Buddhist Identity Research Articles

Creating Religious Identities: Buddhist Monuments in Colonial and Post-Colonial India

This paper draws on my work on the maritime history of early South and Southeast Asia and the use of sea-lanes of the Indian Ocean by pilgrims for visits to sites associated with the life of the Buddha. A second perspective is provided by the rediscovery of Buddhism in Europe coinciding with the development of new disciplines, including archaeology. These disciplines were introduced into India with the government-sponsored Archaeological Survey of India, founded in 1871. Alexander Cunningham, the first Director-General, brought Buddhism to the forefront and established its study as a separate sub-discipline. This had far-reaching implications for the demarcation and archaeological investigation of many of the monuments linked to Buddhism, especially Bodh Gaya and Sanchi. This paper addresses the issue of the manifestation of a Buddhist identity in colonial India. It is often suggested that this identity owed its origins to the formation of the Mahabodhi Society and the emergence of nationalism in Sri Lanka. This paper examines political developments in India in the context of the Navayana or the Neo-Buddhist path, forged by B.R. Ambedkar on the 2500th anniversary of Buddha’s parinirvana, or demise, in 1956. To what extent did this newly formed identity become interlinked with the identification and control of archaeological sites in India and their redefinition? How did the renegotiation of Buddhist identity affect India’s relationship with Thailand?

Common culture: Asia rhetoric in the beginning of the 20th century

The essay analyses the history of geopolitical conceptualizations of Asia a century ago, found in the texts of Japanese Okakura Tenshin, Indian Rabindranath Tagore, and Chinese Sun Yatsen. They are not only classics in formulating new meanings for Asia, but they are also relevant nowadays in the light of contemporary attempts to advance Asian cooperation. During both periods, a crucial aspect of the discussion was conceptual: what to include and what to exclude from Asia, and on what grounds. In their own time all three authors appeared as innovative ideologists, who rhetorically redescribed the concept of Asia. That was necessary, because the whole geopolitical construction named Asia had thus far been dominated by European civilizational discourse, where Asia was seen as an aggregate of everything geographic, racial, and cultural that did not fit within Europe. It was a residual category, not containing anything that would make Asia into a common entity, except its essentialized non‐Europeanness. Culture, in the sense of the existence of a high civilization different from the dominating European one, became the central concept on which the three authors began to build a new understanding of Asian commonality. Because they were early pioneers, they often had to proceed metaphorically, using imaginative leaps of thought to fill the empty places necessarily appearing in such a new endeavour. Occasionally they also run into conceptual problems, which are as interesting as their usually quoted slogans. The problems were caused by the fact that they were Western educated and had to base their thinking on Western concepts, while at the same time attempting to proceed with classical Buddhist and Confucian ideals. It is exactly these conceptual difficulties that are relevant nowadays, when there is again a need to create Asian commonalities, while Asian relations with the rest of the world make these common aspects relative and contextual.

Buddhist Idealism, Epistemic and Otherwise: Thoughts on the Alternating Perspectives of Dharmakīrti

Some influential interpreters of Dharmakīrti have suggested understanding his thought in terms of a ‘sliding scale of analysis.’ Here it is argued that this emphasis on Dharmakīrti's alternating philosophical perspectives, though helpful in important respects, obscures the close connection between the two views in play (identified by later commentators as ‘Sautrāntika’ and ‘Yogācāra’). Indeed, with respect to these perspectives as Dharmakīrti develops them, the epistemology is the same either way. Insofar as that is right, John Dunne's characterization of Dharmakīrti's Yogācāra as ‘epistemic idealism’ may not, after all, distinguish this perspective from Sautrāntika; indeed, epistemic idealism can be understood as just the view these positions share. Thus, what distinguishes the ‘Yogācāra’ section of Dharmakīrti's texts is simply his making explicit that epistemological commitments the Sautrāntika does (or at least can coherently) hold are already compatible with idealism. Sautrāntika and Yogācāra thus differ only when one turns to the metaphysical arguments that (on the idealist's view) additionally show that only such mental things as sense data could be real.

