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The British Discovery of Buddhism by Philip C. Almond Pdf
This is the first book to examine the British discovery of Buddhism during the Victorian period. It was only during the nineteenth century that Buddhism became, in the western mind, a religious tradition separate from Hinduism. As a result, Buddha emerge from a realm of myth and was addressed as a historical figure. Almond's exploration of British interpretations of Buddhism--of its founder, its doctrines, its ethics, its social practices, its truth and value--illuminates more than the various aspects of Buddhist culture: it sheds light on the Victorian society making these judgements.
The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century by P. J. Marshall Pdf
One of the incidental consequences of the success of British arms in eighteenth-century India was the appearance of a number of publications which reflect the intense curiosity of contemporary Europeans about strange peoples, their manners and religions. Of the three principal religions of India, Hinduism attracted the most attention. European contact with Islam was several centuries old, while few travellers could identify Buddhism with any certainty. This book reprints some of the most significant English contributions to the early European understanding of Hinduism.
In his novel Kim, in which a Tibetan pilgrim seeks to visit important Buddhist sites in India, Rudyard Kipling reveals the nineteenth-century fascination with the discovery of the importance of Buddhism in India's past. Janice Leoshko, a scholar of South Asian Buddhist art uses Kipling's account and those of other western writers to offer new insight into the priorities underlying nineteenth-century studies of Buddhist art in India. In the absence of written records, the first explorations of Buddhist sites were often guided by accounts of Chinese pilgrims. They had journeyed to India more than a thousand years earlier in search of sacred traces of the Buddha, the places where he lived, obtained enlightenment, taught and finally passed into nirvana. The British explorers, however, had other interests besides the religion itself. They were motivated by concerns tied to the growing British control of the subcontinent. Building on earlier interventions, Janice Leoshko examines this history of nineteenth-century exploration in order to illuminate how early concerns shaped the way Buddhist art has been studied in the West and presented in its museums.
British Buddhism presents a useful insight into contemporary British Buddhist practice. It provides a survey of the seven largest Buddhist traditions in the United Kingdom, including the Forest Sangha (Theravada) and the Samatha Trust (Theravada), the Serene Reflection Meditation tradition (Soto Zen) and Soka Gakkai (both originally Japanese), the Tibetan Karma Kagyu and New Kadampa traditions and Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. Based on extensive fieldwork, this fascinating book determines how and to what extent British Buddhist groups are changing from their Asian roots, and whether any forms of British Buddhism are beginning to emerge. Despite the popularity of Buddhism in Britain, there has so far been no study documenting the full range of teachings and practice. This is an original study that fills this gap and serves as an important reference point for further studies in this increasingly popular field.
Description: Buddhism is indisputably gaining prominence in the west, as is evidenced by the growth of Buddhist practice within many traditions and keen interest in meditation and mindfulness. In the Lotus and the Lion, the author traces the historical and cultural origins of Western Buddhism, showing that the British empire was a primary engine for curiosity about and then engagement with the Buddhisms that the British encountered in India and elsewhere in Asia. Victoria and Edwardian England witnessed the emergence of comparative religious scholarship with a focus on Buddhism, the appearance of Buddhist characters and concepts in literacy works, the publication of hundreds of articles on Buddhism in popular and intellectual periodicals, and the dawning of Syncretic Religions that incorporated elements derived from Buddhism. In this fascinating book, the author analyzes responses to and constructions of Buddhism by popular novelists and poets, early scholars of religion, inventors of new religions, social theorists and philosophers and a host of social and religious commentators. The Lotus and the Lion demonstrates that the nineteenth-century encounter with Buddhism subtly but profoundly changed western civilization forever. Contents Preface Introduction 1. The Life of the Buddha in Victorian Britain 2. Buddhism and the Emergence of Late-Victorian Hybrid Religions 3. Romances of Reincarnation, Karma and Desire 4. Buddhism and the Empire of the Self in Kipling's Kim Conclusion : The Afterlife of Nirvana
Buddhism is indisputably gaining prominence in the West, as is evidenced by the growth of Buddhist practice within many traditions and keen interest in meditation and mindfulness. In The Lotus and the Lion, J. Jeffrey Franklin traces the historical and cultural origins of Western Buddhism, showing that the British Empire was a primary engine for curiosity about and then engagement with the Buddhisms that the British encountered in India and elsewhere in Asia. As a result, Victorian and Edwardian England witnessed the emergence of comparative religious scholarship with a focus on Buddhism, the appearance of Buddhist characters and concepts in literary works, the publication of hundreds of articles on Buddhism in popular and intellectual periodicals, and the dawning of syncretic religions that incorporated elements derived from Buddhism. In this fascinating book, Franklin analyzes responses to and constructions of Buddhism by popular novelists and poets, early scholars of religion, inventors of new religions, social theorists and philosophers, and a host of social and religious commentators. Examining the work of figures ranging from Rudyard Kipling and D. H. Lawrence to H. P. Blavatsky, Thomas Henry Huxley, and F. Max Müller, Franklin provides insight into cultural upheavals that continue to reverberate into our own time. Those include the violent intermixing of cultures brought about by imperialism and colonial occupation, the trauma and self-reflection that occur when a Christian culture comes face-to-face with another religion, and the debate between spiritualism and materialism. The Lotus and the Lion demonstrates that the nineteenth-century encounter with Buddhism subtly but profoundly changed Western civilization forever.
