Edited Book Details
Mandatory Fields
Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox, Phibul Choompolpaisal, Brian Bocking
2014
August
A Buddhist Crossroads: Pioneer Western Buddhists and Asian Networks 1860-1960
Routledge
Abingdon, UK
Published
1
Optional Fields
Early western buddhists thailand dhammaloka pfoundes modernist buddhism lokanatha ananda metteyya
Single-country approaches to the study of Buddhism miss the crucial significance of international networks in the making of modern Buddhism, in a period when the material basis for such networks had been transformed. Southeast Asia in particular acted as a dynamic crossroads in this period enabling the emergence of a ‘global Buddhism’ not controlled by any single sect, while India and Japan both played unexpectedly significant roles in this crossroads. A key element of this process was the encounter between Asian Buddhist networks and western would-be Buddhists. Those involved, however, were often marginal - ‘creative failures’ in many cases - whose stories enable us to think this history in a more diverse way than is often done. In other cases as isolated figures they could pave the way for the ‘mainstreaming’ of new forms of Buddhism by established actors in later decades. This book, formerly published as a special issue of the journal Contemporary Buddhism entitled ‘A Buddhist crossroads: pioneer European Buddhists and globalizing Asian networks 1860–1960’. The research described in this issue often raises other methodological questions of representativity and significance, while posing important challenges around collaborative research and the use of new technologies.
9781138789586
Grant Details