Wilhelm II.: "Völker Europas, wahrt Eure heiligsten Güter!"
mailto: payer@payer.de
Zitierweise / cite as:
Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Materialien zum Neobuddhismus. -- 4. USA und Hawaii. -- 1. Anfänge des Buddhismus in den USA. -- Fassung vom 2005-07-07. -- URL: http://www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud0401.htm . -- [Stichwort].
Erstmals publiziert: 1996-05-15
Überarbeitungen: 2005-07-07 [Ergänzungen]; 2005-06-28 [Ergänzungen]; 2005-06-20 [Ergänzungen]; 2005-05-05 [überarbeitet]; 2005-04-27 [überarbeitet]; 2003-06-24 [überarbeitet]
Anlass: Lehrveranstaltung Neobuddhismus, Univ. Tübingen, SS 1987, SS 2003, SS 2005
Copyright: Dieser Text steht der Allgemeinheit zur Verfügung. Eine Verwertung in Publikationen, die über übliche Zitate hinausgeht, bedarf der ausdrücklichen Genehmigung des Verfassers.
Diese Inhalt ist unter einer Creative Commons-Lizenz lizenziert.
Dieser Text ist Teil der Abteilung Buddhismus von Tüpfli's Global Village Library
Asian religions in America : a documentary history / edited by Thomas A. Tweed, Stephen Prothero. -- New York : Oxford University Press, ©1999. -- 416 S. : Ill. -- ISBN 0-19-511339-X. -- [Hervorragender Reader]
Fields, Rick <1942 - 1999>: How the swans came to the lake : a narrative history of Buddhism in America. -- Rev. and updated ed. -- Boston ; London : Shambala, 1986. -- 445 S. -- ISBN 0-394-74419-5. -- [Grundlegend]
Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.].
In den USA hat sich der Buddhismus ganz anders als in Europa entwickelt. Die ersten Buddhisten kamen als Einwanderer aus Ostasien. Wie haben also Neobuddhismus als Buddhismus in einer neuen Umgebung nicht durch Wanderung von Ideen (wie in Europa), sondern durch Wanderung der Träger.
Folgende Darstellung der chinesischen Einwanderung in San Francisco gibt ein anschauliches Bild der Situation der chinesischen Einwanderer:
"Die chinesische Einwanderung Schon vor dem Goldrausch scheinen einige Chinesen in San Francisco gelebt zu haben, und es soll ein kantonesischer Kaufmann namens Chung Ming gewesen sein, der unter seinen Landsleuten die Nachricht von den Goldfunden verbreitete. 1848 war für China ein Krisenjahr mit Überschwemmungen, Hungersnot und Banditentum. Zusätzlich drückten die Steuerlasten, die das Mandschu-Regime der Bevölkerung nach dem verlorenen ersten Opiumkrieg (1840-1842) aufbürdete, um den Forderungen der Briten nachkommen zu können. In der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jh. emigrierten 2,5 Millionen Chinesen, davon 320 000 nach Kalifornien, das sie Gum San (Goldener Berg) nannten und wo sie ihr Glück zu machen hofften. 1851 zählte man dort 4000 Chinesen, im folgenden Jahr bereits 25 000. Bald wurde die Einwanderung von reichen Kaufleuten organisiert, die 1851 die Canton Company oder Sam Yup Association gründeten. Kantonesische Bauern riefen die Sze Yup Association, auch Four Districts Association genannt, ins Leben, um sich gegen Ausbeutung wehren zu können.
Gefährliche Reise Im 19. Jh. dauerte die Überquerung des Pazifik 62 tage und war ungeheuer strapaziös. Immer wieder kam es unter den halb verhungerten Einwanderern zu Streitigkeiten, die oft blutig endeten. 1854, als die Libertadaus Hongkong kommend in San Francisco anlegte, waren von ihren 5000 Passagieren 100 gestorben.
Fahrkarte ins Exil. Drei Möglichkeiten gab es für auswanderungswillige Chinesen, ihre Reise zu finanzieren. Die üblichste war das Credit Ticket: Eine chinesische Gesellschaft streckte -- gegen Lohnabzug -- das Geld für die Fahrkarte vor. Beim Contract Labor System bezahlte ein amerikanisches Unternehmen die Reise, und der Einwanderer arbeitete seine Schulden ab. Der Coolie Trade schließlich war eine Art versteckter Sklaverei. Die Arbeiter wurden entweder regelrecht entführt oder vertraglich ausgebeutet. Die Chinesen kamen in San Francisco oder in Oakland auf der anderen Seite der Bay an.
Von China in die Goldminen. Kaum waren sie in San Francisco angekommen, reisten die Chinesen weiter zu den Goldminen, wo sie in Gruppen arbeiteten. Sie begriffen schnell, dass es klüger war, den Weißen keine Konkurrenz zu machen, und begnügten sich mit den weniger ergiebigen Claims. Dennoch wuchs mit ihrer Zahl auch der gegen sie gehegte Groll.
Wachsende Fremdenfeindlichkeit. In den Minen der Sierra Nevada griff der Fremdenhass schnell um sich. 1850 wurde die Foreign Miner's License Tax erhoben. Diese Kopfsteuer, die die Lateinamerikaner, die ein Drittel der kalifornischen Bevölkerung ausmachten, treffen sollte, betrug für jeden ausländischen Goldsucher monatlich 20 Dollar. Bis 1852 lebten die Chinesen relativ unbehelligt, dann jedoch warf ihnen der Gouverneur John Bigler in einer rede vor, den nationalen Wohlstand zu bedrohen. Im selben Jahr noch wurde die genannte Steuer um drei Dollar angehoben, kurze Zeit später die automatische Anhebung um zwei Dollar jährlich beschlossen. Nicht zu Unrecht bezogen die Chinesen dieses Gesetz auf sich, zumal es auch in ihrer Sprache veröffentlicht wurde. Schlimmer waren jedoch die offenen Gewaltausbrüche. Hunderte von ihnen wurden ohne jeden Grund von Goldsuchern oder Steuereintreibern umgebracht. Chinesen wurden so oft und häufig erpresst, dass die Redewendung »Glück haben wie ein Chinese« entstand -- gemeint war: kein Glück haben ... All dies führte dazu, dass die Chinesen die Minen verließen und sich andere Betätigungsfelder suchten, z.B. Wäschereien eröffneten. Bis 1860 stellten die Chinesen acht Prozent der Bevölkerung San Franciscos; 1880 waren es schon 30 Prozent. Sie ließen sich um die Plaza in der Stockton Street nieder, einer der wenigen Straßen, in der sie Zimmer mieten durften. 1853, also schon vor dem massenhaften Zustrom von Chinesen, hatte die Lokalpresse das Viertel Little Canton getauft.
»Chinesen raus!« Arbeitslosigkeit und Dürreperioden förderten das Aufkommen einer antichinesischen Stimmung. Oft wurden Chinesen in den Straßen angepöbelt, Prostituierte aus den Wohnungen geworfen oder angegriffen, die Wäschereien geplündert. Es wurden diskriminierende Gesetze erlassen -- von einer Steuer auf Zöpfe bis zum Verbot, ein Tragejoch für Körbe zu benutzen. Dann begrenzte die Cubic Air Ordinance die Zahl der Bewohner pro Wohnung. 1868 wurde den in Amerika ansässigen Chinesen im Burlingame-Vertrag sämtliche Bürgerrechte garantiert. Seit 1877 gab es massive Bestrebungen, die Rechte der Chinesen und deren Zuwanderung einzuschränken. 1882 verabschiedete der Kongress den Chinese Exclusion Act, der für zehn Jahre jede Einwanderung verbot. 1902 wurde eine unbeschränkte Geltungsdauer für das Gesetz beschlossen.
Dennis Kearney. Dieser Hitzkopf irischer Abstammung kam 1868 nach San Francisco und wurde amerikanischer Staatsbürger. Er war ungebildet, selbstsicher und autoritär, und als sein Unternehmen Konkurs anmelden musste, suchte er die Schuld bei den Chinesen. Er warf ihnen vor, für Sklavenlöhne zu arbeiten und damit die Arbeitslosigkeit der Weißen zu verursachen. Am 23. Juli 1877 hielt er eine Rede, deren Inhalt sich auf den Slogan »Chinesen raus« verkürzen lässt. Die von ihm gegründete Gewerkschaft Workingmen's Trade and Labour Union (später Workingman's Party of California ), zielte darauf ab, »das Land mit allen Mitteln von billigen chinesischen Arbeitskräften zu säubern«. Kearny, der die Massen aufhetzte, erklärte gar, er hoffe, umgebracht zu werden, damit seine Bewegung erfolgreich bliebe. Seine Gegner dürften die Erfüllung dieses Wunsches herbeigesehnt haben ...
Die »gelbe Gefahr«. Ermutigt durch den Burlingame-Vertrag von 1868, der ihnen die wichtigsten bürgerlichen Rechte garantierte, zogen viele Chinesen in die Vereinigten Staaten. Die Kalifornier beginnen, aufgeschreckt durch die vermeintlich hohe Anzahl von im Schnitt 15 000 chinesischen Einwanderern zwischen 1870 und 1880, von der »gelben Gefahr« zu sprechen. Gewalttaten häuften sich, vor allem auf den Docks der Pacific Mail Steamship Co., wo die Dampfer aus China anlegten. Die Immigranten wurden zahlreichen diskriminierenden Gesetzen unterworfen. 1868 verwies man 40 000 chinesische Minenarbeiter des Landes.
Der Weg in die Integration. 1906 war die aggressive Stimmung gegen die Chinesen noch nicht völlig abgeflaut: Die Kalifornier planten, Chinatown, das bei dem Erdbeben völlig zerstört worden war, weit außerhalb des Zentrums bei Hunters Point wieder aufzubauen. Diese Vorhaben wurde jedoch aus finanziellen Gründen wieder aufgegeben --. San Francisco bedurfte mehr denn je der Steuern ,die diese arbeitsame Bevölkerungsgruppe aufbrachte. Die Chinesen profitierten indirekt von dem Erdbeben, denn die Unterlagen der Einwohnerbehörde waren zerstört worden. So konnten viele von ihnen behaupten, bereits amerikanische Staatsbürger zu sein und ihre Kinder in die Vereinigten Staaten holen. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg kämpften Amerika und China gemeinsam auf Seiten der Alliierten. 1941 meldeten sich viele Chinesen zum amerikanischen Militärdienst. 1943 verlangte Präsident Roosevelt vom Kongress die Abschaffung des Chinese Exclusion Act, und das Recht auf Erlangung der amerikanischen Staatsbürgerschaft wurde wieder eingeführt. Der War Brides Act von 1946 , der drei Jahre lang in Kraft blieb, erlaubte den Chinesinnen, ihren Ehemännern in die Staaten zu folgen. Aber erst in den 50er Jahren konnte man von einer echten Assimilierung sprechen, als die Chinesen auch außerhalb von Chinatown Wohnungen mieten durften. In den 60er Jahren wurde die Einwanderung weiter erleichtert. 1962 erlaubte John F. Kennedy den Mao-Gegnern, die nach Hongkong geflohen waren, in die Staaten einzuwandern. Chinatown erlebte eine neue Immigrationswelle, und die Bevölkerungsdichte war zehnmal höher als in den anderen Stadtteilen. Heute hat Chinatown 80 000 Einwohner.
Berufe der Chinesen. Die Einwohner fanden bald auch außerhalb der Minen Arbeit. Die Bevölkerung von Chinatown bestand zu 92 Prozent aus Männern, deren Kleidung gereinigt werden musste. Die Indianerinnen und Spanierinnen in der Washerwoman's lagoon, einer natürlichen »Wäscherei« zu Füßen des Russian Hill, konnten diese Arbeit unmöglich bewältigen, weshalb die Wäsche manchmal gar den Schiffen nach Canton oder Honolulu mitgegeben wurde. Die Chinesen nutzen die Marktlücke und eröffneten zahllose Wäschereien. Um 1880 lebten in San Francisco 7500 Chinesen vom waschen. 1920 übten 30 Prozent der Chinesen im land diesen Beruf aus. Um mehr verdienen zu können, hielten sie ihre Wäschereien Tag und Nacht geöffnet. Andere richteten Restaurants ein, die dank der treuen Kunden aus asiatischen Ländern ... florierten.. Wieder andere arbeiteten als Barbiere oder Fischer oder in Schuh-, Zigarren- und Seifenfabriken. Einigen gelang es auch, von der Landwirtschaft zu leben. Viele verdingten sich als Butler, Koch oder Diener bei reichen Familien -- sie wurden wegen ihrer Tüchtigkeit, Ehrlichkeit und Dienstbarkeit weithin geschätzt. Von 1866 an wurden weitere Chinesen für den Bau der transkontinentalen Eisenbahn nach San Francisco geholt -- viele von ihnen verloren dabei ihr Leben."
"Chinese Six Companies. Diese 1862 gegründete chinesische Geheimgesellschaft residiert in der Stockton Street Nr. 843. Die gesellschaftliche Ächtung hatte die Chinesen veranlasst, sich in dem damals sechs Blocks umfassenden Chinatown zu isolieren und ihre eigene Kultur zu pflegen. Sie gründeten Vereinigungen, in denen Personen gleichen Familiennamens oder mit gleichen Vorfahren sich zusammenfanden und Streitigkeiten regelten, Kranke pflegten und Begräbnisse arrangierten. Außerdem entstanden District Associations für Menschen aus einer Region oder einem Dorf. Die Chinese Six Companies, die alle Chinesen in Kalifornien vertraten, bildeten eine Art inoffizieller Regierung von Chinatown, sie führten die District Associations und organisierten Programme von allgemeinem Interesse. Sie kümmerten sich um die Einfuhr von waren und Arbeitskräften aus China und ließen Tausende von Coolies (aus dem chinesischen ku li,»harte Arbeit«) für den bau der Eisenbahn kommen. Heute spielen sie nur noch eine soziale Rolle. Eine ganz andere Art von Vereinigung waren die Tongs, chinesische Einwanderer ohne familiäre oder regionale Bindungen, die sich organisierten um Drogenhandel und Prostitution kontrollieren zu können. Einige hatten sich auch auf Erpressung spezialisiert. Um 1880, als es unter den verschiedenen Clans zu blutigen Kriegen um die Vorherrschaft in Chinatown kam, erschlugen sich die Tongs gegenseitig mit Äxten. Diese sogenannten »Axtmörder« führten ihr Terrorregime von 1880 bis in die 20er Jahre und dann wieder um 1970. An ihrer Haartracht waren sie leicht zu erkennen, denn sie trugen den Zopf hoch auf dem Kopf. 1921 wurde der Polizeiinspektor Jack Manion für zunächst drei Monate nach Chinatown versetzt. Er blieb schließlich bis zu seiner Pensionierung 1946. Dank seiner arbeit nahm die Kriminalität im Viertel deutlich ab, und der Polizist wurde Bürgermeister von Chinatown."
[DuMont visuell San Francisco. -- Köln : DuMont, 1993. -- ISBN 3-7701-3299-8. -- {Originaltitel: Guides Gallimard San Francisco.} -- S.152-155; 160-161]
Zur Geschichte der Chinatown in San Francisco siehe auch:
Chinatown history. -- URL:http://www.sanfranciscochinatown.com/history/. -- Zugriff am 2005-04-25. -- [mit ausführlicher Zeittafel]
Eine gute Quellensammlung ist:
The Chinese-American Experience. -- URL: http://immigrants.harpweek.com/ChineseAmericans/4ItemsByIndex/!ItemsByIndexTopPage.htm. -- Zugriff am 2006-04-25]
Der Naturalization Act beschränkt die US-Staatsbürgerschaft auf "free white persons"
1812-06-20
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) wird von der General Association of Congregational Churches of Massachusetts gegründet. Zu den Missionsfeldern gehören Indien, Birma und Ceylon.
"for the purpose of devising ways and means, and adopting and prosecuting measures, for promoting the spread of the gospel in Heathen lands." [Zitat: http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~history/projects/abcfm.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-06-13]
"American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). The ABCFM was the first and most important nineteenth-century American mission board. Samuel Mills, a child of the Second Great Awakening, led a group of students at Williams College to pledge themselves to missions in the "Haystack Prayer Meeting" in 1806. In 1810, as students at Andover Seminary, the group proposed to the Congregational Association of Massachusetts the formation of a foreign mission board.
In 1812 the ABCFM was incorporated, and its first five missionaries sailed for India. Out of the first group the Judsons and Luther Rice became Baptists, the Judsons going on to Burma (now Myanmar) while Rice returned to the United States to form the Baptist Missionary Union.
