author
Kenneth J. (Kenneth James) Saunders
1883–1937
A missionary-scholar who spent years in South Asia, he became known for writing clear, thoughtful books on Buddhism and the religions of Asia. His work tried to make Eastern thought more accessible to English-speaking readers in the early twentieth century.
1 Audiobook
Buddhism in the Modern World
by Kenneth J. (Kenneth James) Saunders
About the author
Born in Cape Town in 1883, Kenneth James Saunders studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and went on to build a career that blended Christian service with serious study of Asian religions. Sources describe him as a missionary and orientalist, and note that he worked in Ceylon and India before later spending time in the United States.
Saunders is best remembered for books such as Gotama Buddha: A Biography, The Heart of Buddhism, and The Story of Buddhism. His writing focused on explaining Buddhism and other Asian religious traditions to general readers, and contemporaries remembered him as an able interpreter of the religions of Asia.
He died in Eastbourne in 1937, in his mid-fifties. Even now, his books are a window into an earlier period of cross-cultural religious scholarship, when writers like Saunders were helping introduce many Western readers to Buddhist thought for the first time.