Part One: The Portuguese and the Tooth Relic -- Chapter One: The Tale of the Portuguese Tooth and Its Sources -- Chapter Two: Where the Tooth Was Found: Traditions about the Location of the Relic in Sri -- Lanka -- Chapter Three: Whose Tooth Was It? Traditions about the Identity of the Relic -- Chapter Four: The Trial of the Tooth -- Chapter Five: The Destruction of the Tooth -- Conspectus of Part One: The Storical Evolution of the Tales of the Portuguese Tooth -- Part Two: The British and the Tooth Relic -- Chapter Six: The Cosmopolitan Tooth: The Relic in Kandy before the British Became Aware of -- It -- Chapter Seven: The British Takeover of 1815 and the Kandyan Convention -- Chapter Eight: The Relic Returns: The Tooth and Its Properties Restored to the Temple -- Chapter Nine: The Relic Lost and Recaptured: The Tooth and the Rebellion of 1817- -- Chapter Ten: The Relic Disestablished: Missionary Oppositions to the Tooth -- Chapter Eleven: Showings of the Tooth: The Story of the King of Siam's Visit (1897) -- Chapter Twelve: Showings of the Tooth: The Story of Queen Elizabeth's Shoes (1954).

John S. Strong unravels the storm of influences shaping the received narratives of two iconic sacred objects. Bodily relics such as hairs, teeth, fingernails, pieces of bone—supposedly from the Buddha himself—have long served as objects of veneration for many Buddhists. Unsurprisingly, when Western colonial powers subjugated populations in South Asia, they used, manipulated, redefined, and even destroyed these objects to exert control. In The Buddha’s Tooth, John S. Strong examines Western stories, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, surrounding two significant Sri Lankan sacred objects to illuminate and concretize colonial attitudes toward Asian religions. First, he analyzes a tale about the Portuguese capture and public destruction, in the mid-sixteenth century, of a tooth later identified as a relic of the Buddha. Second, he switches gears to look at the nineteenth-century saga of British dealings with another tooth relic of the Buddha—the famous Daḷadā enshrined in a temple in Kandy—from 1815, when it was taken over by English forces, to 1954, when it was visited by Queen Elizabeth II. As Strong reveals, the stories of both the Portuguese tooth and the Kandyan tooth reflect nascent and developing Western understandings of Buddhism, realizations of the cosmopolitan nature of the tooth, and tensions between secular and religious interests.

U. C. Fate has only one little thing to do before he dies. That is, to kill God. The novel opens on the very day Fate has scheduled for this public execution. We are in Sri Lanka, at the Buddhist Temple of the Tooth during Esala Perahera (the sacred procession of the Tooth Relic.) But a not-so-simple twist of fate interrupts U. C. Fates plans. God easily escapes, while Fate himself is killed (and by a pious mob of monks, no less.) Yet, instead of experiencing death, our protoplasmic protagonist is rescued by an unasked-for Resurrection. U. C. Fate instantly Awakens; both with God Consciousness and a far better sense of humor. From here, all the way to the hereafter, U. C. Fate goes on a Magical Mythos Tour. He revisits thousands of years of religious history, each of his steps on this Inter and Intra-Religious journey are taken while wearing satiric slippers. Culture, chronology, and traditional time simply lose their fixed frames as Ancient Greeks, modern Rock n Rollers, Catholic Conquistas of Spain, and present day Mormons, argue with tribal American Indians over whose Truth is True. The Incarnated God Quetzalcatl is also here to fulfill Meso-American prophecy (i.e. The Second Coming only salsa style.) After this cosmic Love connection we come to the long awaited meeting with The Buddha. Buddhas Paradiso bridge is only open for Open-Ended-BeginningsThis means U. C. Fate must return Buddhas Tooth! He does so, thereby restoring every religion to their Rightful Rites.