Bringing Home the Dharma: Decolonial Perspectives and Strategies in Response to Heritage Theft and Possessive Epistemologies

This paper examines the legacy of Mary S. Slusser, an American scholar of Nepali art, and her role in the acquisition and relocation of Nepali cultural “artifacts” to Western institutions. Contending that Slusser’s knowledge claims legitimized intellectual and cultural dispossession, we explore three interrelated issues: the problematic claims to epistemic neutrality and authority in academic praxis, the tendency of such authority to overlook ethical dimensions inherent in knowledge claims, and the enduring colonial logic that informs scholarly approaches to the study of religion. Drawing on Buddhist teachings on śūnyatā (emptiness), the paper challenges Slusser’s materialist ontology, arguing that her work is both epistemologically flawed and ethically fraught. We propose a decolonial reparative model based on the Buddhist concept of upāya (skillful means) to challenge hierarchies of knowledge that systematically reproduce the non-white Other as objects of study and spectacle, while enabling Western institutions to evade ethical responsibility.