The Board's purpose was to propagate the gospel in "heathen" lands by supporting missionaries and diffusing the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Evangelism and church planting had the highest priority, with Bible translation important and social concerns subordinate. About half of its missionaries were Congregationalists; most of the others were Presbyterian or Reformed. The Board worked in thirty-four fields, which included indigenous Americans. When the Cherokees were expelled from their land in Georgia, two missionaries went to prison in protest; others accompanied the people on the "Trail of Tears." Traders had arrived in Hawaii by 1800; as a result, the native population had fallen by half, its culture disintegrating. In 1820 the missionaries came, and by 1840 the language was reduced to writing, most of the Bible translated, literature produced, schools established, and twenty thousand people, a fifth of the population, had become church members. The local rulers passed laws against prostitution, gambling, and drunkenness.
In the Middle East the goals were to work with Muslims, ancient Christian churches, and Jews. Success among Muslims was limited, and although the missionaries did not plan to Proselytize members of the older churches, converts to evangelical Christianity were expelled from those bodies, leading to the establishment of Protestant churches.
In Sumatra the first two missionaries were killed and eaten by the Bataks, but a church was later established among them by European missionaries.
The Bible was translated into a number of languages, many of which were first reduced to writing. Educational institutions from the primary to university levels were established, while Peter Parker and John Scudder were acclaimed for their medical work in China and India.
Rufus Anderson, a secretary of the Board from 1823 to 1866, was America's most outstanding mission leader and theoretician of the nineteenth century. He is best known for his formulation, along with Henry Venn of the CMS, of the "Three-Self" formula, which stated that the goal was to establish churches that were self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating. He also advocated Christianization over civilization—Westernization—in an important debate.
The theological shift in New England Congregationalism in the last third of the nineteenth century greatly affected the Board and contributed to its eventual decline. But by 1959 it had sent out over 4,800 men and women. With the union of the Congregational and Evangelical and Reformed Churches in the 1950s the ABCFM became the United Church Board of World Ministries."
[Quelle: Paul E. Pierson. -- In: Evangelical dictionary of world missions / general editor, A. Scott Moreau ; associate editors, Harold Netland and Charles van Engen ; consulting editors, David Burnett ... [et al.]. -- Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Books ; Carlisle, Cumbria, UK : Paternoster Press, ©2000. -- 1068 S. ; 27 cm. -- ISBN 0801020743. -- s.v. -- {Wenn Sie HIER klicken, können Sie dieses Buch bei amazon.de bestellen}]
1813-07-13
Abb.: Das Missionarsehepaar Judson [Bildquelle: http://www.cantonbaptist.org/halloffame/judson.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-06-13]Der Baptistenmissionar Adoniram Judson (1788 - 1850) und seine Frau Ann Haseltine Judson (1789 - 1826) landen in Rangoon (Yangoon), Birma. Judson ist der erste amerikanische Missionar in einem buddhistischen Land. Seine Frau ist die erste Amerikanerin, die als Missionarin tätig ist.
Abb.: Johannes 1.1-8 in der birmanischen Bibelübersetzung Judsons [Bildquelle: http://www.proel.org/traductores/judson.html. -- Zugriff am 2003-06-13]
Ann Haseltine Judson schreibt in einem Brief aus Birma: "If we were convinced of the importance of missions before we left our native country, we now see and feel their importance. ... We now see a whole populous empire, rational and immortal like ourselves, sunk in the grossest idolatry, given up to follow the wicked inclinations of their depraved hearts, entirely destitute of any moral principle."
[Zitat in: Asian religions in America : a documentary history / edited by Thomas A. Tweed, Stephen Prothero. -- New York : Oxford University Press, ©1999. -- 416 S. : Ill. -- ISBN 0-19-511339-X. -- S. 39]
Judson, Adoniram (1788-1850). American missionary to Myanmar. Born in Maiden, Massachusetts, and one of Americas best known missionaries, he and his wife, Ann Hasseltine Judson (1789-1826), sailed for India from Salem, Massachusetts, on February 19, 1812, with the first American foreign missions contingent. Though sponsored by the Congregationalist American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the Judsons became Baptists while en route to Asia. This decision led to their founding the first mission to Burma (now Myanmar) and the formation of what became the American Baptist Missionary Union to support them and other missionaries.
Gifted linguistically, Judson labored to learn Burmese, a complex language. In 1834 he completed the Burmese Bible and his Dictionary, English and Burmese in 1849. A church was established despite Judsons horrendous seventeen-month imprisonment, the death of his first wife (1826) and child (1827), the death of Sara Board-man Judson (1845), his second wife, and his own persistent ill health. Returning to America in 1845, Judson advanced the expanding foreign missions movement. In 1846 he married Emily Chubbeck, a novelist, and returned to Burma. On a voyage to improve his health he died near the Andeman Islands on April 12, 1850, and was buried at sea.
The son of a Congregationalist clergyman, alumnus of Brown University (B.A., 1807) and Andover Seminary (B.D., 1810), Judson is remembered for a Burmese church of seven thousand members at his death, his translation work, and his contribution to the launching of American foreign missions.
[Quelle: Thomas A. Askew. -- In: Evangelical dictionary of world missions / general editor, A. Scott Moreau ; associate editors, Harold Netland and Charles van Engen ; consulting editors, David Burnett ... [et al.]. -- Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Books ; Carlisle, Cumbria, UK : Paternoster Press, ©2000. -- 1068 S. ; 27 cm. -- ISBN 0801020743. -- s.v. -- {Wenn Sie HIER klicken, können Sie dieses Buch bei amazon.de bestellen}]"Judson, Ann Hazeltine (1789-1826). American pioneer missionary in Myanmar. Judson was truly a lady of firsts: the first American woman missionary, the first missionary wife who felt her own call to missions, the first woman missionary who wrote on missionary life and the conditions of mission work (and who became the leading female missionary author of the early nineteenth century), the first missionary woman who addressed the specific concerns of women, and the first wife of Adoniram Judson.
The Judsons sailed to India thirteen days after their marriage in 1812, and eventually established mission work in Burma. Ann learned the language quickly and began a women's Sunday class to study the Scriptures that her husband was translating. The difficult living conditions contributed to constant illness, and she was forced to leave Burma on several occasions for medical reasons. Her first child, a son, died at seven months of age. Her courage was sorely tested when war broke out between England and Burma, and Adoniram was imprisoned. Pregnant and alone, she got food and clothing through to him and kept him alive. When Adoniram was sent on a death march, Ann followed, carrying her newborn, and eventually became so ill that guards allowed Adoniram to care for her and the baby. The British liberated the Judsons in 1826, but both Ann and the baby girl died soon afterwards."
[Quelle: Judith Lingenfelter. -- In: Evangelical dictionary of world missions / general editor, A. Scott Moreau ; associate editors, Harold Netland and Charles van Engen ; consulting editors, David Burnett ... [et al.]. -- Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Books ; Carlisle, Cumbria, UK : Paternoster Press, ©2000. -- 1068 S. ; 27 cm. -- ISBN 0801020743. -- s.v. -- {Wenn Sie HIER klicken, können Sie dieses Buch bei amazon.de bestellen}]Die Tochter der Judsons, Abby Ann Judson (1835 - 1902) wandte sich dem Spirutualismus zu und später auch dem Buddhismus. Sie fand, dass "the religion of the Buddha is far superior to what is known as Chritianity". [Zitiert in: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.]. -- S. 43.]
1830?
Elijah Coleman Bridgman (1801 - 1861) landet als erster amerikanischer Missionar in China.
1833
John Taylor Jones (1802 - 1851) landet als erster amerikanischer Missionar in Siam (heute: Thailand)
"JONES, John Taylor, missionary, born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 16 July, 1802; died in Bangkok, Siam, 13 September, 1851. He was graduated at Amherst in 1825. studied theology at Andover and Newton seminaries, and was ordained a Baptist missionary to Burmah on 28 July, 1830. Having first acquired the Taling and Siamese languages, he left Burmah for Siam, and reached Bangkok in April, 1833. He visited the United States twice subsequently, and was eminently successful as a missionary. Columbian college gave him the degree of D. D. in 1850. Dr. Jones published tracts in Siamese (1834); "Brief Grammatical Notices of the Siamese Language" (1842); and a Siamese translation of the New Testament (1843)." [Quelle: http://www.famousamericans.net/johntaylorjones/. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28]
1841
Edward Salisbury (1814 - 1901) erhält den ersten Lehrstuhl für Arabisch und Sanskrit Yale University, er ist der erste Sanskrit-Universitätsprofessor der USA
"Edward Salisbury (1814-1901) graduated from Yale in 1832 and stayed on New Haven to study Hebrew with Josiah Gibbs. Gibbs urged his attention to Sanskrit and Arabic, but there was no one in America who could use either language for philological scholarship, and probably very few who could even read the respective writing systems. Blessed with ample wealth and an understanding wife, Salisbury embarked on a grand tour of Europe, which included inquiry into the possiblilites of studying Sanskrit and Arabic. Sanskrit at Oxford did not seem attractive (1836), so Salisbury settled in Paris (1837), where he began Arabic with A. I. Sylvestre De Sacy, the founder of modern Arabic studies in Europe, whose teaching method was founded on the theory of universal grammar referred to as “Porte Royale” grammar. The following year Salisbury went to Germany, where he attended the lectures of Franz Bopp in Berlin on Indian antiquity, studied Sanskrit with Christian Lassen at Bonn, and continued Arabic with Georg Freytag, a former student of De Sacy. Freytag was a kindly mentor but seemed at the time less interested in Arabic literature than Salisbury had hoped. Salisbury learned Arabic well and translated it with felicity and accuracy. Upon his return to Yale, he was made (unsalaried!) professor of Arabic and Sanskrit (1841), the first such appointment in the was no such thing as a “professional scholar” in America; there were no universities, no research in the colleges, no graduate schools or meaningful graduate degress, no “doctrine of expertise” in higher education or academic specialization, no professional societies or periodicals in what are now called the “humanities,” no facilities for formal language training outside of Greek and Latin, with occasionally some French and German, no “research libraries” with collections of orientalist books, periodicals, or manuscripts. Salisbury, with a strong New England sense of duty, made himself the shy, modest pioneer by seeking to create professional oriental studies in the United States. The major desiderata were identifying and properly training good students and providing employment for them, building a professional society and journal to diffuse European scholarship in America and to present American scholarship, in due season, to Europe, and bringing oriental books and manuscripts to America as tools for research. Salisbury devoted the next decade of his life to all these objectives, with what now seems like singular foresight. Upon De Sacy’s death in 1838, Salisbury had acquired various lots at the auction of De Sacy’s magnificent library of over 6000 books and 364 manuscripts, augmenting his collection with numerous purchases during his travels. Through friends and agents in India, he acquired Sanskrit books, among the first of their kind to reach America, and enlisted the aid of American missionaries throughout the world to collect and send him materials.
When Salisbury was elected to membership in the American Oriental Society, at one of its earliest meetings in 1842, the Society was little more than a club of like-minded gentlemen and a shelf or two of books. Salisbury took on the title of “corresponding secretary” and carried out a worldwide, longhand correspondence and proposed a scholarly journal. Since the Society had no funds, Salisbury paid the costs of the new periodical himself. Oriental type fonts were not available in America, so Salisbury commissioned a wide range of them cast at his own expense, including Tamil, Syriac, and Japanese. With the help of missionary printing presses, he purchased abroad other fonts already cast, such as Chinese, to be crated and sent to New Haven on clipper ships. The early numbers of the Journal of the American Oriental Society were densely-set book-length volumes, the editing of which he did himself, besides finding the time and energy to contribute substantially to each volume scholarly papers, notes, and reviews. His intention was to launch the Journal as a serious scholarly outlet of high standards, based on comprehension of oriental sources and of current European scholarship. His model was the Société Asiatique in Paris and its distinguished Journal Asiatique. Salisbury became president of the Society in 1863 and was an active member for nearly sixty years. In 1852 he established contact with the newly founded Syrian Academy of Sciences, at that time based in Beirut, with a view to enhancing educational opportunities in the Ottoman Empire and to improving American understanding of contemporary Syria.
In 1842 he returned to Germany to read Arabic privately with Freytag and to continue Sanskrit with Lassen. His formal instruction began at Yale in 1843, where he was the first professor in the United States to hold a purely graduate appointment. Salisbury addressed the Yale faculty with honest modesty:
“You perceive, gentlemen, that my field of study is broad and requires much minuteness of research in order to know it thoroughly. I profess only to have set foot upon it, to have surveyed its extent, to have resolved to spend my days in its research, believing, as I do, that it may yield rich and valuable fruits, and to do what may be in my power to attract others into it, though I am aware that I must to expect to labor, for a time, almost alone ...”
Graduate study was in fact slow to organize and to develop plans, goals, and degrees, but by 1847 a formal course of study was possible.43 Salisbury offered courses in Arabic and Sanskrit four days a week until his retirement from the Yale faculty in 1856, but in thirteen years only two students signed up: the Classicist James Hadley and a dour young Yankee named William Dwight Whitney. But Salisbury’s program was to take unexpected direction."
[Quelle: Benjamin R. Foster: Yale and the Study of Near Eastern Languages in America, 1770-1930. -- http://research.yale.edu/ycias/database/files/MESV5-1.pdf. -- Zugriff am 2005-04-25]
1842
Gründung der American Oriental Society [Webpräsenz: http://www.umich.edu/~aos/. -- Zugriff am 2005-04-25]
"From the beginning its aims have been humanistic. The encouragement of basic research in the languages and literatures of Asia has always been central in its tradition. This tradition has come to include such subjects as philology, literary criticism, textual criticism, paleography, epigraphy, linguistics, biography, archaeology, and the history of the intellectual and imaginative aspects of Oriental civilizations, especially of philosophy, religion, folklore and art. The scope of the Society's purpose is not limited by temporal boundaries: All sincere students of man and his works in Asia, at whatever period of history are welcomed to membership. " [Quelle: http://www.umich.edu/~aos/. -- Zugriff am 2003-06-13]
1844
In der Januarnummer Zeitschrift Dial (S. 391-401) erscheint die englische Übersetzung von Teilen des Saddharmapundarikasutra nach der französischen Übersetzung von Eugene Burnouf (in zwei Artikeln in: La revue indépendante, 1843) unter dem Titel: The preaching of the Buddha (taken from one of the religious books of the Buddhists of Nepal.) Die Übersetzung wird dem einflussreichen amerikanischen Transzendentalisten Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) zugeschrieben, stammt aber vermutlich von der transzendentalistischen Philosophin Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804-1894).
Abb.: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody Abb.: US-Briefmarke Henry David Thoreau
1844-05-28
Der Yale-Professor für Sanskrit und Arabisch Edward Elbridge Salisbury (1814 - 1901) hält auf der ersten Jahresversammlung der American Oriental Society ein Referat "Memoir on the History of Buddhism" (erschienen in: Journal of the American Oriental Society. -- 1, no. 2 (1844). -- S. 79-136)
1845
Der einflussreiche Transzendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) schreibt in einem Brief an seine Schwester über die hinduistische Bhagavadgîtâ: that "much renowened book of Buddhism". [Zitiert bei: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992. -- S. XXX. -- Dort Quellennachweis].
1849
1849Beginn der Einwanderung von chinesischen Händlern in Amerika. Der Goldrausch zieht Tausende von Chinesen an.
Thoreau, Henry David <1817 - 1862>: A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers
"I know that some will have hard thoughts for me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for love is the main thing, and I like him too." [Zitat in: Asian religions in America : a documentary history / edited by Thomas A. Tweed, Stephen Prothero. -- New York : Oxford University Press, ©1999. -- 416 S. : Ill. -- ISBN 0-19-511339-X. -- S. 96]
1849-54
1852Chinatown Benevolent Associations (Six Companies) werden in San Francisco Chinatown gegründet (siehe oben!). 1901 vereinigen sie sich zur Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association.
185320 000 Chinesen
1853Erster chinesischer Tempel in San Francisco; 1875: acht Tempel in Chinatown; Ende 19. Jhdt. über 400 chinesische Tempel an der amerikanischen Westküste.
"Buddist deities were found together with Taoist gods in Chinese temples, but there was also a number of purely Buddhist temples. The Chinese were the first to bring images of Sakyamuni, Amitabha, Bhaisajyaguru, Vairocana, Manjusri, Maitreya to America. The most popular ... was Kuan-yin" [Fields, Rick: How the swans came to the lake : a narrative history of Buddhism in America. -- Rev. and updated ed. -- Boston ; London : Shambala, 1986. -- 445 S. -- ISBN 0-394-74419-5. -- S. 74f.]
