User:Joshua Jonathan/Asian Modernisation and Religion

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This a start for a article on the mutual influence since the 19th century between western colonialism, orientalism and Indology, Asian responses as reflected in Asian (social) reform movements, nationalism and the modernisation of Hinduism and Buddhism, and the influence of those developments on western modern spirituality and academic thought.

Since the late 18th century, an intensive exchange of cultural and religious ideas has been taking place between Asian and western cultures, changing and shaping both cultural hemispheres.

Classification
Eastern religions refers to religions originating in the Eastern world—India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia—and thus having dissimilarities with Western religions. This includes the Indian and East Asian religious traditions, as well as animistic indigenous religions.

This East-West religious distinction, just as with the East-West culture distinction, and the implications that arise from it, are broad and not precise. Furthermore, the geographical distinction has less meaning in the current context of global transculturation.

While many Western observers attempt to distinguish between Eastern philosophies and religions, this is a distinction that does not exist in some Eastern traditions.

Indian religions
According to Adams, Indian religions "[include] early Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and sometimes also Theravāda Buddhism and the Hindu- and Buddhist-inspired religions of South and Southeast Asia."

Far Eastern religions
According to Adams, Far Eastern religions "[comprise] the religious communities of China, Japan, and Korea, and consisting of Confucianism, Taoism, Mahāyāna (“Greater Vehicle”) Buddhism, and Shintō."

Modernisation


Modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by societies that have achieved modernity. While it may theoretically be possible for some societies to make the transition in entirely different ways, there have been no counterexamples provided by reliable sources.

Historians link modernization to the processes of urbanization and industrialisation, as well as to the spread of education. As Kendall notes, "Urbanization accompanied modernization and the rapid process of industrialization." In sociological critical theory, modernization is linked to an overarching process of rationalisation. When modernization increases within a society, the individual becomes that much more important, eventually replacing the family or community as the fundamental unit of society.

Indology and Hindu studies
The study of India and its cultures and religions has been shaped by the interests of colonialism and western notions of religion. Since the 1990's, those influences and it's outcomes have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism , and have also been taken over by critics of the western view on India.

The creation of "Hinduism"
Sweetman identifies several areas in which "there is substantial, if nor universal, agreement that colonialism influenced the study of Hinduism":
 * 1) The establishment of a textual basis for Hinduism by European Orientalists, akin to the Protestant culture. This establishment was also driven by the preference of the colonial powers for written authority rather than oral authority.
 * 2) The influence of Brahmins on European constructions of Hinduism. Colonialism has been a significant factor in the reinforcement of the Brahmana castes, and the "brahmanisation" of Hindu society. The Brahmana castes preserved the texts which were studied by Europeans, and provided access to them. The authority of those texts was enlarged by the study of those texts by Europeans. Brahmins and Europeans scholars shared a similar perspective in the perception of "a general decline from an originally pure religion".
 * 3) The identification of Vedanta, and specifically Advaita Vedanta, as the "paradigmatic example of the mystical nature of the Hindu religion" and the "central philosophy of the Hindus". Several factors aided in favouring Advaita Vedanta:
 * 4) Fear of French influence, especially the impact of the French Revolution; the hope was that "the supposed quietist and consrvative nature of Vedantic thought would prevent the development of revolutionary sentiment;
 * 5) "The predominance of Idealism in nineteenth century European philosophy";
 * 6) "The amenability of Vedantic thought to both Christian and Hindu critics of 'idolatry' in other formsd of Hinduism".
 * 7) The European construction of caste, which denied former political configurations, and insisted upon an "essentially religious character" of India. During the colonial period, caste was represented as a religious system, and divorced from political powers. This made it possible for the colonial rulers to portray India as a society characterised by spiritual harmony, but to portray the former Indian states as "despotic and epiphenomenal", with the colonial powers providing the necessary "benevolent, paternalistic rule by a more 'advanced' nation". It also contributed to the significant role of religion in the Indian freedom struggle, since religion was the area to which indian powers were confined.
 * 8) The construction of 'Hinduism' in the image of Christianity, as "a systematic, confessional, all-embracing religious entity". Several forces played a role in this construction:
 * 9) The European scholarship which studied India,
 * 10) The "acts of policy of the colonial state",
 * 11) Anti-colonial Hindus "looking toward the systematization of disparate practices as a means of recovering a precolonial, antional identity".

Early translations
European missionaries were active in India since the early 1700's, for example Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, who translated Christian texts into Tamil, but also collected tamil texts, and translated several of them. In 1785 appeared the first western translation of a Sanskrit-text.

Mutual cultural exchange
Since the beginning of the 19th century, modernisation movements appeared in eastern countries and cultures, such as the Brahmo Samaj and Neo-Vedanta in India, Dharmapala's Maha Bodhi Society, and Buddhist modernism in Japan.

Mutual syncretism
In the west, as aerly as the 19th century the Transcendentalists were influenced by Eastern religions, followed by the Theosophical Society, New Thought, Western Buddhism, the Perennial Philosophy of Aldous Huxley, New Age and Nondualism.