Buddhology, or the systematic study of the Buddha and Buddhahood, has its roots in the earliest beginnings of the early Dharma. Asked if he was man or god, Shakyamuni simply replied that he was Awakened. No doubt an inspiring and affecting response, but within many of the early suttas are questions from diverse and curious disciples, skeptics and teachers: who is the Buddha? What is Buddhahood? During the colonial period, Buddhology came to be associated with Europeans anxious to impose their own projections of what they believed Buddhism to be onto the great traditions of the surviving Theravada and Mahayana schools. This was ultimately unsuccessful, however. The schools of the Blessed One proved, at least intellectually, far more tenacious than colonialists and exploiters expected. Some even began to take Buddhology seriously as an ancient discipline that dated to the epoch Shakyamuni walked this earth, which is called Endurance in the Buddhist tradition. This is the fundamental thrust of Buddhology and cannot be forgotten. It is of unsurpassed importance that scholars, philosophers, and historians return to what Buddhology fundamentally seeks to understand: to meet the Buddha and share in the inconceivable, holy enlightenment that is Buddhahood.

The universality of Buddhological study is such: like all other endeavours in the spiritual tradition, it fosters personal growth in the form of intellectual refinement, open-mindedness, and spiritual curiosity. It provides the conditions necessary for Amitabha’s infinite light to illuminate the pathways of one’s potential. The trails that whisper to the secretive heart are suddenly brightened and seem more comfortable, less daunting. But personal development is not limited to the academic sphere. Buddhology is certainly complex and sometimes even unfathomable, for it is as vast and deep as the ocean and cannot be mastered in one lifetime. One must revisit the subject over many returns. But in doing so, the scholar becomes an activist, and the student becomes a meditator. The universality of Buddhology lies in a true “Buddha-remembrance” that follows the untraceable footsteps of the Pure Land masters: to remember the Buddha and the Buddha’s loving compassion. Sentient beings, without exception will be enlightened and experience complete bliss. This is the soteriological truth of that Buddhology, like all other Buddhist disciplines, testify to. All that remains is to determine how to express these truths and experiences so that the humans of Endurance can prepare for their turn to return to the world as blissful bodhisattvas of limitless light and limitless life.

In the postmodern world, Buddhology has to be reclaimed as a field in which the very study of Shakyamuni, and indeed all other Buddhas, have some significance to those who tremble with spiritual hunger. Buddhology must be erudite, scholarly, and intellectually rigorous, no doubt. We owe much to the scholars, both Eastern and Western, who have developed it into such a stern discipline within the fields of history, anthropology, and sociology. However, a practical approach to Buddhology must speak to Buddhists as well as teachers and writers who may or may not be Buddhists. For without the Buddha, there is no Dharma, and there is no Sangha. In this sense Buddhology has no choice but to be universal, and ever more pertinent to our pluralistic society of diverse spiritual disciplines.