The World of Buddhism

by Heinz Bechert (Editor), Richard Francis Gombrich (Editor)

Half a millennium before Jesus, more than a millennium before Mohammed, the Buddha found Enlightenment. And until the Chinese Revolution the number of his followers far exceeded the number of Christians and Muslims added together. This book follows the fortunes of Buddhism through time and space, from the founding of the world's largest monastic Order in north-eastern India 2,500 years ago to contemporary America, where its many adherents continue to find its supremely civilized ethos of benevolence, honesty and self-control of immense appeal. This book presents the whole of that most varied contribution to Asiatic civilization in a vivid and authoritative manner. World renowned scholars-some, such as Professor Lamotte and Professor Zurcher, of pre-eminent and longstanding distinction, others of a younger generation in the forefront of new research, all with a gift for lucid exposition - have provided the eleven chapters. Historical documents and modern photographs elucidate the Buddhist way of life.

Genres: Buddhism, History, Nonfiction

308 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although already 35 years old, this is a superb, detailed, academic but readable account of Buddhism's doctrines, history and practice from its inception through to the end of the 1970s. Eleven long essays are supplemented with excellent illustrations and substantial photography.

It is hard to praise this book enough. It is sensitive to its subject without being seduced by it. It is very well edited and produced, bringing 11 experts into play with a strong German contribution expressing Germany's important role in Buddhist studies.

I cannot say it made me any the more likely to become a Buddhist but that is not its purpose and, yes, it is perhaps not the book to go to for a critical reading of Buddhism's role in maintaining various oppressive feudalisms or the sexual exploitation inevitable in monastic life.

However, having made that caveat (which is down to me and you to research further), what I felt after reading it was that I understood the phenomenon much better than I did before - and its contribution to globally important South, Central and East Asian cultures.

Buddhism remains intellectually complex and the basis of much interesting philosophical thinking (not least its influence on Schopenhauer) but Pope John Paul II's criticisms still stand - that it is still essentially nihilistic. At root, it is just another essentialism from the Iron Age.

If you belief in reincarnation alongside Pythagoras or that the world is so bloody miserable that self-extinction is a positive response, then this religion might be for you. If you are a more cheery soul like me who is not worried about extinction, then it probably is not.

I cannot get sentimental over it given what I know from other sources of its actual role in the world but its doctrines may be a comfort to many people even when they are not plausible. If I wanted to go deeper, I would almost certainly explore Chan and Zen and leave the rest to the rest.

What is attractive - noting a few rather nasty nationalist outgrowths of the religion - are the brutal truths about existence that Gautama Buddha began with and the transformation of this into a surprising (in the light of this) compassion.

Buddhism is not, or is rarely, a religion of good works done by the religious. I am not persuaded that poor peasant lives are best improved by handing over their small surpluses to whole monasteries of self-regarding monks living their lives on a spurious cosmology.

However, it clearly worked to bring order to otherwise potentially disordered societies (if only to house lots of young men where they could do no harm). There is nothing more dangerous to a peasant than disorder and it encouraged a basic shared kindness. That is no small thing.

In other words, this religion is a very complex phenomenon, like all others, in which social and individual goods are wrought out of absurdity and then become established as a culture that many people identify with. It must be taken account of as a fact on the ground.

It also offers us many homilies about the interface between belief and reality. Ashoka, the Indian Emperor is interesting. Imagine Hitler discovering the Buddha after seeing the devastation of Operation Barbarossa and you can only wonder how he would be presented today.

There is also its doctrinal tolerance in its favour. There are the extensive Sutras and commentaries but there is no God-given single text from on high to squabble over. Conflicts occur but they are the conflicts of splittism over organisational trivialities rather than over the meanings of things.

Although there a few exceptions, heresy is not a concern of a religion which respects the fact that different minds seek different paths to salvation. Internal religious wars (though not wars on the faith by rivals, notably Islam) are not part of the story.

Of course, Buddhists competed for the ear of power and had some major victories. Even today, there are a number of smaller Buddhist states in the Himalayas as well as Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand while Japan and South Korea both have important Buddhist cultural underpinnings.

Buddhism has seen some revival in its origin country India but it is small-scale and has been eliminated from Muslim-dominated areas while Communism (though now more tolerant) effectively suppressed it in its territories, most notably in Tibet., on the back of civil war victories.

The late emergence of Buddhism in the West, on the back of academic studies and the rise of theosophy, in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries is well covered in the final chapter albeit that the author is 'sniffy' about 'beat zen', the unstable Alan Watts and commercial popularisation.

In the United Kingdom, Buddhism is still small but taken very seriously, as it is by many Buddhists in the US but 'pop' Buddhism needs a fairer evaluation than the book can give. Personally I see it as no more absurd than much earlier forms of Asian adoption of the faith.

Religions do not grow through purity in the street. They need political authority to flourish. Political authority is only interested if religion controls the street. It is tougher to police the street when a religion (like Buddhism) has no hierarchy. The Catholics long since scored on that.

Sometimes Buddhism becomes the street as an expression of national feeling (and this applies to the small states listed above) but only pre-Chinese Tibet appears to have created the structures of political control necessary to comprise the state itself.

Somehow Tibetan Buddhism was able to mount a coup against imperial kingship in the wake of the time of troubles all dynastic despotisms go through (in the mid-ninth century in this case) and establish itself as strong theocratic state - not even Rome ever really achieved that.

The varieties of Buddhism are what strikes one most about this narrative. It evolves to fill every possible niche in a social ecology. It survives and wins through variation, often very much detached from the primary organism - the Buddha himself.

The move of the organism from East to West and the advantage of Western conditions taken by ousted Tibetans adapting to their new eco-system suggests this ability to survive and adapt. This religion is a major survivor.

One of its strengths is its core simplicity (despite the almost neurotic complexities that emerge in late iterations). It can constantly reinvent itself to meet new psychological, cultural and political conditions. My guess is that Buddhism will adapt well to interplanetary travel.

So, a worthwhile book that is also in the library as a reference work with a good glossary of terms and a bibliography that takes us up to the early 1980s. Recommended.

[Frank Jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent survey of the history and philosophies of the various Buddhist traditions, traced from its ancient Indian roots and its spread through Central Asia; through the Theravada Buddhist traditions of Sri Lanks, Burma, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia; followed by the rise and evolution of the Mahayana Buddhist traditions of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan; and the rise of Tibetan Buddhism and the Vajrayana.

The concluding chapter is fine in dealing with the Buddhist revival, and the rise of Modernist Buddhism, but its weakest section in on the spread of Buddhism in the west. However, this is a minor complaint. It would take another volume to do such a large topic justice. The biggest problem with this final material is that it is so out of date, not having been updated since the original publication in 1984.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

An encyclopaedic overview of Buddhist philosophy,tradition and cultural transmission through history.