"The Kong Chow Association is generally believed to have been the first organization established among Chinese in the United States. Early Cantonese who arrived in San Francisco in 1849 were apparently from the Sun Wui and Hawk Shan districts (which make up the Kong Chow Association). The exact date when the Kong Chow Temple was first built is unknown, but documentary evidence suggests that it was in existence as early as 1853." [Quelle: http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/5views/5views3b.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-06]
1854
Abb.: Commodore Perry
[Bildquelle: http://www.indiana.edu/~histg357/Perrypages/Perry.html. -- Zugriff am 2005-04-25]Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794–1858) landet mit vier amerikanischen Kanonenbooten vor Japan mit Schreiben des amerikanischen Präsidenten. Forderungen: gastliche Aufnahme Schiffbrüchiger, Versorgung fremder Schiffe, Öffnung eines japanischen Hafens für Handel mit USA. Russische Kriegsflotte vor Japan mit gleichen Forderungen.
"Perry, Matthew Calbraith, amerikan. Seefahrer, geb. 10. April 1794 in Newport, gest. 4. März 1858 in New York, trat 1809 in die Kriegsmarine der Vereinigten Staaten, focht 1812-14 im Kriege gegen England, befehligte, 1837 zum Kapitän ernannt, im mexikanischen Kriege das amerikanische Geschwader im Golf von Mexiko, führte 1852 die Expedition der Vereinigten Staaten nach China und Japan und schloß 31. März 1854 mit der japanischen Regierung den Vertrag von Kanagawa, durch den die Häfen von Simoda und Hakodade den Amerikanern geöffnet wurden. Er schrieb: »Narrative of the expedition to China and Japan 1852-1854 etc.« (Washingt. 1856-60, 3 Bde.). " [Quelle: Meyers großes Konversations-Lexikon. -- DVD-ROM-Ausg. Faksimile und Volltext der 6. Aufl. 1905-1909. -- Berlin : Directmedia Publ. --2003. -- 1 DVD-ROM. -- (Digitale Bibliothek ; 100). -- ISBN 3-89853-200-3. -- s.v.]
1858Commodore Perry kommt mit 10 Schiffen zurück, erhält die von Japan geforderten Konzessionen.
Es erscheint:
Alger, William R. <1822 - 1905>: The Brahmanic and Buddhist Doctrine of a Future Life. -- In: North American Review. -- 86 (April 1858). -- S. 435 - 464. -- Online: http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?coll=moa&root=/
moa/nora/nora0086/&tif=00443.TIF&view=50&frames=1. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28
1859
1860Case John Eldridge vs. See Yup Comp.:
"The California Supreme Court preserved the public character of the Buddhist rite. ... The Justices decided .. that the court had no power to determine wether this or that form of religion or superstitious worship - unaccompanied by acts prohibited by law - is against public policy or morals" [Zitat bei Fields, Rick: How the swans came to the lake : a narrative history of Buddhism in America. - Rev. and updated ed. -- Boston ; London : Shambala, 1986. -- 445 S. -- ISBN 0-394-74419-5. -- S. 75]
1860Jeder zehnte Kalifornier ist Chinese
Es erscheint:
Root, E. D.: Sakya Buddha : a versified, annotated narrative of his life and teachings, with an excursus containing citations from the Dhammapada, or Buddhist canon. -- New York : Charles P. Somerby, 1880. -- 171 S. ; 20 cm.
1861-65
1867Amerikanischer Bürgerkrieg
Chinesen bauen an Central Pacific Eisenbahn usw.
Die Chinesen in den USA waren aber verschiedener Diskriminierung und Verfolgung ausgesetzt. Da von China ausgesehen die Emigration bis 1868 als ungesetzlich gesehen wurde, hatten sie auch keine Unterstützung durch ihre Regierung. In San Francisco organisierten sich die Chinesen nach den Distrikten Chinas woher sie kamen (Sprache!). Diese Distrikt Organisationen sind die fünf (später sechs) chinesischen Kompanien. Sie bildeten Grundlage des sozialen Lebens, auch des religiösen.
1868
Burlingame Treaty zwischen China und den USA
"Under the terms of the Burlingame Treaty, both countries were to recognize "the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects, respectively for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents." The United States government had insisted on the free immigration provision to counter the Chinese government’s prohibition of its subjects emigrating. Another clause stipulated that "Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States, shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel or residence, as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation." The privileges and immunities provision was aimed at protecting Chinese in the United States against discrimination, exploitation, and violence." [Quelle: http://immigrants.harpweek.com/ChineseAmericans/2KeyIssues/BurlingameTreaty1868.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-06-13]
1869
Es erscheint:
Clarke, James Freeman <1810 - 1888>: Buddhism; or, The Protestantism of the East. -- In: Atlantic Monthly. -- 23 (June 1869)
Erschien auch als Chapter IV von: Clarke, James Freeman <1810 - 1888>: Ten Great Religions : an Essay in Comparative Theology, 1871. -- Online: http://www.artfiles.org/gutenberg.org/1/4/6/7/14674/14674.txt. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28
Gliederung: Buddhism, or the Protestantism of the East.
- Sec. 1. Buddhism, in its Forms, resembles Romanism; in its Spirit, Protestantism
- Sec. 2. Extent of Buddhism. Its Scriptures
- Sec. 3. Sakya-muni, the Founder of Buddhism
- Sec. 4. Leading Doctrines of Buddhism
- Sec. 5. The Spirit of Buddhism Rational and Humane
- Sec. 6. Buddhism as a Religion
- Sec. 7. Karma and Nirvana Sec.
- 8. Good and Evil of Buddhism
- Sec. 9. Relation of Buddhism to Christianity
"James Freeman Clarke (April 4, 1810 - June 8, 1888), American preacher and author, was born in Hanover, New Hampshire. He was prepared for college at the public Latin school of Boston, and graduated at Harvard College in 1829, and at the Harvard Divinity School in 1833. He was then ordained as minister of a Unitarian congregation at Louisville, Kentucky, which was then a slave state. Clarke soon threw himself heart and soul into the national movement for the abolition of slavery, though he was never what was then called in America a radical abolitionist.
In 1839 he returned to Boston, where he and his friends established (1841) the Church of the Disciples. It brought together a body of men and women active and eager in applying the Christian religion to the social problems of the day, and he would have said that the feature which distinguished it from any other church was that they also were ministers of the highest religious life. Ordination could make no distinction between him and them. Of this church he was the minister from 1841 until 1850 and from 1854 until his death. He was also secretary of the Unitarian Association and, in 1867-1871 professor of natural religion and Christian doctrine at Harvard. From the beginning of his active life he wrote freely for the press.
From 1836 until 1839 he was editor of the Western Messenger, a magazine intended to carry to readers in the Mississippi Valley simple statements of liberal religion, involving what were then the most radical appeals as to national duty, especially the abolition of slavery. The magazine is now of value to collectors because it contains the earliest printed poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was Clarke's personal friend. Most of Clarke's earlier published writings were addressed to the immediate need of establishing a larger theory of religion than that espoused by people who were still trying to be Calvinists, people who maintained what a good American phrase calls "hard-shelled churches."
But it would be wrong to call his work controversial. He was always declaring that the business of the Church is Eirenic and not Polemic. Such books as Orthodoxy: Its Truths and Errors (1866) have been read more largely by members of orthodox churches than by Unitarians. In the great moral questions of his time Clarke was a fearless and practical advocate of the broadest statement of human rights. Without caring much what company he served in, he could always be seen and heard, a leader of unflinching courage, in the front rank of the battle. He published but few verses, but at the bottom he was a poet. He was a diligent and accurate scholar, and among the books by which he is best known is one called Ten Great Religions (2 vols, 1871-1883).
Few Americans have done more than Clarke to give breadth to the published discussion of the subjects of literature, ethics and religious philosophy. Among his later books are Every-Day Religion (1886) and Sermons on the Lord's Prayer (1888). He died at Jamaica Plain, Mass., on the 8th of June 1888.
His Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, edited by Edward Everett Hale, was published in Boston in 1891."
[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Freeman_Clarke
1870
Abb.: A Siamese Temple (aus dem unten genannten Artikel, S. 365)Es erscheint:
Brown, Allan D.: A Visit to Bangkok. -- In: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. -- 41 (August 1870). -- S. 359 - 368. -- Online: http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/
pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fharp%2Fharp0041%2F&tif=00369.TIF
&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABK4014-0041-52. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28
1870
Es erscheint:
Child, Lydia Maria Francis <1802-1880>: Resemblances between the Buddhist and Roman Catholic Religions. -- In: Atlantic Monthly. -- 26 (December 1870). -- S. 660 - 665
"Lydia Maria Child (February 11, 1802 – July 7, 1880 in Wayland, Massachusetts) was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, novelist, and journalist. She was born in Medford, Massachusetts to Susannah Rand Francis and Convers Francis.
She was a women's rights activist, but did not believe significant progress for women could be made until after the abolition of slavery. Her 1833 book An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans argued in favor of the immediate emancipation of the slaves, and she is sometimes said to have been the first white person to have written a book in support of this policy.
In 1839, she was elected to the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and became editor of the society's National Anti-Slavery Standard in 1841. In 1861, Child helped Harriet Ann Jacobs, with her Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl."
[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Child. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28]
1871
Es erscheint:
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth <1823 - 1911>: The Buddhist Path of Virtue. -- In: The Radical. -- 8 (1871-06).
Enthält Auszüge aus der Dhammapadaübersetzung von Max Müller.
Higginson über das Dhammapada:
"I do not envy the man who does not find the depth of his soul stirred by a book like this" [Zitiert in: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992. -- S. 21.]
1872
Es erscheint:
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth <1823 - 1911>: The Character of Buddha. -- In: Index 3 (1872-03-16). -- S. 81 - 83
1875
Lum, Dyer Daniel <1840-1893>: Buddhism nothwithstanding : an attempt to interpret Buddha from a Buddhist standpoint. -- In: The Index : a weekly paper devoted to free religion. -- Toledo, Ohio : Index Association. -- (1875-04-29). -- S. 195f. ; (1875-05-06). -- S. 206 - 208
Dyer D. Lum bekennt sich ausdrücklich als Buddhisten.
Abb.: Dyer D. Lum [Bildquelle: http://www.angelfire.com/va/jsorenK/anrky4.html. -- Zugriff am 2003-06-16]Dyer D. Lum wurde zu einem der bedeutendsten amerikanischen anarchistischen Aktivisten:
"Born in Geneva, New York in 1839, his paternal ancestors had settled in New Jersey in 1642, and his maternal ancestors included a Massachusetts Minuteman and Lewis and Arthur Tappan, prominent abolitionists. Like several other anarchists of his generation, he fought in the Civil War, volunteering in 1862 for the 121st New York Infantry. He was captured twice by Confederate troops, held in Libby prison, and eventually fought with the 14th New York Cavalry in the Red River Campaign in Louisiana, distinguishing himself as a hero in several skirmishes. In a little more than two years, he rose in rank from sergeant to captain and was honorably discharged in 1865 in New Orleans. After the war, Lum settled in New England, practicing his trade, bookbinding, in a number of cities before settling in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1873. As a skilled worker, Lum was again within the American mainstream, and even the mainstream of anarchism. Lum's well-known comrade, Albert Parsons, was also a Civil War veteran and a printer by trade. In fact, nearly half of Chicago's anarchist movement in 1886 was composed of skilled workers and two prominent anarchists, the notorious Johann Most and the Haymarket defendant, Michael Schwab, were bookbinders like Lum. Lum's post-war involvement with spiritualism, while less typical of both Americans generally and anarchists specifically, was nevertheless important in his radicalization. Indeed, the "new labor history" insists that religion be taken seriously in considering working-class culture. For radicals, religion was sometimes an obstacle and sometimes an avenue to radicalism. For Lum, it was something of both. Raised as an orthodox Presbyterian, Lum became a skeptic in childhood, when he discovered that God did not strike him down for yelling "Damn!" while playing on a Sunday. Like many others in western New York in mid- century, Lum turned to spiritualism for direct, individual, and "scientific" knowledge of the afterlife. For at least five years after the Civil War, he wrote on science and evolution for major spiritualist papers such as Banner of Light. In 1873, disillusioned with the gullibility and unscientific approach of many mediums and spiritualists, he published a denunciation of the movement, The "Spiritual" Delusion. For the next few years, the Free Religious Association's Index was the major outlet for his skeptical inquiries into organized religion. Lum's skepticism culminated in 1875, when he turned to Buddhism, which he saw as anti-institutional, anti-dogmatic, egalitarian and humanistic. In a sense, he had whittled away religion to its psychological core, devotion to something outside self. Having accomplished that, he wrote virtually nothing about religion for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, the humanism of Buddha's writings influenced Lum's socialism and his theory of history. The Buddhist concept of nirvana, with its indifference to death and the individual soul, provided a quasi-religious sanction for Lum's occasionally reckless devotion to revolution. Eventually, Lum's cold, revolutionary selflessness led him to urge his Haymarket comrades' martyrdom and ultimately to take his own life when the prospects for revolution seemed dim. "
[Dies ist nur ein kurzer Ausschnitt aus dem lesenswerten Artikel: Brooks, Frank H.: Ideology, strategy, and organization. -- In: Labor History. -- Volume 34, Number 1, Winter 1993. -- S. 57-83. -- Online: http://www.yo-anarchy.org/labhist93.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-06-16]
1875-09-08
Helena Petrova Blavatsky (1831-1891) und Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907) gründen die Theosophische Gesellschaft in New York .
Siehe: Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Materialien zum Neobuddhismus. -- 2. International. -- 1. Buddhismus und theosophische Bewegung. -- 1. Bis 1878. -- URL: http://www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud02011.htm
1876
Es erscheint das erste von einem Amerikaner geschriebene Buch über Buddha und den Buddhismus:
Mills, Charles D. B. <1821-1900>: The Indian saint, or, Buddha and Buddhism : a sketch, historical and critical. -- Northampton, Mass. : Journal and Free Press, 1876. -- 197 S.
Das Buch zeigt so viel Sympathie, dass ein protestantischer Rezensent fragt, ob der Autor nicht ein Buddhist sei.
Mills bedauert aber, dass die buddhistischen Philosophen "[had] abolished everything, annihilated all affirmative being, and left the spirit of coldness and chill of mere negations." [Zitiert in: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992. -- S. 18].
1882-05-06
Der US-Congress beschließt den Chinese Exclusion Act. Dieses Gesetz blieb bis 1943 (!) in Geltung:
"Forty-Seventh Congress. Session I. 1882 Chapter 126.-An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese.
Preamble. Whereas, in the opinion of the Government of the United States the coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain localities within the territory thereof:
Therefore,
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act, and until the expiration of ten years next after the passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be, and the same is hereby, suspended; and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or, having so come after the expiration of said ninety days, to remain within the United States."
[Quelle: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/chinex.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-06-13. -- Dort Text des ganzen Act]
"The Chinese Exclusion Act, signed into law May 6, 1882, followed revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. The revisions to the treaty allowed the US to suspend immigration and Congress acted quickly to implement the suspension. The act excluded all Chinese laborers to the United States for 10 years. Amendments made in 1884 tightened the provisions that allowed previous immigrants to leave and return, and clarified that the law applied to ethnic Chinese regardless of their country of origin. The act was renewed in 1892 by the Geary Act for another 10 years, and in 1902 with no terminal date. It was repealed by the 1943 Magnuson Act, allowing a national quota of 105 Chinese immigrants per year, although large scale Chinese immigration did not occur until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965.
The act was passed in response to the large number of Chinese who had immigrated to the Western United States as a result of unsettled conditions in China and the availability of jobs working on railroads. It was the first immigration law passed in the United States targeted at a specific ethnic group.
Although the law has long been repealed, it was around long enough to be made part of the United States Code. Even today, although all its constituent sections have long been repealed, Chapter 7 of Title 8 of the U.S.C. is headed, "Exclusion of Chinese." It is the only chapter of the 15 chapters in Title 8 (Aliens and Nationality) that is completely focused on a specific nationality or ethnic group.
From 1910 to 1940, the Angel Island Immigration Station on what is now Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay served as the processing center for 1,750,000 attempted immigrants, most of whom were returned to China."
[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act_%28United_States%29. -- Zugriff am 2005-04-27]
1884
Abb.: W. R. Rockhill
[Bildquelle:
http://moscow.usembassy.gov/links/ambassadors.php. -- Zugriff am 2005-04-25]
1885-09-21Es erscheint:
Rockhill, William Woodville <1854-1914>: The life of the Buddha, and the early history of his order., Derived from Tibetan works in the Bkah-hgyur and Bstan-hgyur. Followed by notices on the early history of Tibet and Khoten / Translated by W. Woodville Rockhill. -- London : Trübner, 1884. -- 273 S..
