In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 170-174 [Access article in PDF] A Buddhist History of the West: Studies In Lack. By David R. Loy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. 244 pp. The religious and philosophical situation of our time seems polarized between resurgent fundamentalisms and a cosmopolitan awareness bridging heretofore separated traditions. Even a few decades ago the notion of a dialogue between East and West was a (...) novelty in which demarcated traditions and cultures (say the Buddhist East and the Christian West) experimented with attempts to find a common language to speakacross the boundaries between their respective identities. In such a context,"Western Buddhists" were those pilgrims of the counterculture who "went East" in search of some civilizational and spiritual other; the West, abjected to the realm of soulless scientism or outdated religious authoritarianism, was left behind. The situation is different at the beginning of the twenty-first Christian century. The dialectical complexities, both inwardly in the soul or mind of seekers, and outwardly in the strange twists of contemporary history, emerge to forbid any simple assessments of what can be left behind or indeed what the use can be of what seekers have found in the "non-West." People of Western background begin to realize and consciously address the [End Page 170] karmic-historical presuppositions of their search, which continue to constitute a kind of historical unconscious to the formulation of any possible "Western Buddhisms." Meanwhile, while fundamentalists of many backgrounds posit "clashes of civilizations" that assume an absoluteness of traditional distinctions, cosmopolitans realize that, for all the particularity of their respective starting points, the global situation is inextricably a shared one. In such a context, what canWestern Buddhist intellectuals, cognizant of their own starting points but having learned some things along the Way that are perhaps of universal relevance, speak to our common condition?The "Buddhist History of the West" that David Loy provides is less a historical narrative of the events constitutive of the societies descending from Greco-Roman civilization through European epochs and American empire into the age of globalization than a form of psychoanalytic anamnesis of those societies' cultural constructions of reality. Loy's psychoanalytic interpretive frame is composed of Buddhist insight into the human mind's deep-seated grasping for solidity and certainty in the face of a reality fundamentally characterized by impermanence and ungroundedness (the "Lack" of the subtitle, our simultaneous awareness of death, impermanence, andontological emptiness and the ego's wish for eternal selfhood in an endless but impossibly fulfilling world). Loy's Buddhism is combined with the existential psychology of Ernest Becker and the revisionist Freudianism of Norman O. Brown called on as Western resources for the spiritual therapeutics "the West" seems to need as it enters the third Christian millennium both triumphant and in despair of any meaning to accompany its economic and pop-cultural hegemony.Seven anamnestic chapters take us through twenty-five hundred years of Western cultural constructions, from the Greek and Roman philosophical inquiries into Freedom, a kind of origin-tale of Humanism seen as a "religious" (religion for Loy being the way humans attempt to answer the problem of Lack as if to ground our groundlessness) vision of meaning as the development of human capacities for rational thought, through the intertwining of classical and Christian constructions in medieval and Renaissance periods, through the Protestant Reformation into the political and ideological space of modernity, culminating in a vision of the globalizing West as purveying a "Religion of the Market," an ironically meaningless (centered on the symbolic code for Value—Money—as a displacement of Value itself) system of meaning. This last, our contemporary situation, would perhaps be simply a problem of aesthetic tastelessness (American pop culture performing the dissolution of all surviving traditional sacred orders following the description of capitalism by Marx as causing "all that is sacred" to "melt into air") were it not for the massive social injustice and environmental devastation it structurally produces. Loy's therapeutic vision, following the Buddhist deconstruction of the demarcated "self" and Becker and Brown's cultural-historical or collective... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in LackGereon KopfDavid R. Loy. A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack. SUNY Series in Religious Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. vii + 244.David Loy's most recent work, A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack, constitutes an intellectual history of Europe from what he calls a "Buddhist perspective." His obvious goals in (...) this book are (1) to develop a heuristic device, if not a mature methodology, out of the Buddhist intellectual tradition and to apply it to matters that are not necessarily related to the Buddhist tradition, and (2) to reread European history from a new standpoint. I have to confess that I am not a historian and thus cannot evaluate Loy's historical claims; however, from my perspective as a scholar of Buddhist and comparative philosophy, it seems to me that not only does Loy succeed on both counts but his study of European history from what he calls the perspective of lack reveals astonishing yet previously barely highlighted insights into European thought. It also undermines, in a methodological slight of hand that at times evokes Michel Foucault's approach, the conventional assumptions about the dominant paradigms of the generally accepted periods of European history. I do not want to claim that Loy's methodology resembles Foucault's "archaeology" in any way; however, it does demonstrate that discourses and time periods are fluid rather than static and that their paradigm depends on, and changes in accordance with, the perspective of the historian.For example, seen from Loy's perspective of lack, the central and most formative event of European history was neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment, but the Papal Revolution of the late eleventh century. In general, Loy's book is filled with observations and indictments of common myths that are not only provocative in nature but sure to challenge many of the presuppositions that the proponents of the so-called Western World hold dear. In concrete terms, Loy seems to focus on and examine not so much European intellectual history but the myths that are used to argue for the superiority of the "West": freedom, progress, romantic love, the sanctity of the nation-state, and free-market capitalism.Loy chooses as his standpoint "a Buddhist perspective," namely the "perspective of lack." He takes as his basic assumption the dictum he borrows from early Buddhism and, as he adds, psychotherapy, namely that humans have to live with the basic frustration-Loy's translation of dukkha, which is usually rendered as "suffering"-that reality does not conform to our innermost desires. We desire immortality but cannot avoid the impermanence of all living beings. The awareness of our impermanence not only shatters our sense of and quest for a self, but it also [End Page 580] arouses the "immediate and terrifying (because quite valid) suspicion... that "'I' am not real right now" (p. 3).This frightening sense of lack propels humans onto what Norman Brown calls the Oedipal project, that is, the attempt to create oneself. This sense of lack, Loy remarks, is common to all religions, but what separates Buddhism from most other religious traditions is that it does not offer a self and some kind of immortality, on the one hand, and refrains from reifying this sense of lack as, for example, "sin," on the other. Rather, Buddhism, to Loy, can be "understood as a way to resolve our sense of lack" (p. 6). With regard to his present project, Loy asks, "[i]f that (the sense-of-the-self's sense of lack) gives us insight into the individual human condition, can it also shed light on the collective dynamics of society and nations?" (p. 8). In other words, Loy asks how the interpretation of European history would change if one were to choose the primary Buddhist assumption, namely the deep anxiety over one's future death and present-day insignificance and groundlessness, as one's starting point.However, Loy is quick to argue that this standpoint is not unique to Buddhism, and he corroborates his perspective on lack with the findings of psychotherapy, mostly the... (shrink)

