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TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword i Terminology iv Acknowledgments v Map vi SECTION I: SRI LANKAN CULTURE Chapter 1: Beginnings and looking beyond Living in Kandy 3 An English captive 4 They are Buddhists 6 Our colonial masters 6 Two cultures then and now 8 A pervasive Buddhist cultural idiom 9 A word about the text 10 The perils of being a Buddhist Eve 12 Sigmund Freud drives a three wheeler 13 Chapter 2: Growing up in Sri Lankan Culture 15 Sri Lankans become Buddhists 15 My father 16 Tharala the Catholic village 19 Caste was all around 21 My mother 23 My Sunday school 24 University: The other Eden 27 City crows and village crows 28 I got married 30 My other father and mother 31 Village medicine man 33 Pharmacology in a Sri Lankan household 35 Viagra the village version 39 Booming Herbal fare 41 Chapter 3: Festival of New Beginnings: The New Year 42 Cuckoo announces the coming of the New Year 43 All at the auspicious time 45 Coming of the New Year 46 Swings, drums and fire crackers 47 Milkrice for New Year 50 Exchange of gifts and money 51 Feast for crows 53 Oil anointing all at the good time 55 Time to look at the new moon 53 SECTION II: THE CULTURE OF BUDDHISM Chapter 4: Loving Worship and Loving Kindness 57 Little ones 57 Mother¿s shrine room 58 The Buddhist Worship 60 Meaning of Pan sil 62 Yasoma¿s house 64 My other mother 65 Magical effects of reciting Buddha virtues 66 Buddhist festival of lights 68 Those full moon days 70 Memories of Vesak 71 A king, a deer and the monk 74 Chapter 5: Givers: Many motives, many fruits 76 A glimpse of forest monks 78 Cheerful lot of pilgrims 80 The rationale of giving 82 Giving in many ways 83 How a hare got into the moon 84 Different qualities of giving 87 My mother, a beggar¿s dream 87 Master speaks 88 The Bill Gates of the Ganges Valley 89 Giving is hard. It was anciently so 90 The A to Z of giving a dana 91 The learned monk explains it all 93 The moral of a chance discovery 95 Insurance policy for the future 97 Who gives more? 98 My father-in-law made space for the dead 98 Harvard divinity student missed the bus? 99 Vesantara Story 100 Chapter 6: Sri Lankan Buddhists Rituals 103 Being born and what follows 103 My daughter became a golden gem 104 Ritual introduction to rice 105 The small business of the A B C 106 Puberty beyond the clinical 108 Infections: Look for the seven mothers 111 Pin shots from others 113 Rituals in the world of monks 114 Vas inviatation 114 How one became a son of the Buddha 117 Chapter 7: Reminiscences of Bana Preaching 122 What the Buddha told his sons 122 What is Bana preaching? 123 Tales my mother told me 125 How the word of the Buddha is unfolded 127 The art of it all 130 Matakabana 131 Sri Lankan virtuosos of the art 132 Buddha in cyberspace 135 Chapter 8: Buddhist Pilgrims¿ Progress 137 Listen up Ananda 137 A village on the move 138 A mound of golden sand 140 Pilgrimage to Sri Pada 140 Guard your tongue or else 144 Buddha¿s India 145 A little kingdom with a great tooth 146 Chapter 9: Karma in popular Buddhist Culture 152 Good and bad karma 153 Karma: self governing system 154 Legend of Love and born low 156 Monk Nagasena¿s answers to king Milinda 157 Different types of karma 158 Banda¿s karma 159 Monk explains karma can be changed 161 Accepting the lot as Karma 161 Born a woman is bad karma 165 Angulimala¿s karma good and bad 165 Chapter 10: To Die Only to Be Reborn 169 Rebirth in lyrical vein 169 Western skepticism 170 A fish talks about rebirth! 170 Losing a campus friend 171 To meet a monk who knew it all 174 A culture prone to rebirth 177 My English friend 179 A son and a father 182 Rebirth and Buddhist stories 184 Rebirth as a story in science 186 Chapter 11: Death: Buddhist Ways and Other Ways. 191 A beautiful parting 191 A frog and a worm 192 All is burning: The fire without and within 193 For want of a mustard seed 195 Farewell to Archie 196 Childhood memories: Tears of death 196 How Buddhists cope with death 199 Funeral traditions 203 The sundering rituals of death 205 Truth stranger than fiction 208 Death rarely private, the concern of all 209 The manner of their mourning 210 The homily of remembrance 212 Chapter 12: Bodhi-Puja: All for the Sake of a Tree 224 Bo tree becomes a very special tree 214 Raging waters recede from a tree 215 Healing and reverence to a tree 216 Boy friends, girl friends and the tree 218 Bill as master of ceremonies 218 A Charismatic super star monk 219 Bodhi puja for the stressed 221 The tree, this time in London 225 The war gods seek the tree 226 Chapter 13: Pirit Chanting and the Holy Thread 227 A remedial device for all seasons. 