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The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism
The idea of "world religions" expresses a vague commitment to multiculturalism. Not merely a descriptive concept, "world religions" is actually a particular ethos, a pluralist ideology, a logic of classification, and a form of knowledge that has shaped the study of religion and infiltrated ordinary language.
In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity.
In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity.
359 pages, Paperback
First published May 15, 2005
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About the author
Tomoko Masuzawa
5 books3 followersTomoko Masuzawa is Professor of History and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. In 1979, she received her MA in Religious Studies at Yale University. Masuzawa received her PhD in Religious Studies from University of California Santa Barbara in 1985. European intellectual history (19th century), discourses on religion, history of religion, and psychoanalysis are Masuzawa’s fields of study. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities in 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 9, 2016
"This book concerns a particular aspect of the formation of modern European identity, a fairly recent history of how Europe came to self-consciousness: Europe as a harbinger of universal history, as a prototype of unity amid plurality.
The book finds its central question in the following historical fact. For many centuries Europeans had a well-established convention for categorizing the peoples of the world into four parts, rather unequal in size and uneven in specificity, namely, Christians, Jews, Mohammedans (as Muslims were commonly called then), and the rest. The last part, the rest, comprised those variously known as heathens, pagans, idolaters, or sometimes polytheists." (xi)
The primary concern for Tomoko Masuzawa in The Invention of World Religion is to analyze the evolution of the category of “world religions.” As referenced in the quotation above, the typical categorization of religions around the 18th century typically held four options: Christianity, Judaism, Islam (or Mohammedanism), and a vague “other” category. This category ultimately served to support Christianity as the one “world religion” -- a term which denotes the universality of a religion to spread and flourish in all nations. A clear distinction between a “world religion” and a “national religion” was made. While a world religion (Christianity) had a certain universal application, a national religion (Judaism, Islam, and the rest) simply grew within a national culture, unable to survive outside its original environment, and thus was seen as inferior. Judaism was seen as a carrier for the Christian religion, but when Christianity took root lost its divinely intended purpose and natural function. Islam was more problematic to explain due to the fact that it indeed had spread to different nations quite successfully. Such problems were eagerly explained by theologians to account for this phenomenon, such as attributing Islam’s growth to their national ambition as well as their love of war and conquest. Thus a national religion was forced onto other cultures rather than naturally proliferating as Christianity was said to have done.
These categories were challenged in the 19th century upon the discovery of Buddhist texts and the resulting popular fascination with the Sanskrit language. As the study of philology was on the rise, language difference intrigued scholars, who, until the discovery of Sanskrit, held classical Greek to be the purest language in contrast to Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semitic languages. Sanskrit was found to be an older language than Greek or Latin, and showed clear similarity in structure as well as root words. Given that European culture was justified as being a superior culture by its roots in the purer language, the discovery of Sanskrit shook the academic world, as it shed a superior light on an older culture and religion in which Western culture stemmed from: the Aryan culture. European identity came to be accepted as intrinsically Aryan, and thus carried the universality that Christianity had been claiming for the past few hundred years. In other words, the purest lineage from the ancient Aryan culture was through modern Europe, while language groups that were identified as Semitic or Oriental were seen as corruptions fated to diminish in the progression of history.
Such a theory on language origins gave Buddhism significant prestige as an old and universal religion. Buddhism was often likened to Christianity since both traditions were said to break away from their parent national religions. In other words, both were examples of how a world religion emerged from the inferior national religion, thus giving both a legitimate placement in history. This legitimacy of a second world religion besides Christianity raised new thought in regard to how scholars ought to compare two different traditions with relative respectability. It is through this new thought that other religious traditions began to be treated as autonomous cultural systems for the first time rather than the traditional view of other religions as degenerative forms of Christianity.
Over time the concept of national religions became less commonplace. Masuzawa uses the example of the Christian scholar Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) to demonstrate how liberal Christianity adapted to the new categorization of world religions. Troeltsch acknowledged that a truly universal Christianity did not exist, but the religion itself still played a prominent role in the social life of a people. He describes religion as existing in its own sphere, thus demonstrating a similar categorization of religion as we might see today. To make this point Masuzawa only cites one Christian theologian to demonstrate the popular trend. While her argument was convincing, further examples would have been welcomed.
