Theravada Buddhism and modernization

·期刊原文
Theravada Buddhism and modernization: Anagarika Dhammapala and B.R. Ambedkar (leaders of Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka and India)
by Balkrishna Givind Gokhale
Journal of Asian and African Studies

Vol.34 No.1(Feb 1999)
pp.33-
COPYRIGHT 1999 E.J. Brill (The Netherlands)

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The Twentieth century saw a revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and
India. In both countries Theravada became an instrument for
modernization though it played different roles in social
transformation and political action in the two countries. The
Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka, led by Anagarika Dhammapala
(1864-1933), began as a "spin-off" from the organizational impetus
provided by the Theosophical movement. In India Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
(1928-1956) turned to Buddhism in his search for an alternative
cultural identity for millions of his followers (particularly the
Mahar caste) in his rebellion against Hinduism, its caste system and
its concomitant, the institution of Untouchablity. Though Buddhism
provided an institutional/cultural reference for both Dhammapala and
Ambedkar, the two found inspiration and significance from it toward
different ends.
The search for modernization and a reaffirmation of religious
identity were two powerful forces in the making of Twentieth century
South Asia. The impetus for modernization came from the Western
impact ushered by British role. British role imposed on the
sub-continent an imperial unity through a sub-continental
centralized administration, a quasi-modern education system which
created an English-speaking middle class espousing liberal values, a
unified judicial system based on ideas from Anglo-Saxon
jurisprudence (especially equality under law and evidential
procedure), a modern transportation and communication system leading
to varying degrees of spatial and social mobility and a modern
military apparatus under-pinning the imperial superstructure. The
idea of nationalism and aspirations for social and economic
transformation were two of the more powerful aspects of the
modernizing process in the two countries.
We may briefly discuss the concept of modernization and its
relevance in the South Asian context. Modernization and
Westernization have often been as interrelated, if not
inter-changeable terms in their effects though it is also assumed
that modernization need not always mean Westernization (the case of
Japan being the most obvious). The modern Western ethos was based on
the legacy of Greece and Rome, the Judeo-Christian tradition, the
Enlightenment ideas of natural rights of man and representative (if
not necessarily responsible) government and technological advances
ushered by the Industrial revolution. Of these the first two had
little relevance for most non-Western societies. The last two,
however, were accepted as signs of progress. Increasingly,
therefore, modernization became an acceptable working concept for
the struggle against Western economic and political domination. When
precisely the modernization process began in the West is a matter of
argument. Many would assign the beginning of the modern age in
Europe with the fall of the Ancien Regime and the beginning of the
French Revolution in 1789. Others would extend it back to the
Renaissance and the Reformation and the enlightenment of the pre
French Revolution period (Bacon, Rousseau, Voltaire, the
Encyclopaediasts et al.). In general it is suggested that the Modern
Age has a background of at least 300 years, if not more, and leading
European nations, France, England and Germany, as also the United
States, had completed their modernizing process by the 1880's. In
contrast countries of Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia
belonged to the pre-modern phase of human history. These roughly
correspond to the modern developed and developing or underdeveloped
regions of the world.
This difference, implicit in the terms referred to above, is
reflected in a variety of meanings associated with modernity or
modernization. Economists, sociologists/anthropologists, political
scientists and intellectual historians stress one or other aspects
in the context of their special disciplines. For economists
modernization means capitalist industrialization and a society's
ability/capacity to apply scientific technologies to channel and
optimize material resources. Sociologists stress urbanization,
emergence of class structures able to assume new functions and
"modernize" stratified traditional social structures to undertake
new roles. For the political scientist it means adoption of ideas of
the rights of man and forms of representative government. For the
intellectual historian modernity is synonymous with the acceptance
of the primacy of human reason, a secularized social milieu within a
secular state, natural rights of man and checks and balances in
governmental systems, in effect a transformed assemblage of values
and institutions emboding these ideas.(1)
The need for modernization was a response to European political and
economic domination seen as a result of modern technologies. The
major sentiment was of a desire for a sovereign native government
free of foreign economic and political control. There was also a
perception of challenges to the sanctity and authority of indigenous
religious, social and cultural values posed by the Christian
Missionary activities and the new "rationalistic/humanistic" liberal
ideas. These particularly affected the established
religious/social/cultural hierarchies in non-Christian lands. The
emerging nationalism in India and Sri-Lanka sought to reaffirm the
validity of traditional religious/cultural world-views even while
accepting the need for changes in processes of learning and
knowledge based on "modern" scientific knowledge and technical
know-how for ensuring industrial and economic progress and
"sovereignty".
