© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2022, Ofce 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Shefeld S1 2BX Religions of South Asia 15.3 (2021) 306–308 ISSN (print) 1751-2689 https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.22436 ISSN (online) 1751-2697 Review Monks, Money, and Morality: The Balancing Act of Contemporary Buddhism, edited by Christoph Brumann, Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko and Beata Switek. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. 255 pp. £65 (hb), £21.99 (pb), £19.79 (ebook). ISBN 9781350213753 (hb), 9781350213760 (pb), 9781350213777 (ebook). Reviewed by: Hiroko Kawanami, Lancaster University. h.kawanami@lancaster.ac.uk Keywords: merit; monastic recipient; moral economy; reciprocity; religious gift; ritual services. This volume examines the multi-faceted dynamics that exist between reli- gious recipients (monks, priests and tantrists) and society at large, and pro- vides a major contribution to the study of religious gift-giving by stating that money or oferings do not fow just in one direction. It is composed of eleven chapters written mostly by anthropologists and provides rich ethnography of lived religious practices from China, Japan, Mongolia, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Thailand. The chapters tell us that monks and priests are involved in a wide range of reciprocal exchanges with society rather than being aloof renouncers as idealized in the scriptures. Hence, there is a departure from the textually based analysis of dana to understanding the socio-economic aspects of religious giving and receiving, exemplifed in the distinction between the ‘front’ and ‘rear’ side of the religious gift. The volume also raises a question about how monastic institutions and religious actors are increasingly afected by capitalist economy, and some chapters discuss the prospects of Buddhism in the context of globalization, advancement of communication technology, and secularism. Nonetheless, the impact of commercialism is most evident in large urban centres. Beata Switek presents an example of funeral services run by Buddhist priests in Tokyo and observes how their advertising is done via Amazon as an efec- tive means of connecting with their danka (lay donors of the temple) in an increasingly commodifed society. As temples become increasingly stripped of their former social functions, the chapter reveals the tension in gener- ating income in their ‘religious space’, as it could potentially make their tax-exempt status untenable. Thomas Borchert describes the economic activities of Thai monks in Bangkok, where opulent donations are ofered,