Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

C ONVERSION
CONVERSION
In most times and places allegiance to Buddhism has
not been an exclusive affair. Buddhist devotees have
felt comfortable worshipping various local deities, as
well as earning merit by making offerings to non-
Buddhist mendicants (in India), embracing Confucian
as well as Buddhist values (in China), or visiting Shinto
shrines as well as Buddhist temples (in Japan). The
inscriptions of the Indian king AŚOKA (ca. mid-third
century B.C.E.)—the earliest surviving written Buddhist
records—portray him both as affirming his own
Buddhist identity and as supporting other religious
groups. The English word conversion, usually understood
to mean the complete abandonment of one religion
and exclusive adherence to another, has little
relevance in such a setting.
The closest analogue to the Western notion of individual
conversion is the act of becoming a lay brother
(upasaka) or lay sister (upasika), portrayed in early
scriptures as a formal act of affiliation involving “taking
refuge” in the three jewels (buddha, dharma, and
SAṄGHA) and vowing to uphold the five lay PRECEPTS.
Similar rituals are still performed today in many Buddhist
societies, ranging from Sri Lanka to Taiwan. An
alternative analogue might be found in the experience
of becoming a stream-enterer (Pali, sotapanna), at
which point one is said to attain a firsthand conviction
of the truth of the Buddha’s teachings. This generally
takes place, however, only after a prolonged period of
practice, demonstrating once again the lack of fit between
the idea of conversion and Buddhist maps of
the PATH.
Most commonly, adherence to Buddhism has not
been the result of individual acts of faith but of a choice
made by a ruler (e.g., in Sri Lanka in the third century
B.C.E. or in Japan and Tibet in the seventh century C.E.)
in the course of political consolidation and imposed
upon the population at large. Such top-down or societal
conversion (Horton) has been the standard mode
of transmission of Buddhism outside India, with the
notable exceptions of China and the West. Such exclusive
state sponsorship has often been temporary,
with a return to the norm of accommodating other local
religious practices once a new political equilibrium
has been achieved.
Examples of conversion in the exclusivist sense are
easiest to find in Buddhist societies that have been significantly
affected by a Western colonial or missionary
presence, such as Sri Lanka (where the public conversion
to Buddhism by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott under
British colonial rule in the late nineteenth century
has left a lasting legacy) or South Korea (where the
growth of Protestant Christianity in recent decades has
led to a strong polarization between Buddhists and
Christians). Some Buddhist-based “new religions” in
Japan, above all the SO KA GAKKAI, also require their
followers to renounce all other religious beliefs and
practices.
Ironically, the Western notion of conversion appears
to be falling out of favor among new adherents
of Buddhism in the West, who often describe themselves
as “taking up the practice of Buddhism” rather
than “converting to the Buddhist religion.” This reluctance
to use the term conversion reflects not only
the traditional absence of a sharp boundary between
Buddhist and non-Buddhist practices in Asian societies,
but also the profound changes currently taking
place in the very notion of what constitutes “religion”
in the modern West.
See also: Colonialism and Buddhism; Local Divinities
and Buddhism; Ordination
Bibliography
Adikaram, E. W. Early History of Buddhism in Ceylon. Colombo,
Sri Lanka: M. D. Gunasena, 1953.
Beltz, Johannes. Mahar, Bouddhiste, et Dalit: conversion religieuse
et emancipation sociopolitique dans l’Inde des castes.
Bern, Switzerland: Lang, 2001.
Gregory, Peter N. “Describing the Elephant: Buddhism in
America.” Religion in American Culture 11, no. 2 (2001):
233–263.
Hammond, Phillip E., and Machacek, David W. So ka Gakkai in
America: Accommodation and Conversion. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999.
Horton, Robin. “African Conversion.” Africa 41, no. 2 (1971):
85–108.
Kapstein, Matthew. The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion,
Contestation, and Memory. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2000.
Nattier, Jan. “Who Is a Buddhist? Charting the Landscape of
Buddhist America.” In The Faces of Buddhism in America,
ed. Charles S. Prebish and Kenneth K. Tanaka. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998.
Prothero, Stephen. The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of
Henry Steel Olcott. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1996.
Thapar, Romila. Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 2nd edition.
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1973.
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