Constrictive Constructs: Unravelling the influence of Weber's sociology on Theravada studies since the 1960s

Abstract

The present article assesses the substantial impact of Weber's sociology upon studies of Theravada Buddhism. In doing so, it reviews several important works on Theravada Buddhism with a view to analysing the use, influence and implications of Weber's sociology in Buddhist studies. After providing a broad overview of this influence in Theravada studies the discussion culminates with a more detailed discussion of the impact of Weber's sociology on the study and representation of Thai Buddhism.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Kate Crosby, Andrew Skilton, David Azzopardi, Alastair Gornall and Catherine Newell for their assistance in bringing this article to its final form, as well as the virtual access to SOAS library that they gave while the author was in Bangkok.

Notes

 1. According to Kilminster, in Britain alone there was a 450% increase in the output of sociology graduates between 1952 and 1966. In the 1960s, 28 new university departments of sociology were established in England. See Kilminster (1998, 147–149 and also Chapter 8).

 2. The phrase ‘Oriental societies’ is used here not only to specify geographically the East (Asian and African societies) as the separate entities from the West, but also to point to the idea that the West as the ‘I’ produces the knowledge of the East as ‘the other’. This idea of Orientalism connotes a relationship of power and hegemony between the West and the East, and reflects the idea that the history of the East as represented by the West is not necessarily real but what the West has generated. See Said (1995).

 3. See notes 1 and 2 in Bellah (1963, 52–53) for a list of works that had already employed Weber's ideas by the early 1960s.

 4. See Bellah (1963, 52–53 with notes 2–3). Also see Singer (1956, 1964).

 5. See Bellah (1963, 55 with note 9). Also see Elder (1959).

 6. See McClelland (1962).

 7. See Bellah (1963, 59) for Ames' paper ‘An Outline of Recent Social and Religious Changes in Ceylon’. The published year is not mentioned in Bellah (1963).

 8. Leach's ideas are mainly influenced by Durkheim's sociology. See Leach (1961, 296–301).

 9. I shall discuss Bechert's, Evers' and Obeyesekere's works below.

10. See Tambiah (1968).

11. That is, others scholars who apply Weber's sociology to the study of Buddhist societies. I am thinking in particular of Ames' (1963) ‘Ideological and Social Change in Ceylon’; de Young's (1955) Village Life in Modern Thailand; Kaufman's (1960) Bankhaud, A Community Study in Thailand; Leach's (1962) ‘Pulleyar and the Lord Buddha’; Spiro's (1965) ‘Religious Systems as Culturally Constituted Defense Mechanisms’; Wriggins' (1960) Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation; and Yalman's (1964) ‘The Structure of Sinhalese Healing Rituals’—see Bellah (1963, 52–59) for references to all of these works. Also see notes 2–10 in Obeyesekere's paper in Leach (1968, 58–59).

12. In fact, both Heinz Bechert and David Gellner have provided some assessment of Weber's sociology and considered the use of Weber's sociology in the field of Buddhist (and Hindu, for Gellner) studies: Bechert (1991) and Gellner (2001). However, both authors did so in order to defend the theoretical applicability of Weber's sociological ideas to Buddhist studies. Neither, in my view, provide sufficient practical evidence to support their arguments. My approach here is completely different in that I aim to stand back from the subject to give an overview of how influential Weber's sociology has become to the construction of academic knowledge in the field of Buddhist studies. (I shall then follow this with practical alternatives in subsequent publications.) The reason I think this is so important is that, by seeking to defend the use of Weber's sociology in this field, neither Bechert nor Gellner considered the implications or consequences of the use of Weber's sociology in this field. I deem this a major blind spot that I hope to shed light on in this paper.

13. My hermeneutical approach here is based on Gadama's hermeneutics. I use this methodology to help analyse and understand all the factors involved in the process of interpretation of both texts and the context. By this means, it can help better understand that academics come to a certain conclusion because of the combinations of: the methodology and theory used, their pre-understanding, and the types of information they gather. I base Gadamer's hermeneutical ideas on my reading of Gadamer (1975) Truth and Method.

