Abstract
Elizabeth Anna Gordon (1851-1925) is one of the pioneers in Comparative Religious Studies in early twentieth-century Asia. Today, however, she is known merely as Max Müller’s “first” student at Oxford and as a “self-fashioned” Victorian scholar on the history of Christianity. Gordon traveled to Japan in 1891 and 1907 when she became fascinated with Buddhism so that she took up permanent residence in Japan and devoted herself to studying the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism until her death. While living in Japan, she visited Korea, a “virgin field” of her research and toured Buddhist temples throughout the country. Her years of research was published as books, including The Lotus Gospel (1911) and Symbols of ‘The Way’: Far East and West (1916). These two books are the central concern of my study. In my paper, I first examine Gordon’s comparison of key symbols used in Buddhism and Christianity. This is followed by an analysis of her problematic interpretation of the tropes she identified as parallel between the two religions. This analysis then leads to a discussion of Gordon’s espousal of the idea that Mahayana Buddhism is an Asian form of Christianity, a view championed by Timothy Richard, a prominent Welsh missionary in China. Thus, my paper not only introduces Gordon’s interreligious encounter with Buddhism, which has received little scholarly attention, but also sheds light on a network of communication among Western expatriates in East Asia, especially Christian missionaries active in the Asian mission field at that time.
Presenters
Hyangsoon YiProfessor, Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies, University of Georgia, Georgia, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Religious Commonalities and Differences
KEYWORDS
ELIZABETH ANN GORDON, LOTUS SUTRA, RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS, CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM
