Description
Book SynopsisThrough vivid ethnography and keen observations of media events,
Karma and Grace illuminates disputes over religious freedom and pluralism amid the rise of charismatic Christianity in Sri Lanka.
Trade ReviewNeena Mahadev’s book is a fascinating, innovative work of religious anthropology that explores the historical co-formation of modernity and religion in Sri Lanka. This remarkable book is not a conventional study of Buddhist and Christian doctrines as tranquil and sequestered in their own spheres, but as inter-religion. It offers an incisively observant critical study of living Buddhism and Christianity in their contestatory common life in modern Sri Lanka. -- Sudipta Kaviraj, author of
The Invention of Private Life: Literature and IdeasCrisscrossing a landscape fraught with political and religious conflict, Neena Mahadev's ethnographic skill and generosity yield rare insights. Politically alert, theologically informed, and ethically sensitive, she finds not just familiar hostilities but unexpected convergences. This is an exemplary anthropology for a religiously plural world. -- Webb Keane, author of
Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social HistoriesNeena Mahadev articulates subtle ethical and social differences between Buddhist and Christian communities in Sri Lanka in this theoretically sophisticated and meticulously researched study. Despite its historical and ethnographic complexity, her engaging and clear writing style makes this book accessible to advanced scholar and beginning student alike. This book should inspire new comparative religious research in South Asia and beyond. -- Justin Thomas McDaniel, author of
Wayward Distractions: Ornament, Emotion, Zombies, and the Study of Buddhism in ThailandKarma and Grace is a tour de force that is bound to become a classic in the emerging field of anthropology and political theology. Mahadev aptly charts the interreligious as an everyday, theopolitical, ritual space; a practice and temporality of mushrooming conversions, nationalistic fears, covenant gifts, the Christian miraculous, and Buddhist messianism, with and beyond the Sri Lankan case. -- Valentina Napolitano, author of
Migrant Hearts and the Atlantic Return: Transnationalism and the Roman Catholic ChurchKarma and Grace explores religious conflict and coexistence amidst the postwar rise of Sri Lankan Buddhist nationalism. Mahadev provides a refreshingly complex treatment of religious pluralism, productively exploring the Sri Lankan story with a focus on the everyday experiences of people living in religiously mixed communities. An important account of interreligious accommodation in a context known for violence and intolerance. -- Naomi Haynes, author of
Moving by the Spirit: Pentecostal Social Life on the Zambian CopperbeltTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Map
Introduction: Inter-Religion in Sri Lanka
A Note on Terms: Defining “Evangelical”
1. Tangles of Religious Perspectivism: Economies of Conversion and Ontologies ofDifference
2. Charity and Dāna: The Selfish Gift?
3. Mediating Miracles
4. A Cacophonous Exuberance: Modulating Miracles, Defending Sovereignty
5. Samsaric Destinies, Religious Plurality, and the Maverick Dialogics of Buddhist Publicity
6. A Spectrum from Sincerity to Skepticism: Ordinary Biographies of Converts, Apostates, and Dual Belongers
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