"Rockhill, William Woodville (1854-1914) of Washington, D.C. Born in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pa., April 1, 1854. U.S. Minister to Greece, 1897-99; U.S. Minister to Romania, 1897; U.S. Minister to Serbia, 1897; U.S. Minister to China, 1905; U.S. Ambassador to Russia, 1909-11; U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, 1911-13. Died in Honolulu, Island of Oahu, Honolulu County, Hawaii, 1914. Interment at East Cemetery, Litchfield, Conn." "Rockhill, William Woodville, amerikan. Diplomat und Reisender, geb. 1854 in Philadelphia, kam 1884 als Gesandtschaftssekretär der Vereinigten Staaten nach Peking, war 1886-87 diplomatischer Geschäftsträger in Korea, bekleidete seit 1893 verschiedene Posten im Auswärtigen Amt zu Washington, war 1897-99 als Gesandter in Griechenland, Rumänien und Serbien tätig. ging Anfang 1901 wieder nach Peking und unterzeichnete dort als bevollmächtigter Gesandter der Union das Friedensprotokoll der Großmächte vom 7. Sept. 1901. Von 1899-1905 war er auch Direktor des internationalen Bureaus der amerikanischen Republiken in Washington und ist seitdem wieder Gesandter in Peking. Von dort aus unternahm ec schon 1888 eine Reise nach Tibet, die ihn zum Kuku-Nor und durch Tsaidam zum Quellgebiet des Hwangho und an den Oberlauf des Yangtsekiang führte. Auf einer zweiten Reise nach Tibet, 1891-1892, gelangte R. bis in die Nähe von Lhassa. Er veröffentlichte: »The land of the Lamas. Notes of a journey through China, Mongolia and Tibet« (Lond. 1891) und »Diary of a journey through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892« (Washingt. 1894)." [Quelle: Meyers großes Konversations-Lexikon. -- DVD-ROM-Ausg. Faksimile und Volltext der 6. Aufl. 1905-1909. -- Berlin : Directmedia Publ. --2003. -- 1 DVD-ROM. -- (Digitale Bibliothek ; 100). -- ISBN 3-89853-200-3. -- s.v.]
1885Ernest Francisco Fenollosa (1853 - 1908) und Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow (1850-1926) (Wissenschaftler, die nach Japan gekommen waren; Kunstgeschichtler) nehmen in Japan im Homoyoin-Tempel die 'Gebote' (besser: dreifache Zuflucht) (三帰戒; san-ki-kai) des Tendai-Buddhismus (天台宗) formell auf sich.
They "were probably the first Americans to have studied (and practiced to some extend) Mahayana Buddhism with a qualified teacher" [ Fields, Rick: How the swans came to the lake : a narrative history of Buddhism in America. -- Rev. and updated ed. -- Boston ; London : Shambala, 1986. -- 445 S. -- ISBN 0-394-74419-5. -- S. 158]
Abb.: Ernest Francisco Fenollosa[Bildquelle: http://www.owenbarfield.com/Biographies/Biographies%20F.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-06]
"Fenollosa, Ernest Francisco: 1853–1908, American Orientalist, educator, and poet, b. Salem, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1874. A pioneer in the study of Asian art, he lived much of his life in Japan. Besides teaching at Tokyo Univ., the Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts, and the Imperial Normal School, he was manager of the fine arts department of the Imperial Museum in Tokyo. His works include East and West: The Discovery of America and Other Poems (1893); Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art (2d ed. 1912), compiled by his widow, Mary McNeil Fenollosa; and two works on Japanese drama (ed. by Ezra Pound, 1916)."
[The Columbia Encyclopedia. -- 6. Edition. -- Columbia University Press, © 2002. -- URL: http://www.bartleby.com/65/fe/Fenollos.html. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-06]
"The collectors and curators who helped form the collection of Chinese and other Asian art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston were known in their heyday as the "Boston Orientalists." An unlikely coterie of Brahmins turned Buddhists, maverick scientists and society physicians, artist-scholars and bohemians, few of them had actually visited China. Their most influential member was Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908) the son of a Spanish musician who settled in Salem, Mass. Fenollosa studied philosophy at Harvard University and painting at the MFA School when, at 25, he was invited to teach philosophy at the Imperial University in Tokyo. Eventually he became the MFA's first curator of Japanese art. Fenollosa went to the Far East at the same time that Japan looked to the West to modernize. The prestige of Japanese traditional arts was in serious decline, and Fenollosa soon devoted himself to its revival, visiting temples and "ransacked godowns" (warehouses) in search of statues and art from ruined pagodas. He recorded the first list of Japan's national treasures, and found, to his delight, ancient Chinese scrolls brought there by traveling Zen monks centuries earlier. The Japanese soon made him their Imperial Art Commissioner, and he became the first foreigner to achieve world recognition as a specialist in the art of Japan and China.
Like other "Boston Orientalists," Fenollosa saw China through a Japanese screen, viewing it as the classical Greece of the East, albeit one that had lapsed into permanent decline after the Mongol conquest. In a June, 1892 article for Atlantic Monthly, "Chinese and Japanese Traits," he prophesied a coming fusion of East and West and the emergence of a new world culture.
An ardent collector, Fenellosa was joined on his third trip to Japan by a well-connected Boston Brahmin and society physician named William Sturgis Bigelow (1850-1926). Bigelow's stake in the Orient was ancestral. A confidante of Theodore Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Bigelow came from a family of China traders. In Japan, Bigelow helped fund a national fine arts academy, supporting Fenollosa's efforts to conserve ancient temples and monuments. When the Russians threatened to destroy China's Manchu Imperial Library, he called on President Roosevelt to intercede.
Both men were ardent Japanophiles and collectors on a grand scale. Converting to Buddhism, they studied with a Tendai Buddhist master and dressed in Japanese robes. While Fenollosa specialized in Chinese and Japanese paintings, Bigelow bought tens of thousands of pieces of lacquer ware, swords, statues and wood block prints. Other prominent Yankees, like the writer Henry Adams and the painter John LaFarge, followed in their footsteps, combining their search for Enlightenment with a quest for artistic treasures.
Bigelow returned to Boston in 1889, bringing his collection and expertise to the Museum as a Trustee. He lectured widely on Buddhism, and played a key role in developing diplomatic and cultural relations between the U.S. and Japan. He brokered the purchase of the Fenollosa collection for the MFA through another Harvard doctor, Charles Goddard Weld (1857-1911), a distant relative of Governor William Weld. By the 1890s, the MFA had one of the West's pre-eminent collection of Far Eastern art—and Fenollosa was its first curator (1890 - 1896).
Not only had Fenollosa inspired Boston collectors to venture into the new field of Far Eastern art, his Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art was the first serious Western study of the subject. His writings on Chinese language and culture inspired poets like Ezra Pound, who once called Fenollosa's career "the romance par excellence of modern scholarship." Fenollosa's notes on Chinese language and literature, and his translations of classical Chinese poetry, became the basis of Pound's own revolutionary poetics.
Fenollosa organized the first exhibition of Chinese painting at the MFA in 1894. It included a series of Chinese Buddhist Lohan paintings that had been preserved for centuries in Japan's most famous Zen temple, Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. Dating from 1178 to 1184, they have been called the finest such Chinese Buddhist paintings anywhere in the world. Ten of these 12th century works are exhibited in Tales from the Land of Dragons, including Lohans Watching the Distribution of Relics and Lohan Manifesting Himself as an Eleven-Headed Guanyin. Harvard's famous renaissance painting connoisseur Bernard Berenson wrote to his wife about the reaction of an elite group of MFA collectors to the exhibit:
"They had composition of figures and groups as perfect and simple as the best we Europeans have ever done ... I was prostrate. Fenollosa shivered as he looked, I thought I should die, and even Denman Ross who looked dumpy [and] Anglo-Saxon was jumping up and down. We had to poke and pinch each others necks and wept. No, decidedly I never had such an art experience."
[Quelle: http://www.boston.com/mfa/chinese/orientalist.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-06]
Abb.: Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow (1850-1926)[Bildquelle: http://www.masshist.org/cabinet/may2002/bigelowenlarge.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-06]
"The secretary of the Harvard class of 1871 once wrote to William Sturgis Bigelow requesting some news, "or a story." Bigelow replied, "Story? God bless you, I have none to tell, sir. Since '81 I have spent about seven years in Japan, when [sic] I saw a great many folks of high and low degree, got together some things of various sorts for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts...and learned a little about Eastern philosophy and religion. I have neither wife nor children, written no books, received no special honors and I belong only to the regular clubs and societies."
This extraordinary understatement combined Buddhist self-abnegation with the inner confidence of an affluent, private, and talented Boston Brahmin. In fact, those "things of various sorts"--numbering, according to one estimate, 26,000 pieces of painting, sculpture, ceramics, and manuscripts--formed the heart of one of the world's greatest museum collections.
As to the Eastern philosophy, he studied and then embraced Buddhism, as did his friend Ernest Fenollosa, A.B. 1874. Bigelow's 1908 Ingersoll Lecture at Harvard explained "Buddhism and Immortality" in scholarly detail, and was later published.
Bigelow was truthful in saying he had no wife or children, but not in denying that he had written books or received honors. Japan awarded him the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun, with the rank of Commander, the highest distinction bestowed in that country on persons not in official life (he wears it in the charcoal portrait opposite, drawn by his friend John Singer Sargent).
Bigelow was profoundly affected by the death of his mother when he was three. (His Ingersoll Lecture states that "Maternal love is the source of all human virtues.") His father, the renowned surgeon Henry Jacob Bigelow, was something of a martinet, and young William was evidently something of a rebel: his report card from the Private Latin School in 1865 rated him twenty-second academically in a class of 55, but fifty-fourth in "conduct."
After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1874, Bigelow went to Europe. He stayed five years, studying in Vienna, Strasbourg, and finally in Paris under Pasteur. He brought back to Boston the new research on bacteria, and established privately one of this country's first laboratories in that field. This displeased his father, who wanted the line of distinguished Bigelow surgeons at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital to continue. William was duly appointed surgeon to outpatients at the MGH. "Few men," wrote medical historian John F. Fulton, "could have less taste for surgery than the sensitive Bigelow, and it was not long before he gave up all thoughts of practice."
In 1881, believing that the world was moving too fast and that much of life in Boston was ugly, he went to Japan, following Edward S. Morse and Ernest Fenollosa, who were among the first Americans to study Japanese culture. He later called the cruise to Japan the turning point of his life. During his prolonged stay he studied, traveled, and collected the treasures that the Japanese were discarding in their rush to become Westernized.
After returning to Boston in 1889, Bigelow devoted much of his time to the study of art and Asian religions. He also entertained lavishly at his home at 56 Beacon Street, often welcoming such College friends as George and Henry Cabot Lodge, Brooks and Henry Adams, and Theodore Roosevelt, who regularly made Bigelow's home his Boston headquarters. He became an active trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts and continued to collect paintings, often consulting with Isabella Stewart Gardner. Reportedly somewhat reserved in his dealings with the opposite sex, he once wrote to her coyly, in the third person: "She is very attractive." At his favorite spot in America, however, a summer house on tiny Tuckernuck Island, off the shores of Nantucket, he entertained men only, and his guests wore pajamas, or nothing at all, until dinnertime, when formal dress was required. A staff of servants provided food and fine wines; the library contained 3,000 volumes, "spiced with racy French and German magazines," one chronicler reported. Henry Adams described Bigelow's retreat as "a scene of medieval splendor"; George Santayana, A.B. 1886, may have modeled Dr. Peter Alden, the father of the protagonist in The Last Puritan, after Bigelow.
The Boston Evening Transcript, the unofficial gazette of Boston's Brahmins, ran two bold headlines on October 6, 1926. One told of Babe Ruth's still unexcelled feat of hitting three home runs in a World Series game, but the larger headline reported the death of William Sturgis Bigelow. His funeral, at Trinity Church, was conducted by his classmate William Lawrence, the former Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts. His ashes were divided. Half were interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery, which had been envisioned by his grandfather Jacob Bigelow as a spiritually uplifting as well as "hygienic" burial site. But the rest were buried by a Buddhist temple, overlooking Bigelow's favorite lake in Japan."
[Prout, Curtis: Vita William Sturgis Bigelow : brief life of an idiosyncratic Brahmin 1850 - 1926. -- URL: http://www.harvard-magazine.com/issues/so97/vita.html. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-06]
Bigelow verfasste auch: Bigelow, William Sturgis (1850-1926): Buddhism and immortality. -- Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908. -- 75 S. -- (The Ingersoll lecture ; 1908)
Es erscheint:
Kellogg, Samuel H. (Samuel Henry) <1839 - 1899>: The light of Asia and the light of the world : a comparison of the legend, the doctrine, & the ethics of the Buddha with the story, the doctrine, & the ethics of Christ. -- London : Macmillan, 1885. -- xx, 390 S. ; 20 cm.
"KELLOGG, Samuel Henry, clergyman, born in Westhampton, New York, 6 September, 1839. He was graduated at Princeton in 1861. Entered the Theological Seminary there, was ordained an evangelist in 1864, and, under an appointment of the board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian church, sailed for India in December of that year, arriving in Calcutta, 5 June, 1865. In 1872 he removed to Alla-Habad, and became instructor in the theological training school there. Resigning his office as missionary, he returned to the United States in 1876, the next year was elected pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1879 was chosen professor of didactic and polemic theology, and lecturer on comparative religion in western theological seminary, and since 1886 has been pastor of St. James Square Church, Toronto. In 1872 he was elected corresponding member of The American Oriental Society, and in 1885 became an associate of the Philosophical Society of Great Britain. Princeton gave him the degree of D. D. in 1877. He has translated the larger catechism of the Presbyterian church into Hindi, rendered valuable service in the revision of the scriptures, and published "A Grammar of the Hindi Language" (Calcutta and London, 1876)" "The Jews, or Prediction and Fulfilment" (New York, 1883)" "The Light of Asia and the Light of the World" (1885)" " From Death to Resurrection" (1885)" "Are Premillen-Nialists Right" (Chicago, 1885). " [Quelle: http://www.famousamericans.net/samuelhenrykellogg/. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28]
1886
Es erscheint:
Langford, Laura Carter Holloway <1848 - >: The Buddhist diet book / prepared by Laura C. Holloway. -- New York : Funk & Wagnalls, 1886. -- 80 S.
Das Buch enthält vegetarische Rezepte, die die Autorin in Preußen und England bei westlichen Buddhisten [sic!] gesammelt hat.
1887
Zeitschrift The Open Court magazine (Herausgeber: Paul Carus (1852-1919)): nicht rein buddhistisch, aber Forum für amerikanische und asiatische Buddhisten. Beiträge u.a. von Max Müller, Kontroverse Oldenberg - Carus. Auflage: fast 5000 Exemplare
Abb.: Paul Carus[
Bildquelle: http://www.cpwr.org/what/programs/carusaward.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-06]
"Carus, Paul, geb. 1852 in Ilsenburg, Prof. in Chicago, Herausgeber des »Monist«, Begründer von »The Open Court« (Publikationen). Carus ist Positivist und Monist. Nach seiner »unitarischen« Auffassung sind Objekt und Subjekt, Geist und Materie, Seele und Leib. Gott und Welt nur Seiten einer einheitlichen, konkreten Wirklichkeit, deren Einheit der Gegenstand der Philosophie ist. Eine Metaphysik, die auf Erfahrung fußt, ist möglich (gegen den Agnostizismus). Die Subjektivität (Selbstheit) ist das Innensein des Wirklichen, die Objektivität der äußere Aspekt derselben. In allem ist Leben (»Panbiotismus«), wenn auch erst in den Organismen das Seelische auftritt. Gott ist Weltseele, die der Welt immanente Allmacht (»Entheismus«), die Macht der sittlichen Weltordnung. Die Unsterblichkeit besteht in dem Weiterleben der Seelen in den Nachkommen, in denen sie sich immer weiter entwickeln."
[Nachtrag:]
"Carus, Paul. = Nach Carus ist die Philosophie eine »Philosophie der Form«. »Alle Wissenschaft besteht in einer Beschreibung von Formen und einem Verfolgen der Umwandlung von Formen.« Die Philosophie als Wissenschaft (als Anwendung von Wahrheiten = »Pragmatologie«) ist das Produkt der wissenschaftlichen Entwicklung der Menschheit. Allgemeinheit und Notwendigkeit sind aus den Bedingungen der Konstruktion reiner Formen abzuleiten. Form ist objektiv und subjektiv zugleich. Die formalen Wissenschaften sind Konstruktionen des reinen Denkens, im Felde einer abstrakten Leere dargestellt. Die reinen Formen an und für sich sind »überwirklich«, die Typen aller möglichen Einheiten, die Normen des Daseins. Die Kausalität ist das Gesetz der Transformation oder Formveränderung«. Das Sein ist von innen Subjektivität, Innerlichkeit, von außen Objektivität. Leben und Gefühl ist an die Wechselwirkung gewisser Formen gebunden. Die Seele entsteht erst durch »Kooperation psychischer Funktionen in organisierten Lebewesen«. Sie ist »ein System von fühlenden Symbolen«. Die Seele des Menschen ist ein Abbild der Weltordnung. Nach dem Tode beharren unsere Taten in ihren Wirkungen. Gott ist das Ewige, die Norm der Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit, die Weltordnung, er ist überpersönlich, das bestimmende Gesetz, der Nomos über der Natur (»Nomotheismus«). Die Gesamtheit der idealen Normen der Welt ist der Logos."
