[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[Dan Lusthaus]

> I'd tend to be cautious in proposing your "Wikipedia wisdom" corresponds 
> to actual realty. Esp. considering the visit of western explorers was also 
> a great catalyst for middle age Chinese cultural diffusion and influence 
> from the West. The etymology using _lama jiao_ is just as likely post hoc. 
> I follow Lopez in the caution of applying the absolutes you attempt.


Steve, I think you've entirely missed my point, which had nothing to do with 
absolutes, but with collecting a variety of obviously conflicting 
speculations about the origins and implications of the word "Lamaism." It 
should have been obvious that the collected examples were largely at odds 
with each other. Absolutes don't emerge from such a morass of 
contradictions.

You speculated on how the Chinese understood "Lamaism," projecting a 
sneering villainous attitude. I simply provided an example of an actual 
Chinese statement on the term from a major source -- concerning which others 
can form their own judgements.

Apply your Lopezian caution to speculations about how others, such as the 
Chinese, think about this or that term. These sorts of things won't be 
discovered or settled by imagining, but by examining what the evidence 
presents. What the evidence presents is a range of usages and implications 
no less across the spectrum than the Western usage. Any evidence that the 
Chinese borrowed the word from the West rather than the other way around? 
Chinese sources claim the name "Lamaism" has been applied to 
Mongolian-Tibetan Buddhism since the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), though I 
haven't time to hunt down the first reference.

Dan