140 Book reviews / Religion 40 (2010) 132–146

access the biblical texts with an insight and vigour mostly unmatched by those who have attempted to study the Hebrew Bible in isolation
on this very relevant topic.

Brian R. Doak
Harvard University (U.S.A.)
E-mail address: doak@fas.harvard.edu

doi: 10.1016/j.religion.2009.10.009

Donald S. Lopez Jr., Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (2008). 278 pp., $25.00 (cloth),
ISBN: 978 0 226 49312 1.

With Buddhism and Science Donald S. Lopez wants to offer ‘A Guide for the Perplexed’, as the subtitle reads. The allusion to the famous
work of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides seems appropriate. Maimonides reached out to provide ‘a guide for the perplexed’ for those
‘whose studies have brought them into collision with religion’ (Michael Friedländer [trl.], Moses Maimonides, A Guide for the Perplexed, Mine-
ola, NY, 1956, p. 9). At least one of the Buddhist protagonists described in Lopez’s book, the extraordinary Tibetan scholar-monk Gendun
Chopel, saw himself exposed in just such a conflict-laden situation, in his case characterized by attempts to reconcile theories of science
with Buddhism. Yet, the title’s promise to offer guidance may be a little misguiding for readers who are mainly interested in recent encoun-
ters such as the discourse between specialists of Buddhist meditation techniques and neuroscientists, or the encounter between Buddhist
philosophy and quantum mechanics. Only a few pages are devoted to current strands of exchange. Instead, one of the five major chapters
deals with Buddhism and the ‘Science of race’ – a ‘science’ that fortunately neither for today’s scientific community nor in the recent public
discourse counts as a ‘science’. Since the question of the referents ‘Buddhism’ and ‘science’ seems to be crucial in this context, it is worth-
while to discuss them in detail at the end of this review. Right from the beginning Lopez stresses his position that his survey does not aim at
discussing the persistent claim that ‘Buddhism’ is compatible with ‘science’. Rather, his study seeks to explore the historical configuration
and persistence of ‘standard tropes’ of the Buddhism and Science discourse, such as: ‘Science describes the external [.] and Buddhism [.]
the internal world’ (p. 29). Beyond a historical portrayal of various ‘Buddhism and Science’ encounters, the book follows a certain agenda;
namely, to show the price one has to pay for the claim that Buddhism is ‘ever modern’ and ‘up-to-date with the latest scientific discoveries’
(p. 216). Lopez is eager to bring those elements of ‘Buddhism’ to mind which are ‘starkly premodern’. Although premodern, these elements
should nevertheless be defended, as ‘dimensions of the Buddha’s aura’ (p. 216). I will return later to this concept of the historian of Buddhism
as a ‘caretaker’ of the respective tradition.
The first chapter opens with a very interesting historical test case regarding the compatibility of the Buddhist world view and one
informed by science: the Buddhist cosmological account of Mount Meru. In traditional cosmology, this enormous peak marks the centre
of a flat earth. In a lively description Lopez demonstrates how the (disputed) existence of such a mythical mountain has been a point of
contention between Buddhist traditionalists and modernists, Christian missionaries and secular critics of Buddhism alike. As early as
1863, British missionary to Ceylon, R. Spence Hardy, published an anti-Buddhist critique of Buddhist ‘legends’. He championed the helio-
centric universe and declared that all the Buddha has said on the physical earth was ‘unscientific and false’ (p. 54). A decade later, in
1873, nearly 5000 people followed a public debate between Reverend de Silva and a scholarly Buddhist monk, Guna ratna. De Silva chal-
lenged the Buddhist cosmology by showing a globe and asking how it could be possible that the Mount Meru is nowhere to be seen. A some-
what paradoxical situation arose: many Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Tibet, China and Japan did not give up the ‘flat earth’ world view or other
elements of premodern Buddhist Abhidharma (‘metaphysics’). At the same time Buddhist missionaries, Western converts and academic
scholars spread across America and Europe the idea of Buddhism as a ‘Religion of Science’. An important part of the Western conception
of Buddhism was formed by European scholars of Pa li and Sanskrit, such as Eugène Burnouf or F. Max Müller. These pioneering scholars
construed a normative picture of a philosophical, modern, empirical and non-theistic – but in every sense ‘original’ – Buddhism. Living
Buddhist traditions and their religious practices were of no interest; more precisely, they showed signs of decadence and degeneration
of the ‘noble’ doctrine. In the same breath, textual sources with allusions to ritual relics, worship, magic, thaumaturgy, and so on were largely
ignored. Not surprisingly, debates in countries with Buddhist traditions focusing on Mount Meru were barely able to attract the attention of
Western scholars of Buddhism. It is therefore most interesting to learn from Lopez’s account the wide range of cosmological positions which
Buddhist actors actually held. Some were strict defenders of a literal understanding of the situation surrounding Mount Meru, such as the
Japanese apologetic Entsu  Fumon (1755–1834). Other scholars, such as the Japanese Tominaga Nakamoto (1715–1746), held moderate
reformist positions, declaring that the Buddha’s sole intention was to show his followers a way to salvation. Therefore, the Buddha’s cosmo-
logical explanations were purely conventional – he simply made use of prevalent cosmological teachings. The size and location of Mount
Meru is taught only as a kind of ‘skilful means’, an upaya, intended to illustrate the central teaching of the path to liberation. A third kind of
argumentation referred to the advanced abilities of Buddhist adherents – people with good karma can see Mount Meru. In his description of
the public debate in Sri Lanka, Lopez cites the witty interjection by a Buddhist monk: ‘Climb to the top of the tall tree described in your su  tra
and you will definitely see it’ (p. 42), meaning that a Christian may climb the Tree of Knowledge from the Biblical account in Genesis, and he
will be able to see Mount Meru! A contrasting position to this can be found in the ‘modernist’ interpretation of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama:
those accounts which, like the Mount Meru, contradict the modern scientific world view, should be altered or abandoned.
Chapter Two, on the ‘Science of race’, does not start with a definition of this ‘science’. Instead, it cites a letter of the ‘Leader of the
Buddhists in China’, T’ai-hsü, written in 1937 and addressed to Hitler. This letter establishes a connection between the ‘Arian race’ as the
promoter of a scientific civilization, and the ‘Aryan origin’ of the Buddha. Theories of a relationship and affinity between the Aryans of early
India and the ‘Aryans’ of 19th and 20th century Europe were shared by some Western Indologists, Asian scholars and political leaders alike.
In order to evaluate this discourse, Lopez turns to ancient India for an inquiry into early Buddhist sources that deal with the question of caste.
 Book reviews / Religion 40 (2010) 132–146 141