[Quelle: Eisler, Rudolf <1873-1926>: Philosophen-Lexikon : Leben, Werke und Lehren der Denker. -- Berlin : Mittler, 1912. -- 889 S. -- S. 89, 868.]
1888-1894
Abb: The Buddhist Ray, Vol. I, No 1
[Bildquelle: Tricycle : the Buddhist review. -- ISSN 1055-484X. -- Vol. I, No. 1 (Fall 1991). -- S. 6.]Hermann Carl Vetterling (1849 - 1931), von Beruf ein Drucker, publiziert unter dem Pseudonym Philangi Dasa die erste amerikanische buddhistische Zeitschrift: The Buddhist Ray : a monthly magazine devoted to Lord Buddha's doctrine of enlightenment. -- Santa Cruz, 1888-1894.
Textbeispiel:
"A subscriber has asked us to publish the Buddhist creed. We are extremely happy to say that Buddhism has no creed. His majesty the Devil would long ago have swallowed Buddhism, had it had a creed. He has thus far swallowed all organzations with Creeds, Boards of Control, and Directors, anointed and unanointed; and because of their presence in his belly, he is now noisomely flatulent in the world;-- as heard and seen in the pulpit and in the religious press! Dear subscriber;--Buddhism has come West, not to tickle surfeited palates with 'old-church' or 'new-church' hash, but to teach men to think righteously and to act righteously, that they may become spiritual freemen!" [Zitat bei Fields, Rick: How the swans came to the lake : a narrative history of Buddhism in America. -- Rev. and updated ed. -- Boston ; London : Shambala, 1986. -- 445 S. -- ISBN 0-394-74419-5. -- S. 132]
Über Vetterling:
"Born Herman C. Vetterling in Sweden in 1849, he emigrated to the United States (exact date unknown) and then became a follower of the Swedish mystic Swedenborg. After studying for the ministry, he served Swedenborgian communities in the Midwest for four years until scandal marred his clergical career. In July, 1881, The Detroit Post and Tribune reported that fellow passengers on a steamer from Alaska had accused Vetterling of having "taken improper liberties" with an eight-year-old American girl and a twenty-year-old Chinese woman. Neither proven nor ever brought to trial, these allegations remain one of several mysteries that surround his reputation.
Three years later, Vetterling joined the Theosophical Society in which identification with Buddhism was common; and wishing to make a fresh start, he moved to California. Using his pseudonym, he wrote Swedenborg the Buddhist, or The Higher Swedenborgianism. Its Secrets and Tibhetan Origins. With characteristic enthusiasm for his new-found faith, Dasa claimed for Swedenborg a similar allegiance, suggesting that "hidden under Judaic-Christian names, phrases, and symbols, and scattered throughout dreary, dogmatic, and soporific octavos, are pure, precious blessed truths of Buddhism." Undaunted by the outrage this provoked among the Swedenborgians, Dasa continued his sure-footed and somewhat imperialistic raids into allied ideologies in his monthly periodical.
Drawn to Buddhism in part by its record for tolerance, Dasa himself could not let an opposing view stand without comment. When The Buddhist Ray published an excerpt by the American Spiritualist Andrew Davis that hinted that Buddha's doctrines were less significant than his social reforms, Dasa added: "A radical mistake—Ed." Another of his editorial condemnations read: "We are confident that when Mr. Davis penned this, he knew very little, if anything, about the thoughts and ordinances of our Lord—Ed."
To the suggestion that he make public promotional appearances for the Buddhist cause, Dasa explained that this was impossible, for, among other reasons, "we have no mahatmic credentials from the Himalayas, a serious obstacle indeed."
What little we know about Dasa reveals the ambiguity and ambivalence that continues to attend issues of accreditation. His interpretations lack both the restraints of orthodoxy and the subtleties of Asian expression. His was an imagination inspired by the contagious spirit of an American frontier that summoned its ragged idealists toward territories unknown, inside and out. His deepest concerns paralleled those of many American Buddhists today: vegetarianism, homeopathy, women's rights and the humane treatment of animals. And his pioneering reflections on the essence of Buddhism, the authenticity of intellectual and practical innovations, and the limits of cultural adaptation are very much alive in the current discussions of Buddhism in North America."[Quelle: Tricycle : the Buddhist review. -- ISSN 1055-484X. -- Vol. I, No. 1 (Fall 1991). -- S. 7.]
"So did Philangi Dasa (Herman Carl Vetterling). Although he edited the first English-language Buddhist magazine in America, The Buddhist Ray, Vetterling is almost as obscure as Canavarro. Yet most of the twists and turns in his life can be reconstructed. Soon after Vetterling emigrated from Sweden he became a follower of the (Swedenborgian) Church of the New Jerusalem. He then studied for the ministry, and was ordained by that institution on 10 June 1877. He served as a minister, off and on, to New Church communities in Greenford, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Detroit, Michigan, until 1881. Controversy and scandal, however, marred his ministerial career. During the mid-1880s Vetterling dissociated himself from the New Church. He joined the Theosophical Society and wrote a series of articles entitled "Studies in Swedenborg" for The Theosophist. It was around this time that he identified himself with Buddhism.
This esoteric adherent had a number of occupations before and after he turned to Buddhism—including working as typesetter, minister, homeopathic physician, and farmer. Yet it is his work as author and editor that is most relevant here. In 1887 Swedenborg the Buddhist; or, The Higher Swedenborgianism: Its Secrets and Thibetan Origins was published in Los Angeles. In this work Vetterling, writing under the pseudonym of Philangi Dasa, set out a religious view that combined Buddhist teachings with those of the Theosophical Society and Emanuel Swedenborg. The book recounts a dream by "Philangi Dasa" in which a number of characters—a Chinese, a Parsee, an American woman, a Brahman, a Buddhist monk, an Aztec Indian, an Icelander, Philangi Dasa, and Emanuel Swedenborg—engage in spirited dialogue about religious matters. In the foreword to that book the narrator, Philangi Dasa, defiantly announces that both he and Swedenborg are "Pagans." He suggests that "the sign of a Pagan soul" is the ability "to stop the breathing at will," and claims that Swedenborg had "a piece of Asia in him" since he had possessed this supranormal capacity from birth. Philangi Dasa argues, indirectly and directly, that a form of esoteric Buddhism is the highest spiritual teaching and Swedenborg was actually a Buddhist. He acknowledges that there were Christian themes in the Swedish mystic's writings but suggests that "hidden under Judaic-Christian names, phrases, and symbols, and scattered throughout dreary, dogmatic, and soporific octavos, are pure, precious, blessed truths of Buddhism." How did Swedenborg come to see the truths of this Asian religion if he never read Buddhist literature? Philangi Dasa claims that Swedenborg had direct contact with "Great Buddhist Ascetics" on a suprasensual plane.
Needless to say, although the work was praised in periodicals connected with the Theosophical Society and other esoteric groups, Vetterling's idiosyncratic and iconoclastic interpretation was not warmly received in Swedenborgian circles. Reviews of the work in New Church periodicals harshly criticized the author's rejection of a personal conception of God, the divinity of Christ, and the authority of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. They were most outraged, however, by Vetterling's linking of their spiritual patriarch with Buddhism. If the reviewers did not "murder him in the name of the Lord," as the Christians did to Philangi Dasa in the dream recounted in Vetterling's book, it was not because the book had failed to stir sufficient anger in them.
At the end of Swedenborg the Buddhist, Philangi Dasa awakens from his dream and repeats the familiar profession of Buddhist faith: "I follow Buddha as my guide. I follow the Law as my guide. I follow the order as my guide." Philangi Dasa surfaced next in Santa Cruz County, California, as a self-proclaimed Buddhist. There he promoted his brand of esoteric Buddhism as publisher and editor of The Buddhist Ray. Vetterling continued to blend Theosophical and Swedenborgian influences in his own contributions and in the material he chose to include in the magazine. In fact, the synthesis of these diverse elements already was evident in the prospectus:The Buddhist Ray will be devoted to the divulgation of the philosophy and life of Buddhism: of Karma, of Transmigration, and of Mystic Communion with the Divine in Humanity. ... It will set forth the teachings imparted by the Mongolian Buddhists to Emanuel Swedenborg, and published by him in his mystic writings. ... As a work of love, we ask the moral and pecuniary cooperation of all lovers of the Ancient Wisdom; and we invoke upon it the blessings of the SOULS REGENERATE throughout the world!"
[Quelle: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.]. -- S. 58 - 60]
Veeterling verfasste auch: Philangi Dasa <1849-1931>: Swedenborg the Buddhist; or, The higher Swedenborgianism, its secrets & Thibetan origin. -- Los Angeles: The Buddhistic Swedenborgian Brotherhood, 1887. -- 322 S.
Abb.: Umschlagtitel der Neuausgabe:
Vetterling, Herman Carl <1849-1931>: Swedenborg, the Buddhist, or, The higher Swedenborgianism : its secrets and Tibetan origin / Philangi Dasa. -- Charleston, S.C. : Arcana Books, ©2003.-- 437 S. : Ill.
"53. From Yoshinaga Shin'ichi (Nov. 24, 1999): My name is Shinichi Yoshinaga. I am now studying the influence of Swedenborg upon D.T.Suzuki, and reading the Japanese translation of the book called Swedenborg the Buddhist, or The Higher Swedenborgianism, Its Secrets and Thibetan Origin. The original edition of this book is written by a Swedish by Carl Herman Vetterling, alias Philangi Dasa, and published in Los Angeles, 1887. Only six years later this was translated into Japanese as Zui-ha.
Bukkyougaku_(meaning Swedenborgian Buddhism). And today I found the following passage:
"A few years ago I met a mulatto. He said he was a Rosicrucian. But I thought he is not a true Rosicrucian when he drank alcohol and loved women....He ruined himself. How pity! He once said to me he believed or better knew the seven existences in the spirit world...."
Though there is no mention of the name, it seems certain that this Rosicrucian is none other than P.B. Randolph. As this is a translation of the Japanese translation, original sentences will be a lot different. But I think it would be worth reading Philangi Dasa's Swedenborg the Buddhist.These sentences would be found about the middle of the book. Philangi Dasa himself is said to be the first Buddhist in America, but his biography seems to be obscure according to Rick Field's How the Swans Came to the Lake. This seems a very interesting connection, which could be compared to A.Crowley and Alan Watts.
After this mail I found that Soen Syaku, the Zen master of D.T.Suzuki, refered to Swedenborg as a Buddhist in his preface to Buddha No Fukuin (1895). This book is the translation of Paul Carus's The Gospel of Buddha (translator, D.T.Suzuki). So I have to assume that Suzuki must have read the Japanese translation of Swedenborg the Buddhist before he went to the USA, which was in 1897.
I also found that Philangi Dasa had a great influence on the Japanese Buddhism in Meiji era.In Nishi Hongwanji-ha (or Hongwanji Temple), the largest one of the Pure-Land sects, there appeared reformation movements of its seminary students around 1890. One of them was Kwaigwai Senkyokai (a students' society for overseas missionary). The members of this society contacted William Q. Judge and Philangi Dasa. So the bulletin of this society (Kwaigwai Bukkyo Jijo) was packed with Theosophical writings and a lot of articles from Dasa's Buddhist Ray.
There was one episode which indicates the influence of Dasa. Just before the Congress of Religions in 1893 he wrote to a pen pal in Japan warning that the congress would be a conspiracy of Christians so Buddhists may be used as Christians wished. This letter appeared in another Buddhist periodical. It proved not to be a case, and Buddhists took part in the Congress after all, but Dasa's warning dispirit[ed] the Japanese Buddhists for a while.
Dasa is an obscure person in the history of Buddhism in Japan. But he seems to have played some role in the modernization of Japanese Buddhism.
Theosophy also seems to have played an important role. For example the death of Blavatsky was reported in several Buddhism periodicals as a regretful loss.
I think there was a stronger interplay between the Japanese Buddhism and the Western Buddhists (who were mainly Theosophists), and it should not be dismissed as an anecdote.
YOSHINAGA Shin'ichi"[Quelle: http://www.theohistory.org/notes-queries-archive1.html. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-06]
Später in seinem Leben unterstützte Vetterling den Tierschutz durch eine Spende on $50.000 zur Errichtung eines Tierheims in San Jose, California.
1888
Edward C. Hegeler, Mitinhaber der Matthiessen and Hegeler Zinc Company, gründet die Zeitschrift The Monist (Herausgeber: Paul Carus (1852-1919)
1890
Laut US-Census gibt es in den USA 47 buddhitische Tempel.
1892-11
Masters, Frederick J.: Pagan temples in San Francisco. -- In: The Californian. -- 2.6 (November 1892). -- S. 727 -. 741
"Long ages ago, when our forefathers were ignorant idolaters whose altars flowed with the blood of human sacrifices, there is every reason to believe that the Chinese were a monotheistic people, who, according to their light and knowledge, worshipped the Supreme Ruler, speculated upon his being and attributes, and framed a system of theology which, notwithstanding its crudeness and admixture of error, astonishes anyone who believes that in the dark ages of the world the Creator revealed himself to no people but the Hebrews. The history of their religious degradation has yet to be written. . . . Their Confucian teachers . . . taught that the most High was too exalted for ordinary mortals to approach and that the service of heaven could only be acceptably offered by their Melchisedek Sovereign, "the Son of Heaven," who is responsible to Heaven for his people's welfare and offers prayer and sacrifice on their behalf. It can hardly be wondered at that when Buddhism was introduced into China at the beginning of the Christian era, this religious people should turn to images of foreign Bodhisatvas or heroes of national fame, that they were taught to believe were potent for good or ill, according as they were propitiated or neglected. The monks from the banks of the Ganges changed the whole character of Chinese religion. The so-called "Light of Asia" has made them a nation of idolaters. Amidst much that is grotesque, degrading and sinful about Chinese idolatrous rites, two negative features place their temples on a higher level than those of any other heathen land. There has been no instance of human sacrifice and no deification of vice. No human victim was ever immolated on a Chinese altar. The cruel rites practiced by the ancient Britons, Aztecs and Egyptians would horrify the humane monks of Sakyamuni with Sutras in their hands that teach the preservation of all animal life. No Chinese religious sect has ever countenanced in their temple rites the least taint of such licentious orgies as were found in the hieroduli dance to Aphrodite Pandemos or the obscene rites of the Durga-puja. . . . While the Chinese believe in fiends and evil spirits and propitiate them just to keep them from mischief, their deepest homage is called forth in the worship of the heroes of their nation and the patriarchs of their tribes. Of the fifteen heathen temples in San Francisco, ten are erected in honor of ancient kings, statesmen or warriors famous in their history, who have become apotheosized as protectors of the people and benefactors of the nation worthy of their reverent homage. The remainder are dedicated to patriarchs of the village clans, patrons of guilds or the sages or genii of religious sects. The local Joss houses are not very imposing edifices. . . . there is nothing in this city that approaches the artistic beauty of the carvings and images of a first-rate temple in Canton. . . .
The oldest Joss-house in San Francisco is the Temple of the Queen of Heaven, on Waverly street. It was erected over forty years ago, and is the property of the Sam Yap Company. The goddess worshipped at this temple was a Chinese young lady who lived hundreds of years ago [and] was long ago canonized as the Queen of Heaven, the guardian saint of fishermen and sailors, and the protector of all good people who go down to the sea in ships. Her temples are found throughout China, where she is worshipped by landsmen and sailors alike. . . .
The most popular goddess of the Chinese pantheon is Kwan Yum, the Chinese Notre Dame. Her full title of canonization is: "Great in pity, great in love, the savior from misery and woe, the hearer of earthly cries." Her shrine is found up a dingy staircase on the southwest corner of Spofford alley and Washington streets. . . . Many are the legends told of this Buddhist Madonna. . . .
