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If you ask a Buddhist, an historian, or a scholar about when Buddhism first took root on American soil you will probably get several different answers.
Here is one more interpretation.
Warren Henry Clarke was born in Massachusetts in 1854 and graduated from Harvard in 1879. There, together with the eminent Sanskrit scholar, Charles Lanman, he founded the Harvard Oriental Series, and published an extensive anthology of Pāli materials, Buddhism in Translations, in 1896. This and other landmark publications has led many to credit him with introducing Buddhism to the West.
Born in Kanazawa, Japan, in 1870, D. T. Suzuki, is widely considered as the father of Zen Buddhism in America. His most famous work, a three volume masterpiece in English, Essays in Zen Buddhism, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, The Training of a Zen Buddhist Monk, all published in the 1950s, put Zen on the American map and firmly established his reputation. Suzuki’s earlier works, also very influential, include the Lankavatara Sutra, the Gandvyuha Sutra, and his first book in English, Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (1907).
Paul Carus emigrated from Germany to America in 1884 and wrote one of the earliest and most influential books on Buddhism, The Gospel of Buddha according to Old Records, a much read book, compiled from a variety of sources already in translation. Despite its fame it lacked good scholarship and was largely Buddhism seen through Carus’ eyes. Curiously, he hosted D.T. Suzuki for eleven years and seemingly learned little from Suzuki’s meticulous scholarship and meditative skill.
The seminal, Light of Asia (1879), by Sir Edwin Arnold, was for much of the English speaking world their first glimpse of Buddhism. Although outdated for decades, no other Buddhist work has matched its popularity. The author’s brilliant rephrasing and recasting of the Buddha’s life, largely derived from the Lalitavistara Sutra, a Sanskrit text, which he so poetically rendered, while infuriating Christians, became a favorite book of Queen Victoria’s and resulted in her knighting Arnold!
Mention of Hermann Oldenberg (1854-1920) and Emile Senart (1847-1928) is a must. Their books depicting the Buddha and his teachings from two distinct perspectives, historical and mythological, respectively, were widely read. Oldenberg travelled to Sri Lanka and extensively researched the Pali literature and based on years of research formulated a picture of the Buddha and his teachings which are regarded as amongst the most authentic to date. Senart took another tact and believed in elevating the Buddha to mythical proportions in order to influence the flock.
Oldenberg famously opposed Senart and his views are considered correct to the present, often serving as a reference for scholars to this day. Together with Thomas Rhys Davids and Caroline Rhys Davids, Oldenberg pieced together from the Pali while in Sri Lanka what is widely believed to be an accurate portrayal of the Buddha’s life and teachings.
Madam Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) deserves mention for her book “telepathically” received by direct transmission from “Great Souls,” which despite questionable origins is nevertheless regarded by many modern scholars as an authentic Buddhist text, The Voice of Silence (1888).
Although not an author of Buddhist texts, Franklin Edgerton, made many translations possible. His famed Sanskrit to English dictionary, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary (1953) and his Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Reader, remain to this day a constant reference on the translator’s desk.
While the work of the translators is immense and their contribution to Buddhism deservedly praised, America made the same mistake the Tibetans made more than a millennium earlier by equating the availability of Buddhist scripture in their native Tibetan language as the arrival of Buddhism in their country. In Tibet, for several centuries the translators were elevated to an almost godly level, worshiped, and made rich with offerings from the wealthy and poor, peasant and noblemen.
Tibetan translators who were bringing valuable material from India, some translated while there, and some in government-sponsored translation institutes. These institutions were large and well-funded, often comprised of tens of translators or more. An appreciative public enbibed the new material and demanded more and more. Over the centuries, of course, the entire Buddhist Tripitaka (canon) would be translated.
Eventually, however, the Tibetan populace began to question their “Buddhist” credentials, as they became increasingly self-aware of the fact that although they were becoming learned Buddhists, they had yet to earn the privilege of considering themselves a Buddhist country. The reason? A Buddhist identity requires a sangha, a community of fully ordained monks and nuns, and while the source country, India, had a robust indigenous sangha, Tibet had yet to ordain a single bhikshu on its soil, and therefore lacked a native sangha, a community of monks and nuns.
