Table of Contents

Introduction John Clifford Holt and Jacob N. Kinnard 1. Communal Karma and Karmic Community in Theravada Buddhist History Jonathan S. Walters 2. Toward a Theory of Buddhist Queenship: The Legend of Asandhimitta John S. Strong 3. Beggars Can Be Choosers: Mahakassapa as a Selective Eater of Offerings Liz Wilson 4. The Insight Guide to Hell: Mahamoggallana and Theravada Buddhist Cosmology Julie Gifford 5. When the Buddha Sued Visnu Jacob N. Kinnard 6. Minister of Defense? The Visnu Controversy in Contemporary Sri Lanka John Clifford Holt 7. Localizing Lineage: Importing Higher Ordination in Theravadin South and Southeast Asia Anne M. Blackburn 8. Preacher as a Poet: Poetic Preaching as a Monastic Strategy in Constituting Buddhist Communities in Modern Sri Lanka and Thailand Mahinda Deegalle 9. "For Those Who Are Ignorant": A Study of the Bauddha Adahilla Carol S. Anderson 10. Interpretive Strategies for Seeing the Body of the Buddha James R. Egge List of Contributors Index

About the Author

John Clifford Holt is Professor of Religion at Bowdoin College and the author of The Religious World of Kirti Sri: Buddhism, Art, and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka. Jacob N. Kinnard is Assistant Professor of Religion at the College of William and Mary and the author of Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the Art of Indian Buddhism. Jonathan S. Walters is Associate Professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Whitman College and the coeditor (with Ronald Inden and Daud Ali) of Querying the Medieval: Texts and the History of Practices in South Asia.