Max Weber and the Sociology of Buddhism

Abstract

Max Weber’s assessment of primitive Buddhism proves on the whole, as seen from the present-day perspective, to have been surprisingly correct. It is therefore able to serve as starting-point for a survey of the sociology of Buddhism. In this context, a discussion of Weber’s sources is added. Also largely still pertinent today is Weber’s description of the factors that caused the "transformation" of an old "soteriology for intellectuals" confined to a spiritual é1ite, into a religion of the masses. His assessment of the person and position of Aśoka is basically accurate, though details need to be revised; he does not differentiate between the historical Aśoka and the one portrayed in later Theravaḍa tradition. However, his treatment of the later development of Buddhism in the land of its birth, India, remained - true to the state of research at the time - rather tentative and unsatisfying. On the whole, however, the need to refine terminology becomes clear, something that might meaningfully occur on the basis of Weber’s work.