Buddhism in Australia Traditions in Change

l

Buddhifying

Australia

Multicultural

capital

andBuddhist

material

culture

inruralVictoria

Sally

McA

ra

WhatarethcelTectsol‘a
project

entailing

theconstructionol'a

building.

modelled

ona
fifieenth-eentury

Tibetan

Buddhist

stupa,

intoa

twenty-first-century

mral

Australian
setting?

Howdo

the

Anglo-Celtic

adherents of

Tibetan

Buddhism,

whoconstitutea
religious

but

notanethnic

minority

inAustralia.

position

their

stupaproject

inrelationtothe

widersocialeontext'.7Members

ofa

large

inter—

nationalBuddhist
organization

called

theFoundationforthe

Preservationofthe

Mahayana

Tradition

(FPMT)

are

building

their

stupa

atAlisha

Centre,

14kmfrom

thecentreof
Bendigo

innorthwest

centralVictoria.Named

the‘Great

Stupa

of

Universal

Compassion‘

(henceforth,

the

stupa).

itsbuilders

promote

thisdistinc-

tively

Tibetanedificeas‘the

largest

stupa

inthewesternworld.‘

This

eightAstorey

structure.

modelledona 43

metre-highstupa

consecrated

in

Gyantse

insouthern

Tibetin
1474,

fulfilsitsroleboth

asamonument

enclosing

sacred

relicsandasa

temple

inwhich

people

can

gather

toheardharrna

teachings

and

engage

inrelated

practices.

arolemade

possible

bycontemporarybuilding

materials.

Inthis

chapter.

I

takethisinstanceofthe

creationofa

distinctly

Buddhist

builtenvironmentin

a

non-Buddhist

society

to

explore

how

plans

to

‘buddhify‘

a

particular

piece

of

Australian

countryside

interrelatewithAustralian

discourses,especiallygovem-

mental

ones.

about

immigration

andmulticulturalism.‘

Despitegovernmental

efiortstoreinventAustralia

asamulticultural

society

in

recent decades.

contemporary toningregulations

and

planning application

processes

oflenmake

theestablishmentofnew

religiousbuildingsbyminority

groups

an

expensive

anddifiicult

process

(Vasi2006;

Skennar.

this

volume;

Waitt.

this

volume).

Neighbourhood

opposition

to

visibly‘foreign‘religious

architecture

in

city

andsuburban

settings

hasoftenbeen

vociferous

(Dunn.Thompson.

Hanna.

Murphy

and

Bumley2001).

This

may

be

expressed

interms

ofreligiousprejudice.

asinthecaseoftheNanTien

temple

in

Wollongong(Waitt),2

trafficandnoise

disturbancesor

subjective

notionsofvisual

incompatibility

withLitelocale.

Despitepotential

for

majoropposition

duetoitssizeand

unusualness,

the

stupa

projectpassed

its

city

council

planning

application

in 1999

relativelysmoothly.

My

interestinthis

chapter

ishow

the

stupaproponentsaligned

the

project

with

thekindsofdiscoursethatlocalelitesIfavour.

that

is.

intermsoftwokindsof

‘enrichment‘

7

inthe

metaphorical

senseofmulticultural

diversity

andinthe

literalsenseofeconomic

growth

(McAra2009).My

focushereistheformerkind.