Dhamma Sermon and Popular Buddhism within the Confront of Digitization

Abstract

Along with era 4.0 digitalization involves several aspects of modern social context and religion is one of the prominent. When it comes to Sri Lankan popular Buddhism numerous changes can be identified through digital platforms like social media. This research attends to understand the evolutionary patterns of Buddhist Dhamma sermons by applying two cases selected from Facebook. Attaragama Pragyalankara Thero, also known as “Kotuwe Podi Hamuduruwo” is a key figure which emphasizes the characteristics of modern popular Buddhism. Two posts regarding his propagation of Dhamma browsed through random Facebook pages applied to understand the characteristics of the modern evolutionary process of Buddhism. The main objective of this study is to introduce a new-found model for digital religious studies by utilizing digital anthropological knowledge to understand the digital behavior of Sri Lankan religious contexts. For the analysis of this phenomenon, the researcher applied the 5th principle of digital anthropology named, ambivalence, and the principle of openness and closure, proposed by Daniel Miller and Heather Horst in 2012 through their work titled, “Digital Anthropology”. Different patterns in language, as well as variations compared to traditional Dhamma sermons identified through literature, were identified from the data collected from the relevant posts. As an examination based on qualitative data, this research considered various literature to fulfill the research gap. One of the key conclusions that arise from the research is that digital anthropological knowledge is a way to understand modern popular Buddhism. Comparing traditional customs with modern-day and analyzing them utilizing digital anthropological principles emphasize the evolutionary patterns of contemporary Dhamma sermons.