Description
Book SynopsisBattling the Buddha of Love is a work of advocacy anthropology that explores the controversial plans and practices of the Maitreya Project, a transnational Buddhist organization, as it sought to build the world''s tallest statue as a multi-million-dollar gift to India. Hoping to forcibly acquire 750 acres of occupied land for the statue park in the Kushinagar area of Uttar Pradesh, the Buddhist statue planners ran into obstacle after obstacle, including a full-scale grassroots resistance movement of Indian farmers working to Save the Land.
Falcone sheds light on the aspirations, values, and practices of both the Buddhists who worked to construct the statue, as well as the Indian farmer-activists who tirelessly protested against the Maitreya Project. Because the majority of the supporters of the Maitreya Project statue are converts to Tibetan Buddhism, individuals Falcone terms non-heritage practitioners, she focuses on the spectacular collision of cultural values betwee
Trade Review
Falcone draws on fieldwork and her own personal engagement with the resistance to describe the struggle over the creation of what would have been the largest-ever Buddha image.
* Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly *
Falcone's advocacy does not compromise the rigor or balance of her analysis. She draws on more than a decade of site observation and personal interviews to produce nuanced ethnographies of the various groups as they struggle with the unintended consequences of Buddhism's globalization.... It will be a valuable resource for serious scholars of contemporary Buddhism and for those studying Buddhism and anthropology.
* Choice *
As the title of this absorbing book Battling the Buddha of Love: A Cultural Biography of the Greatest Statue Never Built aptly describes, this lucid ethnography by Jessica Falcone explores the transnational life of a globalizing Tibetan Buddhist organization.
* Reading Religion *
This book is a fruitful intellectual effort that challenges the stereotypical narration of protests... The end notes are extremely illuminative. The strength of the work is the rigor shown by the author in the blending of religious studies, history, social and cultural anthropology, and interviews with people, both members of the FPMT and farmers.
* H- Net (H-Diplo) *
Dr. Falcone offers compelling insights into the concepts of temporality and futurity, grassroots activism in the face of a transnational organization, and the ethics of engaged anthropological practice.
* New Books in Anthropology *
The book opens the eyes of the readers as blind devotion blocks the critical mind and compassion, and can be lost in unrealistic, pink thinking. I highly reccomend it.
* Buddhismus Aktuell *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Meditation/DHYANA: Focusing on the Maitreya Project
Part One: The Transnational Buddhist Statue-Makers
1. Community/SANGHA: FPMT's Transnational Buddhists
2. The Teachings/DHARMA: Religious Practice in a Global Buddhist Institution
3. The Statue/MURTI: Planning a Colossal Maitreya
4. The Relics/SARIRA: Worship and Fundraising with the Relic Tour
5. Aspirations/ASHA: Hope, the Future Tense, and Making (Up) Progress on the Maitreya Project
Part Two: The Kushinagari Resistance
6. Holy Place/TIRTHA: Living in the Place of the Buddha's Death
7. Steadfastness/ADITTHANA: Indian Farmers Resist the Buddha of Love
8. Loving-Kindness/MAITRI: Contested Notions of Ethics, Values, and Progress
9. Compassion/KARUNA: Reflections on Engaged Anthropology
Conclusion: Faith/SHRADDHA: Guru Devotion, Authority, and Belief in the Shadow of the Maitreya Project
Epilogue: Rebirth/SAMSARA: The Future of the Maitreya Project
