Young, Jonathan A.

Dissertation Abstract

ADORNMENTS OF VIRTUE: THE PRODUCTION OF LAY BUDDHIST VIRTUOSITY IN THE UPSAKAJANLAKRA Jonathan A. Young, Ph.D. Cornell University 2011 The Upsakajanlakra emerged as a medieval, Pli language, Buddhist compendium sometime in the late 12th or early 13th century. This text represents one of the fullest, systematic approaches to the literary production of an ideal, Buddhist lay virtuoso known within Pli Buddhist literature. The teachings that the text has selectively incorporated from other Buddhist texts, and strategically arranged according to the unique vision of the author, explain what the ideal lay virtuoso, upsaka, must do in order to achieve the many rewards, or felicities, that it promises. I present a critical analysis of this Pli compendium in order to arrive at a clear understanding of the intentions imbedded within the text. In doing so, I argue that this compendium seeks to provide an authoritative image of non-monastic religiosity, a project which complements a larger historical process in which monastic institutions expanded their hegemony outward to regions distant from the political and economic centers. I then examine the reemergence of this compendium, with its translation into Sinhala, during the final decades of the Kandyan kingdom (ca. 1800). I assess both the broader historical context of the rise of the Siyam Nikya and the micro-historical context of the socio-political relationships within which the texts author, Moratoa Dhammakkhandha, lived. In this second part of the dissertation, I conclude that Dhammakkhandha may have shared similar concerns to those found in the Pli original. However, I also conclude, through an examination of the Sinhala version of the text, that Dhammakkhandha was not concerned solely with representing and clarifying the teachings of the Pli for a Sinhala readership, but with the display of literary cultural capital, courtly prestige, and the protection and well being of the kingdom.