Shelter For You, Nirvana For Our Sons: Buddhist Belief and Practice in the Sri Lankan Army explores the decisions and ethical evaluations made by Sri Lankan Buddhists participating in the country’s twenty-five-year-old civil war.  Rather than searching for Buddhist justifications or authorizations of warfare, I have focussed on the experiences of individual Buddhists who participate directly or indirectly in the war effort.  

This dissertation is organized around three basic questions: 1. Do Monks and Soldiers believe that negative karma is created when individuals fire their weapons at the enemy?  2. How do monks preach to soldiers who are heading off to the battlefield?  3. How do parents mourn their sons who have died in combat?

By focussing on how contemporary Sri Lankan Buddhists evaluate these difficult ethical decisions, I demonstrate how the doctrine of karma is used as an interpretive device for understanding actions on the battlefield as well as their consequences for both soldiers and their families.