This essay offers a preliminary account of the ways in which alterations to the landscape of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Sukhothai and Chiang Mai figured within the micro-politics of these city-states. I show how landscape alterations inspired by Lanka and mainland South Asia served the consolidation and projection of royal power within the context of local and regional competition, and how such alterations formed part of strategic royal engagement with Buddhist monastic lineages.

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives--that depict (...) Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

Of all the distinctive features of the Buddhist religion, one of the most neglected is the sangha . Scholars give much attention to the study of texts and commentaries, the analysis of doctrines and the classification of schools. But the core of the Buddhist religion is the sangha , the community of bhikkhus around whose corporate life the religion is moulded. It is the existence and structure of the sangha which has shaped the history of Buddhism, enabled it to (...) take root in new countries, and given it the customs and rituals which have made it a religion rather than a small sect. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Crisis of AuthorityBuddhist History for Buddhist PractitionersRita M. GrossAs a Buddhist scholar-practitioner who is also a feminist, I have multiple loyalties. The potential for conflict between different standards could be great, and I have often been asked whether my fundamental loyalty is to Buddhist standards and Buddhist teachers, to the values of feminism, or to standards of academic scholarship. This is a question I always refuse to answer (...) because I myself do not experience any irreconcilable conflicts among these loyalties. Nor is this lack of conflict due to my keeping these three interests separate in my thinking or my work. Clearly, I have been more than explicit in the way that I have brought feminist concerns into my writings on Buddhism, my work as a Buddhist dharma teacher, and other issues I have taken up as an academic scholar. Though most scholars would be much less familiar with how I teach when I function as a Buddhist teacher at a meditation center, I am well known in those circles as someone who brings nonsectarian, feminist, and academic perspectives to Buddhists teachings. Finally, I was “out” as a Buddhist practitioner in academia long before the current younger generation of Buddhist studies scholars who do not hide their Buddhist identities came to the fore. I was also explicit about the fact that I was using Buddhist ideas as tools with which to think about various contemporary issues long before the new movement to regard Buddhist critical and constructive thought as academically respectable emerged.The fact that it seemed natural to me to combine these various concerns in my work does not mean that others approved of these unorthodox combinations. I suspect that in worldly terms, I could have been far more successful had I not insisted on blending these concerns in my work. Certainly in my generation, feminists did not do well in the academy, as is witnessed by the fact that almost none of those pioneering feminists ever secured a prestigious position from which they could influence the next generation of scholars. Nor is there a place in the academy for Buddhist critical and constructive thinkers; neither theological schools nor departments of Buddhist studies want to hire us. I have also faced frequent marginalization in the Buddhist world, both for being an academic and for being a feminist—though what success I have in [End Page 59] that world is also due to the unique perspectives I bring to Buddhist teaching as an academic and a feminist. Finally, as one of the very few Buddhists among the feminist theologians, I have frequently been extremely frustrated by an establishment that is far more conventional, Western, and Christian than it thinks it is.In this paper, I have been asked to focus on issues of authority in Buddhism, and I will focus specifically on issues and experiences related to working within Buddhist systems as a Buddhist thinker and teacher. This paper will consist almost entirely of an “insider’s” perspective on Buddhism and authority, rather than a paper looking at Buddhism from the outside, though this insider is a scholar-practitioner, not a practitioner who gets all her information about Buddhism only from Buddhist sources and Buddhist teachers. Needless to say, as a Buddhist critical-constructive thinker who has taken on several nontraditional issues, I have my own tales of brushes with Buddhist authority. One of the themes I wish to follow in this paper is a discussion of how I have managed to say what I want to say, even when it contradicts traditional Buddhist understandings, while also managing to do a great deal of dharma teaching and attain status as a relatively senior teacher in two Tibetan Buddhist organizations in North America. In fact, very few Westerners who practice in a Tibetan lineage have a higher title than the title “Lopon,” which is much better known to Westerners by its Sanskrit equivalent, ācārya. This title was given to me by Her Eminence Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche. (Westerners practicing other forms of Buddhism have far more teaching authority than is generally the case for Westerners practicing a Tibetan form of Buddhism.) Nor have I survived as a... (shrink)