Reform and reaffirmation, thus, became parts of a symbiotic process
of renewal. The challenge of Christian missionary activity mainly
concerned forms of articulation of traditional religious concepts
and their ritual co-relates. The Christian missionary critique of
traditional Hindu and Buddhist religious ideas and their validating
rituals touched the core of the two Weltanchauungen. Science and
technology and the role of reason in social arrangements were felt
as expedient and essential for modernization. The Christian
challenge, it was felt, had to be met through reform and revival.
The reform movement led by Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) was both a
movement for reform and reaffirmation of Hinduism. The Theosophical
movement (in its eclectic outreach) helped this reaffirmation.
The alliance of Theosophy and Hinduism in India and Theravada
Buddhism in Sri Lanka and its role in the emergent phases of Indian
nationalism (Msr. Annie Beasant - 1847-1933 - and her Indian
followers in India and Anagarika Dhammapala in Sri Lanka) is a case
in point. For theosophy, association with religious movements led by
leaders such as Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883) and his Arya
Samaj, and with traditionalist Hindu nationalists - Pandit Madan
Mohan Malaviya (1861-1946) for instance - became a convenient means
for its acceptance by the elites in India. It is interesting to
mention here that both Motilal Nehru (1861-1931) and his illustrious
son Jawaharlal (1889-1964) were very close to the leaders of the
Theosophical movement in India in its early formative years. In Sri
Lanka the public recitation of the tisarana (the threefold refuge in
the Buddha, Dhamma and Samgha) and the pancahsila (five precepts for
Buddhist lay men and women) by Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
(1831-1891) and the American Colonel H.S. Olcott (1832-1907) on May
21, 1880 inspired the Buddhist revival.
Reform and revival which lay at the bases of emerging nationalism in
South Asia played a significant role in the social and political
history of the times. The Theosophical movement, the Arya Samaj and
the Aligarh Muslim movement began in the same year (1875),
indicating the resurgence of a new religious awareness in the last
quarter of the Nineteenth century. Both the Arya Samay and the
Aligarh movement reflected a powerful urge among the Hindu and
Muslim elites to reform and reaffirm traditional religious paradigms
in their quest for modernization. Such was also the case with the
Sri Lankan elites in the Theravada fold. For Ambedkar revolt against
traditional Hinduism and a quest for a new religious-cultural
identity as a part of the "modernization" of the submerged masses of
"untouchables", Buddhism became the leitmotiv six decades later. An
exploration in the role of Theravada in the process of reform and
reaffirmation in the careers of Anagarika Dhammapala in Sri Lanka
and B.R. Ambedkar in India is the purpose of the present paper.(2)
By the 1860's Buddhism in Sri Lanka had lost a good deal of its
sheen and elan in Sri Lanka. The Lankan monastic order functioned
more as a matter of traditional form than a vigorous and inspiring
conviction and energy of its former days. The old scholarly
tradition lived only in its former shadow, and the generality of the
monks, it was felt, was "intellectually and spiritually moribund;
monastic discipline was lax, the practice of mediation had been
neglected and then forgotten; and even to those who truly loved the
Buddha, the Dhamma and the Samgha, it must sometimes have seemed
that, after reigning for more than twenty glorious centuries over
the hearts and minds of the Simhala race, they were doomed to be
cast as rubbish to the void".(3) Centuries of foreign rule, first
Portuguese, then Dutch and finally British, had seemed to smother
the Simhalese spirit for everywhere the West was triumphant.
Simhalese Buddhist children bore Christian names and went to
Christian missionary schools. It looked as if the West would finally
overwhelm Buddhism and it Simhalese culture.
At this point there was a sudden stirring, a new awakening which, by
the end of the century, would burgeon into a powerful Buddhist
revival and, with it, Simhalese culture. Its leader was Anagarika
Dhammapala.
Dhammapala's life falls into three well-marked phases. During the
first phase (1864-1884) he divided his time between his involvement
in the Theosophical movement and the emerging Buddhist revival. The
second phase (1885-1926) saw his emergence as a powerful spokesman
and the leader of the new Buddhist movement. The last (1927-1933)
meant years of ceaseless effort and fulfilment in the Buddhist
cause, his failing health and ordination into the order of Buddhist
monks. These three phases paralleled developments in Simhalese
nationalism in an almost consanguinous and symbiotic relationship.
