Strange Tales of an Oriental Idol An Anthology of Early European Portrayals of the Buddha
Strange Tales of an Oriental Idol: An Anthology of Early European Portrayals of the Buddha (Buddhism and Modernity) by Donald S. Lopez
English | November 10, 2016 | ISBN: 0226493180, 022639123X | True EPUB | 288 pages | 2 MB
We tend to think that the Buddha has always been seen as the compassionate sage admired around the world today, but until the nineteenth century, Europeans often regarded him as a nefarious figure, an idol worshipped by the pagans of the Orient. Donald S. Lopez Jr. offers here a rich sourcebook of European fantasies about the Buddha drawn from the works of dozens of authors over fifteen hundred years, including Clement of Alexandria, Marco Polo, St. Francis Xavier, Voltaire, and Sir William Jones.