Timothy Richard's Buddhist-Christian Studies
Timothy Richard (1845-1919), one of the most well-known nineteenth-century British missionaries who worked in China,1 is still remembered today for his efforts to disseminate "Western learning" and to promote social welfare and political reform in China.2 Interestingly, although Richard's missionary, educational, and political activities undoubtedly dominated his life in China, he also found the time to translate a number of Buddhist texts from Chinese into English.3 Unlike many of his fellow Christian missionaries, who either despised or ignored Chinese Buddhism, Richard endeavored to promote a dialogue between Christianity and other religions, especially Chinese Buddhism. In fact, his translations inspired several other European missionaries and Sinologists to take a greater interest in Chinese Buddhism, particularly Richard's biographer William E. Soothill (1861-1935) and Karl Ludvig Reichelt (18771952),4 the founder of Tao Fong Shan, which continues to promote Buddhist-Christian dialogue several decades after its foundation.5 However, Richard's translations of Chinese Buddhist texts, particular his translation of The Awakening of Faith, have been largely neglected by both Buddhists and Sinologists. As a result, the significance of Richard's dialogue with Chinese Buddhism has not yet been properly evaluated. Two recent studies of Richard have focused on his translation of the Buddhist texts
Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion
To the Victorians, the Chinese were invariably "inscrutable." The meaning and provenance of this impression--and, most importantly, its workings in nineteenth-century Protestant missionary encounters with Chinese religion--are at the center of Eric Reinders's Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies, an enlightening look at how missionaries' religious identity, experience, and physical foreignness produced certain representations of China between 1807 and 1937. Reinders first introduces the imaginative world of Victorian missionaries and outlines their application of mind-body dualism to the dualism of self and other. He then explores Western views of the Chinese language, especially ritual language, and Chinese ritual, particularly the kow-tow. His work offers surprising and valuable insight into the visceral nature of the Victorian response to the Chinese--and, more generally, into the nineteenth-century Western representation of China.
Nietzsche's Moral Philosophy
Expounds and criticizes the moral consequences of Nietzsche's basic concept of the will to power. This study argues that Nietzsche's doctrines on moral subjects reveal a man profoundly torn between different and conflicting impulses.