Though fascinated with the land of their tradition's birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth century. In the richly illustrated "Seeking Sakyamuni", Richard M. Jaffe reveals the experiences of the...

Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call "religion". There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese gove...