ABSTRACT
This chapter describes on a cultural phenomenon that is intrinsic to contemporary Buddhism. It refers to the proliferation of Buddha statues everywhere in the nation and sometimes in close proximity or even adjacent to Catholic, Hindu and Muslim places of worship. Juxtaposed with the highly abstract universal ethical concepts from doctrinal Buddhism are their concrete particularistic opposites, namely, bestiality, incest, parricide and violence. On the one hand it represents a shift of power that has occurred on the political level – political power is effectively in the hands of the Sinhala-Buddhist population. Ceylon is ‘claimed’ for the Sinhala-Buddhists, by the Sinhala-Buddhists. The symbolic significance of the act is obvious: it expresses the displacement of Catholicism as a manifest public force and the substitution of Buddhism in its place. Buddha statues were enshrined within temple or vihara premises and meant for worship; never in the long history of Buddhism has it been part of a public showpiece.
