In his provocative essay, Prasenjit Duara argues that prior to the nineteenth century, the web of maritime trade networks infused the ill-defined area we call “Asia” with a genuine coherence, providing a conduit for cultural flows that readily permitted interactive relationships and the mutual adoption of new beliefs and practices. By the late nineteenth century, however, the imperial powers sought to ensure their global dominance by creating regional blocs consisting of territories that were economically subservient to the metropole. The consequent focus on the establishment of territorial boundaries encouraged a “nationalist congruence between state and culture” that gathered pace over the next hundred years. Only now are we beginning to see an Asia where interdependence and increasing cultural contact, carrying echoes of past connectivities, have opened up new opportunities by which a “transnational consciousness” can and should be encouraged.

While Duara's essay will certainly generate a range of reactions, most scholars would probably agree that a preoccupation with nationalism and the nation-state has tended to divide Asia, and that pan-Asianism is one of the many “isms” now fading from our vocabulary. Nonetheless, in the early twentieth century, the notion of a unified Asia did have a powerful hold on elites in Japan, China, India, and Southeast Asia, undoubtedly encouraged by Japan's celebrated victory over Russia in 1904.Footnote ¹ Accordingly, “Asia Redux” draws our attention to the “cultural movement” of pan-Asianism, exemplified in the writings of Okakura Kakuzo (1862–1913) and in those of his contemporaries, the Chinese intellectual Zhang Taiyan (1869–1936) and his Bengali counterpart Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941). These three men all thought in terms of a community linked by a shared civilization and spiritual values, where the “Asiatic races” formed, as Okakura put it, “a single mighty web.” From this perspective, Asian affinities encompassed even religious differences, as Islam could be imagined as “Confucianism on horseback.”Footnote ²

In this brief response, I will to turn to Duara's primary argument—that the ways in which “regions” and “regionalism” are conceived tends to follow the dominant modes of “spatial production” in a particular period of time. While Duara acknowledges that attachments to the national state remain powerfully influential, even in this globalizing age, he also suggests that “older Asian models of cultural circulation without state domination of identity” supply a significant “historical resource” through which to explore alternative possibilities of configuring an Asian space.

The idea that the supranational connections of contemporary Asia recall the “interlinked universes” of the past and that understandings of region and regionalism are shaped in a specific historical environment is particularly pertinent in light of current and seemingly universal shifts in religious alignments. As the twenty-first century enters its second decade, it is likely that even the most vehement proponents of secularization theory would accept that we are witnessing a global resurgence of religion.Footnote ³ In this context, an examination of religious linkages, whether they are affirming old ties or establishing new ones, provides many different ways of contemplating how “Asia” can be envisaged. On the one hand, religious affiliation, so often an integral element in constructions of cultural identity, has long been implicated in the nationalist project and has repeatedly been invoked to help justify the construction of national boundaries. It is hardly surprising that the “rightness” of religious beliefs endorsed by the nation-state has often fostered intolerance for the “other,” creating an inward-looking alliance potentially unsympathetic to the tolerance that regionalism requires.

On the other hand, pan-Asianism originated in the idea that a commonality of religious values could strengthen wider connections and, in this sense, rise above the divisiveness of national interests. For both Okakura and Zhang, for instance, Buddhism was eminently suited as a means of conceptualizing a regional coherence because of its deep Asian roots. In contemporary times, the conversations may be different, but expanded channels of information and communication have fostered exchanges that similarly endorse Buddhism as a means of connecting “Asia.” Some Buddhist women, seeking to revive the bhikkhuni sangha, thus see the strengthening of links between Sri Lanka and Taiwan as a way to extend collaboration in joint endeavors.Footnote ⁴ The current focus on “social engagement” in all streams of Buddhism has provided further reason to speak of shared preoccupations in “Buddhist Asia,” despite the variety of environments in which Buddhism operates and the ways in which these environments have shaped religious praxis.Footnote ⁵

Nonetheless, the idea that Buddhism maps easily onto an Asian cultural space is complicated by the rise of new Buddhist movements that have attained global reach, such as Thailand's Dhammakaya, which has branches in more than twenty countries, and the influential lay Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai, which originated in Japan but now has a worldwide membership.Footnote ⁶ Paradoxically, of course, it could be argued that Buddhism's spread has itself contributed to the notion that “Asia” can be defined in religious terms because of the tendency to speak of “Western” Buddhism. Yet the very notion of Buddhism as a framework for conceptualizing Asia remains problematic, as its various paths, most notably the great schools of Mahayana, Theravada, and Vajrayana, are themselves linked to countries and subregions.Footnote ⁷ The boundaries erected by differences in interpretation or area studies help explain the prevalence of terms such as “East Asian,” “South Asian,” or “Southeast Asian” Buddhism in academic publications.Footnote ⁸ Even a general topic such as women in Buddhism typically has been studied in terms of nikaya or in relation to specific national environments.Footnote ⁹ In other words, while Buddhism is seen as the quintessential “Asian” belief system, it has not been able to withstand the reality of difference and the academic propensity to categorize in terms of cultural distinctiveness, ethnicity, nations, or world regions.

