Situating religion and medicine in Asia

This edited volume presents the latest research on the intersection of religion and medicine in Asia. It features chapters by internationally known scholars, who bring to bear a range of methodological and geographic expertise on this topic. The book's central question is to what extent 'religion' and 'medicine' have overlapped or interrelated in various Asian societies. Collectively, the contributions explore a number of related issues, such as: which societies separated out religious from medical concerns, at which times and in what ways? Where have medicine and religion converged, and how has such knowledge been defined by scholars and cultural actors? Are 'religion' and 'medicine' the best terms by which scholars can grapple with knowledge about the sacred and the self, destiny and disease?

Foreword by Dagmar SchäferAcknowledgementsIntroduction Michael Stanley-BakerPart I East Asia1 Religion and health care in middle-period ChinaNathan Sivin2 Religion and medicine in pre-modern JapanKatja Triplett3 Female alchemy in late imperial and modern ChinaElena ValussiPart II South Asia4 Religion and medicine in Sanskrit literature: the Ramaya?a and the politics of an epic plantAnthony Cerulli5 From 'medical men' to 'local health traditions': the secularisation of medicine in portrayals of health care in IndiaHelen Lambert6 Sound medicine: towards a nomadology of medical mantras in seventeenth to twentieth-century BengalProjit Bihari Mukharji Part III Himalayas, Southeast Asia7 Sowa Rigpa, Tibetan medicine, Tibetan healingGeoffrey Samuel8 Homeopathy and Islam in Malaysia: Encounters of religion and complementary medical traditions in a modern Asian multi-ethnic societyConstantin Canavas9 Questioning the boundaries between medicine and religion in contemporary MyanmarCéline CodereyIndex