[Buddha-l] Re: American mahayana/British Theravada?

[Andrew Skilton]

Hi Stefan,

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 Stefan Detrez wrote:

>I was thinking of the names you mentioned, but I realized the following:
>most of them don't specialize in the Theravada, so I left them out. 

Are you joshing me?  Leaving out half the evidence doesn't really help your
argument much, especially when it weighs against the claim you make. I mentioned
these guys in my response precisely because they do 'seem', as you put it, to
work on what one might call Mahayana, or at least 'non-Theravada'. Or is your
point that these people, including myself it also seems, masquerade as scholars
of non-Theravada while subconsciously harbouring empiricist yearnings to write
about Theravada?  Perhaps I should have been completely explicit.  

Anyway, my point is that there is plenty of scholarly study of non-Theravada
ongoing in the UK, despite the influence of its colonial past which has
certainly enriched the scholarly and popular environment here. And therefore it
is perhaps misleading to characterise the UK as oriented toward Theravada
studies. 

Andrew




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Andrew Skilton 

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