After reviewing some Buddhist scriptures and the recent academic discussion on the topic, Lopez arrives at the conclusion that the Buddha
regarded ascetics as ‘beyond the boundaries of caste’. Even if there is ‘no evidence that the Buddha sought to ‘‘reform’’ or destroy what has
been called the ‘‘caste system’’, the term ‘‘Aryan’’ was used in Buddhist literature not primarily as a denominator for blood relations, but for
‘‘nobleness’’ or ‘‘moral excellence’’’ (pp. 80–84).
Turning to European scholars, the only clear protagonist of some kind of ‘science of race’ portrayed by Lopez is Arthur de Gobineau
(1816–1882). Gobineau’s diligent study of Indological works of Burnouf and others brought him to the conclusion that the Indian Buddhist
revolt against the caste system and the approval of low caste members initiated a degenerative process of miscegenation and the subsequent
demise of the Aryan race. Arguing like this – against the Buddhists – Gobineau may not be a good example of Lopez’s assumption that
Buddhist concepts of spiritual nobility were used by Western scholars to support the science of race. Certainly, this discourse formed an
essential part of the complex ideological suppositions of some European scholars in the colonial period. In parentheses I refer to a close
reading of this discourse to be found in the book (not considered by Lopez) by Roger-Pol Droit, Le culte du néant: Les Philosophes et le Bouddha
(Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1997; English translation: Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2003 [for Burnouf and Gobineau, see chap-
ters 7–8]). For the modern Asian discourse on the ‘Aryan race’, Lopez makes use of Anaga rika Dharmapa la as an example. Dharmap ala saw
the Buddha as a great ‘Aryan savior’, and Buddhism as ‘spiritualized Aryanism’. Buddhist missionaries may effectively spread Aryan ethics to
distant lands and ‘unaryan races’. Lopez summarizes: ‘Like the larger Buddhism and Science discourse, Dharmapa la’s embrace of the science
of race was a product of colonialism. Indeed, it could be argued that the Sanskrit a ryan [.] was not, at least in the sense he used it, a Buddhist
term at all. It was instead a colonial commodity’ (p. 101). Since Lopez leaves open the question of how to define and distinguish between (a)
racist theories, (b) general theories of race, and (c) the manifold usage of the autochthonous term ‘a ryan’, it is not very clear to me how this
chapter contributes to a deeper understanding of ‘Buddhism and Science’. In Chapter Three, ‘Two Tibetans’, Lopez reviews two Tibetan
Buddhists and their relation to the sciences: Gendun Chopel (1903?–1951) and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. In the case of the former, argu-
ably the first Tibetan ‘intellectual’ in a Western sense, Lopez provides his own translation of excerpts of the highly interesting ‘travel jour-
nals’, the Golden Chronicle. Gendun Chopel explains in the ‘Chronicle’ his conviction that Buddhist teachings and modern science should
become close allies for their mutual benefit. However, he sees the necessity to investigate their relationship in detail. For him, the philo-
sophical basis of the ‘new reasoning’ ‘(Lopez provides on p. 113 the Tibetan rigs pa gsar pa [‘‘new lineage’’] for ‘‘science’’ in his translation
on p. 108, mistakenly equating ‘‘rigs pa’’ with Sanskrit ‘‘yukti’’ [again p. 113]; the text of Gendun Chopel according to the gsung rtsom (kangra
2001), vol. 1, p. 590, reads correctly rig pa gsar pa, ‘‘new knowledge’’)’, that is, science, is essentially compatible with Buddhist reasoning on
the ‘basis’ and in consonance with the Buddhist spiritual path and its fruits. For example, the scientific description of color as rapidly moving
light waves, visible for those who use a certain apparatus, is not astonishing and is indeed consistent with the Buddha’s theory of an
universal impermanence – an impermanence that can be perceived by advanced yogis, too. In the same manner Gendun Chopel is able
to explain other recent developments in Western science and technology – such as X-ray machinery or telescopes – by drawing substantially
on Mah ay
ana Buddhist theories of sense perception. Moreover, all these technological developments have been anticipated by the Buddha.
Informed by his supernormal faculties, the Buddha already perceived the nature of reality 2500 years ago. Yet, Lopez is able to show how
