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Identifying inclusivism in buddhist contexts

The literature analyzing Christian attitudes towards non-Christian religions is now quite extensive. When it comes to Buddhist attitudes towards nonBuddhists, however, the scholarship lags far behind. A few pieces can be found on such topics as ‘Buddhism and dialogue’ or ‘Buddhism and toleration’. Comparative work on particular topics abounds and there are numerous works that discuss the problems of religious plurality generally, but there still is relatively little rigorous work utilizing the categories of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism with specific reference to Buddhism. Occasionally these terms are loosely applied to Buddhist behaviors, but we lack extended accounts of just what each of these terms might mean in Buddhist contexts. Of these options for responding to religious others, inclusivism, in particular, has been enjoying widespread popularity nowadays. Many seek to justify inclusivism using the resources of their respective religious systems. Accordingly, Christian writers have already produced a body of work developing theological justifications for inclusivistic reasoning. Contemplating the proper Christian response to plurality, they have distinguished various types of inclusivism and endorsed some while criticizing others. The time is at hand for Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism to take up this sort of work. I aim, therefore, to get the ball rolling by exploring inclusivism in Buddhist contexts. I do so in order to encourage Buddhists and scholars to develop more theoretical work on Buddhist responses to religious diversity and in order to mine Buddhist cases for the light that they shed on the nature of inclusivism in general. I selectively survey evidence of inclusivism among Buddhists in order to categorize and compare patterns in the moves and resources that Buddhists have used in the service of responding inclusivistically towards non-Buddhists. This overview is a first step before Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism can reflect with more precision on the desirability of specific inclusivistic moves. My ancestor in this project, the late German Indologist Paul Hacker, created a stir with his short, pioneering piece on inclusivism in the Indian context. (In fact, he asserted that inclusivism is a particularly Indian form of thought, although that claim has been decisively refuted by many scholars.) He explored several examples from Hinduism but, regrettably, only a couple from Buddhism. Beginning where he left off, I gather many more examples from Buddhist cases and, as a result, challenge his characterization of Buddhist inclusivism.