The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Culture and the Limits of Dissent

“Show Us Your God”: Marilla Baker Ingalls and the Power of Religious Objects in Nineteenth-Century Burma

“…The groundbreaking study of this earliest period of interest in Buddhism is Thomas Tweed's The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 [19]. Tweed reveals how Americans who favored Buddhism saw themselves as dissenting from American culture, but that their engagement with the religion ultimately consented to basic Victorian values such as individualism, optimism, and activism.…”

“…By using Buddhist ritual terminology, Ingalls worked to equate her dog to Burma's sacred Buddhas. 19 She then tried to contend that even after going through a fire ritual, her dog did not have any agency. Burmese Buddha statues, Ingalls wanted to demonstrate, are just as powerless as a metal dog, and therefore people should stop worshipping them and become followers of Jesus Christ.…”

“…18 For more on moral conduct and merit-making in Theravada Buddhism, see Kate Crosby's chapter "The Good Buddhist" in her book on Theravada Buddhism [26]. 19 Just as Ingalls was familiar with Buddhist fire consecrations, Ingalls also knew about the lowly status of dogs in Burma, and therefore how insulting it would be to compare the Buddha to a dog. Ingalls wrote that "the name of 'dog' is a little offensive to the Burmans, so I often qualify and explain the comparison used" [25].…”

European Buddhist Traditions

“…With suitable caveats, Tweed's (2000) three types of American Buddhist can help identify three approaches to Buddhism out of which European traditions also developed: a scholarly, rationalist trend feeding into the formation of learned societies and a concern with doctrinal precision; an aesthetic, romantic appreciation enabling identifications with more culturally-specific forms of Buddhism; and an occult route leading through Theosophy to New Age and to an enthusiasm for ritual and initiation. Although these were never hermetically-sealed, and individuals could draw inspiration from more than one, they did serve to shape the European reception of Buddhism and lay the groundwork for Buddhist organization.…”

The First Buddhist Mission to the West: Charles Pfoundes and the London Buddhist mission of 1889 – 1892

“…3 While Ananda Metteyya's 1908 mission to London has long been identified as a starting-point for the story of ‗Buddhism in Britain', students of Western Buddhism are by now well aware that it was not the first Buddhist mission to the West. Japanese Buddhist missions, oriented mainly towards expatriate Japanese but with active Western adherents, had developed in California from 1899 onwards 4 and these West Coast missions are now considered by scholars to be the earliest Buddhist missions to the West (Tweed 2000).…”