Gendun Chopel addressed – with an astounding open-mindedness – questions regarding the compatibility of Buddhism and Science.
Without clinging to a formal rejection of science, nor inducing an emphatic dissolution of traditional Buddhism, Gendun Chopel seems
to be the congenial champion of Lopez’s own approach to the field.
Then, by outlining positions held by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Lopez enters the most recent phase of the encounter between Buddhism
and Science. In contrast to Gendun Chopel, the Dalai Lama suggests that Buddhist doctrines such as the flat earth theory should be aban-
doned if they are in conflict with scientific findings. Indeed, the Dalai Lama puts great emphasis on Buddhism as an ‘empirical’ approach and
parallels it with science. Both are investigative traditions, searching for ultimate reality. Lopez succeeds in highlighting some of the more
hidden implications of this position. In the view of the Dalai Lama, science aims to recognize reality, in contrast to the more hypothetical
method of modeling ‘reality’. On the other hand, Lopez questions if Buddhist epistemology is correctly described as a kind of investigative
method. According to authoritative Buddhist texts, the Buddha ‘found’ the truth or, more precisely, he ‘rediscovered eternal truths’ (p. 139).
The Dalai Lama, in consonance with empirical science, puts the ‘authority of scripture’ into perspective. Elsewhere, however, scriptures may
point to subtle aspects of reality, such us the workings of karma. Detecting some inconsistencies, Lopez brings into play a wide range of
opposing arguments from Buddhist su stras of Dharmakırti and others. In this way he seems to adopt the role of a caretaker
 tras as well as sa
of the evolved Buddhist epistemological and hagiographical tradition. In a nutshell, Lopez presumes that the Dalai Lama essentially tries to
defend two doctrines against possible scientific criticism: the law of karma and the value of compassion. The ‘theory of karma’ is, the Dalai
Lama admits, an ‘assumption’ (p. 150). Nevertheless, he hopes that a paradigm shift in science itself may help to confirm those central truths
of Buddhism. Concurrently one may get rid of – in Lopez’s words – premodern ‘cultural accretions’. Arguing like this, Lopez seems to have
difficulties in accepting this form of modernized ‘new Buddhism’. He seems to miss the approval of gods and ghosts, of the realms of rebirth
and final nirva na, the fundamental nature of suffering and ignorance – realities unchanged by recent scientific developments. Chapter Four,
‘Science of Buddhism’, again leaps back to the early phase of Buddhist Studies, now in connection with the emergence of Theosophy. A telling
example is a discourse between F. Max Müller and Henry S. Olcott. Lopez offers a reconstruction of their different attitudes towards
Buddhism and the Buddha, respectively. Müller studied Buddhism on a philological basis as a part of his ‘science of religion’, while Olcott,
in his search for esoteric insights and wisdom, reinvented a modernized Buddhism. This chapter, again, offers rich historic insights into the
history of the reception of Buddhism by Westerners, but again, one may question whether this chapter contributes substantially to the main
topic of the book.
Chapter Five, on the ‘Meaning of meditation’, touches on a very important question in the recent discourse on Buddhism and science.
Lopez observes that ‘the assertions being made in this domain are qualitatively different from declaring, for example, that the Buddha
understood the theory of relativity. The claim here is that Buddhist meditation works’ (p. 207). In this short chapter (14 pages) more
than ten pages are devoted to a detailed and uncommented description of Vajrajoginı meditation. This presentation of an important Tibetan
tantric meditation technique (according to normative meditation handbooks) illustrates very vividly the general perspective of the author;
namely, to outline the rich cultural background that comes with even so-called ‘pure techniques’ of meditation: visualization of gods and
spiritual beings, invocations, incantations, ritual procedures and so on. The remaining four pages of the chapter can only outline some of the
central aspects of the neuropsychological evaluation of meditation effects. Lopez, referring to the historical fact that in most Buddhist
142 Book reviews / Religion 40 (2010) 132–146

