This book offers a case study in religious and cultural change. Sri Lanka is the home of one of Asia's most pluralistic religious cultures; four major religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity - have found a permanent home within its boundaries. This makes it an ideal laboratory for the study of how religious traditions mix.
John Holt here examines the career of a single deity, who began as the Indian Mahayana Buddhist bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, was assimilated to the indigenous Sinhala god Natha, and ultimately became identified with the bodhisattva Maitreya - the next Buddha of the future, expected by virtually all Buddhist traditions of Asia.
- ISBN10 0195064186
- ISBN13 9780195064186
- Publish Date 11 April 1991 (first published 1 January 1991)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 286
- Language English