Modern Buddhism and Reinterpretation

Studies of Buddhist modernism have recently become a rich sub-genre within Buddhist studies. There are many angles from which one can approach this phenomenonthrough colonial contexts in Asia, transnational networks, studies of Buddhist adaptations to Western countries, writings of modern Buddhists, and extrapolations about Buddhist modernism in general. There have been few theoretical writings about Buddhist modernism as much of the work that has been done focuses on particular contexts and case studies. I contribute to the study of Buddhist modernism through studying transnational networks and connecting this with wider implications for the study of Buddhist modernism in general. I analyze modern Buddhism as a spectrum of ideas and discourses and a series of reinterpretations. Below I will describe the history of the term and major characteristics of Buddhist modernism. The history of modern Buddhism is tied up with Orientalist constructions of Buddhism during the colonial period.

In the 1970s Heinz Bechert was the first to coin the term modern Buddhism and use this as a distinct category. He divided the Buddhist tradition into three time periods of canonical, traditional, and modern. Canonical Buddhism represents the time of the Buddha, when the early community was becoming established, and when the canon was not yet fixed. Traditional Buddhism is a much longer period of time that begins with the popularization of Buddhism in India under the patronage of King Asoka, and follows through the Age of Kingdoms in Southeast Asia. It is characterized by a relationship between sangha and king where the king is the foremost patron of the sangha and the monastic community legitimates his reign. The modern Buddhist period emerged as Western knowledge and missionaries arrived in Buddhist ! countrie s. Bechert finds this is characterized by a rationalization of the tradition, scripturalism, demythologization of cosmology, and accommodation to Protestant critics of Buddhism.

Donald Lopez, in A Modern Buddhist Bible, has updated this genealogy of Buddhist modernism. He pinpoints the moment modern Buddhism begins and traces the history of this movement throughout Asia through institutions and transnational networks of actors. He locates the beginning of modern Buddhism during a debate between a Sri Lankan monk and a missionary. He argues this was the first time a monk engaged in serious debate with another religious representative and defended Buddhism as a distinct religion. This debate was publicized and news of it reached American Henry Steel Olcott. He and his Theosophical Society traveled to Sri Lanka to uplift the cause of Sri Lankan Buddhists against Christian missionaries. He found a promising disciple there named Dharmapala. Dharmapala later split with the Theosophical Society and founded his own institution called the Maha Bodhi Society. This organization began in order to renovate and reclaim the site of the Buddhas Enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, India, for Buddhists. He enlisted the help of like thinkers from Sri Lanka and other Buddhist countries. Lopez traces the connections and networks created through this Maha Bodhi society throughout the Buddhist world. A new consciousness was being raised about the history and distinctness of Buddhism, and the need to protect and save it became crucial. Lopez locates Buddhists in China, Japan, Thailand, and Tibet and their main actors, and the particular characteristics and creation of Buddhist modernism in each location.

There is one main characteristic, however, that marks the shift from premodern to modern Buddhism, and this concerns the relationship between the laity and monastic communit! y. Withi n traditional Buddhism there has been a strict separation in roles of these two communities. In modern Buddhism this becomes more blurred with laity taking on increasing roles of authority and infringing upon what once were exclusively monastic activities such as world-renunciation and meditation. There are many characteristics of modern Buddhism that depend on location and time period. Therefore scholars emphasize some aspects over others depending on the nature of their project. Scholars note that many of the Protestant Buddhism, characteristics of Buddhism in modernity. These are the characteristics which mimic Protestant missionaries who influenced Buddhists on the island. These include self-authority, increase role of laity, social activism, and emphasizing aspects of Buddhism that cohere with pragmatism, humanism, and universalism.

Main characteristics of modern Buddhism include emphasizing the rational aspects of Buddhism such as the empirical methods of internal investigation used during meditation, a focus on equality and the increased role of women, a rejection of ritual, and a return to a pristine past of the tradition. Modern Buddhism can also include the characteristics of disenchantment, rejection of centralization of the sangha and state-controlled Buddhism, as well as the rise of new hybrid Buddhist movements.

One of the recent debates about Buddhist modernism can be summed up by the question: how modern is modern Buddhism? Some scholars have depicted Buddhist modernism as a radical break with the past that was caused by the arrival of missionaries and colonialists. In reaction to this other scholars have tried to show the continuities of Buddhism and the ways that Asian Buddhists are able to create their own histories. The middle ground in this debate, and the one that I subscribe to is to think of modern Buddhism as a reinterpretation that is both somewhat continuous with the past but accommodates to outside forces.

Cautions for continuity within the history of Buddhis! m are ne cessary and useful but not all Buddhism can be seen as continuous with the past. Reinterpretation captures both the idea of maintaining some aspects of tradition while noting changes.