Thu, 03 Jul 2008
Jackson, Roger and John Makransky (eds), Buddhist theology: critical reflections by contemporary Buddhist scholars
'Buddhist theology' is a term, deliberately chosen to provoke questions, meaning a kind of critical reflection that takes from Buddhist scholarship and gives to Buddhist practice.
A collection of papers originating from a conference of Buddhist scholars — Buddhist, that is, both as academic specialists in Buddhism and as Buddhist practitioners — this book begins with attempts to name its field — 'Buddhist theology', 'Dharmology', 'Dharmalogy',... — which explain their field without resolving on a name.
Buddhist theology (or whatever it should be called) is applying 'theological' thinking to Buddhism — it is to Buddhism as theology is to (say) Christianity. By 'theology' the contributors mean, not "thinking about God" but any form of critical reflection on Buddhism that is both informed by the critical, academic understanding of Buddhism and also applicable to Buddhist practice. If (to use an analogy quoted by one of the contributors) practice uninformed by reflection is a knife blade without a handle, then academic 'objective' research is a knife handle without a blade.
One example is Mahinda Deegalle's contribution, "From Buddhology to Buddhist theology: an orientation to Sinhala Buddhism". Most of this paper is an account of a medieval Sri Lankan text, the Butsarana (Buddha Refuge). Deegalle shows how this text was extremely successful in its time, yet modern Sinhalese accounts condemn it as irrational and pietistic. Deegalle shows that this text was an effective response to the challenge to Buddhism of Vaishna and Shaiva bhakti, and also successful as literature. This demonstrates the importance of faith and devotion to Buddhist practice.
Other papers cover truth, 'self' in psychology, postmodernism, impermanence, gender, social justice, human rights, and pluralism.
The primary readership for this book will be Buddhists with tertiary education in history or philosophy, who have some understanding of the output of critical academic study of Buddhism, and are looking to understand how that can be related to their practice.
Jackson, Roger and John Makransky (eds). Buddhist theology: critical reflections by contemporary Buddhist scholars. 2000, Curzon, Richmond, Surrey. paperback. 410 pages.
ISBN ISBN 0-7007-1203-8.