Addressing this problem became of paramount importance, so important for the Tibetans that King Songtsan Gampo invited India’s most prestigious abbot, Santarksita (725–788) of Nalanda Monastery in India, to come to Tibet and ordain its first Tibetan monks. This was a landmark move. Santarksita founded the prestigious Samya Monastery. It was here that in 775, with 12 Mulasarvastavada monks from India to assist him, that he ordained hundreds of young Tibetans before his death in Tibet in 778. For the first time Tibet had an indigenous sangha firmly. Similar events occurred in Japan, Korea, and other Mahayana Buddhist countries. Thailand, Burma, and other Theravada Buddhist countries had established their sanghas much earlier.
Over 10 centuries would pass before America would begin questioning its own Buddhist identity, and the Americans would do so for the exact same reasons the Tibetans did. “How can we consider ourselves to be a country where Buddhism is taking root without an indigenous sangha of monks and nuns (bhikshus and bhikshunis),” they wondered. America realized that Buddhism cannot take root in America until America ordains American monks and nuns on its soil.
In order for ordination to take place in America there were considerable hurdles to overcome. Most significant was the necessity of a recognized master of the Buddhist tradition to perform the ordination. While America had many wonderful scholars, some of whom were also skillful meditators, they were not of the caliber necessary for ordaining bhikshus. Lineage is necessary to properly ordain others. It is best that one has received his ordination from one who is a lineage holder. And, in order to receive ordination from a lineage holder it is best to be one whose understanding has ripened in meditation and be therefore a fit vessel for receiving the dharma.
Needless to say, such Masters and vessels are rare. Moreover, even a genuine lineage holder cannot transmit bhikkhu precepts independently. He needs witnesses and aids in the transmission of the 250 precepts required for bhikshu ordination (and 350 for bhukshunis) and these assistants must themselves be fully ordained and respected bhikshus. The host is known as the Upādhyāya, and those presiding over the ceremony. Karmadāna, and Teaching-Acharya.
A chance turn of events occurred when Hsu Yun also known as Xuyun (1849-1969), holder of the Wei Yang lineage of Chan (Chinese Meditation School) in China, ordained a young Manchurian master of meditation, Tu Lun. As soon as he saw the young monk, he recognized his enlightenment, and not only ordained him, giving him the name Hsuan Hua (1918-1995), but also transmitted the Chan lineage to him, making Hsuan Hua the last of the patriarchs reaching back to origins of Chan, and Bodhidharma.
Due to unfavorable conditions in China, Hsuan Hua walked on foot to Hong Kong where he established a temple on Lantau Island. It was not long before he established a reputation as a compassionate and wise master of Buddhism and was recognized by Chinese Americans as one capable of fulfilling America’s need to develop an American bhikkhu sangha. Master Hua was invited to America and soon after with the help of a group of long-haired, counterculture, American renegades established Gold Mountain Monastery, in San Francisco’s Mission District—“the projects”—one of the most dangerous and impoverished areas of the city.
It was here, in Gold Mountain, that the Master in 1972 ordained (by himself) the first American monks and nuns. Later, he invited a delegation from China to assist him in hosting America’s second ordination, in 1976. That was the beginning of several ordinations that paved the way and soon others followed.
Today Buddhism is thriving in America largely due to having an indigenous sangha and the efforts of wonderful scholar/translators whose skill has been curiously acknowledged by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This author has witnessed His Holiness praise American scholarship while admonishing his monks to work hard to keep up with the Americans or they would find themselves becoming their pupils! There is a good deal of truth in this for European and American translations of Buddhist text equal or surpass the ancient translations, no doubt heavily assisted by the computer and greater availability of source material.
While America has a long way to go to catch up with the Asia sangha, Sera Mey, in India, has 5,000 fully ordained monks, and dozens of Buddhist centers are spread throughout India and other parts of Asia that, while not equaling Sera Mey, number their bhikshu members in the hundreds or more.
However, we must bear in mind that the roots of some of these monasteries reach back to the Buddha’s time, others a thousand years or more. American Buddhism is relatively new and growing rapidly just as the eminent Tibetan master, His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa, Rigpe Dorje, predicted it would when he said, “When the iron bird flies, Buddhism will go to the West.”
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