New Center for Buddhist
Studies opens with focus on non-sectarian scholarship
BY DIANE MANUEL
At a time when the
movie-going public is learning about Buddhism from such
popular films as Little Buddha or Seven Years
in Tibet, a new research center at Stanford hopes to
contribute to a deeper understanding of the faith
practiced by one-third of mankind.
"Precisely because
the American public has more interest in and more
knowledge of Buddhism today, we think people are ready
for a little more accurate image of what is really
happening in Buddhist cultures," says Bernard Faure,
professor of religious studies and co-director of the new
Center for Buddhist Studies.
"It would be nice to
correct certain misperceptions and get away from the
romantic, idealized, Orientalist version of mystical
religions of the East," he adds. "We're trying
to get a little bit real."
Faure and Carl Bielefeldt,
professor of religious studies, are co-directors of the
new center, housed in Building 70, which was formally
dedicated on Oct. 23 as visitors dined on an
all-vegetarian buffet that included stuffed grape leaves,
sushi, edamame and taro spring rolls. The new Buddhist
center is part of Stanford's Center for East Asian
Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences.
With a five-year start-up
grant from a Buddhist foundation based in Hong Kong,
Faure and Bielefeldt hope to build a permanent endowment
during the next five years for a number of teaching,
research, communication and outreach projects. The first
international conference hosted by the center is
scheduled for spring quarter.
Although Buddhism has been
studied at European universities for decades, Buddhist
studies are a relatively recent addition on American
campuses. Most colleges and universities only began
offering graduate programs in the 1970s, with Stanford
launching its program in the department of religious
studies in the second half of the '80s. Seven graduates
have completed their doctorates, with dissertation topics
ranging from the history of early Mahayana, Tibetan and
Chinese Buddhism to a study of the role of women in
modern Japanese Buddhism. Another dozen doctoral
candidates currently are in the pipeline. The
department's courses on Buddhism now attract several
hundred students annually.
Unlike Buddhist centers
that are located at religious or sectarian schools, or
based in Asian language or cultural studies departments
on other campuses, the Stanford program aims to promote a
non-sectarian, scholarly understanding of Buddhism.
With one foot in religious
studies and one foot in Asian studies, there are a number
of vistas, approaches and methodologies Faure says,
"Having these two groups to talk with is very
stimulating."
The center's library
includes floor-to-ceiling shelves of Buddhist and Daoist
canons, reference books, catalogs and dictionaries. Or,
as Bielefeldt jokes, "There's really just one book
and the rest are dictionaries to help us read it."
Bielefeldt notes that the
history of Buddhist studies at American universities has
fluctuated, at best.
"Buddhist studies
have tended to rise and fall at universities depending on
the faculty who happen to be there at any given
time," he says. "If we can become endowed, that
will provide a permanent base of a sort that's unusual on
other campuses, and I'm excited about the possibility of
establishing a permanent presence in our field and then
raising funds to expand our activities beyond that
base."
The first international
conference hosted by the center will be held in late May
and will address political aspects of Japanese Buddhism.
"In Buddhist
scholarship, Japan is far and away the most active
Buddhist country," Bielefeldt says. "It is the
one major Asian civilization that wasn't colonized and
there is a continuing tradition of scholarship and a
well-developed university system."
Faure adds that French and
Italian scholars of Indian and Chinese Buddhism also will
be invited to the conference, and that the proceedings
may be published by Stanford University Press, as part of
a new series on Asian religions and cultures.
"We'll be looking at
the role played by Japanese Buddhism in the emergence of
the imperial ideology in the medieval period," Faure
says. "That is a rapidly developing theme in Japan
these days." SR
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