In "Buddhist Modernism" we've finally got to the arrival of Buddhism in the West - about eight weeks later than many of the students probably expected! Part of the story is how late any Asian religious teacher ever had the chance to speak for their traditions - the earliest was the World's Parliament of Religions at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Before that (and it's not so long a history before that either), western folks made do with other westerners' translations and interpretations of Asian texts - as many still quite happily do.It was an excuse to bring in my catalog from the 1893 Parliament, from whence hails this interesting picture: Buddhist and Aztec Idols! Why not? Idolatry was thought to be the same everywhere - part of why you'd bypass living practitioners for the supposed purity of texts.
