Table Of ContentREFLECTIONS IN THE MIRROR OF RELIGION
Reflections in the
Mirror of Religion
Ninian Smart
Edited with an Introduction by
John P. Burris
First published in Great Britain 1997 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
This book is published in Macmillan's Library of Philosophy and
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First published in the United States of America 1997 by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smart, Ninian, 1927-
Reflections in the mirror of religion I Ninian Smart edited with
an introduction by John P. Burris.
p. em.-(Library of philosophy and religion)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-17247-3 (cloth)
I. Religion-Study and teaching. I. Burris, John P. II. Title.
III. Series: Library of philosophy and religion (St. Martin's Press)
BL4l.S58 1997
200'.7-dc21 96-43975
CIP
© Ninian Smart 1997
Introduction ©John P. Burris 1997
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
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To our friend and intellectual collocutor
Charles H. Long
Contents
Preface: Reflections in the Mirror of Religion ix
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction fohn P. Burris 1
PART I A HERMENEUTICS OF COMPARISON:
REFLECTIONS ON THE POSSIBILITY OF
A SCIENCE OF RELIGION
1 What would Buddhaghosa have made of The Cloud of
Unknowing? (1992) 9
2 The Purification of Consciousness and the Negative
~0~ ~
3 Our Experience of the Ultimate (1984) 41
4 Foreword to Religion in Essence and Manifestation
(1986) 51
5 Identity and a Dynamic Phenomenology of Religion
(1985) 63
6 Western Society and Buddhism (1989) 73
PART II RELIGION ON THE GROUND: SOME
EXAMPLES OF METHOD FOR DEVELOPING
A SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE
7 Consciousness: Permanent or Fleeting? Reflections on
Indian Views of Consciousness and the Self (1989) 85
8 Reflections on the Sources of Know ledge in the Indian
Tradition (1989) 95
vii
viii Contents
9 An Analysis of Hinduism in the Modern World
{1986) 108
10 Action and Suffering in the Theravadin Tradition
(1984) 120
11 India, Sri Lanka and Religion (1989) 130
12 Discontinuities and Continuities between Mao Zedong
Thought and the Traditional Religions of China
(1990) 148
13 Asian Cultures and the Impact of the West: India and
China (1982) 157
PART III THE NEW DISCIPLINE: RELIGION AS AN
ACADEMIC STUDY
14 Introducing the Study of Religion (1990) 175
15 Teaching Religion and Religions: The 'World Religions'
Course {1991) 188
16 The Pros and Cons of Thinking of Religion as
Tradition (1991) 197
17 Graduate Education: Some Practical Issues (1988) 201
18 Reflections on the Future of Religion (1989) 208
Bibliography 222
Index 225
Preface: Reflections in the
Mirror of Religion
My good friend and colleague John Burris has assembled this
anthology of my essays, and has written also a perceptive introduc
tion. In this preface I wanted to add a few thoughts.
First, I think it is important that religious studies should incor
porate social-science approaches. Sometimes it is too fixated on
history of religion and philosophy of religion. Unless it deals seri
ously with religion on the ground, it can be lost in antiquity and
mere ideas.
Still, second, I think my philosophical training in Oxford is
important to me: because too often conceptual confusion afflicts our
field. For instance, there are scholars who affirm stoutly that there
is no such thing as Hinduism. We can understand their perception:
but they forget that in recent times there undoubtedly is such a
thing as Hinduism. The modem self-understanding emerged above
all during the latter part of the nineteenth century, as a response to
British and missionary challenges. In a vital sense the British
helped to create the modem Hindu ideology. Those who deny that
there is a Hinduism should try that idea on a meeting of Hindus in
Atlanta or Benares. My essay in Part II is, by the way, a 'decon
struction' of Hinduism, but with a differing message from those
who deny the religion. In short, there is a conceptual confusion
because the fact that Hinduism so-called was once a loose congeries
of religions does not entail that it is so now. And what is it be said
of its other-defined identity during the Mughal period?
Thirdly, important matters hang on our conceptual categoriza
tions. Often a stupid division is imposed between religion and so
called 'secular' worldviews. Sometimes scholars try to divide
religion from, say, Marxism and nationalisms, by appealing to the
notion of the transcendent: but can they define the latter? And does
Confucianism or Theravada Buddhism have a transcendent in the
same sense as, say, Islam? Transcendence can be as much a matter
of family resemblance as religion itself. If we accept the conver
gence of religion and secular worldview, this makes a profound
difference to the sociology of religion and conceptions of the
ix
Preface
X
division between Church and State (or Mosque and State, and so
on). Consequently there is a vital message in the essay in Part II on
Maoism and its relations to the traditional religions of China.
Fourth, conceptual clarification is important in the discussion of
the nature of religious studies, and a whole host of methodological
issues. Sometimes, for instance, there is rather spurious debate
between theology and religious studies. Much under the head of
theology is a bit of religious studies, for instance Christian history
(often, though, chosen selectively). On the other hand in Western
countries theology is wrongly separated from its necessary advec
tives, such as Christian or Jewish. In England theology means
Christian theology; and divinity in Harvard means Christian theol
ogy. The trouble is that it is institutionally established in these
forms. In theory, why should anyone object to academic defining
religious traditions and expressing their doctrinal or philosophical
point of view? But not if it is preselected in an established situa
tion. So there are conceptual tangles here that need to be sorted out
which are of some moral significance: for instance, in England
Anglican theology used to be taught without a blush in state
supported universities, as if the population did not include Jews,
Muslims, Catholics and others. When I started the Religious Studies
Department at Lancaster (the first such in England), I determined
that an early appointment would be in Judaism as a living religion.
I believe it was the first such in the British Isles - a sign of the
dreadful grip of establishment, despite Judaism's long and creative
presence in the British community. So lack of conceptual clarity
about religion was in part the cause of a kind of injustice. In brief, I
think that a definition of religious studies which treats it as aspec
tual (dealing with a vital aspect of human institutions and experi
ence), multicultural (including history, philology, sociology,
anthropology, art history, phenomenology, and so on), non-finite
(that is, dealing with secular ideologies too), and multidisciplinary,
including philosophy. Such a concept of religious studies sets it
apart from the usual aims of theology.
A vital ingredient, then, in the study of religion is conceptual
analysis. Without it we can blunder about in the thickets of scholar
ship. Often philology rules in religious studies, but can easily
conceal egregious follies: for instance, the idea that Buddhism was
a kind of Protestant breakaway from Brahmanism, or that you
could have a rounded view of the Hindu worldview by studying a
few sacred Sanskrit texts. Philology is necessary but by no means
Preface xi
sufficient in the exploration of religions: it is necessary, for instance,
to understand how they are used - they do not themselves reveal
this. Conceptual analysis is especially important amid the welter of
theories in the human sciences.
These, then, are some of the broader thoughts behind the essays
here assembled. I am especially proud of the one called 'What
would Buddhaghosa have made of the The Cloud of Unknowing?', to
show that despite what I said above I do take the linguistic task
seriously. I regard also my long introduction to the major work of
Gerardus Van der Leeuw as vital: I recently published a sort of
sequel to his Religion in Essence and Manifestation, which I jokingly
called 'Daughter of Van der Leeuw', entitled The Dimensions of the
Sacred (London and Berkeley, 1996).
University of California, Santa Barbara NINIAN SMART
