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From cakravartin to bodhisattva: Buddhist models for globalization
Signe Cohen
Journal:

Journal of Global History / Volume 18 / Issue 3 / November 2023

Published online by Cambridge University Press:

09 October 2023, pp. 426-438

Print publication:

November 2023
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This article examines globalization in an Asian context through the lens of two Buddhist concepts: the cakravartin and the bodhisattva. A cakravartin is a ruler who fuses spiritual and political power in his global reign. This article argues that the cakravartin represents one model of Buddhist globalization where the spread of the religion coincides with the growing military dominion of a BuddhGist king. A bodhisattva, on the other hand, is an enlightened being who has chosen to be reborn out of compassion with the entire suffering world. A bodhisattva watches over a ‘Buddha field’, or spiritual realm. Each Buddha field has its own laws, culture, language, or even separate forms of time and space. The bodhisattva provides a new model for understanding cultural diversity in the absence of a unified political power: the Buddhist world is a transnational network where new identities are negotiated.

5 - Buddha in the Ring of Fire
from Part I - Classical Foundations
- By Stephen Jenkins
Edited by Margo Kitts, Hawai'i Pacific University, Honolulu
Book:

The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War

Published online:

04 May 2023

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11 May 2023, pp 114-140
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Summary

This chapter dispels the guiding misconception of Buddhist pacifism, historically and textually, with reference to its origins in the early transmission of Buddhism to the West and the influence of mistranslations of ahiṃsā in the distorting modern discourse of “nonviolence” versus violence. At the same time, it highlights the Buddhist ideal of nonharm and the nuanced ways in which Buddhists applied compassionate values to the avoidance of armed conflict, the effective and ethical conduct of warfare, and postwar reconciliation.

Edited by Margo Kitts
Published online:

04 May 2023

Print publication:

11 May 2023
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This Companion offers a global, comparative history of the interplay between religion and war from ancient times to the present. Moving beyond sensationalist theories that seek to explain why 'religion causes war,' the volume takes a thoughtful look at the connection between religion and war through a variety of lenses - historical, literary, and sociological-as well as the particular features of religious war. The twenty-three carefully nuanced and historically grounded chapters comprehensively examine the religious foundations for war, classical just war doctrines, sociological accounts of religious nationalism, and featured conflicts that illustrate interdisciplinary expressions of the intertwining of religion and war. Written by a distinguished, international team of scholars, whose essays were specially commissioned for this volume, The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of the history and sociology of religion and war, as well as other disciplines.