少女福利

Donald S. Lopez, professor of Buddhism and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, came to Saint Michael鈥檚 College Tuesday night and gave a lecture titled 鈥淎 Jesuit Missionary in Tibet鈥� in the McCarthy Arts Center through the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars program.

Saint Michael鈥檚 has hosted a chapter Phi Beta Kappa since 2003, one of the few Catholic colleges or universities to shelter a chapter of the prestigious national academic honor society. Lopez鈥檚 position in Michigan鈥檚 Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, as well as several of his published works, made him an ideal expert for the Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Saint Michael鈥檚 to invite through this Visiting Scholar program, launched by Phi Beta Kapp in 1956.

His Tuesday lecture drew upon the speaker鈥檚 own extensive work studying Ippolito Desideri, a Jesuit missionary who traveled to Tibet in the early 1700s. A central focus of the talk was the history of Christianity鈥檚 relationship with Buddhism. Professor Nathaniel Lew, president of Saint Michael鈥檚 Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society chapter, opened up the lecture gathering and introduced Lopez.

Lopez opened his lecture with the statement, 鈥渃onflicts among religions are as old as religion itself.鈥� He explained how scholars like himself spend much of their time 鈥渞escuing鈥� religions that early Christian authorities and scholars negatively labeled as 鈥渋dolaters,鈥� such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.

In his lecture, Lopez explained how Buddhism has been one of the only religions largely to escape the harshest Christian negativity of this period and even after, though he did not specifically say (nor rule out) that the Jesuit missionary was a significant reason. In many early Christian missionary texts, Lopez said, 鈥渃aricature and stereotype鈥� often represent Buddhism, but, Lopez said, scholars use these negative texts not so much to understand Buddhism better as to understand more about their Christian authors.

Lopez shared details from history about Desideri and his years in Tibet among Buddhists and Buddhist monks: The only record of him being in Tibet are this missionary鈥檚 own writings, and s no Tibetan sources ever have emerged describing Desideri鈥檚 presence there. As a result, scholars do not know with whom he spoke during those Tibet visits.

During his years in Tibet, Desideri wrote a guide with his thoughts on the best way to evangelize Tibet and reached the radical conclusion that Buddhism was more honorable a religion than what he referred to as the 鈥淚ndian paganism鈥� — what scholars understand to be a reference to Hinduism.

Donald Lopez

The speaker said Desideri labeled and defended Buddhism as a 鈥渟pecial paganism.鈥� As the only Christian and only European in Tibet, Lopez said, Desideri wanted to stay there but eventually was ordered back to Rome by the Catholic Church. He faced ridicule upon his return to Italy for his stances on Buddhism. The aspects of Buddhism that he did not understand from a Catholic perspective he labeled as 鈥淪atanism鈥� which Lopez sees as interesting given that Desideri was a man known to be devoted to reason.

Desideri spent his time in Tibet learning the language and the Buddhist religion, eventually drawing parallels between the final rebirth of the Buddha and the Christian Nativity.

The Buddha, Lopez said, 鈥渋s how the Word became flesh鈥� for Tibetans in Desideri鈥檚 thinking. To explain similarities between the religions, later scholars posited 鈥� wrongly according to Lopez 鈥� that those similarities are traceable to the two faiths having encountered one another in history, though Church authorities rejected this notion, preferring to explain this difference as demonic plagiarism.鈥�

Lopez closed his lecture with a translated prayer by Desideri and encouraged the lecture attendees to 鈥渇ocus their minds on Jesus or the Buddha.鈥