Politics and Sanga Community in Sri Lanka
Abstract
The main objective of this paper is to explore how Buddhism was cruciallyinfluenced on change of the political regimes in the pre and post- independence politicsin Sri Lanka. The trend of the politics in Sri Lankan society is becoming morecomplicity because Buddhism which is the main religion of the majority of the people inSri Lankan society has crucial impact on practice of the general politics. Buddhism isvery strongly called as a spiritual religion which has appeared for the ordinary peopleemancipation from the bad secular social practices and beliefs. Further, since Buddha‟sparinibbana (attain to spiritual world) it has been maintain and sustain by the MahaSanga which are Buddha‟s Dharma school. Therefore, Sanga community, have strongethical and spiritual objectives than secularize desires which base on Buddha‟s originalteaching. Sri Lanka is one of the countries in South Asia which has been practicingBuddhism as a spiritual religion in terms of Theravada Buddhism through their SangaCommunity. Therefore, Maha Sanga has strong spiritual objectives than secularizingtheir day to day social practices which base on original principles of Buddhism. Thereare some evidence in Buddha‟s teaching on Maha Sanga regarding political involvementon statehood or politics, yet rapid trends and evidence have been shown on powerpolitics that religion has crucially influence and effect on politics by Sanga communitythan their spiritual objectives, Why? Many scholars have done researches on Buddhismand Politics in Sri Lanka however this research will try to find out the effects of basicsocial, economic and cultural factors that motivate Sanga community There are manyscholars have done research on Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka however thisresearch, this research will try to find out the effects of basic social, economic andcultural factors that motivate Sanga community interfering to practical politics in preand post Independence politics in Sri Lanka. Discourse analysis which is one of the poststructural methods of scientific inquiry in social science research, will be applied as amajor research method in this research. Therefore, previous discourses and argumentwill be critically re-interpret and re-produce in this research. Therefor, previous willbenefit researchers who wants to do same research with utilizing discourse analysis.
Key words: Spiritual buddhism, Buddhas teaching, Secular practices, Statehood andsanga
