[Buddha-l] Amida and the Upanisads

[jkirk]

x-posted-----possibly of interest to some on the list--Joanna
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École Francaise d’Extrême-Orient EFEO
Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale ISEAS


KYOTO LECTURES 2006

Friday June 9th 18:00h

Urs App will speak on:


How Amida got into the Upanishads: An Orientalist’s Nightmare

The Upanishads are a uniquely interesting case in the history of 
orientalism. Secretly transmitted among Brahmans until their translation 
into Persian in 1657, the first rendering in a European language 
appeared in 1801-2: Anquetil-Duperron’s famous Oupnek’hat. This Latin 
translation marks the beginning of the 19th-century “Oriental 
Renaissance” and serves as a window to the history of orientalism. 
Edward Said’s neat orientalist party of power-hungry European 
colonialists is thrown into disarray by a fascinating collection of 
wisdom-seekers, Sufi mystics, Neo-Zoroastrians, Christian missionaries, 
Neoplatonists, etc., along with a first-rate lineup of guests of honor: 
Brahma, Allah, Deus, Jesus, Buddha, Noah, Zoroaster … Even Amida makes 
an appearance in this famous book; he will serve as tour guide to the 
murky orientalist underground, throwing light in particular on the 
seminal role of Japan and of Buddhism in early Western orientalism.


Urs App, long-time resident of Kyoto, is currently affiliated with the 
Institute for Zen Studies in Kyoto. For a decade he was the associate 
director of the International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism at 
Hanazono University working mainly on Chinese Zen and on resources for 
the study of East Asian Buddhism. Since ten years his research focuses 
on the history of the Western discovery of Asian religions (Wagner und 
der Buddhismus, Museum Rietberg, 1997; article series on Francis Xavier 
in The Eastern Buddhist; numerous publications on Schopenhauer and Asia 
in Schopenhauer Jahrbuch). He is currently working on a monograph on the 
Discovery of the Upanishads.


École Francaise d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)
Italian School of East Asian Studies (ISEAS)
4, Yoshida Ushinomiya-cho, Sakyo-ku Kyoto
606-8302 JAPAN

EFEO
Phone: 075-761-3946
e-mail: efeohb at mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp

ISEAS
Phone: 075-751-8132
Fax: 075-751-8221
e-mail: iseas at iseas-kyoto.org


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