[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[S. A. Feite]

On Dec 4, 2009, at 2:05 AM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

>> 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.

The first mention of "lama jiao" is in 1775 during the reign of the  
Manchu Emperor Qianlong. The first occurrence of "Lamaism" in a  
European language is in 1769 by the German naturalist Peter Simon  
Pallas.