In the Name of the Sāsana

Insight Myanmar · Mar 17, 2026 · 2h 39m

Episode #503: Alicia Turner shows that Burmese Buddhists were not passive subjects of British colonialism, but active agents who reimagined Buddhist responsibility, authority, and identity through the concept of the sāsana, the Buddha’s dispensation. Rather than treating colonialism as a simple rupture imposed from outside, her work reveals how Buddhists in Burma drew on their own religious frameworks to interpret crisis, decline, and moral obligation. In doing so, Turner challenges scholarly approaches that privilege nationalism, modernity, or so-called “Protestant Buddhism,” arguing that…