Buddhist Studies in Czechoslovakia: Reflections on a Complicated History

press release: 

The complicated history of Buddhist Studies in Czechoslovakia begins with a book published in 1921 by Vincenc Lesný under the title, Buddhism: The Buddha and Buddhism of Pali Canon. Lesný’s book was the first serious academic study of Buddhism in Czechoslovakia, and it presented Buddhist in a fairly positive light. In 1922, however, a Czech philosopher and biologist named Emanuel Rádl undertook a journey to various Asian destinations so as to understand and assess “Eastern” thinking. Upon returning to Czechoslovakia, he wrote West and East, in which he sharply criticized Buddhism. He argued that the Buddhist notion of selflessness was simply nihilism, and that the Buddha repudiated both law and philosophy. These contrasting, early attitudes about Buddhism within Czechoslovakia foreshadowed a long history of tension between a vibrant interest in Buddhism on the part of many, on the one hand, and criticism and suppression, on the other. The promising early period of Buddhist Studies in Czechoslovakia was unfortunately interrupted by the Second World War, and the situation remained dire during the subsequent period of some forty years under a totalitarian, communist regime. Despite official prohibitions, a vibrant audience remained for the various amateur translations of Buddhist materials—such as Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā—in the form of clandestinely produced, underground publications known as “samizdat.” In 1968, when a short period of liberalization permitted open study of Buddhism, a Marxist philosopher named Zbyněk Fišer published The Buddha, which was until the Velvet Revolution in 1989 the only officially published book about Buddhism. Buddhist Studies was nevertheless never completely eliminated in Czechoslovakia, and since the Velvet Revolution, the field has slowly but surely grown into its own. This talk, drawing on both historical analysis and personal experience, examines this complicated history.

About the speaker:

Born in 1953 in Vsetín, Czechoslovakia, Dr. Holba was initially trained as a skilled electrician before entering military service in 1972. In 1974, after leaving the military, he worked for the Czechoslovakia State Railways until 1997 in a variety of capacities, including electrician, assistant driver, boilerman, gardener, and social worker. Throughout this period, official policies of the communist regime prevented him from engaging in formal studies, but he nevertheless pursued private studies on Philosophy and  Religious Studies under the guidance of various university lecturers, including Dr. M. Balabán (ThD), Dr. E. Bondy (PhD) and Prof. M. Machovec (PhD). After the Velvet Revolution, Dr. Holba was finally able to engage in formal studies, and in 1995 he received his MA in Sanskrit from the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague. In 1997, he spent a year at the University of Lausanne through the support of a fellowship from the Swiss government targeted for scholars from East Europe. At Lausanne, Dr. Holba pursued his ongoing research on the Diamond Sūtra (Vajracchedikasūtra), one of the best-known and most influential Mahāyāna Buddhist texts. At Lausanne, Dr. Holba worked closely with Prof. T. Tillemans (PhD), an internationally renowned scholar of Buddhist Philosophy who became a close mentor for Dr. Holba. Based in part on the research conducted at Lausanne, Dr. Holba composed a dissertation on the Diamond Sūtra that earned him a doctorate in 2002 from the Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Charles University. Seeking to expand his academic horizons, Dr. Holba pursued yet another degree, this time a BA in Philosophy (2013) from the Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic. And in 2015, he earned his MA in Philosophy from the same institution. Throughout this time, starting in 1997, Dr. Holba has served as a researcher in the Department of South Asia, Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. And from 2002 until 2015, Dr. Holba served as an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Charles University. Dr. Holba is the author of several publications, including a Czech translation of the Diamond Sūtra and a forthcoming volume on Madhyamaka philosophy.