It is also worth noting that Masuzawa offers no conclusion to her work. Her point is to reconstruct the evolution of how world religions have been categorized in order to leave the reader questioning how modern scholarship ought to study such a category with a history of theological biases. Masuzawa certainly is compelling in her argument, but offers little to the discussion of how the field of Comparative Religion ought to respond. Is it possible that “world religion” can be successfully utilized as a scholarly category independent of its past political, racial, and theological biases?
The book finds its central question in the following historical fact. For many centuries Europeans had a well-established convention for categorizing the peoples of the world into four parts, rather unequal in size and uneven in specificity, namely, Christians, Jews, Mohammedans (as Muslims were commonly called then), and the rest. The last part, the rest, comprised those variously known as heathens, pagans, idolaters, or sometimes polytheists." (xi)
The primary concern for Tomoko Masuzawa in The Invention of World Religion is to analyze the evolution of the category of “world religions.” As referenced in the quotation above, the typical categorization of religions around the 18th century typically held four options: Christianity, Judaism, Islam (or Mohammedanism), and a vague “other” category. This category ultimately served to support Christianity as the one “world religion” -- a term which denotes the universality of a religion to spread and flourish in all nations. A clear distinction between a “world religion” and a “national religion” was made. While a world religion (Christianity) had a certain universal application, a national religion (Judaism, Islam, and the rest) simply grew within a national culture, unable to survive outside its original environment, and thus was seen as inferior. Judaism was seen as a carrier for the Christian religion, but when Christianity took root lost its divinely intended purpose and natural function. Islam was more problematic to explain due to the fact that it indeed had spread to different nations quite successfully. Such problems were eagerly explained by theologians to account for this phenomenon, such as attributing Islam’s growth to their national ambition as well as their love of war and conquest. Thus a national religion was forced onto other cultures rather than naturally proliferating as Christianity was said to have done.
These categories were challenged in the 19th century upon the discovery of Buddhist texts and the resulting popular fascination with the Sanskrit language. As the study of philology was on the rise, language difference intrigued scholars, who, until the discovery of Sanskrit, held classical Greek to be the purest language in contrast to Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semitic languages. Sanskrit was found to be an older language than Greek or Latin, and showed clear similarity in structure as well as root words. Given that European culture was justified as being a superior culture by its roots in the purer language, the discovery of Sanskrit shook the academic world, as it shed a superior light on an older culture and religion in which Western culture stemmed from: the Aryan culture. European identity came to be accepted as intrinsically Aryan, and thus carried the universality that Christianity had been claiming for the past few hundred years. In other words, the purest lineage from the ancient Aryan culture was through modern Europe, while language groups that were identified as Semitic or Oriental were seen as corruptions fated to diminish in the progression of history.
Such a theory on language origins gave Buddhism significant prestige as an old and universal religion. Buddhism was often likened to Christianity since both traditions were said to break away from their parent national religions. In other words, both were examples of how a world religion emerged from the inferior national religion, thus giving both a legitimate placement in history. This legitimacy of a second world religion besides Christianity raised new thought in regard to how scholars ought to compare two different traditions with relative respectability. It is through this new thought that other religious traditions began to be treated as autonomous cultural systems for the first time rather than the traditional view of other religions as degenerative forms of Christianity.
Over time the concept of national religions became less commonplace. Masuzawa uses the example of the Christian scholar Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) to demonstrate how liberal Christianity adapted to the new categorization of world religions. Troeltsch acknowledged that a truly universal Christianity did not exist, but the religion itself still played a prominent role in the social life of a people. He describes religion as existing in its own sphere, thus demonstrating a similar categorization of religion as we might see today. To make this point Masuzawa only cites one Christian theologian to demonstrate the popular trend. While her argument was convincing, further examples would have been welcomed.
It is also worth noting that Masuzawa offers no conclusion to her work. Her point is to reconstruct the evolution of how world religions have been categorized in order to leave the reader questioning how modern scholarship ought to study such a category with a history of theological biases. Masuzawa certainly is compelling in her argument, but offers little to the discussion of how the field of Comparative Religion ought to respond. Is it possible that “world religion” can be successfully utilized as a scholarly category independent of its past political, racial, and theological biases?
