Buddhism Gains Public Interest

Academic and practical Buddhism making great strides abreast The scholastic character of the early period had much effect on the progress of Buddhism in the subsequent period up to the present The wealth of Buddhist literature in Western languages makes Buddhism accessible to Western people and facilitates Buddhist study

Academic and practical Buddhism making great strides abreast The scholastic character of the early period had much effect on the progress of Buddhism in the subsequent period up to the present. The wealth of Buddhist literature in Western languages makes Buddhism accessible to Western people and facilitates Buddhist study. At the same time Buddhists in Asian countries have begun to take up missionary activity again. From time to time, Buddhist missions have come to Western countries to acquaint these civilized people with the teachings of the Buddha. Above all, social and life conditions have now greatly changed. Amidst material and economic progress in this age of technology, more and more Western people, especially students in colleges and universities, find their religious system unsatisfying intellectually and spiritually. Buddhism, with its doctrine not overshadowed by modern thought and its meditation attractive to modern mind, has a strong appeal for these Western men and women who are in search of the meaning of life and a meaningful way of life. And, since the turn of the century, Buddhism has taken a new turn. The interest in Buddhism and Buddhist studies has grown more and more widely beyond the confines of scholars into the public. Knowledge of Buddhism is sought more from a practical standpoint. Meditation becomes the most appealing aspect of Buddhism and attracts many Western young people to Asian Buddhist countries, where many of them can be found today ordained as Buddhist monks and practising Buddhist meditation under the guidance of local meditation-teachers. There has been an increasing tendency for books on Buddhism to be the work of professed or practising Buddhists. Another tendency is for Asian Buddhists to take wider and more active part in the spread of Buddhist knowledge in the West, especially through their writings. Among contemporary Western Buddhists devoted to Buddhist studies, a distinguished name is the Venerable Nan?amoli, an English monk who was ordained in Ceylon and lived at the Island Hermitage until his death in 2503/1960. In the words of Miss I.B. Horner, the late President of the Pali Text Society, the Venerable Nan?amoli was an unusually brilliant scholar and his published translations of some of the most difficult Pali texts1 have a healthy vitality ?to inaugurate a new and valuable phase in the study and understanding of the contents of Buddhist literature.?1 The Venerable Nyanaponika, his well-known Brother-in-Order at the Island Hermitage, speaks of his translations as ?remarkable achievements in quantity as well as in quality,?2 and as showing the highest standard of careful and critical scholarship and a keen and subtle mind, philosophically trained.?2 Other names of no less importance are, for example: the Venerable Nyanaponika, already mentioned above; the Bhikkhu Sangharakshita, a Buddhist writer and poet, now the seniormost Buddhist monk of English origin; Francis Story, a British Buddhist through whom the Buddha''s teaching has been presented convincingly as being of vital significance in this modern age; Christmas Humphreys, the late president of the Buddhist Society of London and a life-long interpreter of Buddhist thought to the West; and Edward Conze, a voluminous writer and leading authority in the field of Buddhist studies. The number of authoritative writers on Buddhism is increasing both in Europe and in North America and some of the names are coming into prominence. Worthy of mention are A.K. Warder and Trevor Ling, whose authoritative works treat Buddhism not merely as a religion but as an ethical social programme and a civilization.

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