Published in September 2011 by Routledge as part of their “Critical Studies in Buddhism” series, “The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China: Charisma, Money, Enlightenment” by Dan Smyer Yu explores the intricate entanglements of recent Buddhist revivals with cultural identity, state ideology, and popular imagination of Tibetan Buddhist spirituality in contemporary China.
From the Routledge website:
Based on detailed cross-regional ethnographic work, the book demonstrates that the revival of Tibetan Buddhism in contemporary China is intimately bound with both the affirming and negating forces of globalization, modernity, and politics of religion, indigenous identity reclamation, and the market economy. The analysis highlights the multidimensionality of Tibetan Buddhism in relation to different religious, cultural, and political constituencies of China. By recognizing the greater contexts of China’s politics of religion and of the global status of Tibetan Buddhism, this book presents an argument that the revival of Tibetan Buddhism is not an isolated event limited merely to Tibetan regions; instead, it is a result of the intersection of both local and global transformative changes.
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