What is it about?
British journalist Edwin Arnold's 1879 book-length poem about the life of the Buddha, The Light of Asia, achieved wide popularity in the United States. It also provoked, however, sharp criticism from American missionaries and clergy, who attacked Arnold as a "paganizer" and the poem as "heathenism." They feared that The Light of Asia was converting Americans to Buddhism and subverting the missionary enterprise and its basic assumptions linking salvation and Protestant Christianity.
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Why is it important?
The Light of Asia triggered a vigorous public discussion of the relative merits of Buddhism and Christianity. Arnold and his admiring readers challenged American beliefs about the relationships among modern civilization, salvation, and Protestant Christianity. The Light of Asia thus exposed tensions and rifts in Protestant American religious belief. This article bridges several academic fields, connecting the history of U.S.-Asian relations, the history of religion in Gilded Age America, Buddhist studies, and Orientalism.
Perspectives
Working on this article gave me the opportunity to connect my interests in histories of U.S. foreign relations with Gilded Age histories of religion and culture. Audience comments at the U.K. Association for Buddhist Studies conference in July 2016 were especially helpful.
Dr. Joseph M. Henning
Rochester Institute of Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “‘Very Beautiful Heathenism’: The Light of Asia in Gilded Age America”, Journal of American-East Asian Relations, February 2019, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/18765610-02601004.
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