Vibrantly engaging contemporary Buddhist lives, this book focuses on the material and financial relations of contemporary monks, temples, and laypeople. It shows that rather than being peripheral, economic exchanges are key to religious debate in Buddhist societies.

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in countries ranging from India to Japan, including all three major Buddhist traditions, the book addresses the flows of goods and services between clergy and laity, the management of resources, the treatment of money, and the role of the state in temple economies. Along with documenting ritual and economic practices, these accounts deal with the moral challenges that Buddhist adherents are facing today, thereby bringing lived experience to the study of an often-romanticized religion.

Monks, Money, and Morality: The Balancing Act of Contemporary Buddhism; Edited by Christoph Brumann, Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, and Beata Switek; Bloomsbury Academic; Paperback; 264 pp; $32.95

Christoph Brumann is Head of Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, and Honorary Professor of Anthropology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Beata Switek is Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

CONTENTS: Monks, Money, and Morality
List of Illustrations		vii
Introduction: Sangha Economies Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, Christoph Brumann, and Beata Switek		1
PART ONE: Reciprocity, Money, and Trust
1	Economic Agency and the Spirit of Donation: The Commercialization of Buddhist Services in Japan Beata Switek	19
2	Merit, "Corruption," and Economy in the Contemporary Thai Sangha Thomas Borchert	37
3	Ritual Virtuosity, Large-Scale Priest-Patron Networks, and the Ethics of Remunerated Ritual Services in Northeast Tibet Nicolas Sihle	51
4	"Bad" Monks and Unworthy Donors: Money, (Mis)trust, and the Disruption of Sangha-Laity Relations in Shangri-La Hannah Rosa Klepeis	75
PART TWO: Beyond Reciprocity
5	Donations Inversed: Material Flows From Sangha to Laity in Post-Soviet Buryatia Kristina Jonutyte	93
6	Exorcising Mauss's Ghost in the Western Himalayas: Buddhist Giving as Collective Work Martin Mills	109
PART THREE: Managing Temples and Monasteries
7	Monks and the Morality of Exchange: Reflections on a Village Temple Case in Southwest China Roger Casa	127
8	Wealthy Mendicants: The Balancing Act of Sri Lankan Forest Monks Prabhath Sirisena	141
9	Monastic Business Expansion in Post-Mao Tibet: Risk, Trust, and Perception
PART FOUR: Capitalism, Decline, and Rebirth
10	Regeneration and the Age of Decline: Purification and Rebirth in Mongolian Buddhist Economies Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko	179
11	Saintly Entrepreneurialism and Political Aspirations of Theravadin Saints in Mainland Southeast Asia Alexander Horstmann	195
Notes		210
Bibliography		228
Notes on Contributors		247
Index		250