Talal Asad and Nishitani Keiji : About the Question "What is Religion?"

Abstract

The fundamental question for the science of religion, "What is religion?" is being questioned recently. According to Talal Asad, the base from which this question is put depends from the beginning on a special standpoint, that is, on secularized Western modernity. Therefore the answer to this question cannot be any universal definition of religion. Does the question, "What is religion?", then, have a very important meaning today or not? Nishitani Keiji also puts forward the question "What is religion?" as a starting point of his research on religion. His question, however, does not seek a definition of religion, and does not grasp religion "theoretically in a concept," but rather searches realistically for true reality and in the process he tries to convert an existential subject into what he calls "the standpoint of sunyata." One can note with approval that Nishitani's question "What is religion?" still has an original meaning in comparison with Asad's standpoint today in terms of the analysis of modern subjectivity, of the relationships of power in its background, and of the idea of religious training and ritual. Moreover, Nishitani's standpoint of sunyata, which is based on Buddhist thought, also contains the possibility to criticize, complement, and develop Asad's theory of power which is based on monotheism.