It seems clear, therefore, that there is much valuable work to do in developing the field of East Asian Buddhist Studies.

• The aim is properly to appreciate the specificity of East Asian Buddhism:
  • This means allowing ordinary people full ownership of the identity ‘Buddhist’. Buddhism thus retains its full social significance. Buddhist Studies extends well beyond micro-historical research on texts and monastic establishments.
  • Then there is for instance much evidence of Indian Buddhists, both monastic and lay, dedicating donations in favour of parents. To see what is unique about East Asian practices in this area, we must start by comparing them with that baseline.
• Thus the basic pre-condition for this work is to see East Asian Buddhism in relation to the tradition as a whole:
  • As they spread, all traditions adopt forms specific to their cultural contexts. This reality may be disguised, to preserve the sense of an original revelation that remains pristine. Buddhism by contrast is presented as an empirical doctrine; and it does not favour interpretations based on enduring entities with fixed characteristics; naturally, it has shown great adaptability. In India, it continually reshaped itself in response to changing social contexts. In Southeast Asia, it has subsumed many pre-existing cultural elements.
  • So what is different in East Asia? Just this, perhaps: before the arrival of Buddhism, there had already developed here complex societies based on cities, and cultures based on writing, which used categories different from those of the Indian world in which Buddhism emerged.
  • Consider a parallel case. What happens when someone goes to live in a culture radically different from their own? They are apt to develop new patterns of speech and behaviour. Does that mean they acquire a new personality? Surely not; rather, their personality expresses itself in a new way. So, friends who know them both before and after their move come to understand them if anything better as a result of it.
  • On that basis, we would expect East Asian Buddhism to reveal much about Buddhism as such, complementary to what we know from the subcontinent and territories close to it. Indeed it is arguable that the tradition as a whole is hardly understandable without this component.
  • That applies across the whole range of social and cultural phenomena associated with the Buddhist tradition. For instance:
    • The adaptation to Buddhist ends of earlier, non-Buddhist Chinese forms must surely say at least as much about the Buddhist experience as about Chinese culture. That would apply equally to village ceremonial and to literary composition.
    • The translation of Buddhist material from Indian languages absorbed the energies of China’s dominant literati for 1000 years. It had an enduring influence on the Chinese language. The outcome must clearly throw some light on how Buddhist psycho-ethical categories have worked in practice.

THE OCBS POST

The OCBS does not promote any particular understanding of the Buddhist tradition or any of its manifestations. At the same time, the Centre covers all strands of the tradition equally. Moreover, it favours an approach which relates strands one to another. Those who work here share an assumption that the category ‘Buddhist’ is useful — that is, it makes sense to study Buddhist phenomena in relation to the tradition as a whole. No variant of Buddhism (doctrinal, geographic or whatever) stands alone.

Given that orientation, the OCBS is well placed to work towards validating East Asian Buddhism as central to any understanding of the Buddhist tradition as a whole. It is first of all on that basis that we are appealing for an endowed post in East Asian Buddhist Studies.

Also, exploring the Buddhist dimension across linguistic and cultural boundaries must add to our understanding of East Asia.

• Historically, no part of East Asia stands alone. It is all intertwined in a systemic fashion. Buddhism is part of that system, and a prominent part. 1300-odd years ago, Buddhists moved freely around the whole East Asian culture area. Someone who was in Tibet one year could be in Japan a few years later, having meanwhile been active in several places across China and Korea. Throughout, such a person would remain equally at home everywhere. Indeed, their original nationality was often not too clear; that hardly mattered. Historically, then, it has largely been through Buddhist impulses and institutions that the diverse cultures and populations of the region have found common ground. A similar cosmopolitan potential remains latent today.
• It is moreover the Buddhist dimension that links East Asia in to the wider cultural system in which it sits. Take any developed society east of Iran today, and analyse the cultural, psychological, social and political discourse in depth. Under the veneer of recent influences — capitalism, communism, Islam — Buddhist patterns emerge. For over two millennia, this unifying thread has woven together the largest and most influential block of humanity in world history.

So, to develop our understanding of East Asian Buddhism is to illuminate the continuing historical and cultural context of East Asia as a whole. At this historical juncture, it is perhaps particularly important to recognise and explore commonalities between Asian cultures; Buddhist Studies offer an obvious way to do that.