Battling the Buddha of Love: A Cultural Biography of the Greatest Statue Never Built

by Jessica Marie Falcone

Overview

Battling the Buddha of Love is a work of advocacy anthropology that explores the controversial plans and practices of the Maitreya Project, a transnational Buddhist organization, as it sought to build the "world's tallest statue" as a multi-million-dollar "gift" to India. Hoping to forcibly acquire 750 acres of occupied land for the statue park in the Kushinagar area of Uttar Pradesh, the Buddhist statue planners ran into obstacle after obstacle, including a full-scale grassroots resistance movement of Indian farmers working to "Save the Land."

Falcone sheds light on the aspirations, values, and practices of both the Buddhists who worked to construct the statue, as well as the Indian farmer-activists who tirelessly protested against the Maitreya Project. Because the majority of the supporters of the Maitreya Project statue are converts to Tibetan Buddhism, individuals Falcone terms "non-heritage" practitioners, she focuses on the spectacular collision of cultural values between small agriculturalists in rural India and transnational Buddhists hailing from Portland to Pretoria. She asks how could a transnational Buddhist organization committed to compassionate practice blithely create so much suffering for impoverished rural Indians.

Falcone depicts the cultural logics at work on both sides of the controversy, and through her examination of these logics she reveals the divergent, competing visions of Kushinagar's potential futures. Battling the Buddha of Love traces power, faith, and hope through the axes of globalization, transnational religion, and rural grassroots activism in South Asia, showing the unintended local consequences of an international spiritual development project.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501723483
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2018
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jessica Marie Falcone is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Kansas State University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Meditation/DHYANA: Focusing on the Maitreya Project
Part One: The Transnational Buddhist Statue-Makers
1. Community/SANGHA: FPMT's Transnational Buddhists
2. The Teachings/DHARMA: Religious Practice in a Global Buddhist Institution
3. The Statue/MURTI: Planning a Colossal Maitreya
4. The Relics/SARIRA: Worship and Fundraising with the Relic Tour
5. Aspirations/ASHA: Hope, the Future Tense, and Making (Up) Progress on the Maitreya Project
Part Two: The Kushinagari Resistance
6. Holy Place/TIRTHA: Living in the Place of the Buddha's Death
7. Steadfastness/ADITTHANA: Indian Farmers Resist the Buddha of Love
8. Loving-Kindness/MAITRI: Contested Notions of Ethics, Values, and Progress
9. Compassion/KARUNA: Reflections on Engaged Anthropology
Conclusion: Faith/SHRADDHA: Guru Devotion, Authority, and Belief in the Shadow of the Maitreya Project
Epilogue: Rebirth/SAMSARA: The Future of the Maitreya Project

What People are Saying About This

Catherine Becker

Jessica Falcone’s Battling the Buddha of Love is a gripping and personal account of the troubling circumstances surrounding the attempts by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition and the Maitreya Project to create the largest Buddha statue in the world. Falcone’s work will be illuminating to a new generation of students who may find themselves on uncertain—even hostile—terrain during their fieldwork

Editorial Reviews

Falcone draws on fieldwork and her own personal engagement with the resistance to describe the struggle over the creation of what would have been the largest-ever Buddha image.

Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

As the title of this absorbing book Battling the Buddha of Love: A Cultural Biography of the Greatest Statue Never Built aptly describes, this lucid ethnography by Jessica Falcone explores the transnational life of a globalizing Tibetan Buddhist organization.

Reading Religion

The book opens the eyes of the readers as blind devotion blocks the critical mind and compassion, and can be lost in unrealistic, pink thinking. I highly reccomend it.

Buddhismus Aktuell

As the title of this absorbing book Battling the Buddha of Love: A Cultural Biography of the Greatest Statue Never Built aptly describes, this lucid ethnography by Jessica Falcone explores the transnational life of a globalizing Tibetan Buddhist organization.

-- "Reading Religion"

Dr. Falcone offers compelling insights into the concepts of temporality and futurity, grassroots activism in the face of a transnational organization, and the ethics of engaged anthropological practice.

-- "New Books in Anthropology"

Falcone draws on fieldwork and her own personal engagement with the resistance to describe the struggle over the creation of what would have been the largest-ever Buddha image.

-- "Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly"

Falcone's advocacy does not compromise the rigor or balance of her analysis. She draws on more than a decade of site observation and personal interviews to produce nuanced ethnographies of the various groups as they struggle with the unintended consequences of Buddhism's globalization.... It will be a valuable resource for serious scholars of contemporary Buddhism and for those studying Buddhism and anthropology.

-- "Choice"

The book opens the eyes of the readers as blind devotion blocks the critical mind and compassion, and can be lost in unrealistic, pink thinking. I highly reccomend it.

-- "Buddhismus Aktuell"

This book is a fruitful intellectual effort that challenges the stereotypical narration of protests... The end notes are extremely illuminative. The strength of the work is the rigor shown by the author in the blending of religious studies, history, social and cultural anthropology, and interviews with people, both members of the FPMT and farmers.

-- "H- Net (H-Diplo)"

From the Publisher

"Falcone's advocacy does not compromise the rigor or balance of her analysis. She draws on more than a decade of site observation and personal interviews to produce nuanced ethnographies of the various groups as they struggle with the unintended consequences of Buddhism's globalization.... It will be a valuable resource for serious scholars of contemporary Buddhism and for those studying Buddhism and anthropology."

Choice

"Jessica Falcone’s Battling the Buddha of Love is a gripping and personal account of the troubling circumstances surrounding the attempts by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition and the Maitreya Project to create the largest Buddha statue in the world. Falcone’s work will be illuminating to a new generation of students who may find themselves on uncertain—even hostile—terrain during their fieldwork"

Catherine Becker

Dr. Falcone offers compelling insights into the concepts of temporality and futurity, grassroots activism in the face of a transnational organization, and the ethics of engaged anthropological practice.

New Books in Anthropology

This book is a fruitful intellectual effort that challenges the stereotypical narration of protests... The end notes are extremely illuminative. The strength of the work is the rigor shown by the author in the blending of religious studies, history, social and cultural anthropology, and interviews with people, both members of the FPMT and farmers.

H- Net (H-Diplo)