Women, Gender and Religion in Premodern China: A Brief Introduction

AbstractThis is an introduction to the eight essays included in this special two-issue volume of Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China dedicated to the theme of women, gender and religion in premodern China. It is not intended as a comprehensive state-of-the-field overview. Rather, it seeks to address some of the issues and trends in this relatively under-represented area of scholarly research. It is for this reason that the discussion of the eight essays in this and the companion issue to follow is thematic rather than in order of appearance. The purpose is to show how these essays both provide, and illustrate the need for, a fuller understanding of the various ways in which Buddhist and Daoist religious practices and ideals in particular, were woven through the fabric of the lives of many women as well as men, not so much in opposition to, as in conjunction with, traditional Confucian norms.

Buddhist Kingship, British Archaeology and Historical Narratives in Sri Lanka c.1750 1850

The ancient city of Anurādhapura continues to be a potent icon of Sinhala Buddhist identity in war-torn Sri Lanka.1 With its famous Bo tree (Ficus religiosa), said to be a sapling from the tree under which Buddha attained his enlightenment, and dome-shaped stūpa made of brick and earth with Buddhist relics at their core, Anurādhapura is now thronged with lines of pilgrims and curious tourists.2 This essay presents a new account of how this city came to have such powerful symbolic significance. Historians have already identified Brahmachāri Harischandra's The Sacred City of Anuradhapura (1908) as crucial to this story. In the preface to this work, the early nationalist described the ancient capital thus: ‘there is no other city upon the universe that has maintained its position as a Sacred City replete with sacred objects of diverse kind, for a period of 2,200 years, except this city’.3 He added that Anurādhapura belonged to the Buddhists and that it had been built and maintained by the ‘Sinhalese nation’. Harischandra was insistent on the need to protect the ruins from the ‘vandalism’ of the colonial Archaeological Department.4 Near the front of his book, there is a photograph of him at his writing desk, dressed in white with pen in hand. In self-presentation as well as in politics, he followed closely in the steps of Anagārika Dharmapāla, arguably the most important early nationalist in Sri Lanka.

The Argument from Illusion in Buddhist Idealism

Any object that a cognition cognizes exists in the external world; or, any object that a cognition cognizes does not exist in the external world. These are the alternatives Prajnakaragupta gives in his Alamkara. Buddhist idealists use an illusory cognition, such as a dream cognition, as an example to illustrate the latter. But can we conclude, from the fact that such an illusory cognition cognizes an object which does not externally exist, that any cognition has no externally existent object? This is the problem of generalization Matilal (1972) pointed out concerning the “Argument from Illusion” of Buddhist idealists. Prajnakaragupta tries to solve this kind of problem from the viewpoint of the theory of self-cognition (svasamvedana), showing that the problem can be solved by Buddhist idealists, but not by realists.Kumarila, a typical realist, holds that it is what exists in the external world that brings about an illusory cognition. For example, in the case of the mirage illusion, the appearance of water in this illusion presupposes the following two things: the water has been previously seen; and, sands heated by the sun are present.Prajnakaragupta, a Buddhist idealist, criticizes this view of Kumarila's by saying that there is no way to know the existence of things that do not appear to a cognition. According to Prajnakaragupta, if we see an object other than what we are seeing, then we would have the cognition of yellow when we see blue; therefore, what we are seeing is just what appears in the mind.It is to be noted that in the view that every cognition has a general character, i. e., the self-revealing character, the problem posed by Matilal is easily solved. For, there is no difference between the water which appears in an ordinary cognition and that which appears in a mirage-illusion, because both appear in the same form of ‘water.’ On the contrary, if the realists insist that there appears the external object even in the illusory cognition, they have to clear up the problem: How is it that only through an ordinary cognition we see what we are seeing now and here, and not through illusory cognition?

The Lastling (review)

Reviewed by: Skate Karen Coats Harmon, Michael Skate. Knopf, 2006242p Library ed. ISBN 0-375-97516-0$17.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-375-87516-6$15.95 R Gr. 7-10 Initially, fourteen-year-old Paris is delighted to be invited on her uncle Franklin's trip to the Himalayas; she eventually realizes, however, that his group is hunting exceedingly rare animals for their meat. Before she can explore her dual feelings of horror and fascination, Paris is distracted by the group's gratuitous capture of Tahr, a preteen monk who has just seen his mentor, the only family he had, die. Paris and Tahr agree that a face Tahr saw just before his mentor perished was likely a yeh-teh (a yeti to English speakers), and Paris immediately tells the hunting group. Subsequently pursued by guilt, Paris joins with Tahr, haunted by his conviction that he killed his mentor (it was Tahr's cry that distracted him during a precarious climb), in a quest to save the last yeh-teh, both hoping it will compensate for their wrongdoings. The strongest aspect of this novel is the character development of the protagonists: Paris undergoes remarkable growth, Tahr is an unusual and memorable character driven by his Buddhist ideals, and the young yeh-teh is intelligent and emotionally complex. Unfortunately, the rest of the novel is peopled with stock bad guys who twirl their mustaches as they contemplate ruination or heroic adults who swoop in with absolute altruism. In addition, the convoluted plot simply cannot stand up under the weight of endless contrivances and distractions: what are readers to make of the mysterious war going on in the background, how can this one small area hold so many "lasts" of species, and how in the world can Paris, Tahr, and the yeh-teh escape apparent doom? Even so, the yetis, the intriguing Himalayan setting, and a lightning pace help to balance the forced happy ending, so adventure fans looking for excitement may find this book to be a satisfying read. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The 2006 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies

