Laurence Cox is Director of the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He is co-editor of Ireland’s New Religious Movements (CSP, 2011), Understanding European Movements (Routledge, 2013) and Marxism and Social Movements (Brill, 2013), and a practising Buddhist.
摘要
Ireland and Buddhism have a long history. Shaped by colonialism, contested borders, religious wars, empire and massive diasporas, Irish people have encountered Asian Buddhism in many ways over fourteen centuries. From the thrill of travellers’ tales in far-off lands to a religious alternative to Christianity, from the potential of anti-colonial solidarity to fears of ‘going native’, and from recent immigration to the secular spread of Buddhist meditation, Buddhism has meant many different things to people in Ireland.
Knowledge of Buddhist Asia reached Ireland by the seventh century, with the first personal contact in the fourteenth – a tale remembered for five hundred years. The first Irish Buddhists appeared in the political and cultural crisis of the nineteenth century, in Dublin and the rural West, but also in Burma and Japan. Over the next hundred years, Buddhism competed with esoteric movements to become the alternative to mainstream religion. Since the 1960s, Buddhism has exploded to become Ireland’s third-largest religion.
Buddhism and Ireland is the first history of its subject, a rich and exciting story of extraordinary individuals and the journey of ideas across Europe and Asia.
目次
Table of Contents Prelims
Illustrations vii - viii Acknowledgements ix - xi
1.Buddhism in Ireland: An Introduction to the Problem 1 - 42
Part I Thinking ‘Buddhism and Ireland’ in World - systems Context (500-1850) 2. Bog Buddhas and Travellers’ Tales: How Knowledge Crossed Eurasia 45 - 101
Part II Caught between Empires: Irish Buddhists and Theosophists (1850-1960) 3. The Two Empires: Ireland in Asia, Asia in Ireland 105 - 172 4. Esotericism Against Empire: Irish Theosophy 173 - 203 5. The First Irish Buddhists: Jumping Ship and ‘Going Native’ 204 - 290
Part III Buddhism within Ireland: from Counter - Culture to Respectability (1960-2013) 6. The Founders: Social Movements, Counter - Culture and the Crumbling of Catholic Hegemony 293 - 327 7. Cultivating Buddhism in Ireland: Choices for the Future 328 - 379
End Matter Afterword: The Global Politics of Irish Buddhism 380 - 381 Bibliography 382 - 406 Index 407 - 413
