ABSTRACT
The field of Buddhist Studies has benefited greatly from a dramatic expansion in both the range and the scope of contemporary scholarship. In large part, this salutary trend has been linked with the re-examination of what Charles Hallisey and Anne Hansen have described as “an implicit two-tiered sociology of knowledge” at work in Buddhist Studies.1 This scholarly prejudice has tended to equate monastic texts and practices with “authentic” Buddhism, relegating the expressions and experiences of the laity-and, thus, of the vast majority of Buddhists-to the periphery, as derivative (if not corrupt) reflections of authoritative discourse.
