rently living in exile in Dharamsala in northern India.
From the point of view of the ruling Communist Party
of China the colonization of Tibet is little more than
a reoccupation of Chinese lands that has afforded the
liberation of the Tibetan people “from serfdom.” It is
clear, however, that the history of Tibet, partly for rea-
sons of geographical isolation, but also because of its
long Buddhist history, represents a highly distinctive
culture and polity and has many affinities with South
Asian culture and traditions.
The sixteenth to twentieth centuries witnessed the
colonization of large parts of the globe by Europeans
on a scale that was historically unprecedented. Euro-
pean colonialism has left an indelible mark upon the
ways in which Asian Buddhists experience “moder-
nity” and their own sense of cultural, national, and re-
ligious identity.
On May 27, 1498, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da
Gama arrived on the southwest coast of India. This was
a turning point in the history of Asia and Europe.
There had, of course, been interaction between Asia
and Europe since long before the common era (e.g.,
along the SILKROAD), but not to the extent that was
precipitated by da Gama’s arrival. Portugal, sanctioned
by the Vatican to expand the Christian empire to the
East, established an early monopoly in the exploration
of Asian territories and the plundering of Asian re-
sources. Gradually, however, there was wider Euro-
pean involvement in the exploration and colonization
of the Asian world. The spread of the Protestant Re-
formation throughout Europe allowed for a challenge
to the Portuguese monopoly, based as it was upon pa-
pal sanction. In the 1590s, for instance, the Dutch took
control of much of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and In-
donesia. The British were excluded from Indonesia and
so concentrated on consolidating their interests on the
Indian mainland and in Ceylon and Burma. The
French established a few bases on the subcontinent
(such as in Pondicherry on the southeast coast of In-
dia) but turned the main focus of their attention to In-
dochina (mainly Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam).
In broad terms, there were two main waves of West-
ern influence upon Asian Buddhism during the colo-
nial period. First, the effect of widespread Christian
missionary activity by Europeans, and then later the
impact of Western secular models of nationalism and
scientific rationalist philosophies. Both waves precipi-
tated a complex series of responses, leading to the rise
of Buddhist nationalism and what some scholars have
called “Protestant Buddhism” (Gombrich and Obeye-
sekere) or “Buddhist modernism” (Bechert) and the
development of a variety of syntheses between tradi-
tional Buddhist values and contemporary ideologies
such as Marxism, free-market capitalism, and scien-
tific empiricism.In the latter half of the twentieth century, the inde-
pendence gained by many former colonies in South
and Southeast Asia left a political vacuum into which
stepped a variety of indigenous interest groups and
political movements. Some of these movements in-
volve implicit (and sometimes explicit) appeal to Bud-
dhist traditions and values in the formulation of their
stances. One feature of this has been the rise of Bud-
dhist forms of nationalist politics of varying ideolog-
ical shades. “Buddhist socialism,” for instance,
developed as a political force in states such as Cam-
bodia and Burma. Despite some misgivings by the siz-
able ethnic minority groups, Burma, under the
leadership of U Nu, recognized Buddhism as the coun-
try’s official state religion in 1961. A military coup un-
der General Ne Win quickly ensued in 1962, however,
leading to the establishment of a more radical left-wing
military regime and the disestablishment of Buddhism.
Burma (renamed Myanmar) remains under military
rule, although this has not prevented the development
of pro-democracy movements, focused mainly upon
the inspirational figure of Aung San Suu Kyi, winner
of the 1991 Nobel Prize for peace and herself inspired
by Buddhist principles in her campaign for democra-
tic elections. Similarly, in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Buddhist
nationalist movements have played a significant role
in postindependence politics. The Sri Lankan example
serves as an illustration of the impact of European
colonialism upon indigenous Buddhist traditions and
institutions.In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the
Dutch controlled much of Ceylon and Indonesia. Eco-
nomic inducements were offered to local “heathens”
to convert to Christianity, and this effort was com-
bined with vigorous missionary polemics against the
“idolatrous” and superstitious practices of the Bud-
dhists. In 1711 the Dutch issued a proclamation in
Ceylon that explicitly forbade Christian involvement
in “the ceremonies of heathenism,” with the penalty of
a public flogging and a year’s imprisonment for those
found engaging in such practices. In 1795 the British
first appeared on the coast and by 1815 they had an-
nexed the whole island.Three factors have been crucial in the colonial
transformation of indigenous Asian subjectivities: theCOLONIALISM ANDBUDDHISM