Welcome to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion
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Featured
Early Modern European Encounters with Buddhism
"Historians Urs App and Martino Dibeltulo Concu have argued that the European “discovery” of Buddhism as a “religion” can be dated to the 16th century rather than the 19th, and that the presentation of the Buddha as a philosopher by the likes of Eugène Burnouf is a secularized holdover from the Jesuit accounts of the 16th century. These claims have a tenuous basis, and Burnouf’s portrayal of the Buddha as a philosopher was a radical break from earlier Jesuit accounts..." – By Thomas Calobrisi
Featured
Global Theravada Buddhism: Asian Foundations

"The establishment and development of Theravada in South and Southeast Asia was driven by relationships between the king, the sangha (community of monks and nuns), and the laity. It is an imaginaire through which precolonial history is seen as a time when ideal kings and an ideal sangha mutually supported each other and worked for the benefit of the people through the teaching and the performance of rituals that allowed lay people to make religious merit (punna) toward future lives..." – By Mavis L. Fenn
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