Paper short abstract:

By studying the economic network of modern monasteries, this paper contends that consumerism is a fundamental feature in understanding Buddhism. It presents that the charging system of high entrance fee virtually generated a consumerist challenge to pilgrimage activities.

Paper long abstract:

Buddhism has been long idealized and isolated as an exemplary religion for the most refined nature of religious humanity ever since its reintroduction to the western world beginning in the nineteenth century. Prominent figures within the tradition who served as active preachers of their own interpretations have misled their global audiences by generating a falsified religious illusion covering by a thick icing of humanitarian discourse signified by compassionate peace. Nevertheless, Buddhism can never be defined statically according to certain phenomenal politics of impression. In the contrary, it has undergone several processes of transplantation and reinterpretation in its long history of transmission through which formed several interrelated but distinctive facets that were generated for responding the modern world. Previous scholarships have questioned the protestant presupposition of a true canonical interpretation of the religion by navigating through archaeological materials. Following similar trajectory, this paper attempts to approach the discussion from both archaeological and anthropological perspectives, to read the trajectory of political economy behind the consumerism of Buddhism. By studying the economic network that connected modern monasteries, this paper contends that consumerism is a fundamental feature in understanding the more comprehensive picture of the religion that has been overlooked. It not only presents that the charging system of high entrance fee virtually generated a consumerist challenge to pilgrimage activities, but also indicated that its close interaction with public commercial patronage activities created a critical platform in which the religious network maintained by secular pursuit.