Contesting Buddhist Narratives 29 influential public figures is presumed to contribute to intercommunal violence. However, a possible complicating factor in the Burmese case is the particular way in which many Theravada Buddhists understand action, intention, and karmic effects. One doctrinal innovation commonly attributed to the Buddha was to fundamentally alter the then prevailing notion of karma in Indian religious thought. While the word karma simply means “action,” the Buddha virtually redefined the term from ritual action to volitional action. The effect was to ethicize the concept, making intention central to the karmic results of any deed. In some instances, intention itself is sufficient to bear some degree of karmic consequence. So, simply thinking unwholesome thoughts will have negative karmic effects, but these effects become magnified by actually committing the deed. The important alteration in Buddhist theory is the distinction between action in general and intentional action (the latter of which bears karmic consequences). Among Myanmar’s Buddhists, it is a relatively common belief that if an action or its result is not intentional, there is no moral or karmic culpability (Walton 2013d). For example, in a Jataka tale (one of the hundreds of stories of the Buddha’s past lives), a king U Wirathu’s denial of responsibility and his advisors discuss the king’s deeds and the merit for rioting is legitimized by the or demerit that follows from Buddhist idea that lack of intention them. As part of his royal duties, the king has shot four removes culpability ceremonial arrows into the air. He loses track of one of them and is concerned that it could have errantly struck and killed some living being. However, his advisors reassure him that since he had no intention to take life, even if his arrow had killed someone or something, he would not have technically taken a life. The implication of this interpretation is clear: without intention there are no karmic consequences. We argue, however, that this reasoning is incomplete, at least as it applies to monks in Myanmar who continue to use derogatory language and dehumanizing metaphors when preaching about Muslims. Myanmar’s monks are almost always treated with respect, if not worshipful deference. Their sermons are understood as blueprints for proper moral