Buddhism and Orientalism

Abstract

Orientalists (Westerners who studied Asian cultures) arose in the period of European expansionism. Their passion was to produce knowledge of the languages, literatures, religions, and philosophies of the “East.” The Palestinian American Edward Said (b. 1935–d. 2003) was the first to theorize this activity, placing it within cultural and political studies with the argument that orientalism was a tool of Western global domination and manipulation. It was complicit with Western colonialism and distorted and restructured the “East” in order to exert power over it. Said focused on the Middle East and Islam. He gave little credit to the agency of those who were the objects of orientalism and was dismissive of the motivation of orientalists. His argument was then extended by others to cover religions such as Buddhism. Saidian scholars of Buddhist history argued that orientalism mined Buddhism to serve Western interests, textualized and reified it, and even introduced to Buddhists the idea that their religious practice formed a separate “religion.” Said’s argument forms the bottom line of the contemporary study of Buddhism and orientalism but has been contested, particularly by those who argue that the production of knowledge about Buddhism during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was neither the product of the dominant West nor Asia alone but rather of their interaction within the context of modernism. What is beyond doubt is that the activity of Western orientalists in these centuries gave birth to new formulations of Buddhism both in Asia and the West that have been given different labels: Protestant Buddhism, Buddhist Revivalism, Buddhist Modernism, Westernized Buddhism. This bibliography includes primary sources, namely the writings of orientalists up to the early twentieth century, and contemporary scholarship within the field of Buddhism and orientalism. It recognizes that not only Buddhist studies in the West but also some Western Buddhist communities were children of orientalism and are still influenced by it. However, it also recognizes that orientalist representations of Buddhism were diverse, influenced variously by Western rationalism and scientific method, Christian missionary activity, and Western interest in spiritualism, the esoteric, and the occult. It should be remembered that the items listed in each section are illustrative and not comprehensive.