Reading the Mahāvaṃsa: The Literary Aims of a Theravāda Buddhist History. By Kristin Scheible. South Asia across the Disciplines. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 223. $60.

Hòa Hảo Buddhism belongs to that traditional lay and frugal buddhism encouraging practicing at home (tu tại gia) while being engaged with the world (nhập thế). It appeared in Southern Vietnam at the end of the 1930’s. Obviously, colonial contest and economic depression have played the part of a powerful catalyst in the spread by a young charismatic and reformist character of this millenarianism. Then, during three decades of postcolonial and cold wars (1945–1975), this New Religious movement hardly (...) expressed its Buddhist ethic of social statements in order to lend moral support and material protection to the local peasantry. Eventually, at the end of the war, this autonomous Buddhist community finally tried to morph again into a legal religion at a time when the Vietnamese Communist Party had to urgently impose a new sovereign socialist republic (1976). In other words, the new regime had to reunify the Nation and build a new secular state. In the southern part of the country, the replacement of a former liberal regime (Republic of Vietnam) by a socialist republic (called formerly a Democratic Republic in Northern Vietnam) completely changed the nature of the State-Church relations. Therefore, many religious groups’ agencies suffered a drastic blow as these groups were subordinated to the Patriotic Front and its mass organizations. Nevertheless, in 1991, the reorientation of the religious policy officially reaffirmed the religions’ social utility. Since then, new debates emerged to define the nature of the social actions of religious groups and then to delineate the legal sphere of their activities in this secular state. This essay intends to question how the two notions of being engaged with the world (nhập thế) and that of the secular state (nhà nước trung lập thế tục) interacted during these last decades. To tackle this pivotal issue, we focused on the specific implementation of Hòa Hảo social activism, from 1940’s until now, to underline how this activism evolved under different political regimes and how a new culture of social service has been promoted since the Hòa Hảo official church was recognized in 1999 and achieved years later. It questions more generally how religious groups can negotiate with the state for the emergence of a civil society or, at least, for the acceptance of their own tribute to the prosperity of the Nation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ahmadis: Community, Gender, and Politics in a Muslim Society. By Antonio Gualtieri. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 192. Hardcover $65.00. Paper Cdn $24.95 / U.S. $19.95.American Knees. By Shawn Wong. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2005. Pp. xxi + 229. Paper $14.95.The Art of Worldly Wisdom. By Baltasar Gracian and translated by Joseph Jacobs. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. (...) xiii + 114. Paper $5.95.Bashō's Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Bashō. Translated by David Landis Barnhill. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xvii + 191. Hardcover $59.50. Paper $17.95.Bringing the Gods to Mind: Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice. By Laurie L. Patton. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. xv + 289. Hardcover $49.95/£32.50.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.A Chinese Ethics for the New Century: The Ch'ien Mu Lectures in History and Culture, and Other Essays on Science and Confucian Ethics. By Donald J. Munro. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2005. Pp. xlv + 158. Hardcover $33.00.Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing: A Route to Hermeneutics and Open Poetics. By Ming Dong Gu. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 334. Hardcover $85.00.A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs, and City Life. By Christopher Hutton and Kingsley Bolton. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 492. Paper $28.00.Ghazālī and the Poetics of Imagination. By Ebrahim Moosa. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Pp. xiii + 349. Hardcover $59.95. Paper $22.50.Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya. Edited by William M. Bodiford. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. x + 317. Hardcover $48.00.The Harem: Inside the Grand Seraglio of the Turkish Sultans. By N. M. Penzer. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. 277. Paper $14.95.Ideals of the East: The Spirit of Japanese Art. By Kakuzo Okakura. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xiv + 106. Paper $5.95. [End Page 365]An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. By Jing-Nuan Wu. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 706. Price not given.Jews and Arabs: A Concise History of Their Social and Cultural Relations. By S. D. Goitein. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xv + 263. Paper $12.95.The Logic of Nothingness: A Study of Nishida Kitarō. By Robert J. J. Wargo. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp xi + 241. Paper $25.00.The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. By Raghavan N. Iyer. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 449. Paper Rs 520.00.Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. By T. K. Seung. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. Pp. xxviii + 370. Hardcover $83.00. Paper $27.95.Of Guilds, Companies, Corporations, and Governance: A Conceptual Sketch. By Leonardo R. Silos. Makati City, Philippines: Asian Institute of Management, 2005. Pp. xvi + 238. Price not given.The Path to Rome. By Hilaire Belloc. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. ix + 251. Paper $12.95.The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgātā : A Study based on the Evaluation of the Commentaries of Śamkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva. By S. M. Srinivasa Chari. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2005. Pp. xxvi + 294. Hardcover Rs 575.00.The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. By Kalyan Sen Gupta. Burlington, VT: Ash-gate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. ix + 103. Hardcover $79.95.The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse. By Thomas Michael. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xi + 170. Hardcover $60.00. Paper $21.95.Three Mountains and Seven Rivers: Prof. Musashi Tachikawa's Felicitation Volume. Edited by Shoun Hino and Toshihiro Wada. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. 2004. Pp. xx + 903. Hardcover Rs. 1800.The Unity of Mystical Traditions: The Transformation of Consciousness in Tibetan and German Mysticism. By Randall Studstill. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005. Pp. xii + 304. Hardcover @89/$127.00.Writing the World: On Globalization. Edited by David... (shrink)

