The Buddhist-Christian dialogue can be regarded as a more than academic and institutional exercise, on account of more than a century of interaction between Buddhists and Christians throughout the once colonized world. Buddhism and Christianity have shared the tendency to make their founders more symbolic indicators of faith and practice. Moreover, as this paper also argues, the Buddhist-Christian dialogue has been aided by several points of convergence, including their shared feature of concentration upon a founder-mystic, in the language of the post-industrial world -- an 'icon' -- in the form of an historical person whose symbolism transcends many levels and inspirations. 14 pgs. 27 f/c. 10b.