In the Spofford-alley temple are found the shrines of some twenty other gods and goddesses, the principal being the Grand Duke of Peace, the God of Medicine, and Pan Kung, a celebrated Prime Minister of the Sung dynasty. The funniest discovery in this temple was that of Tsai Tin Tai Shing. He is a beatified monkey in the image of a man. Hatched from a bowlder, this man is said to have proclaimed himself king of monkeys. At last he learned the language of men, and finding himself possessed of supernatural powers, he obtained a place among the gods. Such is the legend. Chinese idolatry thus reaches the acme of absurdity and sin-fulness in the canonization of a monkey. Thoughts of Darwin's descent of man at once flashed across our mind as we looked at this image. It was disappointing to one's curiosity to find that the old temple keeper who cared more for a pipe of opium than for speculations in theology and anthropology could not tell us what part natural selection played in the evolution of Chinese deities, or whether monkey worship was the newest phase of Chinese ancestral worship. . . .
A Chinese temple has no fixed time for religious service; no congregation meets together for united praise and prayer, or sits to listen to some exposition of doctrine and duty. The worshipper comes when he has something to pray about. Family sickness, adverse fortune or some risky business undertaking drives him to the oracle. As he enters the temple he makes his bow to the gods with clasped hands, he lights his candles and incense, kneels upon a mat and calls upon the god by name three times. He then takes up two semi-oval blocks of wood called Yum Yeung Puey, bows toward the idol, prays for good luck and then tosses them up. The success of his supplication depends upon the position in which these blocks fall. If they both fall in the same position the omen is unfavorable; the god has left his office or does not wish to be disturbed. If the blocks fall one with the flat side turned up and the other with the flat surface turned down, the god is supposed to be taking some interest in his business. The worshipper now knocks his head three times three upon the floor, and he offers up his petition. This done, he takes a cylindrical bamboo pot containing bamboo slips about fifteen inches in length, each marked with a number. These are called sticks of fate, and are shaken together with the ends turned to the idol, till one is jostled out. The priest or temple keeper looks at the number, consults his book and hunts up the answer given to the man's prayer. The drum beats and the bell tolls. Offerings of paper money, consisting of beaten tinfoil, a whole armful of which can be bought for half a dollar, are burnt in the furnace and are changed by fire into the currency of the gods. It has taken only ten minutes to burn candles, incense and gilt paper, say his prayers, cast his lot, and get his answer and be on his way home.
Some happy morning he may be seen repairing to the same temple to return thanks for some profitable venture in trade, for a relative restored to health, or for some good fortune believed to have come in answer to his prayers. An express wagon drives up to the temple door, containing roast pigs and the choicest vegetables and fruits laid out in trays, which he offers to the god with libations of wine and tea. The god is supposed to feed upon the fumes of the meat and food, after which utilitarian John carts them back home to the family pantry. . . .
It is easy to condemn the impiety of this apotheosis of human beings as objects of divine worship or to ridicule the extravagance of the legends that cluster around these shrines. From seven to twenty thick centuries lie between us and the heroes and heroines whose memories are there embalmed. Much of their true history is blotted out in the twilight of the past. A rude statue, a gaudy bedizened thing of clay and wood, around which has gathered a mass of myth and fable is all that remains. But amidst the smoke of sandalwood and wax candles, the kowtowing and tomtoming and jargon of Sanscrit litanies one can discover something good—a reverence for the brave, the wise and the good, and the expression of that universal truth, however grossly symbolized, that the grave is not the goal of human greatness; that wise words and noble deeds can never die. There were heroes, patriarchs and sages in China's hoary past, who lifted up their hand against oppression and wrong—men who tried to guess out the problems of life and death, and who held out their bits of torches trying to lead men to higher and brighter paths. Such men can never be forgotten. The nation will one day return to the worship of the Highest and the faith in the True. In the dawn of a clearer light shall vanish all that is extravagant, foolish and false; but through all time and change these heroes of her national history will live and their work abide."
[Zitat in: Asian religions in America : a documentary history / edited by Thomas A. Tweed, Stephen Prothero. -- New York : Oxford University Press, ©1999. -- 416 S. : Ill. -- ISBN 0-19-511339-X. -- S. 75 - 78]
1893-09-11 bis 1893-09-27
The World's Parliament of Religions anlässlich der World's Columbian Exposition
siehe: Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Materialien zum Neobuddhismus. -- 2. International. -- 2. Das Weltparlament der Religionen in Chicago 1893. -- URL: http://www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud0202.htm
1893-09-26
Charles T. [Carl Theodor] Strauss <1852-1937>, ein in Deutschland geborener New Yorker Geschäftsmann jüdischer Eltern, nimmt vor Dharmapala, der in Chicago bei der Theosophischen Gesellschaft über Buddhismus und Theosophie sprach, die dreifache Zuflucht: dies ist die erste formelle Konversion auf amerikanischem Boden.
1894
Carus, Paul: The gospel of Buddha according to old records. -- Chicago : The Open court publishing company, 1894. -- xiv, 275 p. 21 cm.
Spätere Ausgaben: 1895 (2.ed), 1895 (3.ed.), 1897 (5.ed.), 1909 (12. ed.), 1921,siehe Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Materialien zum Neobuddhismus. -- 4. USA und Hawaii. -- 3. Paul Carus (1852-1919). -- URL: http://www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud0403.htm
1896/1897
Dharmapala besucht zum zweiten Mal die USA (und Canada) auf Einladung von Hegeler (Verleger des Open Court) und Carus. Die Reisekosten tragen Hegeler und Dharmapalas Vater
siehe Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Materialien zum Neobuddhismus. -- 4. USA und Hawaii. -- 3. Paul Carus (1852-1919). -- URL: http://www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud0403.htm
1896
Es erscheint:
Warren, Henry Clarke <1854-1899>: Buddhism in translations. -- Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University, 1896. -- xv, 520 S. ; 24 cm. -- Online: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bits/bit-1.htm. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28
Übersetzungen aus dem Pali
1897
Daisetz ("Große Einfachheit", Suzuki später: Große Dummheit) Teitaro Suzuki (鈴木大拙) (1870-1966) kommt zu Paul Carus, um diesem - der kein Chinesisch konnte - bei der Übersetzung des Tao Te king zu helfen.
1897
In der Zeitschrift Open Court erscheint "A Controversy on Buddhism"
"One interesting contribution appeared in Open Court (1887-1936), the magazine founded as the successor to The Index. The latter had been the organ of the Free Religious Association, that group formed by New England religious liberals and radicals who found even Unitarianism too narrow, unscientific, and dogmatic. Carus, the editor of Open Court, arranged and published a revealing debate among Soyen, John Henry Barrows (1847-1902), the Protestant minister who was the leading force behind the Parliament of Religions, and Frank Field Ellinwood (1826-1908), the Presbyterian lecturer in comparative religion at the University of the City of New York. It had happened this way: The year after the Parliament, Barrows was appointed to the Haskell lectureship on comparative religion at the University of Chicago. And in January 1896 Barrows, who often was praised for his inclusivity and tolerance, delivered a public lecture on Buddhism at that university. In the same month Carus wrote to Soyen in Japan to complain that Barrows's lecture had revealed a "strange" Christian bias. Carus's disappointment and irritation was evident. Instead of offering his own corrective, however, he asked Soyen to "set him right." He would respond himself, Carus explained, but Barrows might counter by citing the findings of an authoritative Western scholar who shared Barrows's Christian bias—Sir Monier Monier-Williams. So Carus decided to "leave the defense of Buddhism to a prominent foreign Buddhist." But he cared too much to allow the apologetic advantage to fall to the Christian critics because of poor word choice or unwittingly hostile tone. So Carus offered precise instructions to Soyen—"be as polite as possible in your letter"—and even sent a first draft of a response: "In order to make the work as easy as possible for you I enclose a reply such as I suppose might impress Dr. Barrows." Carus did not want to insult Soyen or limit his freedom of expression: "Of course, you must write it as you deem fit." But, Carus believed, a great deal was at stake in such public exchanges. In any case, Soyen did send off a response. Carus then published Soyen's response alongside letters by Barrows and Ellinwood as "A Controversy on Buddhism" in the January 1897 issue of Open Court. A month later Dharmapala also entered the debate by offering a reply to Ellinwood's negative remarks about Buddhism. Between 1893 and 1907 many other pieces about Buddhism appeared in this magazine, which was devoted to the reconciliation of science and religion and the promotion of inclusivism and tolerance. The discussion also was conducted in other liberal and radical religious periodicals such as the new Dial, Christian Examiner, Arena, International Journal of Ethics, and Unitarian Review." [Quelle: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.]. -- S. 32f.]
1897
Marie DeSouza Canavarro (Sister Sanghamitta) (1849 - 1933) nimmt in New York City vor Dharmapala die Dreifache Zuflucht auf sich und erklärt sich so als Buddhistin. Sie geht dann für drei Jahre nach Ceylon.
"Marie Canavarro (1849-1933), or "Sister Sanghamitta" as she was known in the press, was the second American and first woman of European descent to ritually declare her Buddhist allegiance on U.S. soil. She did that in a public ceremony in New York City in 1897, with the Sinhalese Buddhist Anagarika Dharmapala officiating. Although obscure today, Canavarro was a minor celebrity in 1900 and 1901; she lectured as an authoritative representative of Buddhism in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. In later years she went on to speak for other religions too. A restless former Roman Catholic, Canavarro moved from one tradition to the next seeking a broader and more inclusive faith, one that elevated women and reconciled religions. Her spiritual journey took her from Catholicism to Theosophy to Buddhism to Baha'i to Hinduism. By the time her autobiography appeared in 1925, she had embraced the Vedanta Hinduism taught at Swami Paramananda's Ananda Ashrama in California. In this autobiographical narrative, she retraces every twist and turn in her spiritual journey. Near the start of the book she explains her 1890s conversion to Buddhism. Later she recalls her sea journey to Asia in 1897, describing her plan to work at a Buddhist school for girls in Ceylon, a part of the "noble and useful and sacrificing work" that she yearned for when she was a bored diplomat's wife in Honolulu. Canavarro labored at that school for several years. She then returned to the United States to lecture about Buddhism, and to continue her spiritual journey." [Asian religions in America : a documentary history / edited by Thomas A. Tweed, Stephen Prothero. -- New York : Oxford University Press, ©1999. -- 416 S. : Ill. -- ISBN 0-19-511339-X. -- S. 151]
"HOW I CAME TO EMBRACE BUDDHISM I was reared in the Roman Catholic faith, but never thoroughly espoused it, though I loved going to mass, especially to the Cathedral: the quiet solemnity of the services, the soft coloring, the sublime music, all appealing to my mystic temperament.
An unsatisfying craving for something, I knew not what, pursued me. I sought a solution in many ways. First, I took up philanthropic work, then the study of the different sciences.
I observed greed, selfishness, and deceit everywhere and in every sphere of life; it seemed to me one could not succeed in the feverish life of the world without pulling another down. Everything was unreal, artificial, my own life no less so than others. Sometimes the emptiness of my life appalled me; at such times I turned to religion, but found no comfort. Those who profess to live the most pious lives were, upon the whole, the most egotistical and selfish people; they were incessantly wrangling over creeds. The prevalent idea of God given by the early Protestant teachers, and still held as a cornerstone of orthodox theology, confused rather than gave peace. I studied and searched deeply, but everywhere the same old platitudes met me; then my soul cried out, "Can I ever find answers to my longings?" Thus my mind rocked back and forth.Many and many a time in the midst of some gaiety I was overcome by thoughts, too weighty for the moment, and I longed to be out of the stifling atmosphere of the pleasure, to be far away from it all, doing some noble, useful and sacrificing work.
About this time I read a little book entitled Ben-Hur, by Lew Wallace; doubtless my readers know it. This little book braced up my sinking courage for a short time. In its pages Jesus Christ, the man, came nearer; and as the man came nearer, so did God. In itself, the Christ legend is a simple little narrative, but so full of human passion, human sorrow and suffering, that it appealed to my soul.
At this time, I was living in Honolulu. There were many poor immigrants constantly coming to the island, and among whom there was so much suffering. I thought it was a good opportunity to embark in charitable work, so I began visiting these homes of squalor, filth and misery, taking with me food and other necessaries.
I used to go from the homes of the wealthy to those of squalor. There I found children, tiny babes whose eyelids were eaten away by mosquitoes; little ones crying with hunger, cheerless and forlorn. Seeing this I began to question God's mercy.
After weighing the question spiritually on the one hand, technically and physically on the other, I finally concluded that the task of solving the mystery of God's love and of the hereafter was beyond my power of understanding. I gave up seeking phenomena and turned inward to the numen. The study of numina led me back to phenomena and then I began to study nature. To do this I retired from society for three years till I had learned to listen to nature's voice—the music of spheres. The contemplation of nature led me to take up a systematic study of the sciences—especially chemistry and astronomy. These studies opened to my mind a vista heretofore unfathomed.
One thing still troubled me: Look wherever I might, into the bowels of the earth or into the vast ocean, into space, everywhere, there was one unwavering law, namely, that one life was sustained by the sacrifice of another. In the waters greater life fed upon the lesser; on land and in space the same law prevailed—it was ever the survival of the fittest. Even man, whom God is said to have made after his own likeness, supported life by killing and consuming other lives.
At last I left the silence which had meant so much to me during the last three years and came from my retreat. I sought kindred spirits, whom I found in the Theosophical Society.
Through connection with this fraternity, I came to know a Buddhist from Ceylon. I told him of my long search for truth, and explained that I had not yet found what I had been seeking. He then told me of the Buddha and his long search for truth. He spoke no ill of anyone, and had sympathy for everything that lived. I became interested, and commenced the study of Buddha's scriptures. In these I came to know the meaning of Christ and that many Christs had lived before Jesus, even before time was, and would live when time had ceased to be. That Truth (as Buddha called God) was above reality; that there was a divine law of cause and effect which balanced good and evil and that this law can be reasoned out, also pointing the way to reach this understanding, and that moreover there was nothing preventing any mortal from attaining the same goal, but that the Self, which through ignorance had caused the world often to err, had brought suffering even to the innocent.
I now knew that I never understood the true teachings of Christ Jesus and that but few have done so. How can the Occident understand the subtle mind of the Orient, without knowing the Orient? And Jesus of Nazarene was an Oriental. The error of the present teachings of Christianity lies with those who teach the doctrine. They are too unyielding and ununited.
The study of Buddhist scriptures satisfied my craving for Truth and led me to embrace that religion and venerate that concept of my relation to things about me."
[Canavarro, Marie de S. <1849 - 1933>: Insight into the Far East. -- Los Angeles, Wetzel, [1925?]. -- 187 S. Ill. -- S. 13-15, 35-36. -- Zitiert in: Asian religions in America : a documentary history / edited by Thomas A. Tweed, Stephen Prothero. -- New York : Oxford University Press, ©1999. -- 416 S. : Ill. -- ISBN 0-19-511339-X. -- S. 151 - 153]
"Another esoteric adherent who promoted Buddhism in Ceylon and America was Marie deSouza Canavarro. Canavarro, who took the Buddhist name of Sister Sanghamitta, is virtually unremembered even though she lectured widely, authored several articles and books, and played an important role in the promotion of Buddhism around the turn of the century. The facts of her life and work must be pieced together from a variety of sometimes conflicting sources, and gaps and uncertainties in her biography remain. Even her place of birth is uncertain. Contemporary accounts suggested, alternately, that she hailed from Europe, Mexico, the United States, and South America. Apparently she claimed to be of noble Spanish descent. Most likely, she was born in San Antonio, Texas, to a father from Mexico and a mother from Virginia. She might have spent most of her preschool years in Mexico; and it is possible, as some accounts suggest, that she was born in Mexico City. In any case, it seems almost certain that her family moved to Mariposa County, California when she was a girl. It was apparently there that she married "an American gentleman," Samuel C. Bates, at the age of sixteen. After she was widowed or divorced "at an early age"—again the records disagree—Marie married His Excellency Senor A. deSouza Canavarro, the Portuguese representative to the Sandwich Islands. She then lived with him in Honolulu for several years. Although she had wealth and status, it was in Honolulu that she began to feel "an unsatisfied craving for something." It was there that her religious quest began in earnest.
Like many other esoterics, Canavarro was a life-long religious seeker who, along the way, turned to several traditions. The first step on her pilgrimage was to reject the Roman Catholicism that she had inherited in favor of the teachings of the Theosophical Society. Through that society and personal contact with Dharmapala, the Countess—as she was frequently referred to in the press—felt herself drawn toward Buddhism. With Dharmapala officiating, she formally converted to Buddhism in 1897 in a public ceremony held in the New Century Hall on Fifth Avenue in New York. She was the second American—Strauss had been the first—and the first woman formally to profess allegiance to Buddhism on American soil. It is no surprise that this event attracted the attention of the local and foreign press. After that ceremony she set off for Ceylon in order to help revive Asian Buddhism and nurture Sinhalese girls.
