[quote=“buddhism”]In fact, as you might be already aware of, the American and Japanese scholars also used the term “Lamaism” during the first half of the twentieth century.
“Exorcising the Illusion of Bon “Shamans”: A Critical Genealogy of Shamanism in Tibetan Religions”
By Zeff Bjerken (College of Charleston, USA), 2002
Type in : Lamaism[/quote]
The Bjerken article is basically irrelevant.
As is well known, Waddell thought that “Lamaism” was an appropriate appellation to use since, in his opinion, Tibetan Buddhism was basically the indigenous shamanistic religion of Tibet, Bon, overlaid with a Buddhist veneer.
Kawaguchi didn’t use the term, because (not surprisingly for a Buddhist monk) he recognised that Tibetan Buddhism was indeed Buddhism.
His criticism was that Bon has borrowed so much from Tibetan Buddhism that it was wrong to think of it as not Buddhism; it was simply Buddhism under another name.
Bjerken criticises Waddell for presuming to know better than his Tibetan informants what was Buddhism and what wasn’t.
BTW, didn’t you ever wonder why the author of the article puts “Lamaism” in quotation marks but doesn’t use them for Tibetan Buddhism?
(Did you even bother to read the whole article?)
Anyway, any citation of Waddell to support you argument is completely irrelevant for two reasons.
(1) Nineteen years after the publication of The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism, Waddell recognised the erroneous claims he had made in his earlier book when he wrote:
[quote] this term is in many ways misleading, inappropriate, and undesirable. It conveys the implication that Tibetan Buddhism differs essentially from all other forms of that faith — which is not a fact, for its differences from medieval Indian Buddhism are relatively trifling and mainly external. … Altogether, therefore, ‘Lamaism’ is an undesirable designation for the Buddhism of Tibet, and is rightly dropping out use.[/quote] Encyclopaedia of Ethics and Religion, Vol. 7, p.784
So there you go.
(2) Waddell’s earlier advocacy of the term “Lamaism” was basically because he saw Tibetan Buddhism as Bon with a Buddhist veneer.
His view had nothing to do with the practice of highest yoga tantra in Tibetan Buddhism.
As for Japanese use of the term, according to Tsultrim Kelsang Khangkar, a Tibetan scholar living in Japan (who in 1978 somewhat controversially advocated it use), some Japanese scholars use it “because Tibetan Buddhists revere the lama”.
In this respect, it is perhaps similar to the use of the term Brahmanism to describe Hinduism.
AFAIK, the Japanese use of the term is not intended to imply that Lamaism is not Buddhism, just as Brahmanism is not supposed to imply non-Hindu - rather, it is just a particular type of Hinduism.
While we’re at it, we might as well mention Melvyn Goldstein, who uses the word to describe a political system in which the rulers were also the leaders of the Gelugpa sect, and therefore lamas.
Goldstein’s use is not unreasonable, since alternatives such as “Buddhist theocracy” could perhaps imply that Buddhism is a theistic religion.
In short, 20th century scholars who have used the term “lamaism” or “lamaist” also recognise that Tibetan Buddhism is indeed a form of Buddhism, and have used the term for other purposes.
AFAIK, it is only you and your crackpot sect that tries to distinguish “Lamaism” from Buddhism, based on the logic that any religious tradition that practices Highest Yoga Tantra could not be Buddhism.
I’ll deal with the rest of your nonsense about the supposed goal of your campaign being to protect Taiwanese women from predatory Tibetan lamas (while you conveniently ignore the countless well-documented atrocities experienced by Tibetan women at the hands of Chinese police) later.