Describing the Elephant: Buddhism in America

Abstract

The expanding volume of publications on Buddhism in America in the last two and a half decades bears witness to the emergence of an exciting new subfield within American religion, on the one hand, and within Buddhist studies, on the other. For Americanists, it reflects a growing recognition of the ways in which non-Western religions are altering the American religious landscape. As such, it is part of an emerging awareness of the increasingly pluralistic and multicultural nature of American society at the turn of the millennium. For Buddhologists, the spread of Buddhism in America opens a new chapter in the long history of the geographical and cultural diffusion of the religion since its founding in India some 2,500 years ago. This new subfield thus holds the prospect of studying what promises to be a momentous development in the history of Buddhism, and it affords an opportunity to study the acculturation of the tradition as it is actually occurring. Clearly this is a field where both Americanists and Buddhologists have much to contribute and much to learn from one another.