The Understanding Buddhist Death Project uses the research that was gathered in the Bristol Buddhist Death Ritual Project which ran from 2007-2011.
The Bristol Buddhist Death Ritual Project was awarded funding by the AHRC. It was an interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropologists and experts in Religious Studies. The project was concerned with Laos and Thailand in Southeast Asia, and China, and was the first comparative academic study of Buddhist death rituals in these two very distinct cultural areas. Some of the chosen locations and rituals, such as the festivals for the dead in Laos and China, have not been documented before.
Project Staff
The project management combined scholars of different background and expertise:
• Ingmar Heise MA (Leiden) Ingmar was the project PhD student and worked on Chinese Buddhist death rites and the ghost festival, complementing the study of Southeast Asian rituals.
• Laura Frude MPhil (Bristol) Laura was the Research Assistant for the ‘Understanding Buddhist Death Project’. She has been involved in creating resources for schools and chaplains and has also been responsible for updating the website.
• John Kieschnick PhD (Stanford) John has published on the impact of Buddhism on Chinese culture. He was the project’s Co-Investigator and was responsible for the supervision of the PhD student.
• Patrice Ladwig MA (Münster), PhD (Cambridge) Patrice was the Research Assistant from August 2007 until June 2009 . He is a trained anthropologist and had already worked on death rituals in Laos.
• Rita Langer MA (Hamburg), Dip (Kelaniya), PhD (Hamburg) Rita is a trained Indologist with philological expertise and fieldwork experience, and has published in the area of Buddhist death rituals. For the first seven months of the project she was the Research Assistant for the area of Southeast Asian Buddhist rituals.
• Ailsa Laxton MA (Bristol) Ailsa was the Research Assistant for the last six months of the project. She has extensive experience in curating exhibitions and publications and was also responsible for setting up the project webpage.
• Paul Williams OPL, DPhil (Oxon) Paul is an established Buddhist scholar with a broad knowledge of various Buddhist traditions and editing experience. He was the Principal Investigator and project leader, oversaw the study and brought together the different strands of research.
Research Methods
Field work, as previous experience has shown, is most fruitful when confined to a manageable number of places and events. Patrice Ladwig researched the Southeast Asian context concentrating on Thailand (Chiang Mai and Bangkok) and Laos (Luang Prabang and Vientiane). These findings were compared with earlier field data collected by Rita Langer in Sri Lanka (four villages northeast of Colombo). Patrice Ladwig (partly joined by Rita Langer) spent seven months in Laos (timed to coincide with the fortnight of annual festivals for making offerings to the dead) and five months in Thailand. Ingmar Heise chose to focus on Fujian province in China where he spent nine months in 2007/08.
Outputs
Books
Ladwig, P, P. Williams et al. (2012). Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Book Chapters
Heise, I. (2012) “For Buddhas, Families and Ghosts: the Transformation of the Ghost Festival into a Dharma Assembly in Southeast China”, Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China. P. Ladwig and P. Williams. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. pp 217- 237.
Ladwig, P. (2012). “Feeding the Dead: Ghosts, Materiality and Merit in a Lao Buddhist Festival for the Deceased”, Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China. P. Ladwig and P. Williams. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. pp 119- 141.
Ladwig, P. and P. Williams (2012). “Introduction: Buddhist Funeral Cultures”, Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China. P. Ladwig and P. Williams. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. pp 1-20.
Langer, R (2012) “Chanting as ‘bricolage technique’: a Comparison of South and Southeast Asian Funeral Recitation”, Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China. P. Ladwig and P. Williams. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. pp 21- 58.
Articles
Ladwig, P. (2009). “Tales From the Field”, Subtext
Ladwig, P. (2012), “Being a guest in the realm of death: Death Rituals for the Living and the Materiality of Thai Buddhist Funeral Culture”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Films
Caring for the Beyond: Two Lao Buddhist Festivals for the Departed. Patrice Ladwig and Gregory Kourilsky. 35 mins, Lao with English subtitles and voice-over.
The Spirits’ Happy Days: Buddhist Rituals for the Dead in Southeast China. Ingmar Heise and Han Zhang. 45 mins, English voice-over
All video resources can be found on the documentary section of this website.
Exhibitions
Death and Dying in Buddhism: Glimpses into various Buddhist Cultures. Centre for Buddhist Studies, University of Hamburg, Germany: 18th October- 18th December 2009.
Ancestors and Hungry Ghosts: Buddhist Funeral Cultures in Southeast Asia and China. Photographique Gallery, Bristol: 23rd October- 11th November 2009.
Ancestors and Hungry Ghosts. University of Leeds: 1st- 25th February 2010.
