The Historian
Vol.55 No.4
Summer 1993
Pp.800-801
Copyright by Phi Alpha Theta
Americans' reports of their encounters with Buddhism in the
nineteenth century - like Thomas A. Tweed's excellent study on the
subject - tell modern readers much more about American culture than
about Buddhism. Tweed explores various Western conversations about
Buddhism between 1844 - when Eugene Burnouf's L'Introduction a
l'histoire du buddhisme indien appeared in the United States - and
1912, a year that, for the author, marks the unraveling of
Victorianism as a coherent culture. He argues that Americans were
attracted to Buddhism for a variety of reasons, but after 1879, a
deepening crisis of faith prompted a growing number to investigate,
embrace, or otherwise show sympathy for Buddhism. Nevertheless,
their rendering and defense of the Eastern religion revealed deeply
held cultural assumptions that reflect the dominant Victorianism of
their day.
After the first chapter, in which Tweed introduces American interest
in Buddhism between 1844 and 1877, he examines aspects of the
defense of Buddhism by American sympathizers' in the late 1800s.
Tweed discusses the exotic appeal of Buddhism, the sympathizers'
desire to dissent from mainstream values, and their perception of
Buddhism's compatibility with Victorian values.
Of particular value is Tweed's typology of Buddhist sympathizers to
explain various reasons for interest in the religion. Esoterics,
like Henry Steel Olcott, were drawn to Buddhism because of its
occult dimension that promised to reveal "hidden sources of
religious truth and meaning'(51). Many Esoterics were simultaneously
interested in Theosophy, Mesmerism, Spiritualism, or
Swedenborgianism. Rationalists, like Paul Carus, nourished by
Enlightenment thought, "focused on rational discursive means of
attaining religious "truth" and valued Buddhism for its reasoned
approach to living(61). Finally, Romantics, like Ernest Francisco
Fenollosa, came to the religion through a profound appreciation of
its cultural beauty.
Despite the variety of Buddhist sympathizers, when called on to
explain their affinity for a "godless," "negative" religion, they
responded in remarkably similar ways and couched their defense of
Buddhism in Victorian terms. American Buddhist apologists embraced
the religion because it offered an alternative to an increasingly
problematic Christian tradition, but they invested it with
characteristics from their own culture. For example, they praised
Buddhism's congenial relationship with science and its tolerance of
other religions. They also denied its underlying pessimism and
passivity, showing their own embrace of Victorian optimism and
activism.
Tweed has written a fascinating study that enriches the
understanding of American culture in the latter half of the
nineteenth century. The only criticism - it is not a major flaw -
arises from the absence of a systematic articulation of the chief
tenets and variations of Buddhist belief and practice. Such an
accounting would have strengthened a very good book by highlighting
more sharply the "Americanness" of American apologies for Buddhism.
In spite of that weakness, Tweed has succeeded in demonstrating the
possibility of exploring dominant values of a culture by listening
to its dissenters.