Religious Motivation and the Origins of Buddhism A Social-Psychological Exploration of the Origins of a World Religion

Abstract

The articles on which this book is based were written between 1996 and 1999. During this time I was a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, writing a thesis on religious change in South Asia during the colonial period under the supervision of Professor Richard Gombrich. His writings are a constant source of inspiration. I have been lucky to have studied under generous and encouraging teachers both at the University of Oxford and at the University of Oslo. I wish to thank Professor Jens Braarvig and Professor Georg von Simson, who taught me Sanskrit and P¯ali. An earlier version of the second chapter of this book was written as an MPhil thesis under their supervision in 1995. As all my teachers must have realized, my greatest problem as a student was that I tried to do too many things at the same time. This book, which attempts to say something both about Buddhism and about the psychology of religion, is probably symptomatic. I would like to thank Professors Charles Prebish and Damien Keown, the editors of the series Critical Studies in Buddhism at Curzon Press, for their positive response when I approached them in the winter of 2000/1 with my proposal for this book. I am also grateful to Jonathan Price, chief editor at Curzon Press, for his constant optimism regarding this and other projects. I am indebted to the publishers who authorized the use of articles that had appeared in their journals. The details of these previous publications are given in the introduction below. During the years when the research for this book was carried out my work was generously financed by the Norwegian Research Council. As always, I owe many thanks to my family – Margrete, Kristian and Iris – for their patience and support. This book is dedicated to my friend and mentor Chung Lu Tsen.