Releasing Urban Religion beyond the City Wall: The Spatial Capital of Early Buddhist Monasticism in NW South Asia
This paper examines the complexity of the entanglement between rural and urban space in historic South Asia through the lens of urban religion. The article is organized in two stages. First, ancient literature and archaeological evidence are used to rethink the centrality of the agrarian space in th...
| Published in: | Numen |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2023
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| In: |
Numen
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Asia (Nordost)
/ Swat
/ Buddhism
/ Urbanity
/ Monastery
/ Religious geography
/ Social mobility
/ History 300 BC-300
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| RelBib Classification: | AF Geography of religion BL Buddhism KBM Asia KCA Monasticism; religious orders TB Antiquity |
| Further subjects: | B
spatial capital
B Urban Religion B rural-urban B early Buddhist monasticism B Gandhara |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This paper examines the complexity of the entanglement between rural and urban space in historic South Asia through the lens of urban religion. The article is organized in two stages. First, ancient literature and archaeological evidence are used to rethink the centrality of the agrarian space in the formation and development of ancient cities and urban religions in South Asia. Second, by using the concept of spatial capital as an analytical tool I examine how the geographical assets held by Buddhist monastic institutions in the countryside affected the economic and social mobility of urban actors in the city. This second section uses the ancient city of Barikot (Swat, Pakistan) during the first three centuries of the Common Era as a case study. On this ground, I argue a direct connection between the prominent role of the saṃgha in the transformation of social, economic, and political aspects of the ancient urban society in South Asia and its ability to master geographical space and relativize distances. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5276 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Numen
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20231691 |