일연과 민지의 자장 관련 기록에 따르면, 자장은 말년에 수도인 경주를 떠나 하슬라(何 瑟羅)로 이동한다. 그리고 하슬라에서 문수보살을 만나기 위해 여러 지역을 다니는데, 이 장소들은 후일 자장과 관련된 사찰이 들어서게 된다. 자장은 이 행보의 마지막인 태백산 (현 咸白山) 정암사에서 문수를 만나는데 실패하며 비극적인 최후를 맞이한다. 본고는 자장이 말년에 하슬라로 가는 것이 김춘추와 김유신 세력에 밀려난 후 재기하기 위함임을 분명히 했다. 또 이 과정에서 문수를 뵙기 위한 많은 노력이 실패하는 것이, 이 와 같은 자장의 몰락을 상징한다고 판단했다. 그런데 자장의 마지막 기록에서 주목되는 (...) 것이 바로 정암사의 비극적인 입적 내용이다. 이는 당시의 비극적인 측면과 자장의 몰락에 따른 어수선한 상황을 판단해 보도록 한다. 그런데 자장에게 불리한 이와 같은 기록의 유전과 관련해서, 후의 정암사 측에서는 이에 대한 타당성을 변증하려는 윤색을 시도하는 모습이 살펴진다. 또 정암사 인근의 조사전(祖師殿) 쪽에 자장의 영골(靈骨)이 봉안된다는 점에서, 이와 관련된 의미 부여와 신이성(神異性)을 강조하려는 움직임도 살펴진다. 즉 자장의 하슬라 행과 관련된 일련의 내용이 정암사의 기록과 의미를 통해서 보다 선명해지게 되는 것이다. (shrink)

David J. Kalupahana's Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis has, since its original publication in 1976, offered an unequaled introduction to the philosophical principles and historical development of Buddhism. Now, representing the culmination of Dr. Kalupahana's thirty years of scholarly research and reflection, A History of Buddhist Philosophy builds upon and surpasses that earlier work, providing a completely reconstructed, detailed analysis of both early and later Buddhism.

History of Indian Buddhism. E. Lamotte, translated from the French by Sara Boin-Webb. Institut Orientaliste, Louvain-la-Neuve 1988. XXVI, 870 pp, plus 30 plates (No. XXIII on p.420), 5 maps and 7 plans. B.Fr 2175 (distrib. by Peeters Press, P.O. Box 41, 3000 Leuven, Belgium).

