T *This version of the article is for Open Access distribution only. Reflections On Violence in Asian Religions 1 Jimmy Yu Florida State University Introduction he cross-cultural study of religions goes beyond narrow culture-bound perspectives, categories, and methods, and provides scholars with con- cerns, practices, and special features outside exclusively Western, usually Judeo-Christian, traditions. However, it is still common to find scholars draw- ing primarily from the European religious heritage in their use of categories of faith, belief, myth, ritual, eschatology, deity, and so forth. These categories can be useful in the study of mainstream Asian religious traditions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism. But some categories, like violence, do not easily map onto Asian religious traditions. As it is understood in the Asian tradition, violence comprises such a wide range of themes that using Western traditions of scholarship to understand it will simply leave out or distort too much. Of course, while there are many categories that manifest differently in different cultures, there are also aspects of the human condition that are intelligible throughout any number of human civilizations. In our postmodern academic milieu that favors difference, fragmentation, nuance, and heterogeneity, it would be foolish to make grand claims across the huge expanse of the world that is Asia. Yet in parts of Asia where various religious traditions have enduring effects on cultures, I do see familiar con- figurations of religious tenets and cultural practices, particularly in premodern times and at the junctures between traditional premodern practices and 1 I would like to thank Margo Kitts for the opportunity to organize and edit this special issue of the Journal of Religion and Violence, and for her helpful editorial suggestions for not only my introduction but also all the contributors of this issue. I am also grateful for my colleagues in the academy who contributed to this issue. Without their thoughtful articles, this issue would not come to fruition. © Journal of Religion and Violence 6:1.