The Buddhist Canon and the Canon of Buddhist Studies

Abstract

In contemporary academia, the concept of a canon is rather unpopular1. The word ‘canon’2 reminds us of elites who use their power to suppress opposing views by labeling them as non-canonical and heretic. It reminds us of colonialism and ‘Orientalism,’ of the ways Western scholars ‘canonized’ the knowledge of ‘the East.’ And it reminds us of a ‘classical’ canon in education that conservative instructors and politicians attempt to save from postmodern randomness. In Buddhist Studies, such general reservations about the canon appear to become manifest in two demands: In our research, we must focus on sources other than the Buddhist canon; and in teaching, we must abandon the inherited ‘canon’ of class readings, which again consists mainly of Buddhist canonical texts, and must teach contemporary Buddhist practice instead. In this paper, I will reconsider those demands by reflecting upon the Buddhist canon as a subject of research, and upon our own scholarly canonizations, the secondary canon of Buddhist Studies. The first part of the paper examines the role of the Buddhist canon in research and in teaching, the trend towards non-canonical sources, and the current affection for contemporary practice. As a textual scholar who works with canonical texts, I intend to point to some risks that are, in my view, inherent in that general trend. To corroborate my critique and to illustrate what

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