Revision of the author's thesis (D. Litt.).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhist Goddesses of India, and: Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious HistoryRita M. GrossBuddhist Goddesses of India. By Miranda Shaw. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. 571 pp.Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History. By Rosemary Radford Ruether. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. 381 pp.These two very large books should be of obvious interest to those concerned with Buddhist-Christian interactions and comparative studies. (...) They are also especially timely and important, given how much goddesses and the divine feminine have been [End Page 175] overlooked and ignored by those involved in Buddhist-Christian interchange and comparative studies as well as by serious scholars of both traditions.These books will function mainly as goldmines of information about goddesses in Buddhist and Western religions rather than as theoretical and theological analyses about what is at stake in the presence or absence of goddesses and imagery of the divine feminine in either tradition. As is well known, imagery of the divine feminine is longstanding and of considerable importance in Buddhist traditions, even though it was not part of the earliest layers of Buddhist traditions, whereas the divine feminine is largely absent in more recent Western traditions, even though it was common in the ancient Near East. Thus, these two traditions are mirror images of each other’s historical development concerning the divine feminine. It would be fascinating to explore this difference between the traditions. Because neither book is comparative in any way, such questions are not entertained in these books, but at least both books provide a great deal of information that others may use in future explorations of such similarities and differences between the traditions.Most of Miranda Shaw’s analytical comments are found in her brief, thirteen-page introduction. The rest of the book is mainly descriptive. Most of this discussion concerns her choice of the term “goddess” to refer to the many nonhuman, divine females found in Buddhist art and literature. She notes that, while mention of Goddesses is widespread and long-term in works on Buddhist art and history, Buddhist studies in general has not paid much attention to goddesses, and the same basic information has been repeated over and over, with few advances in interpreting and understanding these figures. I would agree with this assessment. She also notes, correctly, that Buddhist goddesses have received scant attention in the recent spate of Western scholarly investigations of goddesses and the divine feminine. Nevertheless, as Shaw points out, various kinds of divine females occupy every niche of the divine hierarchy in Indian and Buddhist cosmology. Indeed, it would be impossible to look at any book about Indian Buddhist art without noticing many voluptuous, highly attractive female figures as well as some more fearsome figures.Shaw justifies her use of the term “goddess” by noting that this is the literal translation of the term routinely used for female divine figures in Indian Buddhist sources. This justification is pointed at several other scholars who have written about Buddhist “goddesses” from a Buddhist point of view but who have avoided the term “goddess” for various reasons, but mainly because of the complexity and explosiveness of that term in Western contexts. The term has also been avoided by Western Buddhist scholars because of possible misunderstandings or confusion that could be caused by the use of such a theistic term in the context of non-theistic Buddhism. Nevertheless, Shaw is correct that the common translation of the terms used in Buddhist texts would be “goddess.” In her discussion of the term “goddess,” Shaw also justifies this English terminology by arguing that the “deities,” especially of Vajrayana Buddhism, are not merely symbols created by human beings or projections of human experiences but have another, transhuman reality. The metaphysics of “deities” or “goddesses” in Buddhism is, however, an extremely complex and subtle matter that cannot be adequately discussed in the few pages Shaw devotes to this issue. [End Page 176]In the rest of her introduction, Shaw details her main emphases in her book, “the origins, iconography, and religious roles of each goddess and discussion of her place in Buddhist history and practice” (p. 4). She tells... (shrink)

In Text, History, and Philosophy. Abhidharma Across Buddhist Scholastic Traditions, the development of the Abhidharma genre in South and East Asia from the life time of the historical Buddha to the tenth century CE is discussed.

Originally published in 1951. This study of Buddhism deals with the early tradition, followed by a brief consideration of its historicity and the form the religion takes in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand. The main line of development in India, China and Japan is then discussed. Focussing on essential Buddhism in both its chief schools, the Lesser and Greater Vehicle, the influence of philosophy on sect and of both on the practical affairs of history are examined.

Reading the Maha?vam?sa: The Literary Aims of a Therava?da Buddhist History by Kristin Scheible. Columbia University Press, 2016. 240 pp. Hb. $60. ISBN-13: 978-0-2311-7138-0.

