Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law is a major achievement in the increasingly growing field of Buddhism and law. It is the first volume dedicated to understanding the entangled relationship between Buddhism and constitutional law. Under the meticulous editorship of Tom Ginsburg and Benjamin Schonthal, both of whom have been dedicated to the study of Buddhism and law for over a decade, this volume coherently assembles focused discussions on Buddhism and constitutional law by scholars in law, history, anthropology, Buddhist studies, and political science and whose writings cover a wide range of geographical locations: Bhutan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Japan, China, Vietnam, Inner Mongolia, and South Korea. This volume is not only a remarkable intellectual feast that scholars of religion, law, and Asia will find inspiring, but is also a truly valuable source for teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in these fields.

The editors accomplished their goal of examining “the interactions of constitutional and Buddhist traditions in historical and contemporary Asia” (2). After a useful preface and an informative introduction, eighteen chapters unfold in four thematically arranged sections. In her preface, Rebecca Redwood French offers a useful account of the early development of the increasingly growing field of Buddhism and law. She provides a lively description of the first international conference on Buddhism and law at the Bellagio Center on Italy’s Lake Como in 2006. French highlights how scholars at the conference paid attention to four concerning issues in the study of Buddhism and law. First, Buddhism was misunderstood to have no influence on the development of legal cultures in Asia. Second, the Buddhist monastic law code (Vinaya) was incorrectly considered not to be a law. Third, colonial powers in Asia “had discarded and ‘disappeared’ most secular Buddhist and Buddhist-influenced law codes” (xiv). And fourth, Buddhism’s influence on the legal systems in Asia was interpreted to be not religious, but cultural.

In their introduction, Ginsburg and Schonthal paint a panoramic view of the latest development in the field of Buddhism and law and show how this volume, focusing on the intertwining between Buddhism and constitutional law, illuminates new directions for studying the legal dimension of Buddhism and the religious dimension of constitutional law. Collectively, the subsequent chapters in this volume demonstrate the “commonality and difference, integration and separation” (2) between Buddhism and constitutional law in the pan-Asia context.

The two chapters in the first section examine the religious and political underpinning of a discussion on Buddhism and constitutional law. Showing how Buddhist law writing in Asia goes beyond the production of the Buddhist monastic law (Vinaya), the treatise on dharma (Dhammasattha), and the royal legislations, D. Christian Lammerts argues that “constitutionalism is indeed a pervasive feature of Buddhist lawmaking in precolonial Southeast Asia” (38). Asanga Welikala highlights several methodological approaches in the study of comparative constitutional law and how those approaches could guide the study of Buddhism and constitutional law.

The second section includes three chapters discussing the interaction between Buddhism and constitutional laws in the Himalayan regions in Bhutan and Tibet. Richard Whitecross explains how the creation of the constitution in Bhutan in 2008 uniquely influenced both Buddhism and the state. Its creation marked the Bhutanese king’s decision to circumscribe the monarchy’s own power. Its lack of recognition of Buddhism as the state religion also marked another step toward the separation of religion and the state. Focusing on the laws said to be created by King Srongtsen Gampo in Tibet, Martin A. Mill argues that the hermeneutics of Buddhist texts influenced Tibetan scholars’ interpretation of the early Buddhist laws in Tibet. Berthe Jansen recognizes the constitutional elements in Buddhist monastic law (such as the Bca’i yig texts) and the religious elements in Tibetan legal codes (such as the Zhal lce texts) and highlights how they mutually influence each other.

Turning to South Asia, the five authors in the third section collectively expand the discussion on Buddhism and constitutional law in this region with chapters on Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Examining the transnational movement of a group of Buddhist monks from the Mahamevnāva Monastery, Krishantha Fedricks explains how notions of constitutional law influenced the development of the Buddhist legal world in postwar Sri Lanka. In the two chapters focusing on Thailand, Eugénie Mérieau focuses on the bricolage of the king’s role in the creation of the Thai constitutional law from the nineteenth century to the present, while Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang acknowledges the influence of Western legal ideas on the creation of Thai constitutional law but argues that traditional Buddhist ideas have also shaped the development of constitutional law in Thailand. Iselin Frydenlund focuses on how Buddhist constitutionalism—attempts to use a written constitution to protect and promote Buddhism—manifested in Myanmar after the military coup. Benjamin Lawrence examines the roles constitutional law played in adjusting the distribution of authority in contemporary Cambodia, both internally—between the two major Buddhist sects of Mahanikay and Thammayut—and externally—between the state and the Buddhist establishment.

The fourth section focuses on Northern and Northeast Asia, with five chapters focusing on Japan, Vietnam, China, and South Korea. Showing how limited Buddhism’s influence was on the modern Japanese constitutions enacted in 1890 and 1947, Levi McLaughlin challenges the notion of “Japan’s identity as a Buddhist nation” (241). Ngoc Son Bui illustrates how the state’s constitutional law and Buddhist constitutional law govern the structure and operation of the Buddhist establishment in contemporary Vietnam. By examining the history and roles of the Buddhist Association of China, the most important government-recognized national organization overseeing Buddhist affairs in China, André Laliberté argues that Buddhism “has left no important trace” on China’s legal system, “let alone its constitutional law” (299). Daigengna Duoer unveils the parallels, overlaps, and conflicts among the legal regulations on Buddhism in Inner Mongolia, during the three powers of the Republic of China (1912–1949), the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (1932–1945), and the Mengjiang Autonomous Government (1939–1945). Using the example of the purification movement within the Buddhist establishment, which aims to legally invalidate the monastic status of married Buddhist monks in South Korea, Mark A. Nathan shows how the creation of the 1948 constitution both provides religious groups the freedom to practice religion, but also limits or allows South Korean Supreme Court judges to avoid “wad[ing] into the doctrinal disputes over celibacy” (326).

The three chapters in the last section address Buddhism’s interaction with constitutional law from comparative perspectives by examining it against similar interactions involving Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. Deepa Das Acevedo innovatively engages with three earlier chapters on South Korea, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka to show how Buddhism’s entanglement with constitutional laws in those countries are both similar and also different from Hinduism’s interaction with the constitutional law in India. Richard H. Helmholz, on the other hand, highlights four features of the Christian canon law: the benefit of clergy, the freedom to practice one’s chosen religion, the right to remain silent, and welfare rights. In so doing, Helmholz points out one similarity between the Buddhists and the Christians: the fight for clerical privileges. In the last chapter, Clark B. Lombardi compares the study of Islam and constitutional law with the study of Buddhism and constitutional law.

Overall, this edited volume makes a rare contribution in the study of Buddhism and law. By collectively focusing on comparing Buddhism and constitutional law, the contributors highlight how Buddhist laws interact with constitutional law in vastly different legal and cultural contexts. Its wide coverage on the broad regions makes it possible for readers to see how that interaction manifests both similarly and differently in various Buddhist cultures. I highly recommend Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law to anyone interested in Buddhism, law, or Asian studies.