Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West

Book

Japanese Buddhism was introduced to a wide Western audience when a delegation of Buddhist priests attended the World's Parliament of Religions, part of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In describing and analyzing this event, Judith Snodgrass challenges the predominant view of Orientalism as a one-way process by which Asian cultures are understood strictly through Western ideas. Restoring agency to the Buddhists themselves, she shows how they helped reformulate Buddhism as a modern world religion with specific appeal to the West while simultaneously reclaiming authority for the tradition within a rapidly changing Japan.
Snodgrass explains how the Buddhism presented in Chicago was shaped by the institutional, social, and political imperatives of the Meiji Buddhist revival movement in Japan and was further determined by the Parliament itself, which, despite its rhetoric of fostering universal brotherhood and international goodwill, was thoroughly permeated with confidence in the superiority of American Protestantism. Additionally, in the context of Japan's intensive diplomatic campaign to renegotiate its treaties with Western nations, the nature of Japanese religion was not simply a religious issue, Snodgrass argues, but an integral part of Japan's bid for acceptance by the international community. (Source: University of North Carolina Press)

Citation	Snodgrass, Judith. Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and the Columbian Exposition. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003. https://archive.org/details/presentingjapanesebuddhismtowestorientalismoccidentalismcolumbianexpositionjudithsnodgrass_743_i/mode/2up.

- - - Introduction: Japan in Chicago1
Chapter 1. Japan Faces the West16
Chapter 2. Manifest Destiny: Christianity and American Imperialism45
Chapter 3. The Rules of the Parliament: Securing the Truth65
Chapter 4. Alterity: Buddhism as the "Other" of Christianity85
Chapter 5. Buddhism and Modernity in Meiji Japan115
Chapter 6. Buddhist Revival and Japanese Nationalism137
Chapter 7. Deploying Western Authority I: Henry Steel Olcott in Japan155
Chapter 8. Buddhism and Treaty Revision: The Chicago Project172
Chapter 9. Defining Eastern Buddhism198
Chapter 10. Paul Carus: Buddhism and Monist Mission222
Chapter 11. Deploying Western Authority II: Carus in Translation245
Chapter 12. From Eastern Buddhism to Zen: A Postscript259
- - - Notes279
    - Bibliography323
    - Index345