A
Modern Buddhist Bible: Essential Readings from East and West.
Edited by
Donald S. Lopez Jr. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002, xli + 266 pages,
ISBN: 0-8070-1243-2 (paperback), US $16.00.
Reviewed by
Martin Baumann
Professor for the Study of Religions
University of Lucerne, Switzerland
martin.baumann@unilu.ch
During
its millennia-long spread across Asia, Buddhism has changed and
brought forward new variations to interpret the Buddha's enlightenment.
Culturally adapted forms have been shaped, such as Thai, Tibetan,
Chinese or Japanese Buddhism. As the compiler of this anthology,
Donald S. Lopez Jr. holds that another variation needs to be added
to this list of Buddhisms: that of "Modern Buddhism" (p.
xxxix). And, just as other "Buddhist sects" (i.e., culturally
bounded forms of Buddhist lineage, practice, and doctrine), modern
Buddhism has its own canon of sacred scriptures. In fact, as the
author — and even more strongly, the book's title A Modern
Buddhist Bible — claims, it is this anthology of "essential
readings from East and West" that provides that very canon
of sacred texts. Are we seeing a scholar of Buddhist and Tibetan
Studies not only construct a new Buddhist sect, but also act as
its scribe and as the definer of its canon?
The Buddhist
Bible consists of two main parts: in a lengthy and well-informed
introduction, Lopez sketches characteristics of this new sect called
"Modern Buddhism." The book's main part provides brief
portraits of thirty-one central figures of modern Buddhism and selections
from their works. The introduction argues that the beginning of
modern Buddhism can be marked with the famous debate at Panadure
(in what was then Ceylon) in 1873. Other Buddhologists, such as
Richard Gombrich, have opted for the inception of "Protestant"
or revival Buddhism in 1881, the year Henry Steel Olcott published
his famous Buddhist Catechism and Thomas Rhys Davids founded
the Pali Text Society (Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism, 1988:
186). The dating, however, is of secondary importance as the change
of Buddhist content and form is decisive and does give valid grounds
to speak of a new variation of Buddhism. It is in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century that modern, Protestant or reform Buddhism
takes shape in many Asian countries. Lopez is strong in detailing
these various, country-based developments and in pointing out the
specific characteristics that emerge in each. Amongst other things,
modern Buddhism is marked by its rejection of the ritualistic elements
of traditional Buddhism, a stress on equality over hierarchy, an
emphasis of the universal over the local, and praise of the individual
over the community. At the inception of modern Buddhism, its reformers
and spokespersons presented Buddhism in a de-contextualized form,
as a philosophy and religion of reason, alleged to be in full accordance
with modern science. In the late twentieth century, for the first
time in Buddhist history, so-called "Buddhism" (the English
language term!) is perceived and interpreted as a coherent religion:
a "world religion" on par with its main rival and challenger,
Christianity. In a perfect Protestant tone, revival or modern Buddhism
presents itself as having a glorified founder, untainted by tradition;
a body of sacred texts as its authority; and a defined set of clear
doctrines.
Lopez narrates the
history of modern Buddhism in South Asia, China, Japan and Tibet,
pointing to other characteristics: those of the involvement of women
and lay persons, as well as social engagement, both for the advancement
of the needy as well as the nation state (whether colonized or imperialistic).
Further, Lopez asserts that the focus on experience and the practice
of meditation developed to form core elements of modern Buddhism
in comparison with preceding Buddhist forms. Where it was previously
the prerogative of a highly limited cadre (monks only), now the
practice of meditation is taught to monks and nuns as well as laymen
and laywomen alike: "In modern Buddhism, however, meditation
is a practice recommended for all, with the goal of enlightenment
moved from the distant future to the immediate present"(p.
xxxviii). On the basis of these criteria, Lopez argues we may rightly
speak of a new Buddhist sect, that of Modern Buddhism.
The book's main
section, the anthology of pioneers and proponents of Modern Buddhism,
starts with Madame Blavatsky, followed by Sir Edwin Arnold, composer
of the famous poem The Light of Asia (1879). Olcott and
excerpts from his Buddhist Catechism are next, followed
by many important (and a few lesser known) figures, such as Anagarika
Dharmapala, D. T. Suzuki, T'ai Hsu, Mahasi Sayadaw, Buddhadasa,
Alan Watts, and the Dalai Lama. Lopez is to be praised for having
selected these intriguing glimpses from the huge corpus of writing
by the selected thirty-one figures. Though it is not easy to find
any of main modern Buddhist figures missing from Lopez's enumeration,
I did regret the omission of Nyanatiloka, ordained in 1903 and a
leading Theravada monk and Pali translator, as well as his comparably
renowned disciple, Nyanaponika. Also Ananda Metteya and Christmas
Humphreys, paramount in designing Modern Buddhism in Great Britain
in the early twentieth century, and Paul Dahlke and Georg Grimm
(likewise central for German speaking areas after 1920) might have
deserved inclusion.
Though Lopez's introduction
and compilation are of much interest, I wonder why the book reverts
to Christian terminology in its main title. Of course in doing so,
Lopez puts his anthology in line with earlier normative works such
as Paul Carus' The Gospel of the Buddha (1894) and Dwight
Goddard's A Buddhist Bible (1938), but there is more to
this choice.
As a first-generation
religious pioneer, Goddard assembled his Buddhist Bible
to introduce general Buddhist concepts (though mainly on a Mahayana
textual basis). Lopez's Modern Buddhist Bible now compiles
the so-called sacred texts of major protagonists of the new sect
called Modern Buddhism, figures such as Goddard, himself. In this
way the scholar has become the scribe and systematizer of heterogeneous
and varied interpretations of reform, revival, or modern Buddhism.
Lopez not only arranges diverse figures and varied understandings
of Buddhist doctrine and practice according to his criteria (the
emphasis of Modern Buddhism on meditation, texts, and lay involvement),
he in fact seems determined to begin the process of canon compilation.
As the Christian Bible was compiled of different texts and stories
several decades after its protagonists acted, lived, and died, so
the Modern Buddhist Bible compiles protagonists and texts
to form the rudiments of a canon, a canon with Lopez as its first
redactor. As stories of canon-building show, compilers normally
were faithful followers and strongly engaged in the still-young
religious tradition, a qualification that does not necessarily apply
to Lopez as historian and observer.
Lopez's project
seems to require both insider and outsider perspectives on modern
Buddhism. That is a heavy responsibility for a scholar or a practitioner,
or both. I find this genuinely noteworthy, validating a prediction
made earlier by Charles S. Prebish (Luminous Passage, 1999:
199) that some of today's American "scholar-practitioners"
might take on the role of the traditional "scholar-monk"
to guide followers. Forming a canon surely qualifies as such guidance.
On the other hand, perhaps the whole story of the title is much
simpler, having been chosen simply to increase sales.
References
Arnold, Sir Edwin.
The Light of Asia. Boston: Trubner & Co, 1879.
Carus, Paul. The
Gospel of the Buddha. Chicago: Open Court, 1894.
Goddard, Dwight.
A Buddhist Bible. Thetford, VT. Second Edition, 1938.
Gombrich, Richard.
Theravada Buddhism. London and New York: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1988.
Olcott, Henry Steel.
Buddhist Catechism. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing
House, 1881.
Prebish, Charles
S. Luminous Passage. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1999.