The 2006 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesWashington, DC, November 17–18, 2006 Frances S. Adeney, Secretary The theme of this year's meeting was "Religious Self-Fashioning and the Role of Community in Contemporary Buddhist and Christian Practice." The first session presented participants with three papers. The first compared Christian and Buddhist groups that fostered community and long-term commitment. A second paper developed the theme of community affiliation with a description of the Buddhist practice of Hoza. And a third paper demonstrated how a dual practitioner could minister pastorally to both Buddhists and Christians. In the second session practical and philosophical foci met in the discussion of papers on individualized vs. Sangha Buddhism in the United States and co-origination and universal intersubjectivity in Buddhist and Christian philosophies. It was a rich feast indeed. Dr. Sandra Costen Kunz presented her paper "Christian and Buddhist Confession, Affiliation, and Countercultural Action" to start off the first session. In a study of Christian and Buddhist groups, she found interesting methodological parallels in the process that groups undertook to build commitment and community among followers of each tradition. Focused on specific congregations, her paper served to illustrate a trend toward community building that has broad implications for both Buddhist and Christian institutions in their work of fostering commitment and nurturing faith in participants. Dr. Gene Reeves continued along the same theme with a description of the Buddhist practice of Hoza in his particular Buddhist community in Japan. A weekly practice of meeting together to help one another demonstrates a deeper philosophical belief that all can become bodhisattvas for others. Within the hierarchical Buddhist institutional structure, the meetings around Hoza display an egalitarianism that empowers ordinary people to see the Buddha nature in others and to realize it in themselves. In addition to empowering individuals, that process of mutual aid also solidifies the group. According to both papers, individual practice of religion, be it Buddhist or [End Page 133] Christian, and a group process of social solidification work together to deepen faith and community. The third paper in this first session showed the results of that individual/ social dialectic in the life of Dr. Duane Bidwell, who presented his paper "Practicing the Religious Self: Buddhist-Christian Identity as Social Artifact." The main emphasis of this paper was that religion, as a socially constructed reality, depends on community even in its most individualistic forms. As Buddhism and Christianity develop their traditions, those socially constructed worlds can be penetrated by one who traverses between the two worlds. Two stories of pastoral care demonstrated his point. First, in a Buddhist setting, Bidwell, although perceived as a Christian, drew on his Buddhist practices to comfort the dying. In the second example, the situation was reversed. In a setting in which Christianity was the expected form, Bidwell drew on those resources to worship around the deathbed of a young man. In her response to those three papers, Dr. Sallie King brought a critical dimension into the discourse as she asked questions concerning authority and decision making in each context. "How is consensus decision making balanced with hierarchical power in the groups studied?" she asked Dr. Kunz. "Given the equalizing power of Hoza, why is Reeves's organization so hierarchical?" was her question to Dr. Reeves. "And how," she asked, "did choice enter into Bidwell's religious identity?" Responses to those queries led to an interesting discussion that provided food for thought for participants in this meeting. The second session opened with Dr. Kenneth Tanaka's study "The Individual in Relation to the Sangha in American Buddhism: An Examination of 'Individualized Religion.' " Dr. Tanaka spoke to both communal and individualized dimensions of American Buddhism by analyzing a sangha in Alameda County, California, and contrasted it with the Buddhist practices of converts who did not participate in a sangha. He showed that identity for sangha members in Alameda was primarily related to selective joining of group activities by members. In the case of converts, his research showed that their Buddhist identity was most strongly related to meditative practices. A high level of commitment to those practices, with a goal of spiritual development, marked the converts who were...

