From Orientalism to Cultural Nationalism: Decentralizing European Buddhology in Early Twentieth-Century China Huaiyu Chen, Arizona State University, USA ABSTRACT This essay examines how modern Chinese scholars came to terms with “scientific” Buddhology as a European knowledge system in the early twentieth century. Unlike Japan, where some leading Buddhists who were educated in Europe attempted to transform Buddhism into a modern religion and even a unique national spirit to accommodate the needs of Japanese modernization, in modern China, Buddhism in crisis was considered less of an intellectual and spiritual resource for reviving the national spirit. By focusing on Chen Yinke, a pivotal scholar of modern Buddhology, the essay looks into the intermingling of Orientalism and cultural nationalism among Chinese intellectuals who faced the challenge of modern European humanistic knowledge as compared to Chinese traditional knowledge on Buddhism and India. n the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Chinese scholars faced two transitional challenges: the transition of China from a traditional empire to a modern nation-state, and the transition of knowledge from traditional Chinese learning to modern disciplinary academia. In the traditional Chinese learning culture, the study of Buddhism was categorized as a division of philosophical learning, one of the four major divisions of classical Confucian learning, historical learning, philosophical learning, and literary learning. However, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, due to the political and military crisis of the Qing Empire (1644–1911), Chinese scholars began to come to terms with so-called Western learning, including natural sciences, engineering, and humanities and social sciences. Some Chinese scholars were also exposed to modern Buddhology, one of the most flourishing fields in the field of Oriental studies in the West. These scholars, though originally trained in the conventional Chinese learning tradition, gradually learned about modern Buddhology in Europe I History of Humanities, volume 6, number 2, fall 2021. © 2021 Society for the History of the Humanities. All rights reserved. Published by The University of Chicago Press for the Society for the History of the Humanities. https://doi.org/10.1086/715936 549 THEME 550 | HISTORY OF HUMANITIES FALL 2021 and America. Chen Yinke 陳寅恪 (1890–1969) was one of the most important people that the current essay examines. As this essay demonstrates, on the one hand, Chen attempted to modernize Buddhist studies by introducing modern Western Buddhology as part of the modernization of Chinese learning in order to compete with the Western learning of modern academia. On the other hand, Chen’s scholarship reflects strong cultural nationalism against the hegemony of Western imperial and colonial ideologies in Oriental studies. In the early twentieth century, China was in a turbulent transition from a declining imperial Asian power to a modern nation-state due to a series of domestic and international wars and revolutions. This political change had a tremendous impact on cultural, educational, and learning practice. Institutionally, in 1905, the Qing government abandoned the civil examination system that had been used by Chinese imperial governments for more than one thousand years. For Chinese literati, studying Confucianism was no longer meaningful for taking the exam and serving in the government. Chinese students turned to study modern science, technology, and humanities as well as social sciences.1 In the meantime, modern Buddhology developed in the West (the term referring to the so-called modern scientific study of Buddhism was coined by contemporary scholars), was also introduced into China by some Chinese scholars who were trained in the West or accepted the influence of Western scholarship. The first generation of scholars who contributed to the rise of modern Buddhology in China included Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), Chen Yuan 陳垣 (1880–1971), Chen Yinke, Hu Shih 胡適 (1891– 1962), and Tang Yongtong 湯用彤 (1893–1964). In focusing on Chen Yinke, one of the most important scholars who introduced modern Buddhology into China, this essay provides a case study for contextualizing the ambivalent position of the pioneers of modern Buddhologists in China, who sought to modernize Chinese learning through introducing Western Orientalist scholarship while preserving cultural identity through the nationalist orientation of modern Buddhology. On the one hand, Chinese scholars struggled to establish Buddhist studies as a modern discipline in China in order to catch up with modernized Japan and Western powers. On the other hand, Chinese scholars did not regard Buddhism as a cultural “other” but attempted to preserve their cultural identity in their scholarship. In this essay, the first section examines the global academic network that nourished Chen Yinke’s modern Buddhology. The second section will look into how Chen imposed his academic ideal of modernizing Buddhology in China during his tenure at Tsinghua College in the 1920s 1. Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas; Moloughney and Zarrow, Formation and Development of Academic Disciplines in China. | 551 and his legacy. The third section will offer a critical analysis of the cultural nationalist nature of Chen’s Buddhological scholarship. CHEN’S TRANSNATIONAL ACADEMIC NETWORK: THE GLOBALIZING OF KNOWLEDGE Arguably, Chen Yinke was one of the most legendary Chinese humanities scholars in the twentieth century.2 He was born into a traditional literati-official family, and his grandfather was governor of Hunan province and a political reformer in the late nineteenth century. Although he was from a traditional family, Chen Yinke received his education in the modern school system, and he spent about thirteen years studying in Japan, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States. He trained in Oriental studies by working with leading Western scholars for about ten years. Once he began to teach in China in 1926, he endeavored to introduce modern Oriental studies to the nation. Beginning in the 1930s, he shifted his scholarly focus to medieval Chinese history and became one of the founding scholars of the modern study of medieval Chinese history. He went blind in the 1940s but turned to study late imperial China with the help of assistants. In the 1930s, Chen’s Buddhological legacy was inherited by one of his most important students at Tsinghua University, Ji Xianlin 季羨林 (1911–2009), who went to Göttingen to study classical Indology and Buddhology with Ernst Waldschmidt (1897–1985), Chen’s former classmate in Berlin. In 1946, Ji returned to China and founded the first department of Oriental studies at Peking University, which symbolized the institutional founding of modern Buddhology and Indology in China. Although Chen Yinke was born in a traditional literati-official family, both his grandfather and father supported “new learning” (xinxue), which trained students in the Western learning and knowledge system, in contrast to the “old learning,” which was centered on the Confucian classics. In 1902, along with his brothers, Chen went to study briefly at Waseda, a private college in Japan. As a teenager, Chen Yinke studied at Fudan College in Shanghai, a flourishing port city. Later, in 1910–12, Chen attended the University of Berlin for his college education. He did not work on his college degree in Berlin; instead, he traveled around Europe, taking classes according to his learning interests in Paris and Zürich. He traveled to many European countries and made some interesting observations about contemporary European society in the early twentieth century. Chen’s education on the European continent was interrupted, however, by the outbreak of World War I. So he turned his eyes to the United States in 1918. 2. Schneider, Wahrheit und Geschichte; Yeh, “National Learning and International Study.” THEME FROM ORIENTALISM TO CULTURAL NATIONALISM