Tuesday, November 3, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
Modern Interpretation and Reception
Modern interpretive works and reception texts presenting Buddhism for new audiences.
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Texts
Buddhism in the Modern World — K. J. SaundersK. J. Saunders’s 1922 study of Buddhism as a living religion, written for Christian missionaries: sketches of school, festival, preaching and funeral in Burma, Ceylon and Siam, chapters on the strengths and weaknesses of Southern Buddhism and on the missionary approach to it, visits to temples in Japan and China, and appendices on Western converts to Buddhism and on how to study it.Buddhism, in Its Connexion with Brāhmanism and Hindūism, and in Its Contrast with Christianity — Monier Monier-WilliamsSir Monier Monier-Williams’s Duff Lectures for 1888, enlarged to eighteen lectures and published in 1889: a survey of Buddhism from the life of the Buddha and the Pāli scriptures to the monastic hierarchy of Tibet and Mongolia, ritual, sacred places, images and relics, set beside Brāhmanism, Hindūism and Jainism and contrasted, from the author’s Christian standpoint, with Christianity.Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism — Daisetz Teitaro SuzukiDaisetz Teitaro Suzuki’s 1908 account of Mahâyâna Buddhism for Western readers, from its relation to the Hînayâna and a reply to Western critics, through Suchness, the Âlaya-vijñâna, non-ego and karma, to the Dharmakâya, the three bodies of the Buddha, the Bodhisattva and Nirvâna, with an appendix of hymns translated from Mahâyâna texts.The Creed of Buddha — Edmond HolmesA philosophical interpretation of Buddhism that argues for the Buddha as a teacher of spiritual self-realization rather than nihilistic world-denial, by the English educator and writer Edmond Holmes.