"[Allen] pieces the story together like shards of a broken vase."—Sara Wheeler,The Sunday Telegraph In this fascinating book, Charles Allen unravels the saga of an archeological discovery and a twisted tale of truth and lies that has divided Buddhist scholars for a century. Reconstructing the forested Tarai landscape of the fifth century BC in which the Buddha was raised, Allen employs a strong narrative to reveal the truth behind the alleged discovery of the Buddha's ashes in 1898 and the subsequent controversies that surrounded uncertain and compromised excavation and the numerous partiesinvolved.
Cosmopolitan Dharma by Sharon Smith,Sally Munt,Andrew Yip Pdf
Cosmopolitan Dharma, through an analysis of the diverse voices of racial, sexual and gender minority Buddhists, explores how cultural politics from the ground up can offer a more inclusive philosophy and lived experience of spirituality for Western Buddhism.
Theravāda Buddhism and the British Encounter by Elizabeth June Harris Pdf
This book explores the British encounter with Buddhism in nineteenth century Sri Lanka. Its central concern is the way Buddhism was represented and constructed by the British scholars, officials, missionaries, travelers and religious seekers who traveled to the country. The book traces three main historical phases in the encounter from 1796 to 1900 and gives a sensitive and nuanced exegesis of the cultural and political influences that shaped the early British understanding of Buddhism. This work fills a significant gap in scholarship on Theravāda Buddhism in Sri Lanka and its subsequent transmission to the West. Of particular significance is its coverage of how nineteenth century missionary writings on Buddhism affected both the development of Protestant Buddhism and Christian-Buddhist relations in the twentieth century. Through its exploration of original materials connected with several important pioneer writers on Buddhism, it expands the readers' understanding of inter-religious and inter-cultural relations under colonialism. --from back cover.
The Irish Buddhist by Alicia Turner,Laurence Cox,Brian Bocking Pdf
""The Irish Buddhist tells the story of a poor Irishman who worked his way across America as a migrant worker, became one of the very first Western Buddhist monks, and traveled the length and breadth of Asia, from Burma and present-day Thailand to China and Japan, and from India and Sri Lanka to Singapore and Australia. Defying racial boundaries, he scandalized the colonial establishment of the 1900s. As a Buddhist monk, he energetically challenged the values and power of the British empire. U Dhammaloka was a radical celebrity who rallied Buddhists across Asia, set up schools, and argued down Christian missionaries - often using western atheist arguments. He was tried for sedition, tracked by police and intelligence services, and died at least twice. His early years and final days are shrouded in mystery despite his adept use of mass media. His story illuminates the forgotten margins and interstices of imperial power, the complexities of class, ethnicity and religious belonging in colonial Asia, and the fluidity of identity in the high Victorian period. Too often, the story of the pan-Asian Buddhist revival movement and Buddhism's remaking as a world religion has been told "from above," highlighting scholarly writers, middle-class reformers and ecclesiastical hierarchies. By contrast, Dhammaloka's adventures "from below" highlight the changing and contested meanings of Buddhism in colonial Asia. They offer a window into the worlds of ethnic minorities and diasporas, transnational networks, poor whites, and social movements, all developing different visions of Buddhist and post-imperial modernities. ""--
An End to Suffering is a deeply original and provocative book about the Buddha's life and his influence throughout history, told in the form of the author's search to understand the Buddha's relevance in a world where class oppression and religious violence are rife, and where poverty and terrorism cast a long, constant shadow. Mishra describes his restless journeys into India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, among Islamists and the emerging Hindu middle class, looking for this most enigmatic of religious figures, exploring the myths and places of the Buddha's life, and discussing Western explorers' "discovery" of Buddhism in the nineteenth century. He also considers the impact of Buddhist ideas on such modern politicians as Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. As he reflects on his travels and on his own past, Mishra shows how the Buddha wrestled with problems of personal identity, alienation, and suffering in his own, no less bewildering, times. In the process Mishra discovers the living meaning of the Buddha's teaching, in the world and for himself. The result is the most three-dimensional, convincing book on the Buddha that we have.
The Spread of Buddhism by Ann Heirman,Stephan Peter Bumbacher Pdf
This book unravels some of the complex factors that allowed or hampered the presence of (certain aspects of) Buddhism in the regions to the north and the east of India, such as Central Asia, China, Tibet, Mongolia, or Korea.
Today there are many Buddhists in the West, but for 2000 years the Buddha's teachings were unknown outside Asia. It was not until the late 18th century, when Sir William Oriental Jones, a British judge in India, broke through the Brahmin's prohibition on learning their sacred language. Sanskrit, that clues about the origins of a religion quite distinct from Hinduism began to be deciphered from inscriptions on pillars and rocks. This study tells the story of the search that followed, as evidence mounted that countries as diverse as Ceylon, Japan and Tibet shared a religion which had its origins in India yet was unknown there. British rule brought to India, Burma and Ceylon a whole band of enthusiastic Orientalist amateurs - soldiers, administrators and adventurers - intent on investigating the subcontinent's lost past. Unwittingly, these men helped lay the foundations for the revival of Buddhism in Asia during the 19th century and its spread to the West in the 20th. Charles Allen's book is a mixture of detective work and story-telling, as this acknowledged master of British Indian history pieces together early Buddhist history to bring a handful of extraordinary characters to life.
