Why a volume by an English professor on Buddhism's role in Sri Lanka's Sinhala-Tamil civil war when the list of expert works on it is so long? The welcome response is that Patrick Grant introduces a mode of analysis that illuminates the ways in which particular Buddhist perspectives have fueled this civil war. True to his craft, Grant insightfully, compellingly, and provocatively focuses on the role of language, rhetoric, and imagination in the formation of ideologies that have worsened this conflict.

Grant investigates the discourses of three major figures responsible for the rise and continuation of an exclusivist Sinhala Buddhist nationalism that has fashioned a kind of Buddhist “just war” mentality—Anagarika Dharmapala, Walpola Rahula, and J. R. Jayewardene—centering around the theory that their rhetoric constitutes “regressive inversion,” a process of moral and imaginative failure instigated when a universal, liberating religious vision is redeployed to supercharge passions associated with loyalty to a particular group. It is “regressive” in that it affirms exclusionary identities that a universal religious vision was designed to transcend. It is “inversion” in that the illusory and dangerous attachment to identity that characterizes this process gains its power by the appropriation of language originally intended to release people from such suffering-inducing attachments.

Part I, “Reading Buddhism,” begins to highlight the dangerous nature of the nationalists' rhetoric by presenting what Grant regards as an ideal model of Buddhist discourse, found in the suttas of the Pali tipitaka. Buddha's words, in eminently skillful fashion, pursue a “middle way” between “disjunctive” and “conjunctive” speech, providing a dialogical model that is fundamental to Buddhism's meaning and practice. “Disjunctive” expressions disengage audiences from passionate involvement in the world of suffering; they are designed to move unawakened listeners closer to the goal of nonattachment. While disjunctive language is central to achieving nirvana, equally important are “conjunctive” modes of verbalizing, designed to ensure that compassionate engagement in the world and with the common but complex troubles of human life is also taught. Both modes of discourse are employed in a way that Buddhist texts emphasize, which is careful attention to the particular condition of the listener. Just as Buddhist traditions celebrate Buddha's unsurpassed ability to liberate individuals with words best suited to liberate them, given their current level of understanding, Grant praises, after full examination, the self-reflexive approach to language shown in Buddha's sermons, with their imaginative and effective use of such varied modes of discourse as conversation, learned exchange, parable, analogy, irony, and humor. Buddha skillfully uses disjunctive and conjunctive language, avoiding the respective extremes of uncaring isolation from perceived others and further bondage to samsara.

Part II, “Reading Sri Lanka,” argues that the major architects of exclusivist and prejudiced Sinhala Buddhist nationalism have too often fallen into these extremes in their discourses, largely because of their failure to grasp imaginatively how Buddha used language in ways essential to the Buddhist project. A well-covered topic, the role of the chronicle Mahavamsa in the Sinhala nationalist movement, is treated first, necessitated by Grant's identification of the common problem of a literalist interpretation of this text by the nationalists and the followers they encourage. Space considerations prevent me from giving justice to the richness and nuance of Grant's analyses of these men's rhetorical expressions and how they might be linked to Buddhists' justifications of and participation in the conflict. In each case, Grant queries the inconsistency between championing Buddhism's universal values of nonviolence, compassion, and tolerance, and insisting on Sinhalas' racial distinctness and superiority, their unique historical role of preserving the only pristine form of religion, and Sri Lanka's stature as the world's only essentially Buddhist culture. Grant sees Dharmapala's equation of Buddhism and science as linking religion and race in a way that demonized others and overlooked the moral usefulness of the suttas' literary strategies to bring prejudice, fear, and hatred to light and transcend them. Rahula relativized Buddhist morality so often in writing that he jettisoned assertedly inviolable nonviolence in the name of Sinhalas' sacred duty to serve country and religion, even through war. Jayewardene's purely intellectual construct of Buddhism as a purely individual, internal path and emphasis on danger of synthesizing different cultures promoted a Buddhism lacking in compassionate engagement with others, at a time of violently hateful treatment of those perceived as absolutely and threateningly other.

Grant's stated intention is to provide accessible introductions to Buddhism and the central aspects of the Sri Lankan conflict. But his treatment of fundamental Buddhist principles is too cursory and his examination of figures and events is too selective to serve this purpose. However, he succeeds enormously in all respects touched on here. Scholars who are interested in the Sri Lankan situation in particular or the subject of religion and conflict more generally will benefit enormously, as would classes on these subjects, provided more background on Buddhism and modern Sri Lankan history is given.