Ritualizing the Disposal of the Deceased: From Corpse to Concept

Description

Contents Acknowledgments ix Technical Notes xiii Illustrations xv Part One: The Culture of Death Chapter One. Hanging Out with Dead People 3 Disposal of Dead Bodies: A Cultural Phenomenon 4 Ritualized Disposal of Corpses 6 The Religious Context 11 Summary 19 Chapter Two. Manufacturing Buddhism 21 The Generation of a World Religion 22 Material Culture and Mistaken Identities 26 Are Religious Experts Really That Different from the Laity? 29 Summary 31 Part Two: Buddhalogical Incorrectness Chapter Three. Lies, Damn Lies, and Buddhist Texts 35 Bones, Stones, and Schopen’s Monks 36 The Myth of the Mahāyāna 38 Ghosts, Buddhist Gods, and Globalization 40 The Histories of Buddhism 41 Summary 42 Chapter Four. Stupa, Relic, and Hungry Ghosts 45 When One Burial Simply Will Not Do 46 Selling the Dharma 52 Relics Recapitulate Rituals 53 Summary 56 Chapter Five. The Domestication of Living Buddhist Traditions 59 Buddhalogical Incorrectness 62 Discussion and Possible Conclusions 64 Summary 66 Part Three: Mental Culture Chapter Six. When Meaning Doesn’t Matter Anymore 71 Symbolic Theories 74 Symbolism: When Representations Collide 80 Funtional Theories 82 Emotional Theories 83 The Evolution of the Social Mind 87 Practical Theories 88 Problems 89 Summary 90 Chapter Seven. Evolutionary Disgust 93 Are Dead Bodies Dangerous? 94 The Smell of Death 97 The Biology of Pollution and the Behavior of Disgust 100 Summary 102 Part Four: From Corpse to Concept Chapter Eight. Corpse, Concept, and Contagion Triggers 107 Experiments and Correlations 109 Vignette Analysis 1 112 Vignette Analysis 2 115 Discussion 118 Explanations 127 Summary 131 Chapter Nine. Memes, Genes, and Dead Machines 133 The Mental Culture of Dead Agents 134 A Cognitive Ethnography for Mortuary Behavior 145 From Ritualized Compulsions to Ritual Scripts 149 Conclusions 151 Appendix 153 Bibliography 165 Index 177