II
Dhammapala (David) was born on September 17, 1864, in the Pettah
area of the capital city of Colombo. He was the son of Don Carolis
and Mallika Hewavitarane. Don Carolis belonged to the Goyigama caste
which had claims to a "past lordly status in Ceylon".(4) The first
noteworthy member of the family was Hewavitarane Dingiry Appuhamy.
Of his two sons the older became a Buddhist monk whose tutor was
fourth in pupilary succession of Samgharaja Saranakara, a renowned
name in eighteenth century Simhalese Buddhism. The other son, Don
Carolis, was successful businessman in Colombo. Don Carolis was an
ardent Buddhist as was his wife Mallika, daughter on another
prosperous Sri Lankan businessman whose connection with Buddhism was
even more illustrious. He had donated a piece of land whereupon rose
the later celebrated Vidyodaya Pirivena led by Hikkuduwa Siri
Sumangala Maha Nayaka Thera, one of the monastic leaders of the new
militant Buddhism of the 1870's and 1880's. This Buddhist heritage
had a decisive influence on Dhammapala's choice of a career and his
dedication to it once the choice was made. Two events presaged the
emergence of a new Buddhist spirit of which Dhammapala became an
inspirational spokesman. The first was the Pannadura debates between
Christian missionaries and two Buddhist leaders, Hikkuduwe Siri
Sumangala and Hugetuwatte Gunanada. Gunanada was the incumbent at
the Kotahena temple which Dhammapala often visited. The learning and
oratorical skills of Gunanada revived Buddhist confidence. The
second was the arrival of the Theosophical movement in Sri Lanka and
the recitation of the Buddhist tisarana and panchasila by Blavatsky
on May 21, 1880, as mentioned earlier. The Theosophical movement,
which Dhammapala joined so enthusiastically, gave him organizational
experience so essential for the structuring of the new Buddhist
movement.
Between 1864 and 1880 young Dhammapala went to a number of schools,
Catholic or Anglican. The overly sectarian Christian instruction in
these schools troubled Dhammapala's Buddhist convictions and led to
a prolonged and often polemical encounter between the new Buddhism
and Christian missions. After his formal schooling Dhammapala found
employment in government service until 1886 when he gave up his job
to participate in the activities of the Theosophical movement which,
along with his loyalty to Buddhism, moulded his later career.
In 1886 Dhammapala became the General Secretary of the Buddhist
Theosophical Society and the manager of the Sandaresa periodical.
During 1886-1890 he was deeply involved in a variety of Buddhist
activities. In 1891 he visited Sarnath (where the Buddha preached
his first sermon and Buddhism was born). He also visited Bodhagaya
(where the Buddha was Enlightened). At both places he saw the plight
of two of the holy places of Buddhist pilgrimage which led him to
spend the rest of his life in restoration of the sites. During 1891
he also visited Burma. In May 1891 he started the Mahabodhi Society
which was to become a powerful instrument in his mission for the
revival of Buddhism in India and Sri Lanka. In January 1892 he
started the Mahabodhi journal. In 1893 he attended the Chicago
Parliament of Religions as a representative of Theravada Buddhism:
it was at this meeting that Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) emerged as
a spokesman for the new Hinduism. Thereafter Dhammapala visited
Japan, China and Thailand. These international appearances
established his leadership in the Buddhist revival movement.
The periodicals Sandaresa and the Buddhist (started in 1888)
preached economic progress and the revival of the Buddhist ethos.
They were widely supported by the mercantilist elements. The
alliance of the business community and traditional elites,
incorporating ideas of economic and political modernization in the
new Buddhism, made it the vanguard of Simhalese nationalism. It
reaffirmed the essentials of Theravada ideas but also suggested the
need for the reformulation of aspects of religious practice to
address concerns of modernity.(5)
Dhammapala also sponsored the opening of Buddhist schools to counter
Christian missionary propaganda and instil in the younger generation
a sense of pride in Buddhism and Simhalese culture. In his numerous
speeches he dwelt on the grand theme of the necessity for reviving
Buddhism which was now increasingly identified with Simhalese
nationalism.
