[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[S.A. Feite]

On Dec 6, 2009, at 3:05 AM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

>> He did, in 1987. Probably written before that c. 1985? So someone 24 years 
>> ago was still using that wording.
> 
> Steve, go to http://scholar.google.com and type "Lamaism 2004" (or any 
> four-digit number between 2000 and 2009) and then wade through the pages of 
> scholarly publications by respected scholars in respected journals who are 
> using the word "Lamaism" (or related terms). Some are reprints or older 
> scholarship, but the term has not completely gone out of vogue. If you do a 
> different type of search of "Lamaism" on google scholar you will discover 
> that it was used by scholars in a variety of fields quite heavily through 
> the early 90s), when its use drops off somewhat  -- wonder why.  (30s 
> through 70s was the period of heaviest use)

That's very interesting, that's what I would have approximately expected, declining in the late 60's - 70's. But I see a lot of these are not Buddhist  or Religious scholars, but Anthropologists, etc. They can be expected to be behind on terminology.

Of course the bottom date of 1930 could reflect the age of papers in scholar.google.earth and/or those considered worth scanning.

> It has not gone completely out of usage, though.

It's a shame it hasn't established a more specific self-definition. For example it might be an appropriate word for Eastern European/Western Russian Buddhism of the Kalmyks, esp. in reference to those groups in Western speaking countries (e.g. Geshe Wangyal and his early students) when speaking historically. 

I would also suspect that we would see difference in usage between scholar-practitioners of Buddhism and, for example, scholars from Abrahamic religions.