Enlightenment and the Gasping City: Mongolian Buddhism at a Time of Environmental Disarray by Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, and: The Buddha’s Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia by Johan Elverskog (review)

Abstract

Eco-Buddhism, also called ecodharma, green Buddhism, and Buddhist environmentalism, is increasingly pursued. There were only around ten publications about eco-Buddhism prior to 1970, but more than two hundred were published during the decade 1990–2000 alone.1 Some scholars assert that Buddhism is inherently environmental.2 This idea is challenged by Johan Elverskog based on his selection and interpretation of passages from sacred texts and numerous other sources cited in his forty-eight pages of notes. Elverskog marshals his argument in meticulous detail in ten main chapters foreshadowed by a preface and an introduction. Elverskog writes that Buddhism is the only religion that spread throughout Asia (p. 1). He attempts an ambitious survey of the entire environmental history of Asia, with exclusive attention to Buddhism. His temporal focus is the premodern period (500 BCE–1500 CE). He argues that during this time, Buddhism became a major force in the commodity frontier, responsible for resource extraction, deforestation, agricultural expansion (especially