Haunting the Buddha: Indian popular religions and the formation of Buddhism

Early European histories of India frequently reflected colonialist agendas. The idea that Indian society had declined from an earlier Golden Age helped justify the colonial presence. It was said, for example, that modern Buddhism had fallen away from its original identity as a purely rational philosophy that arose in the mythical 5th-century BCE Golden Age unsullied by the religious and cultural practices that surrounded it. In this book Robert DeCaroli seeks to place the formation of Buddhism in its appropriate social and political contexts. It is necessary, he says, to acknowledge that the monks and nuns who embodied early Buddhist ideals shared many beliefs held by the communities in which they were raised. In becoming members of the monastic society these individuals did not abandon their beliefs in the efficacy and the dangers represented by minor deities and spirits of the dead. Their new faith, however, gave them revolutionary new mechanisms with which to engage those supernatural beings. Drawing on fieldwork, textual, and iconographic evidence, DeCaroli offers a comprehensive view of early Indian spirit-religions and their contributions to Buddhism-the first attempt at such a study since Ananda Coomaraswamy's pioneering work was published in 1928. The result is an important contribution to our understanding of early Indian religion and society, and will be of interest to those in the fields of Buddhist studies, Asian history, art history, and anthropology.

Social capital and identity politics among Asian Buddhists in Toronto

Asian Buddhist identities in Toronto are based on a proliferation of interconnected criteria ranging from shared language, culture, ethnicity, and notions of homeland to distinct doctrinal interpretations and practices. Each identity referent is given a wide variety of meanings and interpretations according to the social context, structures of power and inequality, and relevance of, or ability to, articulate collective self-definition and action. The authors of this article contend that the degree to which Asian Buddhists in Toronto can effectively use the politics of representation depends on the degree of social capital in their communities and/or with individuals associated with, or acting on behalf of, an identifiable group. A specific example of identity politics is examined in the case of the Lao refugees as they faced opposition to their establishing a temple. Local land-use disputes or neighbourhood tensions over places of worship reveal the importance of social capital for effective identity representation to counter negative stereotypes toward religious and racial minorities. The Lao example illustrates how ideal notions of pluralism and multiculturalism advocated by Canadian social policy are not necessarily equated in practice with diversity and acceptance of the other.

The Role of Monks, Nuns, and Laity in the Anguttara Nikaya

In the Etadagga vagga of the Anguttara Nikaya (AN. I, pp. 23-26) appear many names of “the excellent disciples”—those who possessed special skills or characteristics. For example, Sariputta was renowed for his profound wisdom. The excellent disciples include not only monks, but also nuns and laity. We find two other Chinese texts which correspond to the Etadagga vagga. They are the Ekottarika Agama (T. 2, pp. 557a-560c) and Aluohan jude jing (_??__??__??__??__??__??_) (T. 2 pp. 831a-834b). The three sources do mention these excellent disciples, although the numbers of excellent disciples mentioned differ. However, after a comparative study on the excellent disciples' names and skills, it can be said that these texts belong to the same origin.In addition, the Manorathapurani and the Fenbie gongde lun (_??__??__??__??__??_), the commentaries on the Etadagga vagga and the Ekottarika Agama respectively, include life stories of these excellent disciples, and they are also based on the same original source.The stories of the excellent disciples exemplify the ideal Buddhist community where, as pointed out in the Etadagga vagga, monks' and nuns' role is to transmit Lord Buddha's teaching to the next generation, and laity's role is to give the Buddhist order their support.

Identity for and against Itself: Religion, Criticism, and Pluralization

Confronted as we are with new sorts of postcolonial political orderings, the study of postcolonial religion demands a new practice of criticism. Meeting this demand, among other things, involves a different kind of rethinking of still taken-for-granted assumptions about the liberal distinction between religion and secularism and related concepts like nation, tolerance, and unity. Secularists of varying disciplinary persuasions remain unable to offer an alternative view of the distinction, as they obtain their conceptions of “religion” in advance of the conjunctures in which differing definitions of religion come into being. Through a reading of a particular public dispute among Buddhist parties contending to define Buddhist identity and difference in varying terms in late 1990 Sri Lanka, I offer a refashioned conceptualization of the relation between the secular and the religious that helps us understand how agonistic spaces of dispute can oblige religious identity to be both for and against itself, producing a new postcolonial politics of care for the “Other.” Finally, with some help from Foucault and Heidegger, I argue that conceptualizing these agonistic spaces as public sites that demand such a “care for the Other” can constitute an ethic of intervention and affirmation.

