Dear members,
I am pleased to announce the recent release of the
following new book
(with apologies for cross-posting).
Family Matters
in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms
Shayne Clarke
December 2013
Cloth -
Price: $52.00
ISBN: 978-0-8248-3647-4
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-9039-9780824836474.aspx
Prepublication
reviews are available from the UH Press website.
Abstract from the UH
Press website:
"Scholarly and popular consensus has painted a picture of
Indian
Buddhist monasticism in which monks and nuns severed all ties with
their
families when they left home for the religious life. In this view,
monks
and nuns remained celibate, and those who faltered in their “vows”
of
monastic celibacy were immediately and irrevocably expelled from
the
Buddhist Order. This romanticized image is based largely on the
ascetic
rhetoric of texts such as the Rhinoceros Horn Sutra. Through a study
of
Indian Buddhist law codes (vinaya), Shayne Clarke dehorns
the
rhinoceros, revealing that in their own legal narratives, far
from
renouncing familial ties, Indian Buddhist writers take for granted
the
fact that monks and nuns would remain in contact with their
families.
The vision of the monastic life that emerges from Clarke's
close reading
of monastic law codes challenges some of our most basic
scholarly
notions of what it meant to be a Buddhist monk or nun in India
around
the turn of the Common Era. Not only do we see thick
narratives
depicting monks and nuns continuing to interact and associate with
their
families, but some are described as leaving home for the religious
life
with their children, and some as married monastic couples. Clarke
argues
that renunciation with or as a family is tightly woven into the
very
fabric of Indian Buddhist renunciation and
monasticisms.
Surveying the still largely uncharted terrain of Indian
Buddhist
monastic law codes preserved in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese,
Clarke
provides a comprehensive, pan-Indian picture of Buddhist
monastic
attitudes toward family. Whereas scholars have often assumed
that
monastic Buddhism must be anti-familial, he demonstrates that
these
assumptions were clearly not shared by the authors/redactors of
Indian
Buddhist monastic law codes. In challenging us to reconsider some of
our
most cherished assumptions concerning Indian Buddhist monasticisms,
he
provides a basis to rethink later forms of Buddhist monasticism such
as
those found in Central Asia, Kaśmīr, Nepal, and Tibet not in terms
of
corruption and decline but of continuity and development of a
monastic
or renunciant ideal that we have yet to understand fully."
I
include below a detailed table of contents.
Chapter One. The Rhinoceros
in the Room: Monks and Nuns and Their Families 1
1. Indian Buddhist
Monasticisms 2
2. Conflicting Visions of the Ideal Monk 10
3. Indian
Buddhist Monastic Law Codes 18
4. The Family 21
5. A Preview of the
Inquiry 27
6. Reading Indian Buddhist Monastic Law Codes 29
7. A Note on
the Scope of the Present Study 36
Chapter Two. Family Matters 37
1.
Family Ties Set in Stone 39
2. From Home to Homelessness 45
3. Close
Shaves with Monkish Assumptions 56
4. The Family That Eats Together 58
5.
The Family That Stays Together 62
6. Like Father, Like Son 63
7.
Incidental Incidents and Pugnacious Parents 68
8. Families on Different Paths
72
9. Conclusions 74
Chapter Three. Former Wives from Former Lives
78
1. Monastic Education Concerning Sex with One’s Wife 80
2. Monks
Arranging a Marriage for Their Children 87
3. Procedures for Formal Marital
Dissolution 92
4. Relations between Married Monastics 96
5. A Monastic
Family: Udāyin, Guptā, and Their Son, Kumāra-Kāśyapa 99
6. Mahākāśyapa and
His Wife: Ascetic Values in Indian Buddhist
Monasticisms 106
7. Married
Monastics beyond India 115
8. Conclusions 118
Chapter Four. Nuns Who
Become Pregnant 120
1. Mothers Becoming Nuns 121
2. Nursing Nuns 124
3.
Monastic Motherhood 129
4. Nuns Becoming Mothers 134
5. Child Care and
Nannying Nuns 144
6. Conclusions 146
Chapter Five. Reconsidering
Renunciation: Family-Friendly Monasticisms 150
1. A View of the Evidence
150
2. Family-Friendly Monasticisms 152
3. Family-Friendly Monasticisms in
a Competitive Religious Marketplace 155
4. A Scholarly Misperception
162
5. Comparative Monasticisms 163
6. On the Utility of Vinaya Texts for
the Study of Indian Buddhist
Monasticisms 165
Notes 171
Works
Consulted 229
Index of Texts 263
Index of Authors/Subjects 267
A
detailed preview is available on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Family-Matters-Indian-Buddhist-Monasticisms/dp/0824836472/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389970977&sr=8-1&keywords=family+matters+in+indian+buddhist+monasticisms
Best,
Shayne
Clarke
Associate Professor
Department of Religious
Studies
McMaster University
University Hall, Room 104
1280 Main Street
West
Hamilton, Ontario
L8S 4K1
CANADA
Phone: 905 525 9140, ext.
23389
Fax: 905 525 8161
http://www.religiousstudies.mcmaster.ca/faculty/clarsha/
