The First Western Book on Buddhism and Buddha

Although the Western encounter with Asia’s largest religion may be the vastest and most consequential spiritual encounter in human history, its protagonists and historical development are still barely known.  Thus it comes as no surprise that even specialists have hitherto failed to appreciate the earliest Western book about Buddhism: Michel-Jean-François Ozeray’s Recherches sur Buddou ou Bouddou, instituteur religieux de l’Asie orientale (Paris, 1817). To commemorate Ozeray’s pioneering work on the 200th anniversary of its publication, it is here presented in the original French with Urs App’s English translation on facing pages.

In his 73-page introduction App, the prize-winning author of books on the Western discovery of Asian religions, presents and analyzes Ozeray’s view of Buddhism and its founder. Tracing the author’s main sources, he explains why his book deserves to be recognized as a pioneering contribution to Western knowledge about Buddhism and to global-scale comparative religion. Published just before the onset of academic research on Buddhism in Europe, Ozeray’s work relied not on Christian missionary literature or romantic speculation but rather on figurative representations and reports furnished by ambassadors, travelers, and long-time residents in Asian countries. Due to its focus on living Buddhism as practised in numerous Asian countries, Ozeray’s pioneering study is—in spite of its inevitable flaws—in many respects more congruent with modern field work than the majority of popular books on Buddhism that bend the spiritualism and esotericism shelves in today’s bookstores.