Historical consciousness of the modern period, which shows a clear distinction from that of the previous periods, is well displayed in intellectual history, which is investigation into the development of ideas and transmission of knowledge. To understand the academic issues that are grappled with in intellectual history, it is necessary to understand how it interacts with other relevant academic disciplines. Firstly, it is connected to classics and philology, in which historicity is regarded as part and parcel of their research. Critical (...) investigation into them leads intellectual historians to take the stance that perception on historicity lies not in a factual stratum but in an interpretive stratum. Further, they usually focus on coherently organizing inconsistent, inessential, contradictory elements of interpretation within the frame of temporality on which all texts have a footing. Next, intellectual history is closely tied to philosophy and the history of philosophy because it is a historiography of ideas and thinkers. On the basic assumption that the historicity of philosophy should be involved for a proper understanding of philosophical texts, intellectual history focuses on diachronic influences and changes of ideas which are intertextually detected. Clearly, intellectual historians assume that texts may be considered as ahistorical or even trans-historical when historicity was not a concern between traditions nor is it in modern interpretive traditions of philosophy. As a result, a tension between intellectual history and philosophy is inevitable, and the former has conditioned and simultaneously fostered understanding of the latter. Taken together, it may look as if intellectual history, being based on classics and philology, attempts a risky pas de deux with philosophical traditions which may be understood as ahistorical where their foci are given to doctrinal sides. The hitherto mentioned issues of intellectual history raised by Western critical approaches to historicity are also inherent in Buddhist studies and Buddhist intellectual history which have developed on Western soil. For example, the historicity of person(s) as seen in such examples as the historicity of Maitreya(-nātha), and the transition of philosophical thought in the works attributed to Vasubandhu/ Vasubandhu-s—which have become controversial since the 20th century, can be understood within the bigger frame of modern historical consciousness and how its coupled intellectual history unfolded. Specifically regarding these issues, efforts have been consistently made to construct a proper intellectual history in spite of limited sources of inner- and outer-textual evidence. The seemingly diversified opinions and cacophony in the development of interpretations of the issues epitomizes intellectual history, including the theoretical process which explores ways of thinking about various possibilities and the presuppositions of those possibilities. (shrink)

The understanding of this spiritual movement is an important key to the understanding of the contemporary Japanese state of mind, and The Buddhist Sects of ...

The question of Hegel's views on Buddhism and its place within his system must be asked again as the history of effects, transmission, and reception continues to unfold. This unfolding highlights not only Hegel's effect on the Western European reception and understanding of Buddhism (and its sharp orientalist critique), but also the canny use of Hegel's philosophy by certain members of the so-called Kyoto School of Japanese neo-Buddhist philosophy, who, though primarily concerning themselves with Heidegger, were notable in (...) their creative use of Hegel's philosophy of spirit (especially Nishida, Nishitani, Tanabe, and Abe). Our present task is likewise to look back to Hegel's own writing on Buddhism through the lens of the history of its effects—that is, to read Hegel again with his legacy in mind—so that we might, as strange as it may perhaps seem, see things more clearly. Our goal is relatively modest, as it aims only to seek out and coordinate Buddhism within Hegel's history of philosophy. Thus, as we have a proximate goal in mind, we also have an order of importance with respect to Hegel's texts, which, of course, brings the Lectures on the History of Philosophy to the fore. (shrink)

Theravada Buddhism. A Social History from Ancient Times to Modern Colombo. Richard F. Gombrich. Routledge, London 1988. x, 237 pp. Hbk £20.00, pbk £7.95.

The present work is designed to survey the evolution of philosophical thought in the Vedic and post-Vedic periods preceding the rise of Jainism and Buddhism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. By G.E.R. Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 175. Price not given.The Art of the Han Essay: Wang Fu's Ch'ien-Fu Lun. By Anne Behnke Kinney. Tempe: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1990. Pp. xi + 154. Paper $10.00.The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors. By Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrön (...) Thayé and translated by Richard Barron (Chökyi Nyima). Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. xxii + 549. Price not given.Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō. By William R. LaFleur. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xiii + 173. Paper $14.95.Becoming the Compassion Buddha: Tantric Mahamudra for Everyday Life. By Lama Thubten Yeshe, edited by Robina Courtin, and foreword by Geshe Lhundub Sopa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xi + 194. Paper $14.95.Between Two Worlds East and West: An Autobiography. By J. N. Mohanty. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 134. Hardcover RS 525.00.The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Edited by Roman Malek, S.V.D. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum; and Nettetal, Germany: Steyler Verlag, 2002. Pp. 391. EUR 40.00.Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. By Volker Scheid. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 407. Hardcover $69.95. Paper $23.95.Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978). Translated and adapted by Thomas L. Kennedy. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Pp. xxi + 170. Price not given.Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. By K. Ramakrishna Rao. Jefferson (North Carolina) and London: McFarland and Company, 2002. Pp. 367. Hardcover $65.00.Constituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia. Edited by John Clifford Holt, Jacob N. Kinnard, and Jonathan S. Walters. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 224. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.Developments in Indian Philosophy from Eighteenth Century Onwards: Classical and Western. By Daya Krishna. Volume X Part 1 of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, edited by D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New [End Page 110] Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2001. Pp. xxiii + 417. Hardcover RS 1200.East and West: Identità e dialogo interculturale. By Giangiorgio Pasqualotto. Venezia: Marsilo Editori, 2003. Pp. 210. EUR 16.00.Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. Price not given.Encountering Kā lī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 321. Hardcover $55.00, £37.95. Paper $21.95, £15.95.Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Antonio S. Cua. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xx + 1020. Hardcover $150.00.Essays on Indian Philosophy. By J. N. Mohanty and edited by Purushottama Bilimoria. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvii + 347. Paper RS 525.00.Faith, Humor, and Paradox. By Ignacio L. Götz. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2002. Pp. 136. Hardcover $61.95.Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path. Translated by Karen C. Lang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 240. Price not given.The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 223. Paper $16.95.The Hidden History of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. By Bryan J. Cuevas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 328. Price not given.Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. By Paul U. Unschuld. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 520. Hardcover $75.00, £52.00.In Dewey's Wake: Unfinished Work of Pragmatic Reconstruction. Edited by William J. Gavin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. vi + 249. Hardcover $71.50. Paper $23.95.Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy. By Tara Chatterjea. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002. Pp. xvi + 159. Hardcover... (shrink)

