Religious Studies' Mishandling of Origin and Change: Time, Tradition, and Form of Life in Buddhism

Abstract

Religious Studies' Mishandling of Origin and ChangeTime, Tradition, and Form of Life in Buddhism Ananda Abeysekara (bio) Most of religious life works quite well without "critique" because most of life does. — Talal Asad, interview in the Bulletin for the Study of Religion Every use is first of all use of self: to enter into a relation of use with something, I must be affected by it …; in the using of something, it is the very being of the one using that is first of all at stake. — Giorgio Agamben, The Use of Bodies The modern (postcolonial-minded) narrative of religion is a critique of the problem of time, in that it "separates" (krinein) origin (arche) from change. Central to this narrative is the idea that religion or religious life, as something that belongs to history, changes. Change is assumed to be history's "force of movement." It is often difficult for a modern scholar to narrate the story of religion without the paradigmatic notion of change. But is this critical narrative of religion as self-evident as is often assumed? I think not. The idea of history-time that guides this narrative is based on a "decision." Decision in this narrative effects an "incision" (i.e., cutting into) or "excision" (i.e., cutting out) of the origin of religion's time from its change. Thus, a closer look at this narrative reveals an unquestioned relation between decision and critique.1 Decision simply becomes "critique." That is, decision-critique—from the Greek heritage of the word krino—seeks merely to "separate" the problem of origin from change, a problem that haunts our secular politics and temporality.2 This "decisive critique" turns out be a kind of "decisionism" that is caught up in the paradox of deciding that which [End Page 22] cannot be decided. In such decisionism, it becomes difficult to think the inseparability between life and its "form." This necessarily prevents us from thinking about tradition itself in other ways than the distinction between origin and change.3 In this essay, I try to think how this critique of time works in very different postcolonial-minded texts on religion, particularly those by scholars of Buddhism such as Anne Blackburn, Steven Collins, Donald Lopez, and Richard Gombrich.4 These texts, which are informed by different theoretical-political orientations, present contrasting conceptualizations of time and life in modern and premodern Buddhism. Nonetheless the texts produce a common problem of temporality by way of seeking to separate the point of origin from successive changes of religious life within history. The problem we find in this narrative is not restricted to the area of Buddhist studies or religion. The problem remains in how we understand history-time as a particular secular object of study and critique. Thus the examples of texts (in terms of essentialist and antiessentialist critics of history) discussed here help us understand the problem of the secular practice of critique and the assumptions that such practice takes for granted about history, tradition, religion, and life itself. To that extent, my interest is not in what critique is, but how critique works in the secular practice of time and life.5 This general problem can be found in the way the modern narrative of religious life, as something that exists and changes in history, is assumed to be governed by critique. For the antiessentialist critic, the division between origin and change is crucial to determining how religion or religious life changes in history. For the self-proclaimed essentialist, the nemesis of the antiessentialist, the same separation of origin from change is crucial to defending the very idea of "origin." My argument is that the antiessentialist critique of origin cannot undermine the essentialist's argument for origin, because both are informed by the same critical decision of time and life that takes the separation between origin and change to be empirically axiomatic.6 My aim here is only to ask questions about the aporetic difficulties that the modern critique runs into in deciding on the question of religious life and time in the above way. The aporia of the modern critical narrative of religion helps us ponder a not-often-posed question...