Identity for and against Itself: Religion, Criticism, and Pluralization

Confronted as we are with new sorts of postcolonial political orderings, the study of postcolonial demands a new practice of criticism. Meeting this demand, among other things, involves a different kind of rethinking of still taken-for-granted assumptions about the liberal distinction between and secularism and related concepts like nation, tolerance, and unity. Secularists of varying disciplinary persuasions remain unable to offer an alternative view of the distinction, as they obtain their conceptions of religion in advance of the conjunctures in which differing definitions of come into being. Through a reading of a particular public dispute among Buddhist parties contending to define Buddhist identity and difference in varying terms in late 1990 Sri Lanka, I offer a refashioned conceptualization of the relation between the secular and the religious that helps us understand how agonistic spaces of dispute can oblige religious identity to be both for and against itself, producing a new postcolonial politics of for the Other. Finally, with some help from Foucault and Heidegger, I argue that conceptualizing these agonistic spaces as public sites that demand such a care for the Other can constitute an ethic of intervention and affirmation.

The Early Development of the Padmasambhava Legend in Tibet: A Study of IOL Tib J 644 and Pelliot tibetain 307

This article offers some new evidence on Padmasambhava, the Indian master who, according to legend, was instrumental in establishing Buddhism in Tibet. In the course of my research on tantra in the Tibetan manuscripts discovered near Dunhuang, I have found two passages relating to the early development of the legends surrounding this famous Buddhist master, neither of which have been studied to date. I The two passages are presented below in translation, and discussed in light of the other available early evidence. The results of this study reveal a mutability in the early biographies of Padmasambhava. The master's role in the Tibetan imagination grew and evolved in dramatic ways during the ninth to eleventh centuries, so that by the time of his first complete biography, the twelfthcentury Zangs gling ma by Nyang ral nyi ma'i 'od zer (1124-1192), Padmasambhava had become the single most important figure in Tibetan narratives of their early conversion to Buddhism. The new evidence presented here contributes to our understanding of how these Tibetan conversion narratives grew over the early years. The present inquiry is therefore less concerned with Padmasambhava as a historical person than with his legend and the thematic lines along which it developed.2 An evaluation of the early evidence helps to clarify both how Tibetans perceived themselves and how they understood their first encounters with the Buddhist religion. This new evidence indicates that the Padmasambhava legend initially flourished during the so-called of Tibetan history. This period stretched from 842 C.E. when the Tibetan empire collapsed, to roughly 978 c.E. when a royal court and Buddhist monastic institutions began to reappear, bringing with them a new orthodoxy. According to traditional Tibetan historical sources, this period of one and a half centuries witnessed a horrific degradation of Buddhism, as monasteries were persecuted and the teachings corrupted. Recent scholarship has begun to question this traditional version of events.3 Certainly, the Tibetans who emerged from the dark period were far more Buddhist, however such affiliation is measured, than the Tibetans who had entered it. It seems that despite the closing of the monasteries Buddhism continued to flourish at the local level. The forms Buddhism took during these years may well have been corrupt in the view of later Tibetans, but these same corruptions were fundamental to the formation of the Tibetan Buddhist identity. Freed from the watchful eye of the imperial court and the monastic orthodoxy, Tibetans of the dark period were able to make Buddhism their own. The themes, the imagery, and the strategies Tibetans developed during the inchoate years of the dark age formed the cultural foundations upon which Tibetan Buddhism was built. Only by excavating these foundations and shedding

The Uses and Abuses of Wŏnhyo and the “T’ong Pulgyo” Narrative

Abstract This paper aims to illustrate Wŏnhyo’s place in the modern discourse of Korean nationalism, as the major figure of Korean Buddhist identity. Wŏnhyo (617–686) was a Buddhist monk and one of the key thinkers, writers, and commentators of the Korean Buddhist tradition. In addition to the breadth of Wŏnhyo’s own scholarship on Buddhist scriptures available in seventh-century Silla, Korea, the volume and diversity of scholarship about Wŏnhyo in modern Korea represents the status and history of the development of Buddhist studies in Korea. Wŏnhyo’s approach to Buddhism has been used in contemporary contexts to describe various aspects of Korean life and thought. Most people—scholars and nonacademics alike—have taken for granted the received narrative of Wŏnhyo, a narrative that is now highly nationalized. Following up the argument that has recently arisen among scholars (Shim Jae-ryong and Robert Buswell), linking Ch’oe Namsŏn in the colonial period with the emergence of the syncretic ideology that has grounded contemporary Korean scholarship, I expanded the scope of investigation to include other attempts to write about Wŏnhyo and Korean Buddhism throughout Korean Buddhist history, and their subsequent elaboration in the twentieth century. I explore the spectrum of evolving perspectives on Wŏnhyo, and how modern ideas about him have continued to shift with changing sociopolitical conditions. This will help us to gauge the significance of Wŏnhyo and his scholarship in the creation of a Korean Buddhist identity.