In the field of comparative religion, many scholars believe that there are essentially two groups: the historical religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and the mystical religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism. These, respectively, represent the basic spiritual attitude of the Western and Eastern worlds. Is it really the case that the Eastern world knows nothing about history, or is their idea of history different from that of the West? In this article, I will focus on a (...) Japanese philosopher, Keiji Nishitani, a representative of the Kyoto School, and examine his constructive engagement with the Buddhist and Christian ideas of historicity for the purpose of constructing “a proper view of history suitable for future mankind.” I will unfold this “proper” view of history in three parts: 1) time: linear or circular; 2) history and karma; 3) eschatology and nirvāṇa. (shrink)

This article has developed in response to a series of observations made over a decade ago by Wilfred Cantwell Smith in his The Meaning and End of Religion . In that work, Smith made the point that the concepts ‘religion’, ‘religions’, ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Buddhism’ are rather recent, of Western origin, and, in an attempt to understand mankind's religiousness, inadequate. In developing his argument, Smith considered the Buddhist case with penetrating insight but, because his thesis was of such comprehensive scope, (...) chose not to go into a detailed consideration of relevant matters in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 151-155 [Access article in PDF] Buddhism and Christianity: A Multicultural History of their Dialogue. By Whalen Lai and Michael von Bruck. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2001. xiv + 265 pp. This book is an abridged translation of Buddhismus und Christentum: Geschichte, Konfrontation, Dialog, first published in 1997 by Verlag C. H. Beck in Munich. I do not know how much has been lost in the (...) abridgement, but this English version remains a treasure trove that deserves to be read and digested by everyone engaged in Buddhist-Christian dialogue.From the English title, I expected a somewhat dry work of intellectual history, summarizing dated doctrinal debates. This book provides much more than that. Most valuable is its emphasis on the historical and cultural context of Buddhist-Christian encounters, especially the poisonous legacy of Western colonialism (which still survives today as economic neocolonialism). These quite varied contexts have usually been decisive for the success or failure of the encounter, and as this nuanced but frank study shows, the failures have been at least as notable as the successes. Here, too, we must remember the past if we want to do more than keep repeating it. As well as identifying specific problems, there is a perceptive analysis of the obstacles to openness and dialogue in each case.The penultimate chapter includes a discussion of our Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, its conferences, and this journal. As a relative newcomer to the conversations, I found this particular example of contextualizing fascinating. In just the few conferences I have been able to attend, there have been so many facets to the dialogue that it has been difficult to gain a sense of the whole, to understand how the main threads have developed and interwoven. How well do we remember what has already been discussed, and often agreed upon? It is important that we do not just keep repeating ourselves, and I know of no other book that conveys the historical dimension of the dialogue so well. The silent, contemplative aspects of the encounter are also addressed: cross-cultural meditation groups, Christian Zen teachers, and visits to each other's monastic centers.A useful foreword by Hans Kung reviews his own contributions, including his [End Page 151] paradigm analysis of six different "general constellations" found in the Christian tradition (the original Jewish-apocalyptic paradigm, the ancient ecumenical-Hellenistic paradigm, the medieval Roman Catholic paradigm, the Reformation Protestant-evangelical paradigm, the modernist progress-oriented paradigm, and now the postmodern ecumenical paradigm) and six other constellations in the Buddhist tradition (Gautama's original paradigm, the Theravada- sravakayana paradigm, the Mahayana paradigm, the tantric Vajrayana paradigm, a defensive modernist paradigm, and most recently an emerging postmodernist paradigm), with the implication that we need to be careful to clarify which of the paradigms we are comparing.Inevitably, the focus is limited: India and Sri Lanka are discussed at length, but not southeast Asia; China and Japan, but not Korea; Germany, but not the rest of Europe. The Indian chapter is mostly about Tibetans in exile. I was intrigued by the generation gap between older, conservative Tibetan monks and more freethinking younger ones. Otherwise, the Indian dialogue seems not to have been as intensive as many other places in Asia, which makes sense since there are relatively few Buddhists in India today. Given the mass conversions of Dalits, the social context has usually been the emancipation of disadvantaged social groups, and is further complicated now by the increasing influence of neo-Hindu political movements, which makes all interreligious exchange more sensitive.The Sri Lankan dialogue, perhaps more than any other, has been preoccupied with the heritage of colonialism. Sinhalese take pride in being citizens of the only country to have shaken off colonial rule with a successful Buddhist revolution, which reversed the power relationship between the two religions. Evidently most Sinhala Buddhists, including much of the sangha, accept the need to defend Buddhism and Buddhist culture militarily, if necessary. The ruling political class that succeeded the British, a largely Buddhist- and Marxist-inspired elite, opted for constructing a national identity... (shrink)

