Missionary Christians and Chinese Buddhists Bibliography

This is a very preliminary bibliography of sources regarding missionary Christians in China and their writings on the Buddhist culture they experienced and recorded. Author names have been retained to help facilitate internet searches, but only the first appearance of a name is linked to the biographical article, if any is available.

Primary Sources to 1950

• De Groot, J.J.M. Buddhist masses for the dead at Amoy. Leyde: Brill, 1884.

• De Groot, J.J.M. "Militant Spirit of the Buddhist Clergy in China." T'oung Pao, vol. 2, no. 2 (1891), 127-139.

• De Groot, J.J.M. "Miséricorde envers les animaux dans le Bouddhisme chinois." T'oung Pao, vol. 3, no. 5 (1892), 466-489.

• De Groot, J.J.M. Le code du Mahāyāna en Chine; son influence sur la vie monacale et sur le monde laïque. Amsterdam, J. Müller, 1893. [Reprint, New York: Garland Pub., 1980.]
  • Translation of the Sūtra of Brahma's Net (Fànwǎng jīng 梵網經; Brahmajāla-sūtra)
  • Read the introduction to this work here

• De Groot, J.J.M. Der thüpa, das heiligste Heiligtum des Buddhismus in China. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der esoterischen Lehre des Mahāyāna. Berlin, Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften, in Kommission bei der Vereinigung wissenschaftlicher Verleger Walter de Gruyter u. Co., 1919.

• Davids, T. W. Rhys. Buddhism: being a sketch of the life and teachings of Gautama, the Buddha. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New York: E. & J.B. Young & Co., 1894.

• DuBose, Hampden C. The dragon, image, and demon; or, The three religions of China; Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, giving an account of the mythology, idolatry, and demonolatry of the Chinese. New York: A. C. Armstrong & son, 1887.

• Edkins, Joseph. The religious condition of the Chinese: with observations on the prospects of Christian conversion amongst that people. London, New York: Routledge, Warnes & Routledge, 1859.

• Edkins, Joseph. Religion in China: containing a brief account of the three religions of the Chinese, with observations on the prospects of Christian conversion amongst that people. Second Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1877.

• Edkins, Joseph. Chinese Buddhism: a volume of sketches, historical, descriptive, and critical. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1893.

• Edkins, Joseph. The early spread of religious ideas: especially in the far east. London: Religious Tract Society, 1893.

• Eitel, Ernest John. Buddhism: its historical, theoretical and popular aspects. In three lectures. London, Trübner & Co., 1873.

• Eitel, Ernest John. Hand-book of Chinese Buddhism, being a Sanskrit-Chinese dictionary, with vocabularies of Buddhist terms in Pali, Singhalese, Siamese, Burmesi, Tibetan, Mongolian and Japanese. London, Trübner & Co., 1888.

• Hodous, Lewis. Buddhism and Buddhists in China. New York: The Macmillan company, 1924.
  • E-text available from Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8390/pg8390.html

• Hodous, Lewis, and William Edward Soothill. A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms: with Sanskrit and English Equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali Index. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & co., ltd. 1937.
  • Available on-line at http://www.acmuller.net/soothill/index.html, but has also been incorporated into the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism.

• Johnston, Reginald Fleming. Buddhist China. London: J. Murray, 1913.

• Missionary Research Library Collection, Burke Library (Columbia University Libraries) at Union Theological Seminary, New York City.
  • This archive has several collections of documents relating to missionaries and their study of religion in China.
  • Earl Herbert Cressy was involved in a survey of Hángzhōu 杭州 religious institutions from 1930 to 1931 for the Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry, most of which was never published.

• Reichelt, Karl Ludvig. Truth and Tradition in Chinese Buddhism. Translated from Norwegian by Kathrina Van Wagenen Bugge. Shanghai, 1928.

• Reichelt, Karl Ludvig. Religion in Chinese Garment. Translated from Norwegian by Joseph Tetlie. New York: Philosophical Library, 1951. (Written in 1912-1913)

• Reichelt, Karl Ludvig. Meditation and Piety in the Far East. Translated from Norwegian by Sverre Holth. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954.

• Richard, Timothy. Guide to Buddhahood: Being a Standard Manual of Chinese Buddhism. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society, 1907.

• Richard, Timothy. New Testament of Higher Buddhism. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1910.

• Richard, Timothy. Forty-five Years in China: Reminiscences. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1916.

Secondary Sources on Missionaries in China

This section is incomplete and more content needs to be added. You can help by contributing text, images, or suggestions.