Despite Okakura's depiction of “Confucianism on horseback,” pan-Asianism is not normally associated with Islam, which developed beyond Asia as it is cartographically represented. However, the concept of “pan-Islam,” which attracted such international attention during the late nineteenth century, has a long history, theologically as well as politically. Over the centuries, the possibility of joining a global brotherhood and a worldwide Islamic community has found a receptive audience in Asia, home to most of the world's Muslims. Furthermore, though Islam's universalism has been undermined by the realities of national loyalties, the ideal of a single Muslim society still has considerable traction. Banned in numerous countries, the organization known as Hizb ut-Tahrir thus absolutely rejects the idea of the nation-state, for its goal is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate, with one government for all Muslims.

Studies of Islam's global history provide innumerable examples of the ways in which human interactions and the shared memories attached to buildings, graves, and other sacred sites affirmed connections that made up the ummah, the great family of believers. Yet visitors to the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia repeatedly commented on the localization of religious practices, which could diverge quite markedly from those of the Middle East. At times, some Asian Muslims have accepted the differences between their interpretations of Islam and those of the Islamic heartlands, and have been prepared to tolerate and even defend local practice. Indeed, the idea that Asia might play a larger role on the Islamic stage does have regional moorings. Prior to their World War II occupation of Southeast Asia, the Japanese expended considerable effort to establish their credentials among Indonesian Muslims by emphasizing their common Asian heritage, and presenting themselves as the defenders of Indonesian Islam.Footnote ¹⁰ Less well known is the fact that in earlier years, the Japanese defeat of Russia had fed Malay rumors of Japan's imminent conversion to Islam and its emergence as a new anticolonial leader.Footnote ¹¹

Today, “Muslim Asia” is not a marked category within Asia itself, where there is much greater interest in strengthening links with a global Islamic community. The idea that Islam can help set “Asia” apart is most evident among Western scholars, perhaps eager to separate images of “their” area from what they see as negative portrayals of the Middle East. Despite the vast differences between Taliban supporters in Afghanistan and Cham Muslims in Vietnam or Uighurs of China, we still find talk of “Asian” Islam as an identifiable category.Footnote ¹² Even so, undeniable differences in religious observances have made it difficult to do more than offer case studies under a generalized “Muslim Asia” umbrella. Thus, in a manner reminiscent of Buddhism, the idea of “Asian Islam” is difficult to apply except in very broad terms, and academic studies are typically divided into studies of countries or ethnic groups or, at best, the subregions (albeit multifaceted) of “South,” “Southeast” Asian, and, less commonly, “Chinese” Islam.Footnote ¹³

My inclusion of Christianity in this response may well be questioned, as it is not generally regarded as an “Asian” religion, despite the antiquity of communities in western India and elsewhere.Footnote ¹⁴ Today, however, Christians compose the overwhelming majority in the Philippines and Timor Leste, and other countries include large populations—10 percent (around 24 million) in Indonesia, for example, and about 30 percent in Korea. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Christianity began its slow spread in Asia, it was typically seen in terms of European “ownership”—a local Catholic was considered attached to the Spanish and Portuguese, while a convert to Protestantism had implicitly declared his loyalty to the Dutch. Intensified by colonialism, the idea of European “ownership,” with all that this entails, persisted into modern times. Nonetheless, as the twentieth century progressed, long-standing ties to European churches weakened as Asians assumed leadership of their own congregations and many churches became more accepting of inculturation.

Against this background, the insistence on Christianity's cross-cultural and international message has to some degree been qualified by new initiatives from within the region that promote an “Asian” Christianity.Footnote ¹⁵ It is worth remembering that some of the most successful evangelists in Southeast Asia in the early twentieth century came from India and China, and during the Second World War, Tokyo dispatched Christian Japanese to the Philippines in order to cultivate connections with local leaders.Footnote ¹⁶ Yet, here again, we see the flexibility of what constitutes “Asia,” for the Asian Ecumenical Council has combined the Christian Conference of Asia (which includes representatives of both Australia and New Zealand) and the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (which also incorporates Kazakhstan). However, assertions of an “Asian” Christianity are most forcefully articulated by Pentecostal-charismatic theologians, with their claim to be more sensitive to “third world” spirituality; in 2005, the Pew Forum estimated that about a third of Asia's Christians could be considered Pentecostal-charismatic, and there is even a journal specifically entitled Asian Pentecostalism. Footnote ¹⁷ The similarity of these church environments and the affluent hubs of Seoul and Singapore have enabled new circuits of charismatic preaching that both affirm the regionality of Asian Christianity while simultaneously locating Pentecostalism firmly within a worldwide movement.

Much to the surprise of many observers, religion has not faded away with the expansion of modernity. Duara's paper concentrates on the role of “powerful systems” such as capitalism and international trade in creating the “space” of Asia. From the perspective of a historian interested in cross-cultural flows, I have argued that the academic study of religion has encouraged a tendency to treat “Asia” as a separate domain, despite the theological insistence on universality. Yet the great variation in Asia's religious life combined with scholarly specializations and the boundaries created by area studies means that regional overviews are typically divided into discrete essays on specific groups, countries or subregions. Though studies of regional religious interaction could potentially encourage the “multiple linkages” that Duara espouses, scholarship is still informed by the influence of territorial nation-states or the larger blocs endorsed by world diplomacy. Certainly, the long-term effects of the contemporary “global resurgence of religion” within the academy remain to be seen. However, it seems likely that in the twenty-first century, this resurgence will generate continuing debates about what constitutes “Asia” and that participation in these debates will be greatest within Asia itself.