Buddhist Law in the Legal Multiverse

Although they are often imagined as rarified systems of clerical rules, the legal practices of Buddhist monks cannot and should not be understood outside of the broader legal ‘multiverse’ in which they exist. From the earliest periods of Buddhism, regimes of monastic law have coevolved and intertwined with other forms of legality authorised by customs, kings, colonists and modern nation-states. Even the Buddha was said to have been a legal bricoleur, basing some of his disciplinary rules on the edicts of local rulers. In this talk, I reflect on the multi- and inter-legality of Buddhist monastic law, drawing on archival, ethnographic and survey research with Buddhist monastic courts and legal codes in Sri Lanka.

Benjamin Schonthal is Professor of Buddhist Studies and Head of the Religion Programme at the University of Otago in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where he also co-directs the Otago Centre for Law and Society. Ben received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and has held visiting positions at Northwestern University, the Institute for Advanced Studies (Bielefeld) and the Law School at the University of Chicago. Ben's research examines the intersections of religion, law and politics in South and Southeast Asia. He is the author of Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law (CUP, 2016) and co-editor of Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law (CUP, 2023, with Tom Ginsburg). His current book project, Law's Karma, supported by the Royal Society of New Zealand, examines the institutions,  politics and practices of Buddhist law in contemporary Southern Asia.