265 Epoché: The University of California Journal for the Study of Religion Book Reviews 266

The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European celebrated an Aryan racialism that could be favorably contrasted
Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. By with the Semitic influences on Islam, Judaism, and most of what
Tomoko Masuzawa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, went wrong with European culture. Ultimately, Masuzawa
2005. 384 pages. $47.50. describes her project as a mix of speed reading (through
theoretical literature that has been largely forgotten) and close
As the title of this book indicates, Tomoko Masuzawa is reading, although she is clearly more comfortable with the latter.
following a number of recent studies that have investigated the In this regard, her close reading in the chapter on Max Müller is
“invented” or “manufactured” character of religious “traditions.” particularly strong whereas her attempts to make broader claims
What is common to these studies is that they are less interested about the twentieth century toward the end of the book are
in the adequacy of religious labels and classifications than they admittedly uneven.
are in the logic and agendas behind the projects of classification. This book is bound to cause a great deal of
What is especially ambitious and impressive about Masuzawa’s defensiveness among those whose self-identified areas of
book is her move beyond any one area or tradition to construct a specialization are cast as the products of European hegemony.
genealogy of “world religions” as its own synthetic discourse. But before dismissing Masuzawa, it is important to keep in mind
What allows her to do this is her conviction that the concept of that her use of the term “invention” does not imply that all
world religions can best be understood within the context of communities, organizations, institutions, and traditions were the
European intellectual history, and that the construction of figments of European imagination. Rather, what was invented
various traditions reflects the process by which “the West” has was a class of analogous and comparable world religions. In any
imagined others to construct an image of itself. She proceeds by case, Masuzawa anticipates that she will be the target of
tracking the change from a scheme in which religions were “historical-realist suspicion” of those who “may see their own
grouped into four categories (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and professional practice precisely as a powerful antidote against
everyone else) to roughly a dozen discreet and independent pseudohistorical pronouncements, including those proffered by
world religions. Central to her argument is that the expansion of the overly literary, language obsessed, rhetorical analysts who
world religions was not a belated recognition or discovery of are predisposed to the kind of intellectual activities described as
previously invisible traditions. Rather, the development of world ‘close reading.’” (31) This sounds about right. The historical-
religions as a scholarly category served a variety of rhetorical realist approach is rarely self-consciously identified as a
purposes that helped to buttress Christian hegemony and particular theoretical or rhetorical stance. It is, rather, reflected
universalism. in the actual practices that organize the fields and disciplinary
Masuzawa’s analysis is especially suggestive when distinctions that make up religious studies to the extent that
describing how portrayals of world religions developed in scholars avow no agenda other than faithfully reconstructing
relation to each other in a kind of unified global puzzle in which religious traditions as they really are. Masuzawa’s book can be
different pieces were conceptually formulated to fit with each read as an extended critique of attempts to become passive
other. For example, casting Buddhism as a Protestant movement amanuenses through whom religions speak for themselves.
arising from within Hinduism endorsed an anti-Catholic Identifying pluralism as a cover for universalism goes to the
suspicion of ritual, helped to denigrate the existing religious heart of this critique as it questions whether increased scholarly
practices of India and the decayed Buddhism of East Asia, and
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attention to world religions is evidence for either empirical delimits her project to an intellectual history of Europe, as she
progress or a magnanimous embrace of religious diversity. does when she states in the preface that: “The reality of world
Masuzawa is most persuasive when reminding us that religions today—that is, the stubborn facticity of these categories
the logic of classification has its own history with its own and the actual world that seems to conform to them in many
politics. However, in a book about the latent theological and ways—is obviously not of the European academy’s making, no
political agendas in the development of the study of religion, the matter how decisive its role.” (xiv) While this seems to be a
author is curiously vague and evasive about her own theological reasonable disclaimer and may be a way of taking into account
and political agendas. In a telling statement about the motives the observations of Talal Asad and others that arbitrary religious
behind her study, Masuzawa mentions: “To be sure, it is always definitions give way to institutional and organizational entities
more difficult to name what one’s objective is than to make a list that become new historical objects, it leaves an unresolved
of what it is not.” (10) Really? Always? For everyone? This tension with the historical-realist account. In particular, it leaves
may be the defensiveness of a penetrating critic who has gotten open the possibility that the dozen world religions are admittedly
so good at undercutting stated objectives she has decided to imperfect and imprecise and may very well reflect the latent
forego the whole business. But what may haunt this stance can Christian biases of the people who created them, but are still the
be found in a footnote on the same page, in which Masuzawa best possible classifications of religious data considering the
states that her project takes literally “the programmatic statement enormity and complexity of the task. Clearly, Masuzawa thinks
famously issued by Jonathan Z. Smith – though possibly with that this is not it. Against the argument for more historical
somewhat different motives and errant consequences than precision as a corrective to Eurohegemony, she cites Walter
otherwise intended.” (10) For his part, Smith has little difficulty Benjamin as a model for thinking in new ways about history.
stating his objectives. Furthermore, what is the object of But what may get lost in the shuffle in Masuzawa’s pre-emptive
painstaking proof and analysis for Masuzawa is taken for granted strike against the historical-realists is that, in scholarly practice
by Smith as a starting point for analytical work. For Smith, the and method, her work resembles academic history far more than
fact that scholars invent religions is an opportunity and invitation it is modeled after Benjamin’s history of photography, or his
for scholarly imagination. The task of the scholar should be to speculations on the origins of language, or his discussion of aura
make better, rather than worse, inventions. This poses an in modernity. There is a practical value to this, namely, that
important problem for Masuzawa’s critique. While it is one Masuzawa is able to be a professor at the University of Michigan
thing to undercut those who believe that they are discovering the instead of an unemployed academic like Benjamin. But what is
truth embedded in the world, it is less clear how she would missed is that part of the value of the Masuzawa’s book is that it
respond to a pragmatic statement like: “Yes, scholars make up provides what may be a relatively plausible, one might even say
religions. So what?” realistic, account of how the label “world religions” was
I am not saying that Masuzawa’s contribution is assigned to a disparate collection of texts and practices. The
redundant or unnecessary. One key difference from Smith is that difference with Smith, then, may be that she is far less
Masuzawa is addressing the political and cultural dimensions of comfortable with removing the category of religion from the
scholarly interpretation in a way that might also critique those discursive context in which it developed and that she pays
who see religion as their own definitional plaything. In this greater attention to the historical and cultural baggage that may
sense, Masuzawa might be unduly self-effacing when she
269 Epoché: The University of California Journal for the Study of Religion

