Drawing on textual and ethnographic research conducted over the last five years, this article analyses an important genre of judicial practice in South and Southeast Asia that has been almost entirely ignored by socio-legal scholars: Buddhist systems of judging. Using the judicial system of one monastic group in contemporary Sri Lanka as a case-study, it argues that Buddhist judging requires more than just the internalization of moral principles, as is often assumed. According to Buddhist (monastic) principles of judging, legal procedures—similar to those used in state legal settings—are equally essential. These procedures govern everything from making legal complaints, to the structuring of trials, to determining jurisdiction, and many other topics. By examining Buddhist judicial systems, this article not only casts new light on the pluri-legal landscape of Asia; it also offers new reflections on the intersection of religion-based and state-based systems of law in the contemporary world.

中文翻译：

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佛庭审判：当代亚洲的佛教司法制度

本文借助过去五年进行的文本和民族志研究，分析了南亚和东南亚一个几乎被社会法学学者完全忽视的重要司法实践流派：佛教的审判体系。以当代斯里兰卡的一个寺院团体的司法系统作为案例研究，它认为佛教审判需要的不仅仅是道德原则的内化，正如人们通常认为的那样。根据佛教（寺院）的判断原则，法律程序——类似于在州法律环境中使用的那些——同样重要。这些程序适用于从提出法律投诉、审判结构到确定管辖权以及许多其他主题的所有事项。通过对佛教司法制度的考察，本文不仅对亚洲的多元法律格局提供了新的视角；它还对当代世界基于宗教和基于国家的法律体系的交叉提供了新的思考。