section_path: In the modern era/Classification
section_name: Classification
paragraph_text: Classification
  
  There is consensus among religious studies scholars that Buddhism is a religion. However, Buddhism has posed problems to Western scholars of religion who define religion based solely on a "theistic conception". Further, some Western Buddhists and commentators like Alan Watts maintain that Buddhism does not constitute a religion but rather a philosophy, a psychotherapy, or a way of life. This conception is rooted in 19th century orientalist writers, such as theosophist Henry Steel Olcott, which reinterpreted Buddhism in a Protestant lens and viewed Buddhism in Asia as representing a debased religious form of what was originally non-religious and rational. Some Buddhist teachers and commentators, such as Dharmavidya David Brazier, have criticized the persistence of this view. Among Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Buddhism is parallel to Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity as an āgama, literally "scripture" or "teaching".