The invention of world religions, or, How European universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism
The idea of "world religions" expresses a vague commitment to multiculturalism. Not merely a descriptive concept, "world religions" is actually a particular ethos, a pluralist ideology, a logic of classification, and a form of knowledge that has shaped the study of religion and infiltrated ordinary language. In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity
History
xv, 359 pages ; 24 cm
9780226509884, 9780226509891, 0226509885, 0226509893
56599430
The Invention of World Religions
Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of PluralismBy TOMOKO MASUZAWA
The University of Chicago Press
Copyright © 2005 the University of ChicagoAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-50989-1
Contents
Preface...............................................................................................................ixIntroduction..........................................................................................................11 World Religions in the Academy Today................................................................................22 The Discourse on Religion as a Discourse of Othering................................................................143 A Synoptic Overview.................................................................................................214 Writing History in the Age of Theory: A Brief Discourse on Method...................................................29PART 1Chapter 1 "The Religions of the World" before "World Religions".......................................................371 "World Religions" in the Age of World Wars..........................................................................372 Early Modern Taxonomy, or the Order of Nations......................................................................463 Before the Birth of Science.........................................................................................64Chapter 2 The Legacy of Comparative Theology..........................................................................721 Two Pioneers: Frederick Denison Maurice and James Freeman Clarke....................................................752 Strategies for Representation.......................................................................................793 A Critic: Charles Hardwick..........................................................................................864 The Variety of Parascientific Comparativism.........................................................................95PART 2Chapter 3 The Birth Trauma of World Religions.........................................................................107Chapter 4 Buddhism, a World Religion..................................................................................1211 Before Buddhism.....................................................................................................1222 Europe Discovers Buddhism...........................................................................................1253 Buddhism and the Future of Europe...................................................................................138Chapter 5 Philology and the Discovery of a Fissure in the European Past...............................................1471 The Discovery of the Indo-European Past.............................................................................1492 The Birth of Comparative Grammar....................................................................................1563 The Supremacy of Inflection.........................................................................................1634 The Essential Nature of the Semitic: Ernest Renan...................................................................171Chapter 6 Islam, a Semitic Religion...................................................................................1791 The Problem of Islam for Premodern and Early Modern Europe..........................................................1802 The Problem of Semitism and Aryanism for Nineteenth-Century Europe..................................................1863 Islam, the Arab Religion: Abraham Kuenen............................................................................1924 Sufism, an Aryan Islam: Otto Pfleiderer.............................................................................197Chapter 7 Philologist Out of Season: F. Max M��ller on the Classification of Language and Religion.....................2071 The Aristocracy of Book Religions...................................................................................2102 On the Possibility of the Common Origin of Languages................................................................2213 The Trouble with the Turanian.......................................................................................2284 The Real Trouble with the Turanian..................................................................................2345 A Tale of Two Burnoufs..............................................................................................244PART 3Chapter 8 Interregnum: Omnibus Guide for Looking toward the Twentieth Century.........................................2591 Bequest of the Nineteenth Century: The Sacred Books of the East, 1879-1910..........................................2592 The World's Parliament of Religions, 1893...........................................................................2653 Amateur Interests Have Their Say: Private Foundations and Endowed Lectureships......................................2744 Colonial Self-Articulation..........................................................................................2825 Transitional Systems................................................................................................291Chapter 9 The Question of Hegemony: Ernst Troeltsch and the Reconstituted European Universalism.......................309Unconcluding Scientific Postscript....................................................................................324Bibliography..........................................................................................................329Index.................................................................................................................351
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