Not Even Scientific Illusions

It is a general rule of modern politics that the vociferousness of “Liberals” is directly proportional to their ignorance of the subject under discussion. Naturally, therefore, the prophets who frantically urge us to abase ourselves before the masses of Asia think it unnecessary to inform themselves concerning the culture of the Orient and contemptuously disregard the great religions that have formed the Oriental mind.

To one of these religions Maurice Percheron’s Buddha and Buddhism (translated by Edmund Stapleton, Harper, $1.35) is a concise and, on the whole, reliable introduction. I believe, however, that the available evidence, both historical and textual, warrants a clearer statement of the origins of Buddhism, which was not at first a religion at all.

RO

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Revilo Oliver

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It is a general rule of modern politics that the vociferousness of “Liberals” is directly proportional to their ignorance of the subject under discussion. Naturally, therefore, the prophets who frantically urge us to abase ourselves before the masses of Asia think it unnecessary to inform themselves concerning the culture of the Orient and contemptuously disregard the great religions that have formed the Oriental mind.

To one of these religions Maurice Percheron’s Buddha and Buddhism (translated by Edmund Stapleton, Harper, $1.35) is a concise and, on the whole, reliable introduction. I believe, however, that the available evidence, both historical and textual, warrants a clearer statement of the origins of Buddhism, which was not at first a religion at all.