14. Weber (1968) is translated by Ephraim Fischoff from the 4th German edition of Weber's Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1925), with appendices from his Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (1922) and Gesammelte politische Schriften (1921).

15. Weber says: ‘for sociological purposes there is no such thing as a collective personality which “acts”. When reference is made in a sociological context to a state, a nation, a corporation, a family or an army corps, or to similar collectives, what is meant is … only a certain kind of development of actual or possible social actions of individual persons’ (1968, 14).

16. Kate Crosby has pointed out to me that ‘ideal type’ is a transcription and anglicisation of the German phrase der Ideal-typ/us, rather than a translation, which unfortunately—given that it confuses the two main connotations of the German word Ideal and does not translate ‘Typus’—became universal in Weberian studies before a more appropriate translation, such as perhaps ‘theoretical exemplar’ or ‘notional model’, could replace it (personal communication).

17. Weber's The Religion of India, the Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism (1958) in English is translated from Weber's Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (1923). When I refer to Weber (1958), I should make clear that I am relying on the translation, not the original German, to access Weber (1923).

18. According to Bechert, Weber wrote that ‘there is “no bridge” from the ideal of one who has achieved deliverance (arhat) to the “world of rational activitity”—where rationality has naturally to be taken in Weber's own understanding of the term’ (Bechert, 1991, 182).

19. See note 1 in Bechert (1970, 761).

20. This phrase is from Bechert (1970, 1) and Bechert (1991, 186).

21. In Bechert (1991, 186), he agrees with Weber (1930) that there are ‘the influences of altered social and political conditions on the further development of the religion, and … consequences of these changes for economic development. The thrust of his (Weber's) thesis is that Buddhism, for the ruler, was particularly useful as a means of mass domestication’. Also see Bechert (1991, 184–189).

22. See the four concepts of kingship in Bechert (1970, 766–767).

23. This explanation appears in all of Bechert's papers (1970–1991).

24. The sources on Buddhism used by Weber referred to here are Hendrik Kern's Geschiedenis van het Buddhisme in Indië (1882–84), translated into German by H. Jacobi (1882–84), Kern's Manual of Indian Buddhism (1896), and Hackmann's Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher (1905–06). See Bechert (1991, 184–185).

25. See also Evers (1973) and Evers (1980, 6).

26. See also Obeyesekere (1963, 139, note 1).

27. Redfield (1956) uses the phrases ‘the Great tradition’ and ‘the Little tradition’ in his work on Peasant Society and Culture, while Slater (1951), in Paradox and Nirvana, a Study of Religious Ultimate with Special Reference to Burmese Buddhism, uses the phrases ‘the Buddhism of the monastery’ and ‘the Buddhism of the village’ to refer to the former and the latter, respectively. See also Obeyesekere (1963, 139 with notes 9 and 19) for a further explanation of Redfield (1956) and Slater (1951). Dumont and Pocock explain ‘the little tradition’ with the phrase ‘peasant culture’. See Obeyesekere (1963, 139–140) and Dumont and Pocock (1957).

28. In his Introduction to Leach (1968), Leach discusses how ‘practical’ dimensions of Buddhism can be explained by Hegel's concept of ‘dialectic’. Framing the main ideas in this way, all five articles in Leach (1968) show how the conception of ‘dialectic’ is applicable to explaining different local societies. The articles by Obeyesekere and Tambiah in Leach (1968) portray what they see as the self-contradictory nature of Buddhism through Weber's and Durkheim's ideas in a very Hegelian way.

29. My Weber (1930) is referred to by Obeyesekere as Weber (1963).

30. I accessed this paper in Obeyesekere, Reynolds, and Smith (1972). It was first published in Modern Ceylon Studies in 1970 (see fnote 1 in Obeyesekere, Reynolds, and Smith 1972). However, I indicated the published year 1970 here for chronological clarity in other references because, as will be mentioned later, Gombrich refers to the 1970 version.

31. See Obeyesekere (1970, note 15). See also Warner (1959, 1961).

32. Obeyesekere uses Durkheim (1915) to suggest that: Buddhism is ‘brought into the hub of events’ (Obeyesekere, 1970, 64); and ‘the Buddha images and other edifices located everywhere are visible public symbols of Buddhist nationalism like a flag or the totem’ (Obeyesekere, 1970, 64).

