Monks, Money, and Morality

The Balancing Act of Contemporary Buddhism

Christoph Brumann, Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, Beata Switek, Christoph Brumann, Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, Beata Switek

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781350213760
• eBook ISBN: 9781350213784
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Business General

Vibrantly engaging contemporary Buddhist lives, this book focuses on the material and financial relations of contemporary monks, temples, and laypeople. It shows that rather than being peripheral, economic exchanges are key to religious debate in Buddhist societies. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in countries ranging from India to Japan, including all three major Buddhist traditions, the book addresses the flows of goods and services between clergy and laity, the management of resources, the treatment of money, and the role of the state in temple economies. Along with documenting ritual and economic practices, these accounts deal with the moral challenges that Buddhist adherents are facing today, thereby bringing lived experience to the study of an often-romanticized religion.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction: Sangha Economies Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, Christoph Brumann, and Beata Świtek
• PART ONE Reciprocity, Money, and Trust
• PART TWO Beyond Reciprocity
• PART THREE Managing Temples and Monasteries
• PART FOUR Capitalism, Decline, and Rebirth
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Notes on Contributors
• Index