complicate the scholar’s ability to use religion for his or her

purposes of comparison and generalization.
For this reason, separating discursive analysis from
stubborn facticity may blunt the force of Masuzawa’s critique if
it provides an excuse to those who would opt for either side of
the fence. If her argument makes sense, it is because it is not so
easy to uncouple the real world from interpretations of religion.
Masuzawa is particularly convincing when she demonstrates that
imperialism was and is a problem, and has not gone away despite
strategies to become more scientific, or more neutral, or more
objective. To put it another way, intellectual history is about a
lot more than intellectual history. Masuzawa needs to address
how her claim to be limited to European intellectual history is
substantially different from the historical-realist specialists who
delimit their inquiry to only Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, or
Christianity. After all, few contemporary scholars make the kind
of broad and sweeping claims found in the nineteenth-century
history of religions. The danger is that a likely response to
Masuzawa’s work could be to avoid the problem of world
religions altogether by retreating to ever more narrowly defined
areas of specialization.
My point here is not to trap her with the “So how can
you do better” question that dismisses her insights until she can
come up with her own set of new and improved world religions.
Rather, I am convinced that she is not writing an intellectual
history of Europe for the heck of it and that there must be some
reason for her commitment to historical rigor, textual precision,
and theoretical sophistication. In the end, Masuzawa makes a
convincing case the scholars have played a significant role in
defining world religions in the past. So have scholars stopped
doing this? And if not, what kinds of agendas should they have?

Finbarr Curtis
University of California, Santa Barbara