traditions meditation was a regular practice only in certain groups of specialized monks, insists that the traditional goal of meditation is
liberation – and not some kind of ‘self-help’ (p. 207). Regrettably, however, Lopez refrains from a thorough analysis of the complex relation-
ship between cognitive science and Buddhist meditation techniques.
Lopez’s exploration of the relations between ‘Buddhism’ and ‘science’ offers good historical essays on selected aspects of this encounter.
They provide new insights, especially in regard to its early phase. Even though one may concur that the referents signified by ‘Buddhism’ as
well as ‘Science’ are seemingly ‘floating’, it would have been helpful for Lopez to identify more closely the agents of these encounters. On
both sides there are actors, either ‘Buddhist’ or ‘Scientific’, or both, as well as recipients, practices, and even ideas. Since Lopez’s approach
observes all levels of this ‘encounter’ at the same time, some vagueness remains. If, for example, ‘science’ were to be defined as a kind of
‘epistemological culture’, intrinsically connected to certain methods of falsification (experimentation and the like), it would immediately
become clear that a 19th century ‘science of race’ cannot be termed ‘science’ but rather ‘ideology’. Additionally, Lopez seems to allude to
the theory of Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), that a new (and incommensurable) scientific theory may just displace
‘its predecessor’ (p. 214). Without question, Kuhn’s model did provide a very valuable interpretation how in ‘hard’ natural sciences
a new scientific paradigm challenges and overcomes an established paradigm. Yet this model does not provide a basic definition of ‘science’
itself. In the end, Lopez’s book deals more or less indiscriminately with ‘science’, historical ‘sciences’ and appearances that were named
‘science’ at certain historical periods. Readers with a special interest in the legitimacy of recent claims such as ‘Buddhist meditation tech-
niques are some kind of experimental science’, or ‘Buddhist meditation effects can be scientifically measured’ may be left disappointed.
A second point of possible criticism revolves around the perspective chosen by Lopez. He takes a position against a conception of
‘Buddhism’ as a philosophy or a science, upheld most prominently by Asian Buddhist modernists as well as Western Buddhist enthusiasts.
Lopez illustrates convincingly that for almost two centuries every epoch has been aware of the claim that Buddhism is up-to-date with the
latest ‘scientific’ discoveries. But may we deduce that this may ‘give pause to anyone who might have thought that Buddhism is modern’
(p. 216)? The historicity of such a discourse pattern is, of course, quite convincing. Yet I wonder whether it is the task of a historian of
religion to adopt the role of a caretaker of the respective tradition, defining by his work the legitimacy of certain interpretations and chal-
lenging others. I am inclined to think that this task should be left to Buddhist scholars in the respective traditions.