The question of Hegel's views on Buddhism and its place within his system must be asked again as the history of effects, transmission, and reception continues to unfold. This unfolding highlights not only Hegel's effect on the Western European reception and understanding of Buddhism (and its sharp orientalist critique), but also the canny use of Hegel's philosophy by certain members of the so‐called Kyoto School of Japanese neo‐Buddhist philosophy, who, though primarily concerning themselves with Heidegger, were notable in (...) their creative use of Hegel's philosophy of spirit (especially Nishida, Nishitani, Tanabe, and Abe). Our present task is likewise to look back to Hegel's own writing on Buddhism through the lens of the history of its effects—that is, to read Hegel again with his legacy in mind—so that we might, as strange as it may perhaps seem, see things more clearly. Our goal is relatively modest, as it aims only to seek out and coordinate Buddhism within Hegel's history of philosophy. Thus, as we have a proximate goal in mind, we also have an order of importance with respect to Hegel's texts, which, of course, brings the Lectures on the History of Philosophy to the fore. (shrink)

The Korean Buddhist Empire: A Transnational History, 1910–1945 by Hwansoo Ilmee Kim. Harvard University Asia Center, 2019. 358pp. HB. $45.00, ISBN-13: 9780674987197.

The study of the cultural activity of the Spiritual missions of the Russian Orthodox Church in various regions of Russia is one of the urgent tasks in the context of the problematic field of the theory of regionalism, cultural studies and socio-philosophical knowledge. Russian settlements on the territory of the Yenisei River basin and the entry of ethnic groups and territories of Yakutia and Buryatia into the Russian Empire has become one of the most important stages of the integration of (...) the ethnic groups of Siberia into a single statehood. The Irkutsk Spiritual Mission received a more perfect organization, institutionalized by increasing the number of missionary camps, which for successful Christian activities carried out among pagans allowed the formation of school educational institutions for the education and upbringing of a new Buryat generation of children in the doctrinal Orthodox canons, and Russian cultural traditions. In this regard, one of the key tasks of the missionaries was to establish a rational view of further life in new Christian-type formations, which was realized in socio-cultural activities: providing medical care to sick representatives of other ethnic groups, a friendly attitude to people of a different faith and a sincere desire to guide them on the path of righteousness, etc. It should be noted that the largest share of foreigners in this territory belonged to Buddhists, which was reflected in the influence of lamas on doctrinal issues, including economic ones. Since Buddhism in the Russian Empire belonged to the section of tolerant religions, direct (administrative) pressure on it was impossible. There remained funds of an exclusively spiritual nature, to which Orthodox missionary work was directed. Today in the Russian Federation, Buddhism, as well as Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as some other faiths belong to the category of traditional religions, which organizationally operate within the framework of the modern Russian Constitution. (shrink)

Offers a vivid, nuanced, and chronological account of Buddhistreligion in Japan -- from its emergence in the sixth centuryright through to the present day.

Early Buddhist Metaphysics provides a philosophical account of the major doctrinal shift in the history of early Theravada tradition in India: the transition from the earliest stratum of Buddhist thought to the systematic and allegedly scholastic philosophy of the Pali Abhidhamma movement. Entwining comparative philosophy and Buddhology, the author probes the Abhidhamma's metaphysical transition in terms of the Aristotelian tradition and vis-à-vis modern philosophy, exploits Western philosophical literature from Plato to contemporary texts in the fields of philosophy of mind and (...) cultural criticism. (shrink)