July 26, 2017
Masuzawa offers a genealogy of the practice of teaching "world religions" in universities. She argues that behind the creation and development of the concept of a "world religion" lies the attempt by European scholars to differentiate themselves from others.
Particularly noteworthy is her narration of the contribution made by comparative linguistics. The development of the "Indo-European" and "Hamito-Semitic" language families provided a scientific basis for religious taxonomies and a way for Europeans to to affiliate themselves with the exotic East while distancing themselves from their old religious rivals, Jews and Muslims.
By the late eighteenth century, European scholars had some familiarity with most of the worlds cultures. Some divided religions into "world religions," which transcended their birth culture, and mere "folk religions," which seemed permanently tied to a particular society. Many nineteenth-century scholars thought of Christianity as the perfectly universal religion, potentially suitable for all people. Other religions were ranked insofar as they approximated it.
Later, this gave way to the concept of "religion itself" as the true universal. This supposedly universal sphere of human experience became the justification for a pluralist rather than confessional science of religion. Masuzawa questions just how universal a discourse is if it grew out of a specific strain of Protestant liberalism.
The central inquiry is fascinating and the content is pretty good. I do think the order of chapters is a bit disorienting and the close reading approach makes for uneven coverage, but these are small flaws. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in how religion is studied in the academy.
A more comprehensive review is available on my website, Religion Is History:
https://www.religionishistory.com/201...
Particularly noteworthy is her narration of the contribution made by comparative linguistics. The development of the "Indo-European" and "Hamito-Semitic" language families provided a scientific basis for religious taxonomies and a way for Europeans to to affiliate themselves with the exotic East while distancing themselves from their old religious rivals, Jews and Muslims.
By the late eighteenth century, European scholars had some familiarity with most of the worlds cultures. Some divided religions into "world religions," which transcended their birth culture, and mere "folk religions," which seemed permanently tied to a particular society. Many nineteenth-century scholars thought of Christianity as the perfectly universal religion, potentially suitable for all people. Other religions were ranked insofar as they approximated it.
Later, this gave way to the concept of "religion itself" as the true universal. This supposedly universal sphere of human experience became the justification for a pluralist rather than confessional science of religion. Masuzawa questions just how universal a discourse is if it grew out of a specific strain of Protestant liberalism.
The central inquiry is fascinating and the content is pretty good. I do think the order of chapters is a bit disorienting and the close reading approach makes for uneven coverage, but these are small flaws. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in how religion is studied in the academy.
A more comprehensive review is available on my website, Religion Is History:
https://www.religionishistory.com/201...
June 16, 2016
A genealogy of method in the modern study of religion is, almost by definition, a specialist's endeavor. Within that admittedly narrow frame, I found myself pretty much the target audience. Early modern fabulists! Victorian Anglo-Catholics! C19 German philologists! A concluding deconstruction of Ernst Troeltsch!! This stuff is catnip to me, and would have been even more at the end of my college career, which is ... exactly when Masuzawa published this book, actually. Like, by a matter of weeks.
One story that was new to me here, and that I found especially fascinating: The question of what makes a religion "universal" or "world". The claim, which I first encountered in Lamin Sanneh, that Christianity is uniquely "translatable", and the elision of language and culture he performs, turns out to have a long history: It's not new in missiological discourse, but rather retrieved from being buried first by European racists and then by colonial pluralists. (Would you be shocked that the word "Aryan" is all over this story?)
If either my raving or the GR book summary grabs you at all, definitely read it. Masuzawa writes much better and more accessibly than most academics; it's the subject matter, not the jargon, that's specialized. There's nothing here to spark a revolution, but there's plenty to chew on.
One story that was new to me here, and that I found especially fascinating: The question of what makes a religion "universal" or "world". The claim, which I first encountered in Lamin Sanneh, that Christianity is uniquely "translatable", and the elision of language and culture he performs, turns out to have a long history: It's not new in missiological discourse, but rather retrieved from being buried first by European racists and then by colonial pluralists. (Would you be shocked that the word "Aryan" is all over this story?)
