Topics in Contemporary Buddhism
This insightful volume dispels the common notion that Buddhism is not a missionary religion by revealing Asian Buddhists as active agents in the propagation of their faith. It presents at the same time a new framework with which to study missionary activity in both Buddhist and other religious traditions. Included are case studies of Theravada, Chinese, and Tibetan Buddhist teachers and congregations, as well as the Pure Land, Shingon, Zen, and Soka Gakkai traditions of Japan.

Contributors examine both foreign and domestic missions and the activities of emigrant communities, showing the resources and strategies garnered by late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century Buddhists who worked to uphold and further their respective traditions, often under difficult circumstances. Based on anthropological fieldwork and historical research, the essays break new ground and provide better analytical tools for studying mission activity than previously available. They provide instructive comparisons with Anglo-American Protestant missionary thinking and offer insights into the internal dynamics of Sri Lankan and Japanese missions as they make their way in Protestant and Catholic societies. Also included are nuanced studies of two major missionary figures in late twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism and a fascinating look at the present Dalai Lama's relationships with his devotees and the American government, viewed through an exposition of the abiding tradition within Tibetan Buddhism that combines mission activity with the political goals of exiled lamas.


Buddhist Missionaries in the Era of Globalization, Linda Learman, Universty of Hawaii, Hardcover, 2005, 245 Pages, $45.00

Linda Learman is a Ph.D. student in anthropology at Boston University.

Series Editor's Preface / George J. Tanabe, Jr. vii
Acknowledgments. ix
1. Introduction / Linda Learman. 1
2. Dharmapala's Dharmaduta and the Buddhist Ethnoscape / Steven Kemper. 22
3. The Theravada Domestic Mission in Twentieth-Century Nepal / Sarah LeVine. 51
4. Grafting Identity: The Hawaiian Branches of the Bodhi Tree / George J. Tanabe, Jn. 77
5. Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invisibility of the Shingon Mission to the United States / Richard K. Payne. 101
6. Globalization and the Pursuit of a Shared Understanding of the Absolute: The Case of Soka Gakkai in Brazil / Peter B. Clarke. 123
7. Being a Zen Buddhist Brazilian: Juggling Multiple Religious Identities in the Land of Catholicism / Cristina Rocha. 140
8. Spreading Buddha's Light: The Internationalization of Foguang Shan / Stuart Chandler. 162
9. The Compassion Relief Diaspora / C. Julia Huang. 185
10. Uniting Religion and Politics in a Bid for Autonomy: Lamas in Exile in China and America / Gray Tuttle. 210
List of Contributors 233
Index 235