ABSTRACT
Buddhism, as a religion and a philosophy of life, has influenced the world in many different ways – as a source of inspiration for peace and forgiveness, a symbol of simplicity (due to the practice of renouncing material attachment) and the practice of meditation. Due to the widespread influence of its religious as well as its secular philosophy, Buddhism has been considered ‘the single shared experience among half the world’s population’ (Fisher 1993: 7). Similarly, it is considered ‘the one complex of images and ideas that unites the Asian world’ (Leidy 2008: 1) and thus ‘…has shaped in fundamental ways both the religious and cultural heritage of most of Asia’ (Peleggi 2012: 56). In the past 2,500 plus years of its influence, Buddhist heritage has manifested in diverse forms and expressions in cultural landscapes across the Asian continent. 1 This diversity in Buddhist cultural heritage ranges from living monasteries to ancient cave temples, from historic wall paintings to prayer flags containing religious texts and figures, from elaborate statues to small clay tablets enshrined within stupas, from austere traditions pursued by the monks to popular traditions embedded in laity’s everyday life, and from the sites associated with the Buddha’s life events to sites of new cultural centres. In addition to this rich cultural heritage guided by Buddhism over millennia, Buddhist philosophy has influenced modern professional fields, including ecological and cultural conservation, among others. In recent years, nature conservation, particularly forestry and wildlife conservation, has directly embraced Buddhist philosophy as a way to advance the agenda of environmental conservation (see e.g. Tucker and Williams 1997, as well as a brief discussion later in this chapter). In cultural heritage conservation, however, Buddhism has posed some challenges to contemporary thinking on conservation, which is the subject of this chapter. Though it is hard to find any explicit reference to heritage conservation in any Buddhist literature, this chapter explores the concept of heritage conservation within the Buddhist context. The notions of impermanence, cyclic conception of existence, and the lack of any substantial essence in all conditioned things, including heritage, drawn from Buddhist philosophy and practices, are used as reference points.
