Abstract
Centre of Oriental Studies, Vilnius University
 The article deals with the main historical and cultural approaches of Europeans to Buddhism in various Asian areas. The intention of author is to turn to discussion of those peculiar forms in which the knowledge of Buddhism was presented. This study sets out its aim to explore the way of engagement of the West with the Buddhist tradition, emphasizing the early period of the encounter and those initial imaginative constructions and early discourses that shaped the nascency of the scholarly discipline. Conclusion is made that Buddhism has been represented in the Western imagination in a manner that reflects specifically Western concerns, interests, and aspirations. Europeans saw themselves as possessing the criteria upon which the judgement of the religious, social, and cultural value of Buddhism rests. Buddhism was constructed, essentialized and interpreted through Western images of the Oriental mind that provided ideological strategies and a hermeneutic filter.
Highlights
India and the East are rich in Western fantasies being from time to time described with all the qualities of a dream
This study sets out its aim to explore the way of engagement of the West with the Buddhist tradition, emphasizing the early period of the encounter and those initial imaginative constructions and early discourses that shaped the nascency of the scholarly discipline
Conclusion is made that Buddhism has been represented in the Western imagination in a manner that reflects Western concerns, interests, and aspirations
Summary
The article deals with the main historical and cultural approaches of Europeans to Buddhism in various Asian areas. AUDRIUS BEINORIUS was very much limited and the study of Buddhism in the West came rather late on the scene in comparison to the study of other Indian and Asian philosophical-religious traditions. It took some time before scholars were even able to conceive the congeries of seemingly desparate phenomena united by the common rubric “Buddhism”. This study sets out its aim to explore the way of engagement of the West with the Buddhist tradition, with an emphasis on the early period of the encounter and those initial imaginative constructions and early discourses that shaped the nascency of the scholarly discipline
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