33. Influenced by Weber, Obeyesekere explains that ‘the doctrinal or theological corpus has been “transformed”—to use Weber's term—on the behavioral level. Such doctrinal transformations … occur under … the operation of social structural and economic variables’ (1970, 58).

34. Reading between the lines, this paper's methodology is: to visit and experience a place; to reflect on the spatial meanings of the place (from the author's perspective); to provide some evidence together with theoretical considerations to support the author's argument; and to explain society through the author's reflections.

35. This work of Obeyesekere was first published in 1982. However, in this paper, I use the second edition of Obeyesekere as published in 1990.

36. The American Spiro was a strong influence upon the Sri Lankan Obeyesekere's work, perhaps for two reasons. Firstly, Obeyesekere studied anthropology under Spiro; and, secondly, they shared interests (see next and below).

37. Under the influence of Jacob's lecture in 1956, Obeyesekere became interested in looking at the theme of ‘culture and personality’ in its relation to religious studies. This influence leads Obeyesekere to align himself with Spiro and Leach. See Obeyesekere (1990, xiv).

38. Also see above for the relationship between Obeyesekere, Spiro and Leach, which later influenced Obeyesekere's work.

39. While Gombrich's use of Weber presumably derives in large part from the influence of his teacher Obeyesekere, the addition of Popper to the mix seems to reflect the personal friendship between Gombrich's family and Popper.

40. The influence of Durkheim also drives Spiro's main argument in his paper ‘Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation’ to define ‘religion’ as ‘an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings’ (1966, 96).

41. Spiro's Buddhism and Society brings together three main ideas: ‘Durkheim's concern for religion as an instrument of social solidarity’ (1971, 425); Freud's conception that when (religious) beliefs can satisfy people's needs, they can function to provide a psychological motivation for each individual person; and Weber's idea that religious doctrines (particularly its soteriological doctrines) are ‘inimical to worldly action and hence to the development of rational, bureaucratic capitalism’ (1971, 427).

42. Gombrich (1971, 18). Cf. Gombrich (1971, 14–15) with note 14 in the present article. This principle thus formulated in fact appears to combine Weber's Wertrational and Zweckrational, respectively.

43. See Chapter 3 in Bechert (1966).

44. As Bellah (1965) explains, as a response to modernisation, each religion has to adapt itself through its development. While progressing through history, each religion has to specify and maintain its own ‘identity’, its own limited religious boundary that cannot be changed. At the same time, in interacting with socio-historical changes, religion has to re-adjust itself in order to be sustainable.

45. Gombrich's (1988) work chronicles Buddhism in ancient India from the Buddha's lifetime to the reign of Asoka, briefly covers Buddhism in Sri Lanka from the tenth to eighteenth centuries, and nineteenth-century ‘Protestant’ Buddhism in Sri Lanka. In Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988), the co-authors move away from writing about the long history of Buddhism to focus on the socio-historical changes of Buddhism in Sri Lanka from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries. In Bond's (1988) work, the main content chronicles Buddhism in Sri Lanka from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, but some parts of the work go further to cover Buddhism in ancient India from the reign of King Asoka up to the fifth century (for example, see Bond, 1988, 23–33).

46. This idea of ‘discontinuity’ is presented throughout Gombrich (1988). See the phrase ‘confusion and discontinuity’ in Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988, 29).

47. Gombrich and Obeyesekere indicate that they are taking two of Weber's meanings of rationality—namely ‘systematic … mastery of reality by means of increasingly precise and abstract concepts’, and the ‘methodical attainment of a definitely given and practical end by means of an increasingly precise calculation of adequate means’—but discard his use of ‘rationality’ in the sense of coherent, systematic thought since ‘virtually all human thought could be claimed to be at least partly rational in this sense’ (1988, 13). This distinction and the immediate economical/immediate empirical science models then strongly influence their subsequent use of the term ‘rationality’.

48. Gombrich and Obeyesekere deem this combination of societal involvement and meditation ‘theoretically impossible in Buddhist doctrinal terms’ (1988, 15).