If either my raving or the GR book summary grabs you at all, definitely read it. Masuzawa writes much better and more accessibly than most academics; it's the subject matter, not the jargon, that's specialized. There's nothing here to spark a revolution, but there's plenty to chew on.
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July 27, 2011This is a very thorough study of how the concept of world religion has changed and even been invented by the scholars of religion in the 19th century. It is in many ways an eye opener in terms of how much influence the scholars themselves had on the practitioners of the religions they studied. Yet, I'm not so sure that the author is able to prove his thesis that today's pluralism is indebted to the Christian universalism and exclusivism.
June 24, 2013
This book is a great study with a lot of valuable insights into the historical circumstances that led to the current 'world religions' discourse. I do think is a bit on the dry side, however. This is a must read if you take seriously the study of religion.
July 13, 2017
A text for a Fall 2017 Brite course - From the Publisher: The idea of "world religions" expresses a vague commitment to multiculturalism. Not merely a descriptive concept, "world religions" is actually a particular ethos, a pluralist ideology, a logic of classification, and a form of knowledge that has shaped the study of religion and infiltrated ordinary language. In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity.
July 30, 2020
I am finding that the more I read about the history of the field of religious studies, the more I am fascinated by its development out of other academic fields into the somewhat unified but fairly contentious body of work and scholars that it is today. This volume very neatly scratches that itch through its historical look at the development of the idea of "world religions" from linguistics, philology, and sociology. Masuzawa's prose is remarkable here, lucid and interesting and verbose in a way that I found fun and impressive, given that she acknowledges at the start that none of the languages being used in this book (including English) are her first. That being said, it feels like some of the chapters get a bit bogged down in very specific linguistic arguments, and some of those arguments could do with a little clarification - "inflection" and "agglutination" were never quite adequately explained as terms in the field of linguistics for me to follow it as comprehensively as I'd have liked, for instance. But that being said, the overall trajectory of history and philosophy presented here is engaging and interesting, and Masuzawa makes what could be a dry survey of linguistics into something actually intriguing through and through.
July 13, 2022
You don't need a book length treatment for the subject; let me sum up what you need to know: there is no such thing as "world religions." This concept was just some invention of intellectuals in 19th century Britain and America, and now in 2022, the whole subject is wildly out-of-date and isn't something that anyone needs to think about. This whole book is so meta, I can't see how even a specialist would need to know about the topic, it's absolutely pointless. Stop reading anything like Huston Smith's 1958 "The World's Religions" or anything else that tries to summarize the topic, that's about the only practical advice I can think of.
These books remind me of "grand narratives" which are equally pointless as they try to sum up everything. People are still suckers, they want to know everything about everything summed up into a book form, and it's dishonest for an intellectual to give idiots these kinds of books. It's impossible, pointless, and attempts to summarize something that can't be summarized.
Also please get rid of your coexist bumper stickers, those were popular about 20 years ago and also have no purpose. George Bush & Jon Stewart aren't on TV anymore and this isn't 2003. I still see those bumper stickers and wonder what people are thinking.
These books remind me of "grand narratives" which are equally pointless as they try to sum up everything. People are still suckers, they want to know everything about everything summed up into a book form, and it's dishonest for an intellectual to give idiots these kinds of books. It's impossible, pointless, and attempts to summarize something that can't be summarized.
Also please get rid of your coexist bumper stickers, those were popular about 20 years ago and also have no purpose. George Bush & Jon Stewart aren't on TV anymore and this isn't 2003. I still see those bumper stickers and wonder what people are thinking.
November 6, 2025
The invention of World Religions is a masterful undertaking by Tomoko Masuzawa to come to the origin of the taxonomy of world religions. Conducting a discursive analysis between philologists and early scholars of religion, Masuzawa recalls the work of historian Michael Foucault as she addresses epistemological regimes that came out of Europe in the aftermath of the discovery of ancient Sanskrit texts.
Masuzawa has a beautiful command over language, writing in both a poetic and lyrical way that I have yet to see from another academic in her field. I have long had critiques with the category of 'world religions,' and Masuzawa's provided more ammunition for reassessing how we approach the study of religion was we move into the age of religious pluralism. There is lots here and I am excited to be revisiting as it I write my research paper! I recommend anyone who is majoring in religion, history, or has an interest in category formation read her book.
