[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[JKirkpatrick]

" but Anthropologists, etc. They can be expected to be behind on
terminology."

Amen to that, bro.

An anthropologist. 

=====================

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.
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