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Abstract Though Timothy Richard is a Christian missionary to China ,his response to Mahayana Buddhism aims at neither the conversion of the Chinese Buddhists to Christianity nor the justification of Western colonialism .On the contrary , he aims at building up the friendship and cooperation between Christians and Buddhists in the fight against militarism and the establishment of world peace and justice . Unlike many of his contemporaries ,Richard regarded Mahayana Buddhism as a higher Buddhism rather than a distortion of Buddhism . Instead of highlighting the superiority of the West through stereotyping the contrast between the East and the West ,Richard emphasized the similarities and historical interactions between Christianity and Mahayana Buddhism . Richard's response to Mahayana Buddhism can be said to be a counter-example challenging the theory of Orientalism articulated by Edward Said .
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Received: 05 December 2009
Published: 27 April 2010
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