The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography (review)

Reviewed by: The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography John R. McRae (bio) John Kieschnick . The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography. Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism, no. 10. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997. vii, 218 pp. Paperback $27.00, ISBN 0-8248-1841-5. The circumstances of this review are a bit unusual. I received the request to prepare it in the fall of 2003, by which time several reviews of this 1997 publication had already appeared. Also, I am on the board of directors of the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values, and, although T. Griffith Foulk and Daniel Stevenson evaluated the manuscript (p. vii), I was one of those who supported its selection for publication. In addition, I am also a good friend of the author—which is frequently the case in our small but geographically dispersed field. Therefore, in the following paragraphs I will comment not only on the book but on its earlier reviews, and I will report on e-mail exchanges I have had with the author in the context of preparing my own comments. By doing so I hope to contribute to, not only the appreciation of this single volume, but a better understanding of how the book review process works. The Eminent Monk is a study of an important genre of Chinese Buddhist writing, the series of Gaoseng zhuan texts produced in the sixth, seventh, and tenth centuries. Other than its introduction and conclusion, the three major chapters of Kieschnick's book are devoted to the themes of asceticism, thaumaturgy, and scholarship. The book is very well produced, with very few typographical errors, and it includes excellent back matter: a glossary of Chinese characters, extensive bibliography, and well-done index. The book is gracefully written and if anything too brief, with only 145 pages of text (plus 38 pages of notes). The earliest review of The Eminent Monk was by Eric Reinders, published on November 13, 1998, in the online Journal of Buddhist Ethics (http://www.gold.ac.uk/jbe/5/rein1.html). Along with introductory and concluding paragraphs, Reinders comments on each of the book's three major chapters, briefly describing the content, quoting a favorite passage, and pointing out some of the implications of Kieschnick's work. It is an entirely positive review, without any hint of criticism—the only irony being when he describes the author as "true to his Stanford [End Page 121] training" (p. 2) in not taking Chan or other types of Buddhist hagiographies at face value. Reinders concludes: One strength of this book is its consciousness of difference, the juggling of diverse voices and implied audiences. Clearly Kieschnick is concerned throughout with the sitz im leben of these texts, concerned with the facts not of the events described but of the descriptions themselves. Yet, whenever possible, he generalizes cautiously about the real social practices that gave these stories meaning. He is also quite adept at highlighting Chinese Buddhism as a negotiation of Indian and Chinese elements. Another strength, which quickly persuaded me to order this book for use in a lower-division class on East Asian religion, is the readability of the prose, light in its theoretical touch and interspersed with some great stories. (p. 2 ) We will return below to the distinction between Kieschnick's attention to both the descriptions of events and the social practices behind those descriptions. Reinders' decision to order the book for classroom use is also instructive regarding the tone and style of the book, which is readable and not theoretically heavy-handed. In James A. Benn's review of The Eminent Monk in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (vol. 8, pt. 3 [November 1998]: 496-498), content summary is mixed with judicious praise and criticism. Benn opens by observing how remarkable it is that Kieschnick is the first scholar to present the biographies as the collections themselves do, "as mixtures of fact and legend" (p. 496). In his description of Kieschnick's chapter on asceticism, Benn observes that the analysis would have been improved by careful consideration of Indian precedents, by consulting such works as...

