The diffusion of religious thought in Buddhist Asia has been marked by new modes of expression. Sometimes this has meant textual translation, as highlighted in chapters about Chinese and Japanese Buddhist texts or the analysis of manuscripts in northern Thailand. In other cases it has been cultural translation, such as local adaptations of jataka tales, legal concepts developed out of Theravada Buddhist teachings, or localization of art, inscriptions, and other material culture. Additional chapters study other types of engagement: the encounter of East and West in British geographical and anthropological exploration of Burma, and the place of Brahmanism in early Buddhist thought as expressed through the jatakas.
Together these contributions recognize that beyond being isolated by sectarian divisions, disparate Buddhist traditions have flourished through their simultaneity.
Justin McDaniel is professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand (Columbia University Press, 2011) and Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Histories of Buddhist Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand (University of Washington Press, 2008); and coeditor of Figures of Buddhist Modernity in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2016) and From Mulberry Leaves to Silk Scrolls: New Approaches to the Study of Asian Manuscript Traditions (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).