228 My daughter cured by pirit 231 New house and all night pirit 232 Pirit from A-Z 233 The magic touch of the monk Sivali 235 Varieties of pirit and their rationale 238 Power of pirit: Loving kindness 239 Just a piece of thread or what? 240 SECTION III: COLORS OF THE ROBE Chapter 14: Sons of the Buddha 242 Buddha and the order of monks 242 The sons of the Buddha 243 Yellow robe and shaven head 244 New names and old identities 224 Over the shrub and journeying back 246 Code of conduct: the Vinaya 247 Rules and their rationale 247 The sins of monkhood 248 Begging for food: Pindapata 249 A rhinoceros or an elephant? 251 When monks confess 252 The art of dealing with the other 253 Service to the community 254 Reform and rules of conduct 255 Circumstances alter cases 257 Even ants have a king 258 Revolt in the temple 260 Christian proseytization: Quid pro quo way 261 A Buddhist state in a Buddhist country 262 Power of the robe 264 Chapter 15: Varieties in a Single Saffron Robe 267 247 So where are you going my little monks! 267 Short cut to Nirvana: Holding on to the elephant¿s¿ 270 Thou shall be a monk, the stars decree 271 The business of casting a robe on a tree 273 Swimming against the tide 275 Chitra¿s Story 277 Watch out! Monks can be attractive 278 A monk abroad: The fallen idol 279 No cookie cutter model 281 An Artist monk 283 Wedding in the temple 284 Political monk 285 Monk turned therapist 288 Patriotic monk: An ancient breed 290 A monk¿s prescription for national unity 291 Fending off bodily blows 292 Monk for all seasons 293 SECTION IV: ALTERNATIVE ALTARS Chapter 16: Quid-Pro Quo Worship 299 Paradox of gods in Buddhism 300 How Buddhists relate to Hindu gods. 301 God worship is quid pro quo 302 The Intermediary between gods and ourselves 302 Gods are good for business 305 The iconography of the gods 306 The powers of Kali 308 The gentle goddess Pattini 309 The story of a golden anklet 310 God Ganesh got an elephant¿s head. 312 A god who is the monarch of all he surveys 314 Sai Baba in Sri Lanka 314 How Sai Baba handled a human situation 316 Sai Baba: An insider perspective 318 The paradox of it all! 319 Chapter 17: Many Gods, Many Altars 321 A shadowy world of paradoxes 321 So where is the Buddha in all this? 322 Novel uses for the common lime 323 He stalks the land with an evil eye 324 The etiology of an illness 326 When a servant becomes something else 329 The wily ways of naughty spirits 330 How an ancient art is generationally transmitted 330 A Yankee in far far away Sri Lanka 332 Bali: The Anatomy of a Grand Ceremony 333 Mythical origins of a popular rite 335 They also curse 336 Tit for tat in the black arts 337 The omniscient Englishman 340 Charms and counter charms 340 How rice comes to be rice 343 Emanation to know the future 345 Astro Bobby in Oxford 347 The little fellow in the ceiling who knew it all! 349 Chapter 18: God Kataragama 353 The lore and lure of Kataragama 354 Many supplicants many woes 355 A visitor¿s unorthodox style 356 A sacred Ganges in Sri Lanka 358 The god¿s inner sanctum 359 The elaborate rituals of offerings 361 A grand ritual 362 Stranger than fiction 363 Know me when you see me 364 Polluted women, keep away from god 365 I danced kavadi 366 Walking on fire 367 God saved the daughter 368 An impish Artful Dodger 369 Epilogue 371 Glossary 373 Bibliography 376
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication:
Theravåada Buddhism -- Sri Lanka -- Customs and practices.
Religious life -- Theravåada Buddhism.
Sri Lanka -- Religious life and customs.
Wickremeratne, Swarna, 1939-.