Religious Motivation and the Origins of Buddhism: A Social-Psychological Exploration of the Origins of a World Religion [Paperback]

I was delighted to find that someone had written a study of Buddhism from a sociological angle. I was not disappointed with the book. I have only two quibbles. The first chapter, an essay justifying the use of some Vinaya texts as reliable sources for studying the Buddhism of Gotama's time, contains several German passages which are untranslated. It is still possible to take something out of the chapter, but it detracted from my comprehension of the issues addressed therein. Second, I would have preferred that the sociological-theoretical angle of analysis was more deeply explored with more specific theories. The chapters of the book break down as follows:

1: The Khandaka of the Vinaya Pitaka
2: Religious Motivation & The Relationship Between the Early Samgha & The Laity
3: Religious Motivation & The Theme Of Conversion
4: Social Psychology & The Religious Motivation Of The Early Buddhists
5: Religious Motivation & The Role Of Fear
6: Religious Motivation & The Merit Of Giving

The only chapters that dealt heavily and specifically with different theories of social psychology were chapters 2 and 4. These were excellent, but since there is already plenty of scholarship on giving (dana) in Buddhism, I would have liked to see chapter 6 heavily reduced in favor of more material like that found in chapters 2 and 4.

Chapter 5 was interesting and backed with lots of good textual sources. As in chapter 6, these were taken from various Indian cultural/religious sources, not just Buddhist ones. For example, Brekke included Jain material in several places to compare/corroborate Buddhist social trends. However, I thought that the chapter's extreme clarity came at the price of being slightly repetitive. Chapter 6 was particularly repetitive, moreso than chapter 5. I think that Brekke starts really strong, but by chapters 5 and 6 starts running out of things to say. But since both these chapters are still useful and the others are excellent, it's not a serious flaw to the book.

Chapter 3 was extremely interesting! It offers a new take on Buddhist conversion that challenges the notion that Buddhism's Dhamma spread purely on the basis of its quality and insight. Brekke suggests that the induction of fear, similar to the "fire-and-brimstone preaching" stereotype about Christian proselytizing, played a large role in Buddhist conversionism. This assertion is strongly backed by the appropriate ancient sources.

Chapter 2 also was very good. Among many things, it explored possible social reasons for the stringency of the rules found in the Vinaya (monastic code of discipline). It is suggested that the monks needed to appear respectable in order to receive lay support, and so much of monastic regulation served the purpose of producing a particular "image" of what monks should look like. (A devout Buddhist could nonetheless, and I think legitimately so, claim that these regulations still have a practically useful function of anchoring the bhikkhu in constant mindfulness.)

I won't give too much away, but if you have any interest in the subject matter then this book is definitely worth reading. It offers several new perspectives for thinking about Buddhism, all backed by a plethora of excellent source material.

The excellence of the scholarship and the ample amount of source quotation is in fact the reason that this book gets five stars instead of four, despite its minor shortcomings. I did not notice any assertion that was not backed by a plenitude of textual/historical material.

I think that if you want to gain a more sophisticated understanding of the historical Gotama movement, studying either as a scholar or a devoted Buddhist, then you will probably be very satisfied with what this book can offer.

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