ABSTRACT
This chapter continues on the same ethnographic terrain as Chapter 2. It focusses on the concrete activities of the Pemuda Buddhis organisation in Temanggung. It surveys the “safari vihara” initiative as a significant programme for injecting a sense of cohesiveness among the Buddhist residents of the highlands. The chapter shows how the project channels distinct ethnocultural declinations to the local Buddhist history, through the narratives and practices carried out on the ground. This is explored with a special focus on two different villages of the area, where contemporary Buddhism and Javanism appear to be streamlined into a unified perspective. At the same time, the youth group is the vehicle through which novel economic prospects and ritual systems seep into the religious life of the villages. The chapter pauses on the introduction of coffee businesses under the sponsorship of Buddhist institutions and the creation of an “enchanted” genealogy of rural Buddhism. The recurring preoccupation with ancestorial references is crucial in the articulation of a revitalised, time-deep Buddhism.
