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Levi-Strauss and the Buddhists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Ivan Strenski
Ivan Strenski
Affiliation:
Connecticut College
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Extract

This is by no means the first attempt to link Levi-Strauss with Buddhist thought. It is my purpose to make it, however, the most thorough and least eccentric comparison to date. I want to set the record straight about the nature and significance of Buddhist parallels in the thought of Claude Levi-Strauss.

Type
Fresh Applications of Familiar Models
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 1980 , pp. 3 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1980

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References

1 Throughout this essay I shall use Theravada Buddhism as my standard representative of the Buddhist tradition. This branch of Buddhism is found today in most parts of South and Southeastern Asia. It contrasts with the Mahayana tradition of East Asia in doctrine, social organization, ritual, among other things. The chief reasons I have chosen this form of Buddhism for comparison with structuralist thought are three: (1) the ideas of Theravada Buddhism seem more closely related to Levi-Strauss's ideas than those of other forms of Buddhism; (2) only one documented account of Levi-Strauss's encounter with a Buddhist society exists, a meeting that took place in the early 1950s in Theravadin Burma; and (3) because Theravada Buddhism is in many ways logically and historically the most ‘primitive” form of Buddhism we know, it serves ably the purpose of comparison. On the one hand, simplicity makes the conceptual task of comparing systems of thought, complex even under normal circumstances, all the easier. On the other hand, since in some way the classic ideas of all Buddhist traditions can be seen to develop from seminal ideas and oppositions in Theravada Buddhism as revealed in the Pali Canon, a comparison that begins with Theravada Buddhism has at least a good chance of representing the broad traditions of Buddhism. This is not however necessarily to echo the beliefs of modern Theravada orthodoxy: some forms of Mahayana Buddhism are just as, or even more, ‘primitive” than forms of Theravadin belief and practice. I want only to agree with those who have made the case for the extraordinary antiquity and primitiveness of much of the Pali Canon and current Theravadin belief and practice.

2 Murphy, R. F., ‘On Zen Marxism,” Man, 63, 1963.Google Scholar

3 Hughes, H. S., The Obstructed Path (New york: Harper and Row, 1968)Google Scholar, reprinted in Hayes, E. and Hayes, T., eds. Claude Levi-Strauss: The Anthropologist as Hero (Cambridge: The MIT Press 1970), pp. 22–16.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 45.

5 I have coined the term ‘salon Buddhism” to describe a certain cultural vogue for Buddhist notions and practices among Western intellectual elites in the early decades of the 20th century. As far as I know, little work has been done on this phenomenon, although such studies might easily be as rewarding and informative as studies we now possess on the rage for oriental ideas and practices in the last two decades.

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10 Ibid., p. 137.

11 Ibid., p. 130.

12 Ibid., p. 139.

13 Ibid., p. 136.

14 Ibid., p. 120.

15 Ibid., p. 138.

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27 Personal correspondence.

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47 Ibid., p. 395.

48 Johanson, R., The Psychology of Nirvana (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969). Ch. XIV.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., p. 66.

50 Ibid., and Karunadasa, Y., The Buddhist Analysis of Matter (Colombo: Department of Cultural Affairs, 1967), p. 65fn.Google Scholar

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59 Ibid.