Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law. Edited by Tom Ginsburg and Benjamin Schonthal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, xx + 384 pages, ISBN 978-1-00-928604-6 (hardback), $125.00, 978-1-00-928601-5 (e-book), $125.00, 978-1-00-928602-2 (open access PDF): https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/buddhism-and-comparative-constitutional-law/36B349A13BAFF639EC6E737A9C9FB186.
Reviewed by Miguel Álvarez Ortega
Thailand’s Buddhist Kingship in the 20th and 21st Centuries: Power, Influence and Rites. By Marie-Sybille de Vienne. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2022, viii + 278 pages, ISBN 978-1-03-204555-9 (hardback), $170.00, 978-1-00-319376-0 (e-book), $52.95.
Reviewed by Patrick Jory
Christina A. Kilby
James Madison University
This article is a critical-constructive application of the Buddhist ethical concept of the gift of fearlessness (abhayadāna) to the global refugee crisis and to nativist policy responses. Investigating classical South Asian literary sources on the gift of fearlessness, typically glossed as the offer of refuge or protection to those in danger, I present today’s refugee as situated at the nexus of two types of fear: the fear that drives vulnerable people to flee from harm and the fear that drives a potential refuge-offering state to close its borders or build walls. I argue that the gift of fearlessness, if extended beyond its classical scope to include the challenges of xenophobia and terrorism threats, is a capacious framework through which to probe the moral contours of contemporary refugee policy and the security concerns of states. Read article
André Laliberté
University of Ottawa
Introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics: “Buddhism and Politics.”
Masahide Tsujimura
Kobe University
Koyasan University
Since 1959, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has expressed the view that democratic reforms should be gradually carried out in the Tibetan political system. He did this by enlarging the connotation of the traditional Tibetan concept of chos srid zung ‘brel (union of dharma and polity). This paper will examine how the Dalai Lama succeeded in maintaining the traditional political concept of chos srid zung ‘brel in a modern Tibetan democracy by employing the idea of “compassion” to link “religion” and “secularism.”