“Theravada Buddhism has never gotten proper attention in the literature devoted to Buddhism in the West. Wendy Cadge here observes two Theravada communities in the U.S. to reveal how American Buddhists actually live out their religions. She also offers new and important input into how we think about the role of religion in American society during times of globalization. Heartwood [by Wendy Cadge] will add tremendously to our understanding of the Buddhist tradition in America” — Charles Prebish, Penn State University.
The origin of Theravada Buddhism in America can be traced to a speech made by Anagarika Dharmapala at the World Parliament of Religions meeting in 1893. Born in 1864 in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon), Don David Hewavitharne became a celibate layman and adopted the title Anagarika Dharmapala, meaning “homeless one,” “guardian of the Dharma.”
Heavily influenced by [Colonel] Olcott (1832–1907) and [Madame] Blavatsky (1831–1891), Theosophists who first visited India and Ceylon from America in 1878 and 1880, Dharmapala spent his life spreading Buddhism around the world. At the Parliament, Dharmapala spoke about how Buddhism, Christianity, and scientific approaches to the world overlap, saying that the “Buddha inculcated the necessity of self-reliance and independent thought,” and “accepted the doctrine of evolution as the only true one.”
Theosophists and others in the United States were influenced by elements of Theravada Buddhism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Groups of Burmese and Sri Lankan monks visited the United States before the first Theravada Buddhist organization was formed in Washington, D.C., in 1966. The Washington Buddhist Vihara and the Buddhist Study Center in New York, the first two Theravada Buddhist organizations in the United States, were... More>>
