I do not see this as a radical position. I have no doubt that almost all archaeologists interested in religion would agree. The two categories of research presented above do not translate into categories of archaeologists. Renfrew is inter- ested in broader theoretical issues, just as Insoll attempts to develop archaeological methodologies.
The difficulty for all concerned is bringing these two approaches together. In my own research I have found ritual to be an effective bridge between the materials I typically come across as an archaeologist and the broader theoretical concerns that orient my interest in religion. Ritual Ritual is religion in action; it is the cutting edge of the tool.
It is ritual which accomplishes what religion sets out to do. When religion is viewed as a collection of myths, origin stories, and ethical principles, there is little in the material world that can be used to investigate it.
Admittedly, archaeologists regularly come across iconographic elements depicting gods or similarly religious themes. But what are we to do with them? We might find depictions of what appear to be divine turtles, for instance. As for the significance of the turtles—it is almost impossible to say without some other, nonarchaeological, source to rely on. The solution to this problem is the recognition that religion is not simply something that people think, but is also something that people do see Fogelin in press b for an expanded discussion of this point.
Ritual is religiously motivated action, and these actions can and do leave material traces of their practice. If people sacrifice for their gods, archaeologists can identify the sacrificed materials. If people congregate to engage in worship, archaeologists can identify the spaces used to congregate in. As will be discussed in greater length in chapter 4, rituals are typically regularized and repeated affairs.
Thus, the material traces will often be added to, and made more distinct, with each performance. Not all rituals are religious. Nor are all religious ideas or principles enacted through rituals see Bell for an excellent review of ritual. These understandings can, in turn, be analyzed in terms of existing theories concerning the nature, function, and form of religion. These interests brought me to Thotlakonda, an Early Historic Period c.
My research at Thotlakonda Monastery is situated within broader anthropological approaches to ritual. In my investigations I examine religion, as it was practiced, within a dynamic social structure of competing concerns in daily life. The challenge of my work is the identification of the material consequences of religious practice.
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To this end, I focus on architecture and landscape. While I am interested in religious symbolism, I also consider the implications of the physical layout of architecture on social interactions among ritual participants.
Archaeology of Early Buddhism - Buddhism - Oxford Bibliographies
These interactions are shown in patterns of visibility and through principles derived from Western and non-Western theatrical design. My approach links religious and other architectural spaces within a regional landscape of meaning and interaction. I employ architecture to derive the social implications of spaces, and landscape to link them within a larger social context. Though the focus of this book is on Early Buddhism in South India, it is my hope that the methods and approaches I present here will have value for archaeologists working in a wide variety of geographic and religious contexts.
Early Historic Period Buddhist Monasteries Since its beginnings in the nineteenth century, the study of Early Buddhism has combined investigations of early Buddhist texts and archaeological remains. The twentieth century brought new approaches and insights to the study of Early Buddhism. To simplify the range of earlier interpretations of Buddhist monasticism, two different approaches to their broader social role can be identified.
Using Buddhist monastic texts as a guide, these scholars believed that monasteries were centers for extended meditation and religious learning. By the s, with an emphasis on materialism, a new interpretation of Buddhist monasticism began to emerge. Again to simplify, this approach saw monasteries as economically oriented and actively engaged in broader social re- lations.
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This economic approach was extended by sub- sequent scholars such as Ray , , Lahiri , and Heitzman , Heitzman, and to a lesser degree Ray, suggested that Buddhist monasteries were also actively engaged in promoting agricultural production, serving as the nuclei of agrarian communities on the peripheries of developing states. When comparing the newer and older interpretations of Buddhist monasticism, an interesting contrast is formed—religious disengagement versus economic engage- ment.
What follows is an argument for a third permutation—religious engagement. In this I do not mean engagement in terms of Buddhist doctrine, but in the prac- tice and conduct of daily ritual. I argue that this ritual role in society has been underappreciated in the existing scholarship on Early Historic Period Buddhist monasticism. An element common to all of the previous discussions of Buddhist monasticism is that they are based upon a combination of Buddhist texts and ar- chaeological excavations of the monasteries in isolation for an exception, see Shaw , Yet most previous interpretations of the social role of monasteries make claims to the broader social context in which monasteries were found.
My research over the last two years in Andhra Pradesh has been oriented toward in- vestigating and evaluating all of these potential roles for Buddhist monasticism by directly examining the local context of a single monastery. Thotlakonda Monastery The Buddhist monastery of Thotlakonda is located sixteen kilometers north of the modern city of Visakhapatnam in north coastal Andhra Pradesh see figure 1.
Sitting on a low hill overlooking the Bay of Bengal, it is one of three monasteries in the immediate area. The closest monastery, Bavikonda, lies on an adjacent hill less than two kilometers from Thotlakonda Prasad , The excavators dated occupation of the site between the second and third centuries B. Between November and March , and again in January through March , I directed a program of systematic archaeological surface survey in the area immediately surrounding Thotlakonda with a team of Indian graduate students Fogelin b, c, , in press a.
After six months of fieldwork over two years, we surveyed 7. In the floodplain below the hill we found a large non-monastic settlement. A study of the development of Buddhist visual narratives on key monuments from the 1st century BCE to the 6th century CE and beyond, with special reference to the sites of Bharhut, Sanchi, Amaravati and Ajanta, and the region of Gandharan.
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Edited by Perala Ratnam, 7— International Academy of Indian Culture, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India: A comprehensive historical review of the Buddhist sangha and its monuments using textual, architectural, and archaeological sources from the earliest times to CE. A comprehensive overview containing a study of the development of Buddhist monuments within South Asia from the earliest times and a valuable regional-based description of key sites.
Although still an essential source, its sequences and regional reviews are substantially out of date. Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks: University of Hawaii Press, His work utilizes architectural and epigraphic materials to demonstrate the importance of what monks, nuns, and laypeople actually did and demonstrates the difference between early practice and precept. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login. Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Sign up for My OBO. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution. Fogelin has effectively integrated modern theory on ritual, practice, and landscape with archaeological data from a key south Indian Buddhist monastery-Thotlakonda-to create a stimulating explanation of its place within a complex political, economic, and social setting. It is certain to become a classic in the field. It will, like no other, allow the historian and textual scholar to see what can and cannot be learned from the archeological study of a seemingly ordinary Buddhist monastery in early India.
Fogelin's definition of the practice of phenomenology, incidentally, deserves to become a classic. Fogelin puts his perspective to the test in a nuanced exploration of ritual space, material culture, and sacred landscapes in and around an early historic Buddhist monastery in Southeast India.
Archaeology of Buddhism
In so doing, he provides a valuable model for future scholars of religion to follow and makes important contributions to scholarship on early Buddhism and South Asian archaeology and to the larger audience of archaeologists and anthropologists interested in the study of ritual and religion. Fogelin's writing is very clear, even when approaching the sticky bits of archaeological theory like shudder Marxism and phenomenology. It is illustrated throughout with excellent maps, diagrams and photographs, and references are comprehensive.
He addresses the place of ritual in the relationships between monks and the laity from the perspective of practice theory, along with the social roles and tensions of the monastery more generally.