49. From a paper Lewis delivered to a conference on religious pluralism at Bristol, UK, in April 1987, cited in Gombrich (1988, 12).

50. Also see Eliade's idea of ‘ecstasy’ as opposed to ‘enstasis’ in (Gombrich 1988, 453).

51. Bellah's idea of ‘religion and progress’ is influenced by Deutch. See Bellah (1965, 170–171, 202).

52. Both countries have maintained relative openness even during periods of relative instability contemporary with, and in some cases directly reflected in, some of the works under discussion. I am thinking here of the repeated political and sometimes economic crises in Thailand from the early 1970s onward and of the civil war, pan-ethnic unrest and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) uprising in Sri Lanka, as well as natural disasters in both. Under broadly parallel conditions, which of course differ in the specific, other predominantly Theravada countries (Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar) have entered varying degrees of selected and imposed isolation.

53. This phrase was already used by Bechert as the title of his monumental (and Weber-influenced) work, Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft, discussed above.

54. See Keyes (1989, 122–123). Keyes' explanation of Weber's interpretation of the concepts of karma first appeared in his work ‘Millenialism, Theravada Buddhism and Thai Society’ (Keyes, 1977), where he makes the connection between the doctrine of karma and the process of making Theravada Buddhist teachings relevant to the socio-political world. Also see Keyes (1983a; 1983b; 1983c); these three works provide a more in-depth analysis of concepts of ‘kamma’.

55. For Turner's ideas, see Turner (1969) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure. Many of Turner's works were published posthumously by Richard Schechner (see a list of Turner's works from the 1970s to 1980s in the reference list).

56. My thanks to Kate Crosby for repeated prompts over the years to open my eyes to potential alternative approaches other than the position taken by Suksamran, and the importance of seeing the stance of Suksamran and other Thais on this subject as best understood as an essentially locally comparative and also to some extent patriotic perspective. The disparity between the apparent relative contentment of Suksamran (and other Thai writers) and the apparent discontent or discomfort of outsider authors on Thailand has been influential in my attempts to unravel the constructs underlying writings on Thai Buddhism.

57. I shall discuss the writings of Jackson, Keyes and Swearer below.

58. See Zehner (1990).

59. See Taylor (1990).

60. We can perhaps see these developments both in terms of the development of a more matured field of studies, positioned to examine more detailed phenomena, as well as in terms of fragmentation and a move from broad West–East divisions and macro-politics to the emergence of a focus on local identities and issues that have affected many societies and fields of study in the post-Cold War period.

61. For the term ‘revitalization movement’, see Wallace (1956).

62. The term ‘capitalism’ is found in both Marx's and Weber's works. While Jackson's use of this term is influenced by Abercrombie et al. (as will be discussed later), most other scholars' use of the term is adopted from Weber (1930).

63. The process of secularisation is explained in Berge (1967).

64. The definition of ‘internal conversion’ is explained in Geertz (1973).

65. As Taylor (1990, 137–138) explains, ‘religious “virtuosi” in their original and essential separation from the wider social order are therefore … inevitably drawn into a settled and domesticated mode of life … Reformers in fact may exhibit certain theoretical features of the establishment religion … and reflect more certain pragmatic political orientations and aspirations’. See also Taylor (1990, note 8). Moreover, this idea appears in many places in Taylor's works (1990, 1993a, 1993b).

66. Following and adapting Marx, Abercrombie et al. emphasise the Marxist ideology of ‘class, capitalism, interests and conflicts’ in explaining society.

67. As formulated by Hill with reference to Abercrombie and Turner's (1980) The Dominant Ideology Thesis (see Hill, 1990, 2).

68. For materials in Thai, Keyes obtains information from the two non-scholar Thai Buddhist social critics Wasi and Sivaraksa, neither of whom belong to a reform movement.

69. See Swearer (1991, 633) and Swearer (1991, note 15).

70. Here, I refer to Obeyesekere's (1971) ‘Social and Ethical Transformation in Theravada Buddhism’ and ‘Personal Identity and Cultural Crisis: the Case of Anagarika Dharmapala of Sri Lanka’.

71. These are Geertz's words quoted in Bellah (1963, 57).