Building a Religious Empire - (Encounters with Asia) by Brenton Sullivan (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book focuses on the story of the Geluk (Tibetan Dge lugs) school of Tibetan Buddhism, the most widespread school of Tibetan Buddhism, best known through its symbolic head, the Dalai Lama. The vast majority of the monasteries in Tibet and Inner Mongolia-a landscape that makes up a third of the territory of today's China-as well as those in Mongolia are Geluk monasteries. Historically, these monasteries were some of the largest in the world, and even today some of the largest Geluk monasteries house thousands of monks both in Tibet and in exile in India. To understand how this came to pass, this book reveals the compulsive efforts by Geluk lamas in the early modern period to prescribe and control a proper way of living the life of a Buddhist monk and to define a proper way of administering the monastery. These lamas drew on the sort of administrative techniques usually associated with state-making-standardization, record-keeping, the conscription of young males, the concentration of manpower in central cores, and so on-thereby earning the moniker "lama official" or "Buddhist bureaucrat" (Tibetan bla dpon). They also thereby succeeded in establishing a relatively uniform and resilient network of monasteries stretching from Ladakh to Lake Baikal, from Beijing to the Caspian Sea"--

Book Synopsis

The vast majority of monasteries in Tibet and nearly all of the monasteries in Mongolia belong to the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism, best known through its symbolic head, the Dalai Lama. Historically, these monasteries were some of the largest in the world, and even today some Geluk monasteries house thousands of monks, both in Tibet and in exile in India. In Building a Religious Empire, Brenton Sullivan examines the school's expansion and consolidation of power along the frontier with China and Mongolia from the mid-seventeenth through the mid-eighteenth centuries to chart how its rise to dominance took shape.

In contrast to the practice in other schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Geluk lamas devoted an extraordinary amount of effort to establishing the institutional frameworks within which everyday aspects of monastic life, such as philosophizing, meditating, or conducting rituals, took place. In doing so, the lamas drew on administrative techniques usually associated with state-making--standardization, record-keeping, the conscription of young males, and the concentration of manpower in central cores, among others--thereby earning the moniker "lama official," or "Buddhist bureaucrat."

The deployment of these bureaucratic techniques to extend the Geluk "liberating umbrella" over increasing numbers of lands and peoples leads Sullivan to describe the result of this Geluk project as a "religious empire." The Geluk lamas' privileging of the monastic institution, Sullivan argues, fostered a common religious identity that insulated it from factionalism and provided legitimacy to the Geluk project of conversion, conquest, and expansion. Ultimately, this system succeeded in establishing a relatively uniform and resilient network of thousands of monasteries stretching from Nepal to Lake Baikal, from Beijing to the Caspian Sea.

Review Quotes

While this book is a must-read for anyone interested in Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhist monasticism, this is also a volume that offers rewarding insights into how religious organizations function and succeed in general and thus could be of interest to scholars studying other religious empires and traditions.-- "Religious Studies Review"

This work is a good start in mapping the institutional changes and constants of Gelukpa monasteries in Tibetan Buddhist regions...[T]his book is worth both reading and engaging with for its close engagements with a topic that deserves attention.-- "Journal of the American Academy of Religion"

A remarkable and virtually unprecedented achievement in Tibetan studies, Building a Religious Empire is an original and substantial contribution to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and the role they played in East Asian history.-- "Gray Tuttle, Columbia University"

About the Author

Brenton Sullivan teaches religion at Colgate University.