Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah
Sri Lankan social anthropologist renowned for his work on Buddhism, ethnic conflict, and ritual in South and Southeast Asia; longtime professor at Harvard and author of influential works such as Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality and Buddhism Betrayed?.
Books
This list of books are ONLY the books that have been ranked on the lists that are aggregated on this site. This is not a comprehensive list of all books by this author.
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1. The Buddhist Saints Of The Forest
and the Cult of Amulets
An anthropological portrait of modern Thai Theravada Buddhism that explores the veneration of ascetic forest monks as charismatic saints and the mass popularity of protective amulets linked to their perceived powers. Through fieldwork and historical analysis, it shows how monastic charisma, ritual economies, and patronage networks connect rural villagers, urban devotees, and the state, revealing tensions between ascetic ideals, magical efficacy, and the bureaucratic Sangha in a rapidly changing society.
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2. Buddhism And The Spirit Cults In North East Thailand
An ethnographic study of northeastern Thai religious life that analyzes how Theravada Buddhist doctrines and institutions coexist, interact, and are reinterpreted alongside local animist spirit cults; it traces the rituals, mediumship, healing practices, and village ceremonies through which ghost beliefs and spirit worship are integrated into everyday moral and social order, showing how ideas of karma, merit-making, authority, and social conflict are negotiated in practice and how popular religion adapts to changing economic and political conditions.
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