We're excited to have Sam King today to speak about the intersection of Buddhism and rice cultivation in Sri Lanka. Sam King is a graduate student in religion and ecology at Yale Divinity School where he also served as a teaching assistant for our course in Asian religions and ecology. He has been a key part of our team in preparing these online courses. His title, as you can see, is Buddhist Agricultural Rituals in Ppcountry Sri Lanka. This is in a stunning area of the world known for its rich biodiversity and whose civilization has been shaped largely by that of the Indian subcontinent. In this lecture Sam draws on his field research during a Fulbright grant in Sri Lanka to describe how Buddhism is intimately woven into the realities of rice cultivation. He elucidates that while Buddhism is often misunderstood as an otherworldly tradition, its lived experience reflects a religious ecology orienting people towards a reverential and reciprocal relationship with the living Earth. This particular case study is quite extraordinary, and I hope you enjoy this talk. Hi. My name is Sam King, and I'm a graduate student in religion and ecology at Yale Divinity School. This presentation is titled Buddhist Agricultural Rituals in Upcountry Sri Lanka; drawing on my year of field research in the central highlands of the island. Buddhism is sometimes misunderstood as an ascetic tradition concerned with transcending a world of suffering in the pursuit of enlightenment. This was the position of the famous German sociologist Max Weber who wrote that Buddhism is fundamentally a world denying tradition. However, I'd like to suggest that Theravada Buddhism has long been concerned with orienting practitioners to life in this world, whether it's stories of ideal kingship and canonical texts, the worship of physical relics associated with the Buddha or the importance of lay people in providing the material welfare of the Sangha with the community of monks. In this presentation I'll describe how Theravada Buddhism orients rural Sri Lankan people to life in this world through a religious ecology grounded in the process of rice cultivation. I'll start by briefly locating us in the geography of Sri Lanka before offering some remarks on the emergence of Buddhism. The island country of Sri Lanka is a subtropical landmass in the Indian Ocean and considered one of the most biodiverse places in the world. Its location, along a historic trade route off the southern tip of India, has also given rise to the island's great cultural and religious diversity across time. It was once part of the Indian subcontinent from which the indigenous Vedda community first arrived. Its close proximity to India has yielded a variety of influences such as the arrival of Buddhist and Hindu traditions. Theravada Buddhism first came to Sri Lanka in the third century before the common era, when the great Indian Emperor, Ashoka, sent his son a Buddhist monk named Mahinda to convert an ethnically Sinhalese king named Devanampiya Tissa in the capital of Anuradhapura. Ashoka's daughter, a Buddhist nun named Sanghamitta, later followed by bringing a sapling from the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment in what is now modern day Nepal. This sacred tree known as tree Mahabodhi persists today as a famous pilgrimage site signaling the enduring presence of the Buddhist teachings or the dharma. It also reflects the ways in which Buddhism has long oriented practitioners toward a reverential and reciprocal relationship with the natural world. Buddhism became the official religion of Anuradhapura kingdom which spanned from the fourth century before the common era, to the 11th century CE. By the fourth century CE, the Chinese pilgrim, Fa-Hien, observed about 8,000 monks in its two largest monasteries, some of whom were even followers of the Mahayana tradition that mainly flourished in East Asia. These monasteries were patronized by kings who derive their authority through their role as chakravartins or ideal Buddhist monarchs said to be turning the wheel of dharma to provide the worldly conditions necessary to support the Sangha. In other words, the monks were thought to be the most important members of the religious empire though the king's played an essential role in their flourishing. The Sri Lankan historian, Ananda Coomaraswamy, once observed that ancient Sinhalese society was a community based on rice. Indeed, archaeological evidence from Anuradhapura reveals the presence of large rice troughs that fed thousands of resident monks, as well as elaborate irrigation systems drawn from massive water tanks in this primarily dry region. A close relationship thus emerged between religious culture and the cycles of rice cultivation, a tradition that persists in the rituals I'll discuss momentarily. Buddhism continues as the most populous religion in Sri Lanka primarily among the Sinhalese people, who constitute about 75 percent of the population. Over time though, it's adopted a variety of influences from Hindu devotionalism in which gods have been incorporated into the Buddhism Pantheon as protectorates of the tradition as well as from local animist traditions that ascribe spirit presences to the living Earth. In that way, Sri Lankan Buddhism can be understood as a syncretic tradition that has woven together a number of different influences across time. The village where I lived for nearly a year and conducted my fieldwork is located in the Nuwara Eliya