This article reflects the growing interest of governments, international development, peace and interfaith organizations, and academics in the link between religions and conflict, and in the fact that religion often serves as a vehicle and language for protest and conflict. It is often deeply implicated in national, ethnic, cultural, and/or geopolitical considerations. The article also reflects the 1. Different versions of this paper were given at the Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions in Manchester 25-27 April, 2014, and the United Nations Day of Vesak (UNDV) Academic Conference hosted by the National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha held in Bai Dinh Temple, Vietnam, from 7-11 May, 2014. I am grateful to the editors of Buddhist Contributions to Global Peace-Building, Vietnam Buddhist University Series 24, Most Venerable Dr Thich Nhat Tu and Most Venerable Dr Thich Duc Thien, for permitting me to publish a revised and extended version in this volume. I am also grateful to my colleague, Dr Mark Owen, for helpful discussion of the issues involved, and to Dr Dermot Killingley for his meticulous editing and comments. 2. Anna S. King is Reader in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Winchester, and attached to the University of Winchester Centre of Religions for Reconciliation and Peace. She trained as a social anthropologist at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford. She is the contributing editor with Professor John Brockington of The Intimate Other: Love Divine in Indic Religions (Delhi: OrientLongman, 2004), and contributing editor of Indian Religions: Renaissance and Renewal (London: Equinox, 2006). Anna has published in the areas of contemporary spirituality(ies), and global Hinduism and Islam. She has a long-standing interest in Vaishnavism and ISKCON and has two articles, 'For Love of Krishna', and 'Thealogising Radha', in The Hare Krishna Movement: Forty Years of Chant and Change (ed. Graham Dwyer and Richard J. Cole; London and New York: I. B. Tauris: 134-67, 193-29). Recent articles on ISKCON include 'Vedic Science and Modern Science'; 'Krishna's Cows: ISKCON's Animal Theology and Practice', and 'Krishna's Prasadam: "Eating our Way back to Godhead"'. Anna was consultant to the 2012 ethnographic film LEAP directed by the Finnish director, Jouko Aaltonen. She is Convenor of the annual Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, and founder and joint editor of Religions of South Asia (RoSA). fact that religious studies as a discipline is increasingly required to demonstrate public relevance and impact in debates concerning the role of religion in conflict and conflict transformation. It grows out of a research project which explores the potentially constructive role of religions in active peacebuilding, postconflict reconciliation and restorative justice while acknowledging that there are multiple interpretations of religious traditions that can relate to militancy, chauvinism and nationalist ideologies. The project is focused on post-conflict Nepal, and works horizontally and vertically with grassroots and local organizations as well as with transnational institutions and international bodies. This article is a preliminary contextualization of one strand of the project, Buddhist contributions to the peace-building and post-conflict recovery. It draws a broad picture of the ways in which Buddhism has been constructed politically as a universalist culture of peace, but is also associated with competing ethnic identities and 'nationalities'. It considers how far Buddhist organizations, communities and leaders have been able to engage with the immediate causes of the civil war (1996-2006), and the deep structural issues, inequalities and injustices which drive grievance and violence.
