Buddhism and Religious Diversity ed. by Perry Schmidt-Leukel (review)

Abstract

Buddhism and Religious Diversity. Edited by Perry Schmidt-Leukel. Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, vol. 1: Eastern Religions (402 pp.); vol. 2, Christianity (330 pp.); vol. 3, Islam and Judaism (361 pp.); vol. 4, Religious Pluralism (344 pp.). London and New York: Routledge, 2013. The 4-vol. set costs $1,430. As Tomoko Masuzawa and other critics of the category of religion have noted, most of the discussions of issues surrounding religious diversity in the modern academy have been broadly confined historically to Christian and secular authors. Of course, religious diversity is not a topic that has been limited to modern academia, and the only thing that surpasses the cultural and religious diversity throughout human history is the sheer number of cross-religious and cross-cultural encounters throughout that history. Given this discrepancy between the dearth of scholarship in the academy (on the topic of diversity, no less) and the breadth and depth of the reality, the recent growth in works on non-Christian perspectives on religious diversity is quite refreshing, and Schmidt-Leukel's work is certainly a valuable contribution to this new wave. This four-volume set covers Eastern religions, the Abrahamic religions, and religious pluralism broadly conceived. These Buddhist volumes deal with their perspectives on other religious traditions; those looking for texts on other religious traditions' perspectives on Buddhism should look elsewhere. This set is primarily a collection of articles and excerpts from previously published works, and it does not contain much novel content. However, as any scholar in the field of Buddhism and religious diversity will tell you, the value of simply gathering many of these texts together for the first time is immense, as many were difficult to acquire. While it does include some translations of older works, the set generally includes just modern scholarly secondary sources on earlier periods, in addition to primary and secondary sources on Buddhism and religious diversity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Many important topics are simply not considered--Schmidt-Leukel laments, for instance, the lack of recent literature on Buddhist perspectives on Jainism (one could certainly add Sikhism and non-Asian indigenous religions as well). There are several articles that discuss Buddhist perspectives on diversity within Buddhism, but most focus on Buddhist perspectives of religious diversity outside of the tradition, however broadly conceived. Topics that are included are considered quite extensively; readers will discover that nearly all of the important authors and modern texts on Buddhist perspectives on Eastern religions, Abrahamic religions, and religious pluralism are included, such as excerpts from Arthur Wright's classic study on Buddhism and Chinese culture and Masao Abe's famous reflection on kenosis. Unfortunately, there are no introductions for the texts, which would have been very helpful to contextualize many of the pieces. …