Masuzawa has a beautiful command over language, writing in both a poetic and lyrical way that I have yet to see from another academic in her field. I have long had critiques with the category of 'world religions,' and Masuzawa's provided more ammunition for reassessing how we approach the study of religion was we move into the age of religious pluralism. There is lots here and I am excited to be revisiting as it I write my research paper! I recommend anyone who is majoring in religion, history, or has an interest in category formation read her book.
January 20, 2024
i had read parts of this in the past, but this was my first full read. truly exceptional scholarship and it held up as an absolutely essential read for any scholar of religion. the thing that makes it so good is that it is a project that actually follows the method it purports to use in its introduction. so often scholars say they’re going to do a thing and then ultimately fall short of doing that thing (this is, of course, a completely reasonable thing when trying to do humanities research in late capitalist academia), but this book proves that staying close to a method (in this case, intellectual history) provides incredibly rich work that is not solely reliant on an interesting premise but also rigorous research. i can only dream of ever writing something like this.
August 16, 2017
This work painstaking academic effort remains amazing a decade after publication. Masuzawa's work on Friedrich Max Müller is especially helpful as she uncovers instances of cultural amnesia and the ongoing presence of dangerous commonplaces.
June 26, 2018
Excellent deconstruction of the academic field of religious studies and the origins of the academic study of religion. Highly recommended as an introduction to the history of universalism and pluralism in religious studies. My favorite theory and method book.
June 17, 2021
Detailed and informative assessment of the nineteenth century origins of the idea of "world religions".
February 24, 2022
Respectfully, this book is the reason people hate academia.
May 25, 2023
Not the book or topic, which I thought when I picked it up. The author uses over complicated words and writing style that makes his thought inaccessible. Frustrating to read.
September 7, 2023
hardest book i’ve ever read
November 30, 2024
I've read a lot of books for my comp; this was the one that most fundamentally challenged things I thought I knew, and not only about religion.
October 18, 2007
What strikes me in Masuzawa's descriptions of 19C european ideas about the development of religions is that among all thinkers, an explicit or implicit sense of the destiny of Christianity remains. While Müller criticizes his opponents' assertion that "the sublime majesty of one true God is wrested away from the religion of the monolithic, narrow, exclusivist Semites, and reassigned to the prolific, all-inclusive, universalist Aryans, and thus, by implication, to European Christianity," his own view of the development of world religions is driven by a "Darwinian" (as metaphor) teleology. His idea of the stages of languages, with their explicit hierarchy, from isolating to agglutinative to inflective, keeps us within this same idea of evolution as destiny, as inevitability.
It seems that while these scholars were claiming to solve the problem of the origins and nature of the world's religions, they were mostly only concerned with this question vis-a-vis the role of Christianity among (and in comparison to) other religions, a crisis of supremacy in the search for origins. Why else would the urge exist to separate aryan (Hellenic, for some) Christianity from semetic Judiasm?
It seems that while these scholars were claiming to solve the problem of the origins and nature of the world's religions, they were mostly only concerned with this question vis-a-vis the role of Christianity among (and in comparison to) other religions, a crisis of supremacy in the search for origins. Why else would the urge exist to separate aryan (Hellenic, for some) Christianity from semetic Judiasm?
March 14, 2010
This is a critique of the very category of "World Religions," a fascinating, historical look at the forces which formed the category and challenges its relationship to lived religious experience. If you have an interest in how academic disciplines come to be in the first place, this is a nice overview of one.
March 11, 2016
The first part of the book was FASCINATING, but I found myself less interested in each chapter.
Will certainly come back to this book in the future for second or third projects, as I'm interested in the category of religion and its application to traditional Roman religions.
Will certainly come back to this book in the future for second or third projects, as I'm interested in the category of religion and its application to traditional Roman religions.
October 6, 2007
Didn't actually get to finish this one. Might have more than liked it. Don't know.
June 25, 2009
Buddhism is the world First Universal religion. It is not limit to caste, nation. country or family. other two is christianity & Islam.
August 11, 2016
Interesting discussion of the history of "world religions." Esp. helpful contextualization of comparative philology w/re to European universalism, racial logic
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September 20, 2014the establishment of the comparative paradigm of "world religions".
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews