites were rediscovered in the 19th century and new sacred places were discovered. This time, I learned once again that the same thing had been done in Bodh Gaya, India.
To be honest, the contents of this book may be quite shocking to Japanese people. I was able to tolerate it to some extent in Sri Lanka, so I was shocked in a different way, but for those who are longing for "India is the holy land of Buddha! However, for those who have a longing for "India is the holy land of Buddha!
Of course, that does not diminish the significance of the site as a holy place of Buddha, nor does it change the fact that it is an important place of worship for Buddhists around the world.
However, I do not think it is a waste of time to know what was happening here. No matter how inconvenient that may be for me as a Buddhist...
There is much more I would like to tell you, but that is all for this article. I plan to visit Bodh Gaya during the year 2024. I will write again in this blog about what I will think there at that time.
The above is "Noriko Maejima, "From Ruins to 'Sacred Sites': Buddhist Sacred Sites for Living Globalization" - The Shocking Fact about Buddha's Sacred Site of Enlightenment, Bodh Gaya".
The Amazon product page for this book, "From Ruins to Sacred Sites: Buddhist Sacred Sites in a Globalized World," isthis way (direction close to the speaker or towards the speaker)
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