RETHINKING LIVING BUDDHIST HERITAGE: MONASTIC NETWORKS AND TRANSREGIONAL AUTHORITY IN SRI LANKA AND SOUTH ASIA

Abstract

Background: This study examines how core Buddhist teachings are constituted and perpetuated through lived religious practices and institutional forms. Buddhadhamma refers to the teachings generated during the enlightenment of the Buddha, which have been transmitted over the past 2, 560 years through doctrinal teaching, moral practice, and the Buddhist monastic institutions. However, it has been preserved within the Pāli canon and understood for centuries of Buddhist learning. Their persistence depends not only on textual but also on the social and institutional processes of reproduction. Since the Mauryan period (321-185 BCE), Buddhism has shaped both the material and immaterial landscapes of South Asia. While scholarship has frequently approached Buddhist heritage through architecture, archaeological documentation, or textual transmission, this study argues that Buddhist heritage in Sri Lanka is better understood as a dynamic socio-religious process that is sustained through interconnected monastic networks. From its early expansion, Buddhism moved across political and cultural boundaries through the circulation of monks, relics, texts, and ritual practices, embedding doctrinal authority within institutional and ritual forms. Sri Lanka, one of the most enduring centers of Theravāda continuity, provides a compelling case. Sacred sites such as Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, and the Temple of the Tooth Relic in Kandy function not merely as historical monuments but as active religious environments sustained through monastic lineages, ritual traditions, and devotional communities.

Involvement to Buddhadhamma: Living heritage traditions associated with these sacred landscapes embody core principles of Buddhadhamma. Monastic discipline enacts sīla (Ethical Conduct) as a foundational structure for both monastic and lay communities, while the preservation of the monastic regulations reflects the persistence of the tradition of the Vinaya in the Theravāda practice. Pilgrimage promotes acts of piety and charity that bring about puñña (Merit), which underlies mutualism between the monastic Saṅgha and lay followers. In this exchange, the Buddhist ethical values are replicated in everyday social life. Ritual cycles materialize teachings on anicca (Impermanence) through repetition, renewal, and commemorative performance. At the same time, Paññā (Wisdom) and compassion are cultivated not solely through scriptural study but through embodied participation in ritual practices, religious education, and communal activities which are organized by monastic institutions. Monastic networks thus operate as the structural nexus through which ethical practice, sacred sites, doctrinal continuity, and social organization are continuously reproduced. In this way, Buddhadhamma is sustained not merely as textual doctrine but as lived, relational practice embedded within heritage sites and institutional structures. This framework highlights how religious institutions transform doctrinal teachings into lived practices that sustain the Theravāda tradition.

Conclusions: By situating sacred centers within networks of monastic lineage, governance, and transregional affiliation, the article challenges static models of heritage that isolate monuments from lived religious practice. Instead, it advances a processual understanding of Theravāda continuity in which authority and identity are actively negotiated through ethical discipline, ritual performance, institutional organization, and devotional participation. From this perspective, Sri Lanka emerges as a pivotal doctrinal and institutional node within both South Asian and global Buddhist networks. The endurance of Buddhadhamma in this context does not rely only on the preservation of texts or monuments but on the ongoing interaction between monastic communities, sacred landscapes, and lay practitioners. Living Buddhist heritage, therefore, represents an active religious framework in which the teachings of the Buddha are sustained through embodied practice, interdependence, and institutional resilience rather than preservation alone.