district, east of the Mahaweli river in the last central highlands of the island. This region was formerly a part of the Kandyan kingdom. In fact it was a region where the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha was once hidden from British colonists before they deposed of the last king Vikrama Rajasinha in 1815. During the Kandyan kingdom, farmers occupied an exalted status in the highest caste known as Goyigama. In other words, those who cultivated the land were considered the most karmically virtuous members of Buddhist society next to the community of monks and this caste sensibility still persists today. Rice continues to be the mainstay of the Sinhalese diet, and in many ways it mediates the expression of Buddhist culture in upcountry Sri Lanka. Rice crops are planted twice per year on terraced rice paddies during the island's two monsoon seasons. The cycles of cultivation are infused with rituals that express a reciprocal relationship with the local landscape and with the larger cosmos. The paddy fields are considered a sacred space akin to a Buddhist temple and village farmers demonstrate this by removing their shoes before entering them. Villagers raise their palms together and bow to the metal tools they use to till the paddies as well as to the young seedlings once placed in the ground; reflecting the ways in which the material sources of life are considered sacred. Similarly, water buffaloes are venerated as integral members of the living landscape. Traditionally, they played a central role in rice cultivation by driving an ard through the muddy paddies in the process of tilling and by plotting over newly harvested rice crops to separate the rice from the chaff. Villagers also practice a special Adukku ritual in which they make offerings such as coconut roti, pumpkin, and banana flowers to the water buffalo while applying turmeric powder to their foreheads as a blessing. A shamanic figure known as a gurunnase also blows a conch shell to petition a protectorate god known as Gambara for his blessings over the water buffalo. In this way, the water buffalo becomes an intermediary to the divine; affirming the ritual need to venerate the animal and ensure its strength for the arduous demands of rice cultivation. Worship in a village such as Akiriya is therefore not only directed toward the Buddha, the gods or the village monks, but toward the land itself including the animals and the tools needed to cultivate. After about three months of a growing season, when the monsoons subside, the rice paddies turn from verdant green to golden yellow, signaling the time for harvest. The villagers prepare by making a circular threshing field out of dried cow dung known as a sacred Kamatha. Historically, they place a branch from a Na tree in the middle of the Kamatha and carve an astrological symbol composed of concentric circles to pay homage to the gods, often associated with planets. The circles fulfill both a pragmatic function in conducting water out of the Kamatha as well as a spiritual function by petitioning gods for their blessings over the harvest. In this space, special language is used for words like water, rice and buffalo. Traditionally, farmers recite poetry to the buffaloes as they plod over the newly harvested rice crops. The harvest is therefore seen as a sacred interchange with the land and with the cosmic forces that sustain life at this liminal stage of human relationship with the Earth. After the rice is threshed and winnowed, the villagers take a portion of the first rice crop and offer it to the Buddha and various guardian deities in a dramatic all night ritual called the New Rice Festival. It's believed that this ritual traces back to the ancient kingdom of Anuradhapura where the first rice crop was offered to the Buddha at the sacred Sri Mahabodhi tree. The villagers typically process over to the temple, traditionally with drummers and dancers, where they make elaborate offerings including betel leaves and coconut milk rice. It's only after this rice is ritually offered to the Buddha that villagers are justified in consuming the rice themselves; a practice that both affirms the worldly need for rice cultivation while expressing a certain detachment from desire through an act of Dana or generosity. In the months after the harvest, villagers take turn offering rice and coconut milk based curries to the village monks, generating merit through the act of giving. Rice is also prepared and offered on a variety of other occasions such as weddings, funerals, puberty rituals, New Year celebrations and merit transfer ceremonies for deceased ancestors. In these ways, rice becomes a source of both physical and spiritual nourishment by generating karmic blessings that can benefit practitioners in this world and help them attain a favorable rebirth in the next life. I'd like to conclude by suggesting that while Theravada Buddhists aspire toward eventual liberation from the cycles of rebirth, in practice, they are utterly dependent on rice cultivation for both their physical and spiritual sustenance. From a canonical perspective, this resonates with the Buddhist teachings of a middle path that, rejects extreme ascetic practices that deny the importance of bodily health on the spiritual journey. Theravada Buddhism therefore has a steady commitment to the practice of what right livelihood in this world, a reality that lives on through the continual cycles of rice cultivation. Thank you
