Buddhist Warfare

Buddhist Warfare is a collection of essays from notable Buddhist Studies scholars around the world. The first chapter is actually a translation of an original essay in French by the eminent Paul Demieville, which was published in the 1957. What the editors point out is that this important work that compares Buddhist acts of violence across Asia has not been developed or explored much since then. In response to the previous preview, this is not "judeo-christian" propaganda-- and if this reviewer had read the volume, he/she would have realized that. In contrary to this, we find the argument in the Introduction, in which Jerryson argues that people in the United States and Europe do violence to Buddhists by painting them as completely pacifistic and non-violent. Part of this Orientalism has led to whitewashing the history of violence perpetrated by Buddhists-- a problem this edited volume seeks to correct. The edited volume proceeds in chronological order, with chapters on Indian, Tibetan, Mongolian, Japanese, Chinese/Korean, Sri Lankan, and Thai Buddhist episodes of violence. The last chapter is by Bernard Faure, in which he reviews these in relation to other previous works and discusses the wider conversation for violence (beyond warfare). While not breaking new ground in the comparative study of Buddhism and violence-- see Michael Zimmermann's edited volume Buddhist Violence-- this collection adds a comparative dimension to a specific kind of violence, warfare, and provides new content in the discussion of religion and violence.