carried folded up and put into a breast pocket; it would
be sacrilegious to carry them in a lower pocket. These
amulets are especially popular in Cambodia. Texts or
magical diagrams can also be written on larger pieces
of cloth or paper and carried folded up in other types
of containers, such as cloth pouches or lockets made
of wood, brass, or silver. This type of amulet is used
in Tibet and China.
Amulets derive their power from the blessings of
monks with reputations for being exceptionally holy
and mystically powerful. The amulets can be seen as
small objects in which the power of the sacred is crys-
tallized, as with holy relics. Once crystallized, this
power can be used by ordinary people who are not
themselves holy or powerful. This power comes from
both the words—Pali or Sanskrit blessings—and the
personal power of the monks who chant them. The
right words must be spoken by the right person for the
transfer of power to be effective. Individual monks ac-
quire this power after years of meditation; it is demon-
strated by their ability to perform miracles. The ideal
monk is an ascetic hermit who spends his days in med-
itation and who has been ordained since he was a boy.
While amulets are most commonly worn for gen-
eralized protection, they often have very specific pro-
tective properties. A given amulet, for instance, may
protect against puncture wounds (such as those from
bullets or knives), but not against crushing wounds
(such as those from truncheons). It is not unusual to
see men, and to a lesser extent women, wearing sev-
eral amulets. Special metal neck chains are made for
this purpose. Thriving amulet markets can be found
near some large urban Buddhist monasteries. The
value of an amulet is a function of the power of its ini-
tial blessing (which derives from the holiness of the
monk who blessed it), its age and rarity, and any his-
tory of demonstrated efficacy that is attached to it. An
amulet is more valuable if it is known, for example, to
have saved someone from a terrible car wreck.
See also:Merit and Merit-Making; Relics and Relic
Cults
Bibliography
Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja. The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and
the Cult of Amulets: A Study in Charisma, Hagiography, Sec-
tarianism, and Millennial Buddhism.Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1984.
MICHAELR. RHUMANAGARIKA DHARMAPALAAnagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933) was the leading fig-
ure in the Sri Lankan Buddhist renaissance that sought
to restore Buddhism during the late colonial period.
Born Don David Hevavitarana into an elite Sinhala Bud-
dhist family, he met Colonel Henry Olcott and Madame
Elena Petrovna Blavatsky and joined their newly formed
Buddhist Theosophical Society in 1884 in Sri Lanka
(then Ceylon). Seeing the depressed condition of Bud-
dhism in both Sri Lanka and India, Dharmapala took it
as his mission to revive Buddhism. In his work he sought
to enable Buddhists to address the twofold task of re-
covering their identity and finding ways to respond to
modernity. Creating a new role for himself in Bud-
dhism, he became an anagarika(homeless one), who
was neither a monk nor a layperson, and he took the
name Dharmapala (protector of the dharma).
A tireless activist, Dharmapala worked in India, where
he founded the Maha Bodhi Society and sought to restore
the Buddhist shrine of the sacred bodhi tree at the site of
the Buddha’s enlightenment in BODHGAYA. Through his
writings and his brilliant oratory, he critiqued the colo-
nial and Christian suppression of Buddhism and Bud-
dhists. Relying on Buddhist texts such as the Mahavamsa,
he linked Buddhism and Sinhala nationalism and chal-
lenged Sinhala Buddhists to reclaim their true identity
and abandon their attachment to colonial values.
Dharmapala popularized a reformed Buddhism that was
characterized by a lay orientation, a this-worldly as-
ceticism, an activist and moralist focus, and a strong
social consciousness. Dharmapala traveled widely in
Asia preaching these ideas, and he introduced the West
to his reformist vision when he represented Buddhism
at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893.Bibliography
Bond, George D. The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka: Religious
Tradition, Reinterpretation, and Response.Columbia: Uni-
versity of South Carolina Press, 1988.
Gombrich, Richard, and Obeysekere, Gananath. Buddhism
Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka.Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1988.
GEORGED. BONDANANDAAnanda was a close relative of the Buddha. The Bud-
dha ordained Ananda, and as the Buddha grew old, heANAGARIKADHARMAPALA