Old Lecture (as a new article) on Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia…

[Eisel Mazard]

Hmm… not much activity on the forum in the last few months…

I just re-formatted an old lecture (delivered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia) as an article in 12 parts, on my blog:

 http://a-bas-le-ciel.overblog.com

The link directly to part 1 (of 12) is this:
http://a-bas-le-ciel.overblog.com/the-opposite-of-buddhism-%C2%A71

Although Cambodia is in the title, there is plenty of direct discussion of Laos (e.g., within §1 Laos is mentioned three times, etc.) and pretty much everything discussed (in reference to Cambodia) has clear enough implications for Laos.

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[Abstract:] Scholars and students of the 21st century inherit the diverse (and divisive) legacy of earlier centuries of research; instead of becoming obscure, these “old” sources have become instantly available in digitized formats that are beguilingly easy to use and refer to. Are there some drawbacks to this legacy? Certainly. This essay draws attention to debates that provided the context for the initial “production of knowledge” about Theravada Buddhism amongst an important subset of European researchers, and points to important sources of bias that continue to vitiate contemporary research --and that are certainly baffling to “cultural outsiders” now inheriting the debates and documents of former generations. The author illustrates his concern both with the discontinuity between eras and between continents, as a new generation of Asian scholars now appropriates from the past analyses of European Buddhology in the construction of their own interpretations.
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Articles of this kind, I note, get re-circulated through the (relatively lively) Cambodian "blog scene" --and all of my articles on Cambodia have had a relatively wide readership because the overseas Cambodians have been so active in circulating them (in one case, an article of mine that appeared in the local newspaper (in Khmer) was typed out afresh by one fan, so that he could upload it and show it to his friends outside of Cambodia, etc.) --a level of passion/interest in the subject-matter one rarely sees in Thailand or Laos.

E.M.