Beyond Religious Exclusivism: The Jesuit Attacks against Buddhism and Xu Dashou’s Refutation of 1623

The article examines the dynamics of religious competition brought into Asia by Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. More specifically, it analyzes how Xu Dashou adopted an exclusivist approach in order to defend his own traditions, leading him to a full rejection of Christianity. After engaging himself for some time in an anti-Christian campaign, he understood that the exclusivist approach he had embraced was not congenial with his own traditions and, drawing from the metaphysical insights of Buddhism and Confucianism on ultimate reality and truth, he showed a way beyond religious exclusivism.