During the three years she lived in Ceylon (1897-1900) Canavarro ran an orphanage, a school for girls, and a Buddhist convent; and she lectured on Buddhism in Ceylon, India, and Burma. Although it is difficult to determine exactly what happened, around 1900 Canavarro seems to have been forced to leave the Sanghamitta School and Orphanage. In her letters to Carus, she suggested that Catherine Shearer, who had come to help her in her work, had conspired against her. Carus apparently believed this account since he repeated the story. In any case, Canavarro was back in the United States in the fall of 1900. There she enjoyed the status of a minor celebrity as she lectured in cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. During 1900 and 1901 she was very active in promoting Buddhism in America, especially in Chicago and New York. In fact, she was one of the leaders of the American branch of the Maha Bodhi Society during this time.
She later returned to Ceylon for a brief time, but around 1901—just at the peak of her influence as a Western interpreter of Buddhism—Canavarro seems to have begun to lose interest in the religion. Or, to put it more precisely, she was more and more attracted to another tradition. Even though she still asked Paul Cams for news of Buddhist activities and still received the journal of the Maha Bodhi Society at least as late as 1909, around 1901 she felt herself pulled toward the Baha'i faith. Canavarro had encountered American converts to this tolerant and syncretistic Persian tradition in Chicago and at Sarah Farmer's Greenacre Conferences in Maine. She was so impressed by their demeanor and teachings that she traveled to the Middle East to meet with 'Abdu'1-Baha, son of Baha'u'llah (1817-92), who founded that Persian religious tradition. Canavarro was known in the American Baha'i community just after the turn of the century, and she even lectured on the tradition. In fact, Canavarro is still remembered among historians of Baha'i as the anonymous coauthor of an important book on the tradition attributed to her companion of those years, Myron Phelps [1856 - 1916].
Canavarro's spiritual journey did not end with Baha'i. When Canavarro emerged again into the public view in the 1920s she was living in California and extremely sympathetic to Vedanta Hinduism. Swami Paramananda, the Vedantic teacher who presided at the Ananda Ashrama in La Crescen-ta, California, wrote the preface to her spiritual autobiography that was published in 1925. She visited his community in the hills above her home in Glendale and was drawn to his teachings. Yet she never repudiated her previous affiliation with Buddhism. And while she had worked as a public advocate of Buddhism, she had been among the half-dozen most influential American promoters of the religion.
Her occult interests seemed to have been somewhat suppressed during the years that she interpreted and promoted Buddhism, but there is evidence of long-term interest in occult teachings and practices. She continued to be a member of the Theosophical Society during her years in Ceylon and at the height of her notoriety as a Buddhist representative. Later she apparently even claimed supranormal powers as well: in 1908 a Spiritualist wrote to the editor of the Open Court to defend Sister Sanghamitta's claim that "voices conveyed to her, definite and precise supernormal information in three instances." Carus, the editor and Canavarro's friend, apparently had publicly dismissed the occurrences as "noises in the ear." She continued to have close relations with others with "theosophic" interests—like her friend Christina Albers—throughout her life; and her sentimental novels of spiritual quest that were published during the last decade of her life portrayed "occult things" sympathetically. So although she studied Pali and could discuss the doctrines of Theravada Buddhism in terms that were recognized as orthodox, Canavarro certainly shared many of the characteristics of the esoteric type."[Quelle: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.]. -- S. 56 - 58.]
1897
Eine nicht näher identifizierte Zeitung berichtet über die Brooklyn Ethical Society:
"'The Brooklyn Ethical Society' is seriously considering the subject of Buddhism as a substitute for Christianity. They have grown weary of the supernatural, and crave something with a purely scientific basis. The New Testament taxes their credulity to the point of snapping, and, with an intense longing for what is at the same time intellectual and reasonable, they prostrate themselves in the presence of the Buddha." [Zitiert in: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.]. -- S. 62]
Über die Ethical Society:
"ETHICAL CULTURE, SOCIETY FOR: By :
Edward William Bennett
A non-sectarian, ethicoreligious society founded at New York by Prof. Felix Adler in 1876. The society assumed the motto "Deed, not Creed," and adopted as the one condition of membership a positive desire to uphold by example and precept the highest ideals of living, and to aid the weaker to attain those ideals. The aims of the society are stated as follows: "To teach the supremacy of the moral ends above all human ends and interests; to teach that the moral law has an immediate authority not contingent on the truth of religious beliefs or of philosophical theories; to advance the science and art of right living." The members of the society are free to follow and profess whatever system of religion they choose, the society confining its attention to the moral problems of life. It has given practical expression to its aims by establishing the Workingman's School, a model school for general and technical education, in which the use of the kindergarten method in the higher branches of study is a distinctive feature. Each of its teachers is a specialist as well as an enthusiast in his subject; the Socratic method is followed. The majority of the pupils are of non-Jewish parentage. Pupils over seven are instructed in the use of tools. The society has also established a system of district-nursing among the poor, and a family home for neglected children.
Branch societies have been formed in Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cambridge (England), and London, and a similar movement was started in Berlin. While originally agnostic in feeling, the society has gradually developed into a simple, human brotherhood, united by ethical purpose, and has, as such, acquired a strong influence in distinctively Christian circles in some parts of Europe. The only approach to a religious service is a Sunday address on topics of the day, preceded and followed by music. Its chief supporters in New York and Philadelphia are Jews, as is its founder and leader, though the society does not in any degree bear the stamp of Judaism. It has recently erected an elaborate building in New York. A society on similar lines exists at Frankfort-on-the-Main." [Quelle:
Edward William Bennett. -- http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=498&letter=E. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28]
1897
Hearn, Lafcadio <1850-1904>: Gleanings in Buddha-fields : studies of hand and soul in the Far East. -- Boston : Houghton, Mifflin, 1897. -- 296 S. -- Online: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/gbf/index.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-04-25
Abb.: Einbandtitel
1898Inhaltsverzeichnis:
I. A Living God
II. Out Of The Street
III. Notes Of A Trip To Kyôto
IV. Dust
V. About Faces In Japanese Art
VI. Ningyô-No-Haka
VII. In Ôsaka
VIII. Buddhist Allusions In Japanese Folk-Song
IX. Nirvana [sehr lesenswert!]
X. The Rebirth Of Katsugorô
XI. Within The Circle
"Hearn was born on the Greek island of Lefkas, on June 27, 1850, son of an Anglo-Irish surgeon major in the British army and a Greek mother. After his parents' divorce when he was six, he was brought up by a great-aunt in Dublin, Ireland. He lost the sight in his left eye at the age of 16, and soon after, his father died. A year later, due to his great-aunt's bankruptcy, he was forced to withdraw from school. At the age of nineteen he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where five years later he became a newspaper reporter. In 1877 Hearn went to New Orleans to write a series of articles, and remained there for ten years. Having achieved some success with his literary translations and other works, he was hired by Harper Publishing Co. He was in the West Indies on assignment from Harper from 1887-89, and wrote two novels on that period.
In 1889 he decided to go to Japan, and upon his arrival in Yokohama in the spring of 1890, was befriended by Basil Hall Chamberlain of Tokyo Imperial University, and officials at the Ministry of Education. At their encouragement, in the summer of 1890 he moved to Matsue, to teach English at Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School. There he got to know Governor Koteda Yasusada and Sentaro Nishida of Shimane, and later married Setsu Koizumi, the daughter of a local samurai family.
Hearn stayed fifteen months in Matsue, moving on to another teaching position in Kumamoto, Kyushu, at the Fifth Higher Middle School, where he spent the next three years and completed his book Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894). In October of 1894 he secured a journalism position with the English-language Kobe Chronicle, and in 1896, with some assistance from Chamberlain, he began teaching English literature at Tokyo (Imperial) University, a post he held until 1903, and at Waseda University. On September 26, 1904, he died of heart failure at the age of 54.
Hearn's most famous work is a collection of lectures entitled Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (1904). His other books on Japan include Exotics and Retrospective (1898), In Ghostly Japan (1899), Shadowings (1900), A Japanese Miscellany (1901), and Kwaidan (1904).
(Thanks to Alan Rosen of Kumamoto University, and Hisashi Matsumura of Kobe-Shinwa Joshi Daigaku, for corrections and information about Hearn's Japan period.)"
[Quelle: http://www.trussel.com/f_hearn.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-25]
Patricio Lafcadio Tessima Carlos Hearn (japanischer Name: Koizumi Yakumo; *27. Juli 1850 in Lefkas, Griechenland, † 26. September 1904 in Tokio ist ein Schriftsteller englisch-griechischer Abstammung, dessen Werke das westliche Bild von Japan im beginnenden 20. Jahrhundert entscheidend geprägt haben.
VitaLafcadio Hearn wurde als Patricio Lafcadio Tessima Carlos Hearn 1850 auf Lefkas (Griechenland) geboren. Sein Vater war der britische Militärarzt Charles Bush Hearn, welcher auf der Insel Santa Maura (das antike Leucadia) stationiert war; seine Mutter die Griechin Rosa Tessima. Als Lafcadio Hearn zwei Jahre alt war, brachte sein Vater ihn und seine Mutter nach Dublin zu seiner Großtante Justine Brenane. Lafcadios Mutter war dort so unglücklich in dieser tristen Umgebung, dass sie bald darauf Sohn und Familie verließ und verschwand. Kurze Zeit später fiel sein Vater in Indien. 1863 wurde Lafcadio auf das St. Cuthbert's College nach England gebracht. Auf Grund der fehlenden finanziellen Mittel reichte es aber nur zu sporadischem Schulbesuch. Auf dem College erblindete er durch einen Unfall auf einem Auge und das andere wurde durch die Überanstrengung ziemlich beeinträchtigt. Von Kindesbeinen an war Lafcadio schon sehr scheu und sensibel, durch die Erblindung empfand er sich auch noch als hässlich. Zwischen 1866 und 1867 lebte er mittels eines kleinen Stipendums in London und besuchte dort eine katholische Schule. Wegen schlechten Benehmens flog er von dieser Schule und 1869 zahlte ihm seine Großtante die Überfahrt nach Amerika.
Bis 1874 arbeitete Hearn in Cincinnati in einer Druckerei, wo er vorher eine Druckerlehre absolviert hatte. Dort kam er auch mit den Werken von Gustave Flaubert und Charles Baudelaire in Berührung.
1877 ging Hearn als Journalist nach New Orleans und begann auch aus dem Französischem und Spanischen zu übersetzen.
Einige Zeit arbeitete Hearn als Journalist auch in New York. Da ihm diese Stadt sehr bald zu hektisch wurde, ging er 1890 nach Japan. Nach einigen Monaten konnte er sich als Sprachlehrer in Matsue etablieren. Dort wurde er trotz des ausgeglichenen Klimas sehr krank und auf Anregung eines Freundes heiratete er 1891 Setsuko Koizumi, die Tochter eines veramten Samurais, zum Dank für die Pflege die sie ihm angedeihen ließ. Mit ihr hatte er eine Tochter und drei Söhne.
Bei der Heirat hatte Hearn den japanischen Namen Koizumi Yakumo angenommen. 1895 wurden ihm dann auch die japanischen Bürgerrechte verliehen. Das bedeutete allerdings auch, dass er ab da nur noch Anspruch auf das Gehalt eines einheimischen Lehrers hatte. Er lebte ca. für ein Jahr in der Küstenstadt Matsue.
1896 vermittelte ihm Basil Hall Chamberlain eine Stelle als Professor für englische Literatur an der kaiserlichen Universität in Tokio.
Am 26. September 1904 erlag Lafcadio Hearn in Tokio einem Herzinfarkt.
Im Tokioter Stadtteil Shinjuku, in Okubo, ist heute an der Stelle von Lafcadios früherem Wohnhaus eine Gedenktafel angebracht."
[Quelle: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn. -- Zugriff am 2005-04-25]
Gründung der Young Men's Buddhist Association (Bukkyo Seinen Kai) in San Francisco. Sie eröffnet den ersten rein buddhistischen Tempel in den kontinentalen USA.
Siehe: Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Materialien zum Neobuddhismus. -- 4. USA und Hawaii. -- 4. Japanischer Buddhismus in Amerika. -- 2. Chronik. -- URL: http://www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud04042.htm
1899-08
In Chicago hält der 27jährige dänische Immigrant Harry Holst regelmäßig an Straßenecken Reden über den Buddhismus
1899-09
Dr. Shuye Sonoba und Rev. Kahuryo Nishijima kommen als Jodo-Shinshu-Missionare nach San Francisco. Sie gründen das, was 1914 als Buddhist Mission of North America als Körperschaft registriert wird.
Siehe: Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Materialien zum Neobuddhismus. -- Siehe: Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Materialien zum Neobuddhismus. -- 4. USA und Hawaii. -- 4. Japanischer Buddhismus in Amerika. -- 2. Chronik. -- URL: http://www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud04042.htm
1900-05-16
Nichtjapanisch Mitglieder der Buddhist Mission of North America gründen den Dharma Sangha of Buddha "for any person, regardless of race or gender, interested in learning about the Buddhadharma.”
1901 - 1907
Abb.: Titelblatt
[Bildquelle: Tricycle : the Buddhist review. -- ISSN 1055-484X. -- Vol. III, No. 4 (Summer 1994). -- S. 11.]The Light of Dharma. -- San Francisco, Calif. : Buddhist Mission, . -- Vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1901) - 1907 -- :"A religious magazine devoted to the teachings of Buddha. -- Published bi-monthly
Thomas A. Tweed gibt folgende Analyse der Subskriptionsliste dieser Zeitschrift:
Analysis of the "List of Subscription, Contribution, and Exchange" for The Light of Dharma, 1901-1907
I. United States and Foreign
Category of Listing Country U.S. Foreign Subscriptions (Paying subscribers) 101 24 Contributions (Persons/institutions sent the magazine without charge) 48 65 Exchanges (Periodicals that sent their own publication in exchange for a copy of LD) 31 5 Total Persons Listed 204 Total Institutions Listed 99 II. United States and Its Possessions
Total Persons and Institurions Listed with Addresses in U.S. and Its Possessions: 199
Gender of Subscribers
- 60% male (61/101)
- 40% female (40/101)
Ethnicity of Subscribers
- 97% non-Asians (98/101)
- 3% Asian descent (3/101)
Urban vs. Rural Subscribers: 65% urban"
[Quelle: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.]. -- S. 163]
"There were about three hundred to four hundred copies of Light of Dharma circulated before 1904 since many of the institutions who received the magazine got multiple copies (usually 5), and starring in October of 1904 they added two hundred copies of each issue. These are conservative estimates based on the figures contained in the subscription list and information given in the pages of the magazine. According to the subscription list, Japanese Buddhist Churches on the Pacific Coast and in Hawaii received multiple copies of the magazine. At least nine university libraries were sent the magazine, including most of the major institutions of the time: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania, Stanford, and Berkeley. The magazine also had an exchange agreement with at least thirty-six other magazines and newspapers in the United States and abroad." [Quelle: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.]. -- S. 183, Anm. 40.]
1901ff.
Thomas B. Wilson (nähere Daten nicht ermitelbar) veröffentlicht mehrere Artikel über Buddhismus:
"One of the American participants in the public discussion who read and internalized his interpretations was Thomas B. Wilson. Although characterizing Wilson's understanding of Buddhism is relatively simple, since he wrote a number of articles on the subject and his interpretation fits the rationalist type very closely, reconstructing his biography is much more difficult. In 1905 Wilson apparently edited the Overland Monthly, the most prestigious magazine on the West Coast, and he went on to write for this periodical after that time as well. Although the San Francisco City Directory for 1905 listed his occupation as "journalist" and his copy of the Light of Dharma was sent to a San Francisco address, he seems to have worked at other occupations and lived in other localities. The byline of the later articles indicate that Wilson had been awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree. The extremely sympathetic attitude toward the business community and the advocacy of the accumulation of wealth that found its way into his articles for the Light of Dharma and Overland Monthly suggest that either he had wealth or aspired to it. Wilson's accounts of Asia and Asians, especially the Chinese, imply a firsthand acquaintance with non-Western cultures.
The daily records of the priests connected with the Japanese Pure Land mission in San Francisco indicate that Wilson had regular and informal contact with Asian-American and Euro-American Buddhists. He probably was a member of the Dharma Sangha of Buddha, that Caucasian Buddhist group associated with the San Francisco mission. He lectured at the mission one summer Sunday in 1901. Although Wilson forcefully defended and sympathetically interpreted Buddhism in lectures and articles, it is impossible to determine whether he saw himself as a Buddhist adherent. In any case, he was at least a strong sympathizer.
