On August 15-21, 2010, the XX Congress of the International Association History of Religions (IAHR) was held in Toronto. The theme of the congress was very broad: religion as a human phenomenon. The geographical area of residence of the congress participants was equally wide. More than seven hundred researchers from various parts of the world presented at the conference a wealth of material, sometimes the most unexpected and difficult to access, various systems of discourse, which is extremely necessary for the development of an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, such as religious studies.

Traditionally, the congress presented five sections: "History of Religion and comparative Religious studies"; "Cultural studies and hermeneutics"; "Sociological and natural science approaches to the study of religion";" Theoretical problems of religious studies";"Innovations and development of new approaches". However, special attention was paid to representatives of natural science disciplines and their approaches to the study of religion. It was the third section that aroused considerable interest and attracted the largest number of participants of the congress. However, this was quite expected, as religious scholars have turned their attention to the methodology of natural sciences in recent decades, experiencing a deep theoretical and methodological crisis. This is also evidenced by such areas of knowledge that are already recognized and are currently being developed by religious scholars, such as the ecology of religion and cognitive religious studies.¹

The first and second sections mainly dealt with issues related to applied research in the field of a particular religious tradition or in certain regions, both European and Eastern. Religious scholars paid special attention to China and South Asian countries, primarily India. Thus, a number of sessions were specifically devoted to religion and social change in China, the development of modern religious concepts and religious studies in China, the construction of historical narratives in India, tribal religions in India, religious movements in South Asia and religious studies in the countries of this region.

Various aspects of Buddhism and Islam, their history and modern existence not only in the areas of their traditional distribution, but also around the world were considered at separate sessions. We will mention several reports on Buddhism in order to give an idea of the variety of topics: "Information on medicine and ritual instructions for healing the body, found in Buddhist texts of East Asia" (k. Triplet, Marburg University, Germany), " Features and Transmission of Theravada Buddhism in China "(Zheng Xiaoyun, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China), "Prajnaparamita-Hridaya Sutra: Historical Approaches" (Pranabananda Jash, Visva Bharati University, India), " Man of Deeds or Couples words? Dhammaloka beyond Burma "(B. Bockling, Irish national. University of Cork, Ireland), " Buryat Buddhism in the Soviet Period-

¹ At IAHR congresses, questionnaires are often conducted on the most relevant issues of religious studies. This year, participants were asked to fill out questionnaires with questions about the prospects of cognitive religious studies in the world and in their home countries, about how much and how cognitive religious studies were reflected in their own research, about possible criticism of the new direction and their personal attitude to it.

riod" (L. Belka, Univ. Masaryk, Czech Republic), "Paris as a zone of cultural contacts in the creation of modern Buddhist discourse" (S. Vita, Italian School of East Asian Studies, Italy), "The Development and Transformation of" Sitting meditation "(zazen) in Japan and the West "(T. Graf, Heidelberg University, Germany), "The image of Soka Gakkai International in East Asia and its activities in Korea and China" (L. Mcloglin, Wofford College, USA), etc. As far as Islam is concerned, many reports have examined its development in modern Europe. For example, two separate sessions addressed the spread and transformation of Islam in Ireland.

The author of these lines, who studies Japan, was surprised by the huge number of Japanese participants in the congress. Among the approximately 750 speakers, there were over 70 Japanese scholars ² who study various religious traditions and theoretical issues of religious studies. This also explains the significant number of sessions devoted exclusively to Japanese religions. For example, only the radical religions of Japan in the 1930s were given two sessions, and a separate session was devoted to the activities of Soka Gakkai International. Mostly Japanese researchers in their speeches covered the current religious situation in the country, talked about new religious movements.

In this review, we will focus in more detail on the work of the congress section "Theoretical Problems of Religious Studies", the problems of which are currently closely related to the interaction of Western and Eastern cultures.

Since about the middle of the 20th century, scientists have focused their attention on the history of religious studies, its theories and methods. And interest in this area is only growing. "For half a century, religious scholars have observed a steady increase in the pluralism of methods and approaches to the study of religion. However, the search for at least more or less universal principles of religion and a "minimum of basic prerequisites" for its research has not yet been crowned with success" (Krasnikov, 2007, p.228). This situation could not be better reflected in the discussions of the Congress. For orientalists, it is very interesting that these difficulties arise due to reference to the socio-historical experience of the countries of South and South-East Asia, the Far East, and the experience that is relatively recently and still rather poorly known in the West.

The article by S. N. Balagangadhar (University of Ghent, Belgium), who presented the research program of a group of Belgian scientists, caused a lively discussion. The topic "Are the categories of" religious-secular "a binary opposition: on the dark side of "secular" " touched the central nerve of religious studies as a separate branch of knowledge. Touching upon old problems about the possibility of applying categories reflecting European socio-historical experience to non-European cultures, the speaker raised the question of the possibility of religious studies itself in the post-secular world.

I. Strensky (University of California, USA), who presented the report "Modernity, Postmodernity: on various general concepts of studying religion", also investigated the problem of the relationship between secular and religious in the post-secular era. He was one of the pioneers of the so-called ideological critique of religious studies, which developed only in the last decade.³ I. Strensky called on religious scholars to pay more attention to the origins of their activities and their place (and role) in the historical process. He himself refers the ideas of the secular and religious to the basic categories of the Modern project, which organized and conceptualized the future socio-historical experience, as well as with the help of which the previous one was rewritten. The configuration, which assumes a more or less clear division of cultural space into purely "secular" and purely "religious", perfectly describes the modern (modern) realities of the Western world (and to some extent those countries that have gone through the process of modernization). Difficulties arise when this configuration tries to be imposed on non-Western cultures or even on past epochs of the West itself (for example, in the Middle Ages). And religious studies, which reproduces religion in its scientific practices as a separate natural phenomenon, a universal universal impulse, has played a significant role in preserving the illusion of the naturalness of such a situation. In this sense, religious studies is the ideology of Modernity. It serves not to clarify what is happening around us, but to justify the current status quo.

