Catalyst for Controversy: Paul Carus of Open Court

6. Looking Toward the East

o Looking Toward the East Ofall the ways in which Paul Carus sought to promote the religion of science, by far the most consequential was Open Court's patronage of Oriental religion and philosophy, especially Buddhism. Carl Jackson, author ofThe Oriental Religions andAmerican Thought: Nineteenth-Century Explorations (1981), has described Carus as "one of the most important and one of the earliest popularizers of Oriental thought in America" (1968,74,78). UnderCarus's direction, between 1893 and 1915 Open Court published thirty-eight books on the subject, fifteen ofthem by Carus himself The Open Court and The Monist gave Easteru religions and societies more extensive and sympathetic coverage than any U.S. publications had before-and, according to Jackson, more than any others did until after World War II. Although complete sales records have never been located, the available evidence indicates that Carus's compilation The Gospel a/Buddha was his, and the company's, runaway all-time best-seller. It went through more printings and editions, and more translations, than any other Open Court work. In 1915 Carus knew personally of translations into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Urdu and had granted rights for translations into Russian, "Czechic," Italian, Siamese, and "other Oriental tongues" (McCoy 1987, 9, 89-91; P. Carus 1915b, vi). For the one year for which we have firm sales figures (1 Feb. 1896-1 Feb. 1897), books on Buddhism made up more than one-quarter of Open Court's total sales (McCormack 1897). The company's best-seller that year was Carus's tale Karma 89 90 0 Catalyst for Controversy (1894b; 1,360 copies), which indeed enjoyed such popularity that it was pirated in at least ten languages, including a version attributed to Leo Tolstoy (Fullenwider 1987). Of the three books by Carus that remain in Open Court's recent catalogues, one deals with Buddhist and one with Chinese thought. Until the World Parliament of Religions, howevel; there was little evidence that Carus would become a particular advocate of Buddhism at all, let alone an ardent one. Just a month before it opened (7 Aug. 1893), he wrote to Professor Robert Smith ofBirmingham, England, that he was interested "not in modern Buddhism, but in the old Buddhism of Buddha." That same day he elaborated in a letter to C. W. Pfounds, a possible contributor in Kyoto, Japan: "My interest in the Buddhism of today is not more intense than any other anthropological or ethnological or historico-religious subject.... It is a matter of course that [for publication] I want a cool, unbiased statement which should be benevolent but not enthusiastic." Carus was no stranger to Buddhism at this time. Although it is no longer possible to reconstruct his early intellectual history, we do know that in a scholarly climate already open to the East, he had studied under Hermann Grassmann, who in addition to his mathematical profession was also a Sanskritist (Jackson 1968, 75). Some time prior to his leaving Germany, Carus had discussed religion with a visiting Japanese Buddhist high priest, a "Rev. Kitabatake" whom he later described as "highly educated" (P. Carus to Pfounds, 7 Aug. 1893) and who gave Carus "much food for thought" by shOwing him a religion that"does not prescribe anydogma to be believedin" (P. Carus 1888d, 837). And a few years later he had published the sixtypage Lieder eines Buddhisten (1882). But this acquaintance had not flowered into anything more. Up to the fall ofl893 readers ofThe Open Court had had only a small taste of Orientalia. During the Underwoods' tenure, General J. G. R. Forlong described Buddhist influences on early Christianity (1887), a favorite theme throughout Looking Toward the East o 91 the magazine's history, and five years later Professor H. H. Williams (1892) described the psychology of Buddhism in the magazine. In The Open Court's first seven years Carus himselftouched on Buddhism only twice, both times speaking from a distinctly Western standpoint. Buddhism and Christianity are quite simi1ar ' he argued in January 1890: "Other religions require sacrifices of lambs and goats. Buddhism and Christianity demand the surrender ofself' (1890b). He concluded that "the religion of the future will not be Christian dogmatism" without mentioning Buddhism. Carus's only other preparliament discussion of Buddhism was entitled "The Religion ofa Forerunner ofChrist" (1890a). In it Carus warned his readers that the idea ofNirvana could be "of a most dangerous charactCl; if it is...