To be or not to be: Buddhist selves in Toronto

Buddhist identity: a Buddhist by any other name?When we talk about a ‘Buddhist’ or ‘Buddhists’ in Canada and the United States, what exactly is our referent—a label or category, an identity, or perhaps something more? Is the term ‘Buddhist’ signifying a reified object (or subject?), one that subsumes all sorts of practices, beliefs, philosophies, and preconceptions under its umbrella? Or can the term be used to signify choice, personal commitment, motivation, partiality, and perhaps even struggle? We have a great many labels and categorizations of the differences among and between Buddhists, but can we really assume that the term ‘Buddhist’ itself is unproblematic? Calling someone a Buddhist in the West, or ‘naming’ them as such, appears initially and on the surface a fairly straightforward undertaking. And yet, the very act of naming itself is a composite of assumptions and expectations. In much of the anthropological literature on initiation rituals, the act of naming has been construed as more-or-less a societal quest for order and control of the individual. Naming marks who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. Being named is an important marker of social identity, socialness, and social belonging (inter alia, Jell-Bahlsen 1989; Jacquemet 1992; Cohen 1994).

Westward Dharma: Buddhism beyond Asia

List of Tables Introduction: Paying Homage to the Buddha in the West Martin Baumann and Charles S. Prebish PART I: PROFILING GLOBAL BUDDHISM: A DESCRIPTION OF THE LANDSCAPE 1. Who Is a Buddhist? Night-Stand Buddhists and Other Creatures Thomas A. Tweed 2. The Spectrum of Buddhist Practice in the West B. Alan Wallace 3. Protective Amulets and Awareness Techniques, or How to Make Sense of Buddhism in the West Martin Baumann 4. Studying the Spread and Histories of Buddhism in the West: The Emergence of Western Buddhism as a New Subdiscipline within Buddhist Studies Charles S. Prebish PART II: DIFFUSION: THE HISTORIES OF BUDDHISM IN WESTERN COUNTRIES 5. Buddhism in Europe: Past, Present, Prospects Martin Baumann 6. American Buddhism in the Making Richard Hughes Seager 7. Buddhism in Canada Bruce Matthews 8. The Development of Buddhism in Australia and New Zealand Michelle Spuler 9. Buddhism in South Africa Michel Clasquin 10. Buddhism in Brazil and Its Impact on the Larger Brazilian Society Frank Usarski 11. Buddha in the Promised Land: Outlines of the Buddhist Settlement in Israel Lionel Obadia PART III: CHANGE: ADAPTATIONS AND INNOVATIONS 12. Camp Dharma: Japanese-American Buddhist Identity and the Internment Experience of World War II Duncan Ryuken Williams 13. The Translating Temple: Diasporic Buddhism in Florida Douglas M. Padgett 14. Repackaging Zen for the West David L. McMahan 15. Scandals in Emerging Western Buddhism Sandra Bell PART IV: LIFESTYLE: BEING A BUDDHIST IN WESTERN SOCIETIES 16. The Challenge of Community Ajahn Tiradhammo 17. Buddhist Nuns: Changes and Challenges Karma Lekshe Tsomo 18. Neither Monk nor Nun: Western Buddhists as Full-Time Practitioners Sylvia Wetzel 19. Virtues without Rules: Ethics in the Insight Meditation Movement Gil Fronsdal PART V: BUDDHISM FACING NEW CHALLENGES 20. The Roar of the Lioness: Women's Dharma in the West Judith Simmer-Brown 21. Engaged Buddhism: Agnosticism, Interdependence, Globalization Christopher S. Queen 22. The Encounter of Buddhism and Psychology Franz Aubrey Metcalf 23. A Commodius Vicus Recirculation:: Buddhism, Art, and Modernity Ian Harris Bibliography List of Contributors Index

Textual Scholarship, Medical Tradition, and Mahāyāna Buddhist Ideals in Tibet

Textual Scholarship, Medical Tradition, and Mahāyāna Buddhist Ideals in Tibet

"Buddhism in Syncretic Shape": Lessons of Shingon in Brazil

Although syncretism is frequently described in the history of Buddhism in Asia, little has been discussed regarding its presence in Buddhism in western countries, where the concept would be helpful for analysing the popularization of Buddhism and its new combinations. From this point of view, the first aim of this article is to present a new heuristic category, one that contrasts the more rigid concept of identity established by socalled "Protestant Buddhism." Given the growing dilution of Buddhist identity and its tendency toward syncretism in Brazil, this paper works with the heuristic concept of a "Buddhism in Syncretic Shape." Since this concept is useful for better understanding some groups in Brazil, it is suggested that it can also provide interesting insights for the study of Buddhism in the West. This concept will be developed through a detailed description of Shingon in Brazil, which has undergone a religious synthesis with Catholicism and AfroBrazilian religions.