² The author does not have accurate data and uses only the congress program for calculations, which indicates the largest secular religious society in Japan based on the Nichiren Buddhist school.

³ On this issue, see also [Fitzgerald, 2000; McCutcheon, 1997; Milbank, 2004; Uzlaner, 2008].

The main objections to the stated point of view were arguments from pragmatism, namely: religious studies has a certain practical application, since we encounter many of the phenomena it studies in everyday life. Understanding these phenomena and interacting with them is sometimes quite difficult, and therefore a thorough study of them is necessary at least to build a line of behavior in relation to them (especially at the state level). However, Mira Nanda, who will be discussed below, noted that the knowledge about what we used to call religions, necessary for peaceful coexistence with them, we get from historians, political scientists, cultural scientists, sociologists, psychologists and many others. Of course, what would seem to be a bad thing to receive them also from religious scholars. However, we are not talking about its (religious studies) pragmatic value, but about theoretical confusion. It is not the specific research of religious scholars that is called into question, but the scientific nature of religious studies as a paradigm, its objectivity and impartiality. And the latter, it seems, should be strongly doubted, at least seriously think about them, since in the light of the reports made, religious studies appears more like an ideology of Modernity. However, a certain degree of bias and unscientific behavior is present in all scientific disciplines, and the reference to such elements in religious studies does not prevent religious scholars from continuing their research.

Mira Nanda (im. Jawaharlal Nehru, India) in the general lecture "How not to study Eastern cultures: Western esotericism in the creation of neo-Hinduism" spoke about the influence of European thought on the formation of neo-Hinduism. She touched upon the problems that arise at the intersection of the humanities, religion (in the sense in which it is understood by the state) and politics. According to the decision of the Supreme Court of India, "no precise definition can be given to the terms 'Hindu', 'Hindutva' and 'Hinduism'; and no abstract meaning can place these concepts only within a narrow religious framework, without taking into account Indian culture and heritage" [India Tribune, 07.03.2003]. The Court also held that "in the ordinary context, the term 'hindutva' should be understood as a way of life or a state of consciousness and should not be equated with or considered as Hindu fundamentalism" [ibid.]. This example shows particularly clearly that it is impossible to isolate such a separate phenomenon as religion outside of European cultures. One can, for example, recall the classic work of E. Said "Orientalism: Western concepts of the East" or the remarks of E. A. Torchinov [Said, 2006; Torchinov, 2007, pp. 26-38].

But religious studies has recently come to realize this seemingly obvious thesis. Moreover, the court's ruling shows that non-European cultures are already rejecting the categories imposed by the West at the State level. The modernist opposition between the religious and the secular is also disappearing: "... a Hindu can adopt a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu. Since Hindus tend to view other forms of worship, alien gods, and doctrines as insufficiently perfect, rather than incorrect or controversial, they tend to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the entire world and humanity" [India Tribune, 07.03.2003].

It is interesting to note that researchers from countries of non-European culture, even those who live in European countries or were educated there, said that there is no religion or religions in unmodernized (fundamentally, i.e. ideologically) societies. Thus, a researcher who belongs, let's say, to an Eastern culture prefers to talk about a tradition or ethnic culture that cannot be divided into philosophy, ritual, religion, ideology, etc., which is not separated from the state and is so intertwined with the life of the people and the country that it is no longer possible to separate it from everyday life. it is understood only as an integral phenomenon. It seems to us that it is precisely because of the experience of shaping non-European cultures by Western standards that religious studies has realized the inconsistency of its" universal " categories.

Thus, the ideological critique of religious studies discussed at the congress touched upon the basic categories underlying Modern European culture itself and the systems it created. In fact, we are talking not only about a fundamental revision of the basic concepts of religious studies, but before our eyes the very worldview, the very structure that makes its concepts and categories possible, is breaking down. And a key role in this process was played by closer acquaintance and interaction with the Eastern historical and cultural experience.⁴

⁴ The author of the review does not describe all the current trends in the development of religious studies, but only considers those that seem most interesting to him based on the materials of the congress.

list of literature

Krasnikov A. N. Metodologicheskie problemy religiovedeniya [Methodological problems of Religious Studies]. Moscow: Akademicheskiy proekt, 2007.

Said E. Orientalizm: zapadnye kontseptsii Vostoka [Orientalism: Western Concepts of the East]. Saint Petersburg: Russian World, 2006.

Torchinov E. A. Puti filosofii Vostoka i Zapad [Ways of Philosophy of the East and West: knowledge of the beyond]. St. Petersburg: Azbuka Publ., 2007.

Uzlaner D. Disenchanting the discourse: "religious" and "secular" in the language of modern times // Logo. 2008. N 4(67).

Fitzgerald T. The Ideology of Religious Studies. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2000.

McCutcheon R.T. Manufacturing Religion Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Milbank J. Retraditionalizing the Study of Religion: the Conflict of the Faculties: Theology and the Economy of the Sciences // Future of the Study of Religion: Proceedings of Congress 2000 / Ed. S. Jakelic. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004.

http://www.letindiadevelop.org/IndiaTribuneMarch72003.html

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