“Buddhism Has Made Asia Mild”

This chapter suggests that the notion of Buddhism-cum-pacifism is largely a modern reshaping of ideals of nonviolence, in a modernist attempt at reformulating a new Buddhism suitable for the modern world. Absence of ritual and rationalism were made into two of the most important markers of Theravada Buddhism that distinguished it from Hinduism. On the basis of contemporary debates in Sri Lanka, the chapter explores that the uncritical acceptance of "canonical pacifism" expresses a view in which Buddhism degenerates from "ethical" to "political", ignoring a critical discussion of politics, kingship, and social order as expressed in canonical sources. European interpretations of Buddhism certainly influenced the ways in which Buddhism was modernized in Asia. Using Sri Lanka as a case, the chapter argues that the principle of nonviolence was strategically used by anti-colonial forces and consequently that Buddhist pacifism is largely a modern, anti-colonial, and Gandhian-inspired enterprise, with little historical precedence in Buddhist history.