Modern Displays of Buddhism or Displaying Buddhist Modernity? Multiple Temporalities at Two Recent Exhibitions in Japan and Belgium

The presentation will analyze two recent exhibitions on Buddhism held at Ryukoku Museum in Kyoto, Japan, and at the Musée royal de Mariemont in Belgium. While the two museums have a different religious/secular affiliation, the presentation will identify in both exhibitions a shared view on the origins of modern displays of Buddhist objects that revises univocal narratives of modernization as secularization. The exhibition in Kyoto shows how Buddhist communities actively appropriated the modern tool of museum display for Buddhist proselytization purposes in the early Meiji period (1870s). The one in Belgium reveals the link between European scholarship on Asian religions, freemasonry rituals, and collection of Buddhist objects in late nineteenth century Europe. Through an analysis of the multiple temporalities implied at these exhibitions, the presentation will contribute to recent scholarship by complicating the narrative of museumification as secularization and by stressing the agency of Buddhist communities in this process.