Description
Book SynopsisPolitics and religion have been major forces throughout history, and they still are as anyone who pays attention to current events can see. Understandably, the relationship between religion and politics calls for careful and ongoing scholarly exploration. At the same time, global centers of economic and military power are shifting from being concentrated in the West (Europe and North America) to areas in Asia, the world's largest landmass and home to the bulk of the world's population. Indeed, the twenty-first century is already shaping up to be the Asian century. Perhaps not surprisingly, just as in the West, so in Asia, societies have been and are still being shaped by religious and political forces.
Sacred Matters, Stately Concerns: Faith and Politics in Asia, Past and Present examines the complex and intertwined nature of politics and religion in diverse cultures within Asia, ranging from China and Japan to Indonesia, Pakistan, and India. By their very nature, the ess
Table of ContentsContents: Doug Oetter: Map Of Asia – John M. Thompson: She skillfully manages the Affairs of State and Sangha: Empress Wu as Chinese Cakravartin – Lisa Grumbach: The Creation of Ritual Meat Avoidance by Japanese State Systems – Ronald Y. Nakasone: Unarigami, Sacred Feminine Voices in Ryūkyūan Polity – LaiYee Leong/Eunsook Jung: Islam and the State in Contemporary Indonesia – Norris W. Palmer: Articulating Religious Identity in the Context of Ayodhya – Chuck Fahrer: The Political Geography of Pakistan: Competing Religious and Ethnic Nationalisms – Warner A. Belanger: Some Preliminary Remarks on ‘State Protection’ Buddhism in Khotan in the Late 8th-Early 9th Centuries – Jeffrey L. Richey: Jackie Chan as Confucian Critic: Contemporary Popular Confucianism in China.
