Zen Buddhism: A History, India & China (Volume 1) Review

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Zen Buddhism: A History, India & China (Volume 1) ReviewBasically the book is just what it claims to be: a history of Zen Buddhism in China (it says "India" because it discusses the precursors to Zen in the Mahayana tradition and yoga). It is perfect for students interested in the topic.
I've heard from a few people (and the preface of the book admits it as well) that this book is somewhat dated because scholarship in this field has ballooned in the past decade or two. However, there is no equivalent introduction to all of Zen history. Thus, if you plan to study Zen history in depth, this is still the best place to start and you can move on to more recent books covering more specific movements and time periods. On the other hand, if you're not going to study in depth, then the new developments are not so radical as to render this unhelpful. Within ten years a better, up to date history of Zen is bound to come out. If you can wait...
On the other hand, I believe that a background in Chinese religion would be helpful, since Dumoulin really doesn't provide the background that a student needs in that area. But he does refer to them--Taoism and other strands of Chinese Buddhism--enough that perhaps he ought to have given a bit of introduction to them. He does give an interesting coverage of Neo-Confucianism, although not in much depth and only discussing their relationship to Zen. I was glad I had some familiarity with Taoism, but I found myself wishing I'd had more familiarity with Chinese Buddhism.
For that reason, if you are a beginning student, I'd strongly recommend some other books first.
If you're new to Zen, start with "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism" by D. T. Suzuki.
If you don't know much about Taoism, I recommend Livia Kohn's "Daoism and Chinese Culture."
If you don't know much about Chinese Buddhism, I recommend "Buddhism in China" by Kenneth Ch'en.
I think, at that point, if you want to get into the history of Zen Buddhism in greater depth, then you'll be ready to get a lot out of Dumoulin's fine book.
Of course, if the history of Zen really is the ONLY thing you're interested in, not how it interacted with Taoism or other kinds of Chinese Buddhism, then go ahead and just jump straight into this one.Zen Buddhism: A History, India & China (Volume 1) Overview

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