And he was a rationalist. Although there was no branch of the Free Religious Association or the Ethical Culture Society in the Bay Area, Wilson probably would have felt comfortable with these groups. Like these religious liberals and radicals and rationalist Buddhist advocates, Wilson emphasized the centrality of ethics, the importance of tolerance, the authority of the individual, and the primacy of reason. According to Wilson, Buddhism asks no one to believe assertions about the nature of the universe, the self, or ultimate reality on the authority of others: "Every Buddhist is free to investigate the facts from which the Buddhist doctrines have been derived." Wilson argued that the revealed "dogmas" which Christians are compelled to believe—such as the notion of a personal God—are illogical and unscientific. On the other hand, Buddhism is more rational and scientific than Christianity since, for example, it substitutes the moral law of cause and effect (karma) for the arbitrary rules of a capricious God. In fact, borrowing from Cams, Wilson asserted that "a conflict between religion and science is impossible in Buddhism." Some notion of God is saved in Wilson's interpretation since "Causation," the law of cause and effect that is sewn into the fabric of the universe, plays the role in his scheme which God plays in the Judeo-Christian one; but, needless to say, few of the orthodox Christian readers who happened to glance at his articles would have found Wilson's "God" intellectually or emotionally satisfying.
Not only was Buddhism more rational and less dogmatic, it also provided a superior ethical framework. For Wilson, as for most rationalists, the heart of religion was ethics. Religions do provide conceptions of the self and the world; and since Buddhist views are empirically verifiable and compatible with science, they are superior. Yet Wilson assumed—and sometimes argued—that religion was most fundamentally a this-worldly path in which the individual strives to acquire more and more "nobility of character." Religions offer guidelines for the development of moral character, and as "a religion of ethics" Buddhism provides a compelling picture of how the universe supports moral evolution (karma). It also offers effective guidelines for achieving moral perfection (the noble eightfold path)."[Quelle: Tweed, Thomas A.: The American encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian culture & the limits of dissent -- Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, ©2000. -- 242 S. -- ISBN 0-8078-4906-5. -- [Originally published: Bloomington, Indiana University Press, ©1992.]. -- S. 67f.]
1902
Myra E. Withee antwortet auf den christlichen Japanmissionar Clarence Edgar Rice, der im Mai 1902 in der Zeitschrift Arene mit dem Artikel Buddhism as I have seen it den japanischen Buddhismus angegriffen hatte:
Withee, Myra E.: Is Buddhism to blame?. -- In: Minde. -- 10 (september 1902). -- S. 456 - 462:
""To abandon all wrong-doing, to lead a virtuous life, and to cleanse one's heart: this is the religion of all Buddhas." The above is an extract from the Buddhists' sacred books, and to these books, or to one well acquainted with their precepts, one should look who wishes to acquaint himself with the religion taught by Prince Gautama of India.
If one wishes to become familiar with a religion, it will not do to depend upon what can be gleaned from books and articles written by devotees of some other religion; for these are certain to regard everything that seems antagonistic to their own belief as evil. Nor can one gain exact knowledge of a religion by noting the habits and moral status of its adherents; for while they may profess it, they may not live it. Furthermore, one invariably finds that the natural characteristics of a people form a prominent part of their religious worship. The Japanese, for instance, are universally known for their love of art; and it need not be wondered at that they aim to have their religious ceremonies attractive, and that great care is taken in locating and building their temples—that they may look picturesque.
Were a pagan desirous of studying Christianity, the intelligent Christian would not direct him to a city in Christendom and tell him to note carefully the social and moral conditions of its people. Neither would he give him the works of agnostics, nor the sacred books of the Orient; but he would be given a Bible, or directed to one well able to expound the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The writer lives in an American city of 163,000 inhabitants [St. Paul]. There are here three hundred licensed saloons and twenty-eight public houses of ill repute, besides the many dens where vice reigns unknown to the public. It is found necessary to maintain many policemen and courts of justice. Yet in this city there are one hundred and thirty Christian churches, and it is considered a model of purity compared with other cities of its size, or larger. Were she to write an article and dwell upon the many crimes that occur daily in such a city—mentioning the offenses committed by the clergy—and entitle such an article "Christianity as I Have Seen It," Christians might well object and declare that the article had not a proper title (for what had been described was not Christianity, but a lack of it), and that evil existed in spite of the churches wherein the pure gospel of Christ is preached.
An essay entitled "Buddhism as I Have Seen It" appeared in the May number of The Arena. The writer dwells on the immorality of the Japanese and their external forms of worship, and seems to hold Buddhism responsible. One who has studied the Buddhists' sacred books may truthfully say that the evils mentioned in the article referred to cannot properly be charged to Buddhism; for, were the teachings of Buddha obeyed, evil could not possible exist in thought, word, act.
How much of the immorality of the Japanese is chargeable to Western civilization? It will be conceded that intoxicating drinks are the cause of much immorality. These were introduced into Japan by Western enterprise. The slaughter of animals and flesh-eating came from the same source. . . .
Buddha taught kindness to animals, not because he thought they "may contain the souls of our ancestors," but because of his great kindness of heart. All sentient beings were objects of his love and mercy; and there is no other gospel in the world to which Christians could turn where they would find so much consideration shown for the so-called lower animals as is shown in the gospel of Buddha, who says: "He who wilfully and malignantly taketh the life of any harmless being, be it earth-worm or ant, is no longer a disciple of the Shakyamuni." Such were the injunctions of the Buddha to his disciples; and they are to be found on page after page of the Buddhists' sacred books. He seems to have taken special pains to impress his followers with the idea that all sentient beings should find mercy at their hands.Considering Buddha's sentiments upon this question, it seems quite incongruous for the Christian missionary to mention any unkindness on the part of Buddhists to animals, and charge the same to Buddhism. It would be as consistent to charge all the crimes committed in Christendom to Christianity. Nor can another religion be found so free from external forms of worship. Chanting was forbidden by Buddha. One reason he gave for not allowing it was that the disciples became captivated with respect to the sound thereof. He aimed constantly to appeal to their reason, not to their senses.
Miracles were also forbidden. It appears from the sacred books that some of the disciples had power to perform what are termed supernatural acts. After making use of such power, one of them was severely criticized, and Buddha said: "I forbid you, O disciple, to employ any spells or supplications; for they are useless, since the law of karma governs all things. He who attempts to perform miracles has not understood the doctrine of Tathagata."
Sacrifices too were scorned. "What love can a man possess," said the Buddha, "who believes that the destruction of life will atone for evil deeds? Can a new wrong expiate old wrongs? And can slaughter of an innocent victim take away the sins of mankind? This is practising religion by the neglect of moral conduct. Purify your hearts, and cease to kill; that is true religion. Rituals have no efficacy; prayers are vain repetitions, and incantations have no saving power. But to abandon covetousness and lust, to become free from evil passions, and to give up hatred and ill-will—that is the right sacrifice, and the true worship. We reach the immortal path only by continuous acts of kindliness; and we perfect our souls by compassion and charity." A religion abounding with such sentiments cannot consistently be held responsible for the licentiousness of a people, nor for its external forms of worship.
Buddhism does not degrade womanhood. Women were admitted to the sangha (brotherhood of Buddhists) by Buddha, and they were not told to "learn in silence with all subjection" nor to adorn themselves with "shamefacedness," as they are commanded by the Christian Apostle. A religion that shows so much consideration for all sentient life as does Buddhism cannot possibly degrade womanhood.Buddha left his wife and child for a time, and that act is often harshly criticized by Christians. But it is because the critic fails to comprehend the great unselfish love of Buddha for all beings. Had he been as selfish as the ordinary mortal he would have been content to remain about his palace—to have indulged in luxuries and enjoyed the companionship of a loving wife. But his great soul could not do thus because he felt for the many—for all. He had witnessed the sufferings of the poor, of the sick and of the dying, and nevermore could he be content to dwell amid plenty while a single soul knew misery. He resolved to find an escape from the ills of life. He left his wife and child amid wealth, friends, and loving relatives. The anguish such parting caused he alone knew. It must have been great, for he was an affectionate husband and father; but he felt that this sacrifice must be made for the good of the many. He went to the greatest Brahman teachers of his time, and spent years in strict discipline, contemplating their philosophy, but not until he left them and turned alone to Nature did he fine satisfaction.
When Jesus was preaching, and was told that his mother and brothers were outside and would speak with him, he replied: "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?" and he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and said, "Behold my mother and my brethren!" Jesus made such answer, not because he loved his mother and brothers less than others do, but because he too, like Buddha, realized that larger love which extends beyond kith and kin—a love that is an outpouring, a love not bound by propinquity, but extends to all. . . .
But though he was a model of purity, though his ethical code stands unexcelled, though he taught a religion that is above reproach, yet the system as presented today by a large percentage of its devotees appears greatly corrupted. . . .
Where the moral status of a people is low, and it is evident from their sacred books that the founder of their religion was a model of purity and taught the highest ethics, it cannot be truly said that their religion is at fault. If a professed saint is in fact a sinner, it does not prove that the path that leads to saintship is responsible for his wrongdoing; for if he follows the path he cannot err.
Judging a religion by those who profess it, how did Christianity appear at the time of the Inquisition? How does it appear today, as exemplified by the conduct of a larger percentage of its devotees? What would be the verdict of a Buddhist who should visit Christendom and judge of Christianity by what he found in her cities, especially those that are, as many Christians declare, "blots upon the earth"? Certainly, belief in the law of karma, which compels each one to reap exactly what he sows,—if not in his life, in some future one,—is a far greater force in making people moral than the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins. And if the Japanese Buddhists, believing in the law of karma,—believing that some time, somewhere, they must suffer for every evil thought, word, and act,—are as immoral as the Christian missionary asserts, what will be the result if the missionaries succeed in converting them to Christianity, and they thereby believe that they may commit all the crimes known to man, yet in a moment of mental repentance be forgiven, and their sins, "though as scarlet, be as wool"?"
[Zitiert in: Asian religions in America : a documentary history / edited by Thomas A. Tweed, Stephen Prothero. -- New York : Oxford University Press, ©1999. -- 416 S. : Ill. -- ISBN 0-19-511339-X. -- S. 123 - 126.]
1904?
Es erscheint:
Edmunds, Albert J. (Albert Joseph) <1857-1941>: Buddhist & Christian gospels : being gospel parallels from Pāli texts now first compared from the originals. -- 3d and complete ed. Edited with parallels and notes from the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka by M. Anesaki. -- Tōkyō, The Yūhōkwan publishing house [American agents: The Open Court publishing co. Chicago], 1905. -- xiii, 230 S. ; 26 cm. -- ["This edition takes the place of the proposed American one, advertised by circular, 1904." cf. Advertisement on p. [8] of the author's pamphlet "Can the Pāli Pitakas aid us in fixing the text of the gospels?" Philadelphia, 1905.]
1906
Census: In den USA leben 3.150 japanische Buddhisten. Es gibt neun Gruppen des Reines-Land-Buddhismus (Jodo Shinshu) in Kalifornien, Oregon und Washington. 14 Pure-Land-Geistliche leben in den USA, aber nur ein chinesischer Geistlicher. In den USA leben 2336 Theosophisten, 2040 Mitglieder von Ethical Culture Societies und 35056 Spiritualists
1906
Abb.: Soyen Shaku [Bildquelle: http://www.thuvienhoasen.org/pgtg-208-nhasuchau%20a.htm. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-08]Es erscheint das erste Buch in englischer Sprache über Zen:
Shaku, Soyen [Shaku Soên] <1859-1919>: Sermons of a Buddhist abbot; addresses on religious subjects / by the Rt. Rev. Soyen Shaku, lord abbot of Engaku-ji and Kencho-ji, Kamakura, Japan, including the sutra of forty-two chapters; translated from the Japanese ms. by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki. With portrait of the author. -- Chicago, The Open Court Publishing Company; [etc., etc.], 1906. -- 220 S.
"TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE THIS little work is a collection of some of the lectures delivered by the Right Reverend Soyen Shaku, Lord Abbot of Engaku-ji and Kencho-ji, Kamakura, Japan, during his sojourn in this country, 1905-1906. He came here early in the summer of 1905 and stayed with friends on the Pacific coast until March in the following year. Lectures on Buddhism were frequently delivered at the request of his hostess, Mrs. Alexander Russell of San Francisco, for the benefit of her friends. He lectured on the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters, and naturally chose the texts for his sermons from this most popular among the canonical books. As His Reverence did not speak English, the burden of interpreting his speeches fell upon my shoulders.
During his stay on the coast, His Reverence was occasionally invited by his countrymen, scattered throughout the State, to such places as the Buddhist Mission and the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco, to Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno, San Jose, and Oakland. Wherever he went, his addresses were most enthusiastically received and greatly appreciated by the Japanese residents, and by Americans when his speeches were repeated in English.In March, 1906, the Right Reverend Soyen Shaku crossed the continent to the Atlantic coast, visiting Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Whenever he was asked by his countrymen or by his American friends to speak on his faith, he always acceded to their wish. These addresses were added to the sermons already under my charge, and when His Reverence was leaving for his European tour towards the end of April, he left all the manuscripts with me with a view of publishing them in book form.
In going over these documents critically, I found that I could not make use of all the material as it stood; for the talks during his stay on the Pacific coast were mostly of a very informal nature, and a copy of them prepared from shorthand notes needed a great deal of revision; besides, some of the talks were suited only to special audiences and adapted to their peculiar needs. So with his permission I condensed several articles into one, while in other cases I selected a subject only incidentally or cursorily referred to in several different addresses, and made a special essay of the scattered passages. Sometimes I found his expressions too Buddhistic, that is, too technical, and intelligible only to those who have made Buddhism a special study. In such cases, I put the thoughts in a more conventional and comprehensible form for the benefit of the American public. Again, when I thought that His Reverence took too much knowledge of his subject for granted on the part of his audience, I endeavored to express his thoughts more plainly and explicitly.
In spite of these alterations and the liberties I have taken with the manuscripts of the Reverend Shaku, these lectures remain a faithful representation of the views as well as the style of preaching of my venerable teacher and friend.
* * *
As to the text of the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters, I have decided after much consideration to incorporate it here. In the first place, it is not a long sutra, and like the Dharmapada it contains many characteristic Buddhist thoughts. Secondly, most of the Reverend Shaku's lectures have a close relation to the sutra; and when they are read after the perusal of the text, his standpoint as a modern Japanese representative of Buddhism will be better understood. Thirdly, being the first Buddhist literature introduced by the first official Hindu missionaries into the Middle Kingdom (A. D. 67), the sutra has a very interesting historical background.
* * *
I have to add that this collection also contains two articles and one letter by the Reverend Shaku, all of which previously appeared in THE OPEN COURT. The letter was addressed to the late Dr. John H. Barrows as a sort of protest against his lecture delivered at the Chicago University, 1896, in which Dr. Barrows unfortunately fell in line with the popular misconception of the spirit of Buddhism. The two articles referred to deal with the problem of war as seen from the general Buddhist point of view; and I may remark that the first of the two attracted at the time the attention of such an eminent thinker of our day as Count Leo Tolstoy and was alluded to in his famous anti-war declaration.
DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI. La Salle, III., 1906."
[a.a.O., S. iii-vi]
1908-06-21
William Woodville Rockhill (1854-1914), Botschafter der USA in China, trifft in Wu-ta'i- shan, Nord China, den 13. Dalai Lama während dessen Exil in der Mongolei. Dies ist vermutlich der erste offizielle Kontakt zwischen Tibet und den USA.
Abb.: Thanka, den der 13. Dalai Lama Botschafter Rockhill schenkte, Library of
Congress, Washington, DC
[Bildquelle: http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0006/tibet.html. -- Zugriff am 2003-05-13]
Um 1922
Während T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888 - 1965) The Waste Land (1922) schreibt, erwägt er, Buddhist zu werden, bleibt dann aber doch Christ. Der dritte Teil dieses Werkes The Fire Sermon entlehnt seinen Titel dem "Fire Sermon" (Aditta-pariyaya Sutta) des Samyutta Nikaya (XXXV.28), das Eliot aus
Warren, Henry Clarke <1854-1899>: Buddhism in translations. -- Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University, 1896. -- xv, 520 S. ; 24 cm. -- Online: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bits/bit-1.htm. -- Zugriff am 2005-06-28
kannte.
1924
Immigration Act (Asian Exclusion Act) stoppt asiatische Einwanderung.
1926
Es erscheint:
Beck, L. Adams (Lily Adams) <1862? - 1931>: The splendour of Asia : the story and teaching of the Buddha. -- New York : Dodd, Mead, 1926. -- xi, 269 S. ; 21 cm.
Zu 4.2.: Buddhismus in Hawaii
