Blending the Rivers, Loosing the Flavor – American Legacies of Japanese Buddhist Discourses on Caste, Race, and Empire

This paper explores the historically and ethically ambiguous nature of Buddhist notions of social "equality." The Japanese-American True Pure Land priest Yemyo Imamura (1867–1932) identified Buddhism's supposed commitment to caste equality as crucial to its flourishing in a multi-ethnic democracy. The paper focuses on the experiences of Zen master Shaku Sōen (1860–1919) on Sri Lanka under British colonial rule to investigate the genealogy of Imamura's claim. Sri Lankan Buddhism, Sōen argued, fostered inequality along lines of race and caste, undermining social cohesion and abetting the colonial regime. Japanese Mahāyāna Buddhism, in contrast, was predicated on equality and provided the basis for a liberatory anti-colonial politics. Ironically, Sōen's Mahāyāna was based on the apologetics of Singhalese Christians such as James de Alwis (1823–1878), and soon declined into ideological support of Japan's own colonial ambitions. This history throws into doubt Buddhism's capability of generating a robust notion of "equality."