Enlightenment and the Gasping City: Mongolian Buddhism at a Time of Environmental Disarray

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Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko

Enlightenment and the Gasping City

Mongolian Buddhism at a Time of Environmental Disarray

Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko

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English

Cornell University Press
15 June 2019

Buddhism; Social & cultural anthropology; Pollution & threats to the environment

With air pollution now intimately affecting every resident of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko seeks to understand how, as a physical constant throughout the winter months, the murky and obscuring nature of air pollution has become an active part of Mongolian religious and ritual life. Enlightenment and the Gasping City identifies air pollution as a boundary between the physical and the immaterial, showing how air pollution impresses itself on the urban environment as stagnation and blur. She explores how air pollution and related phenomena exist in dynamic tension with Buddhist ideas and practices concerning purification, revitalisation and enlightenment. By focusing on light, its intersections and its oppositions, she illuminates Buddhist practices and beliefs as they interact with the pressing urban issues of air pollution, post-socialist economic vacillations, urban development, nationalism, and climate change.

By: Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781501737657
ISBN 10: 1501737651
Pages: 252
Publication Date: 15 June 2019
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration and Terms Introduction 1. Dust and Obscuration in a New Economy 2. A History of Enlightenment in Mongolia 3. Buddhism, Purification, and the Nation 4. Ignorance and Blur 5. Networks and Visibility 6. Karma and Purification 7. Removing Blockages, Increasing Energy 8. Temple Critiques 9. White Foods, Purification, and Enlightenment Conclusion: Stillness and Movement Glossary Notes References Index

Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko is a Teaching Fellow at New York University, Shanghai, and an Associate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

Reviews for Enlightenment and the Gasping City: Mongolian Buddhism at a Time of Environmental Disarray

This illuminating book will appeal mostly to professional scholars and graduate students in Mongolian and Buddhist studies. * Choice * Author Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko follows lay Mongolian Buddhists and invites us to reflect both on their discourses of light, which are explicitly linked to purification and religious. * Lion's Roar: Buddhist Wisdom for Our Time *