Jens U. Schlieter
University of Berne (Switzerland)
E-mail address: jens.schlieter@relwi.unibe.ch

doi: 10.1016/j.religion.2009.10.010

David Ownby, Falun Gong and the Future of China. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, vii D 206 pp., $29.95 (hardback), ISBN: 978
0 19 532905 6.

David Ownby, a historian of Chinese popular religion, provides in this book a refreshing account that situates Falun Gong within the
wider contexts of redemptive societies in China dating from late imperial times, as well as currently within the post-socialist qigong
boom. Ownby organizes his monograph into six chapters, evenly divided into two sections, which are followed by a conclusion.
The first section offers a comprehensive introduction to the historical and social contexts of Falun Gong. Chapter One introduces the
book’s subject matter, analytical framework, and organizational structure. With great skill and insight, Chapter Two unravels the history
of Falun Gong vis-à-vis the many and varied popular religious groups in Chinese history, including those that have been labeled as secretive,
sectarian, syncretic, and redemptive (pp. 25–27). Ownby suggests that all of these extremely diverse groups be recategorized as ‘redemptive
societies’, because they typically revolve around charismatic masters, offering a special form of salvation experienced by and through the
body, cultivated through corporeal techniques, and grounded in morality. Ownby further demonstrates that the mushrooming of various
schools of qigong in the 1980s reflected the continued tenacity and flexibility of such redemptive societies from the late imperial period
to the present. In particular, he sketches the history of Falun Gong by tracing its origins to the White Lotus (Buddhist sectarianism) during
the late imperial period, as well as the redemptive societies of the Republic era (1912–1949). While scrutinizing the problematic relation-
ships between redemptive societies and the authority of the Chinese state, Ownby points out that frequent state suppression has at least
partially contributed to the lack of historical consciousness of these groups, a phenomenon that has also manifested itself in various qigong
groups.
Chapter Three systematically examines the creation of qigong and its development into a popular movement from which Falun Gong
emerged. While drawing heavily upon existing literature on qigong, Ownby makes cogent connections between the birth of qigong in
the late 1940s and the early 1950s and the eradication of the redemptive societies by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He observes
that the invention of qigong went hand in hand with the aspiration of the CCP to ‘scientize’ (kexuehua) traditional Chinese medicine in order
to serve the new socialist society (p. 46). As a result, during the three decades after its birth, qigong focused exclusively on developing the
health benefits of corporeal cultivations, such as meditative and breathing techniques, and its applications were limited mainly to the elite
cadres in clinical settings. Shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), however, the ‘qigong realm’ expanded beyond the
confines of medical institutions into public settings, where qigong teachers conveyed their message to the masses. Notwithstanding the
addition of scientific and governmental discourses, the qigong movement in the mid 1980s demonstrated fully fledged characteristics of
redemptive societies. At the end of the chapter, Ownby briefly introduces several of the most influential qigong masters, who drew millions
of followers during the qigong boom. Interestingly, despite the fact that most of these masters embraced science in their messages, the
qigong ‘superstar-masters’ were all believed to have paranormal or superhuman powers.
The second section of the book investigates Falun Gong itself. Chapter Four examines the life and teachings of Li Hongzhi, the founder and
master of Falun Gong, who not-so-subtly identifies himself with Buddha (p. 81). This chapter begins with balanced biographic sketches of Li
Hongzhi. When he became a qigong master at the age of 40 in 1992, his previously ordinary life – barely finishing middle school education