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Reading "The Buddha's Footprint" by Johan Elverskog with students this semester.
https://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Footprint-Environmental-History-Encounters/dp/0812251830/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+buddha%27s+footprint&qid=1599843766&sr=8-1
Some are quite shook by some of his early arguments.
https://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Footprint-Environmental-History-Encounters/dp/0812251830/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+buddha%27s+footprint&qid=1599843766&sr=8-1
Some are quite shook by some of his early arguments.
He really goes after Gombrich's quote:
"One leading scholar, for example, has boldly claimed: 'Why did Buddhism spread so successfully? The major factor has no doubt been the power and beauty of its thought.'"
How romantic indeed!
"One leading scholar, for example, has boldly claimed: 'Why did Buddhism spread so successfully? The major factor has no doubt been the power and beauty of its thought.'"
How romantic indeed!
Elverskog continues:
"As a result, much of Buddhological scholarship reads like the work that justified European colonial expansion: Buddhism brought culture, civilization, technology, economic development, writing, and art to benighted people on the periphery."
"As a result, much of Buddhological scholarship reads like the work that justified European colonial expansion: Buddhism brought culture, civilization, technology, economic development, writing, and art to benighted people on the periphery."
Comparing the expansion of Buddhism to European colonialism!
Do we insert the Obama mic-drop gif OR the WWE's Edge excited gif?
Do we insert the Obama mic-drop gif OR the WWE's Edge excited gif?
So far, this is an excellent read for students who are both unfamiliar and semi-familiar with Buddhism. Does a nice job of summarizing some key developments within the field while pushing forward with a new kind of history of Buddhism in Asia. Major complaint: book is pricy.
Also big fan of the term "eco-Buddhist fantasies"
"Only after we jettison our long-sedimented orientalist and eco-Buddhist fantasies can we begin to understand the profound role that Buddhism had in transforming not only Asia’s history but also its environment."
"Only after we jettison our long-sedimented orientalist and eco-Buddhist fantasies can we begin to understand the profound role that Buddhism had in transforming not only Asia’s history but also its environment."
My students begin the semester with this text, which forcefully deconstructs such kinds of romantic notions, and then throughout the rest of the semester we reconstruct "Buddhist Ecology" (name of the course).
