Buddhism under Capitalism

[The] volume as a whole challenges the common stereotype that Buddhism is a world-denying religion not involved in economic activities. While gift-merit exchanges were acknowledged and encouraged at the time of the Buddha, such exchanges have gradually transformed into more nuanced and complex ones affiliated with commodification in a money economy. * Religious Studies Review *

Richard K. Payne is the Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, USA, and a member of the Graduate Theological Union’s Core Doctoral Faculty. He is author of Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan: Indic Roots of Mantra (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Fabio Rambelli is Professor of Japanese Religions and ISF Endowed Chair in Shinto Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions (Bloomsbury, 2021), Defining Shugendo (Bloomsbury, 2020) Spirits and Animism in Contemporary Japan (Bloomsbury, 2019), The Sea and the Sacred in Japan (Bloomsbury, 2018), and author of A Buddhist Theory of Semiotics (Bloomsbury, 2013).