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What can we learn from over 2,000 years of fascination with the East? Chris Harding explores this question in The Light of Asia – a book that shares its title with a poem about the Buddha from the nineteenth century. His focus is on characters whose personal engagement with Asian traditions shaped Western perceptions.

Our conversation reflects on the impact of efforts to reconcile different viewpoints. Does one way of seeing predominate? What guards against cherry-picking? Among many other topics, we also consider:

* The early influence of Jesuits in spreading ideas

* Alan Watts as a priest, blurring multiple boundaries

* Bede Griffiths and inter-religious experiments in India

* The importance of community to spiritual practice

* What it might mean to “decolonise philosophy”

Chris is a cultural historian at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in modern India and Japan. He contributes regularly to the BBC, and a range of publications, including Aeon and Unherd. He is also the author of IlluminAsia.

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