His activities in the cause of the restoration of Sarnath and
Bodhagaya and other Buddhist holy places won him international
attention and support. He visited England four times (1893, 1897,
1904 and 1925-1926), the U.S. six times (1893, 1896, 1897,
1902-1904, 1913-1915 and 1925), China, Japan and Thailand
(1893-1894) and France and Italy en route on his journeys to England
and America. During his visits to England and America he secured
valuable financial support and established a Buddhist centre in
London in 1926.
In India Dhammapala's efforts to restore Buddhist places of
pilgrimage continued in spite of frustrations and it was not until
1930 that he was able to complete the major part of his mission. In
between his stints in India Dhammapala spent his time in Sri Lanka
where in 1922 he travelled across the country in the cause of
national revival. His activities drew adverse British attention in
India and Sri Lanka as his activities were suspected of sedition. In
1916, in the aftermath of the Buddhist-Muslim riots of 1915, he was
confined to Calcutta and barred from visiting Sri Lanka, the order
being rescinded in December 1919. His ceaseless travels, speeches
and literary and religious work soon began to affect his health.
Even during his travels in the West he suffered from fever and
complained of ill-health. He reports in the Journal that he often
had restless nights and disturbing dreams. He visited Sri Lanka for
the last time in 1931 and on his return to India received his final
ordination followed by his upasampada (confirmation as a monk) on
January 16, 1933. He lived another three months and passed away on
April 29, 1933 at Sarnath. His last words were: "Let me be reborn .
. . I would like to be born again twenty-five times to spread Lord
Buddha's Dhamma".(6)
Dhammapala has become a legend in the history of Simhalese
nationalism. A passage in the St. Louis Observer of September 21,
1893 describes him thus: "with black curly locks thrown from the
broad brow, his clean, clear eyes fixed upon the audience, his long
brown fingers emphasizing the utterance of his vibrant voice, he
looked the very image of a propagandist, and one trembled to know
that such a figure stood at the head of a movement to consolidate
all the disciplines of the Buddha and to spread the light of Asia
throughout the civilized world".(7) Dressed in white garments, his
lean and lanky figure, intense look and restless hands, projected an
impressive personality wherever he went. He spoke directly and often
bluntly, his passion tempered by his humility and spiritual
presence. Unwavering in his faith and tireless in his work
Dhammapala became a powerful spokesman for the new Buddhism breaking
through its decades of isolation, poised to transform the Simhalese
mind.
Dhammapala's central concern for nearly half a century (1986-1933)
was Buddhism. There were three aspects in this concern. One was that
of a Simhalese patriot and modernizer. The other was his concern for
the condition of the places of Buddhist pilgrimage in India. The
third related to his being the spokesperson for Buddhism in the West
and Asian countries. These roles complemented each other and formed
his vision for a revived Buddhism as the major instrument for a new
Sri Lanka. His work in India and the West had largely a contemporary
significance. His role as a Buddhist spokesperson melded
felicitously into the growing interest in Orientalism. His impact on
Sri Lanka was much more powerful and enduring. He made Buddhism
self-confident as an instrument for the reaffirmation of the
Simhalese cultural identity for elites as well as masses. He worked
for a Buddhism that had to be different from the old reclusive creed
innured in the cloistered recesses of monasteries. It had to be bold
in its reinterpretations of social, economic and political agendas
though loyal to the demands of the Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma
heritage. His Buddhism was to be a new "Protestant" creed, as called
by some modern scholars but, as Dhammapala insisted, pristine in the
integrity of its message for a modern Sri Lanka.
This revived and reaffirmed Buddhism was based on the innate
"rationality" of the original message, "scientific" in its
orientation and humanistic in its morality concerned with the
demands of the "here and now" (dittheva dhamme). It had faith in man
as an architect of his own destiny. It may be centuries old in its
chronological age but was perennially modern in its acceptance of
the scientific spirit and demands of technological change. This
Buddhism, Dhammapala felt, could be the vehicle for its new
pilgrimage into a modern world of economic progress and political
independence.(8)
III
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1928-1956) traversed a different path in his
discovery of Buddhism. The circumstances in the lives of Dhammapala
and Ambedkar were so different and each arrived at his own
interpretation of Buddhism in strikingly different forms. For
Dhammapala Buddhism was a "given", a self-evident reality and way
whose restatement and reaffirmation were parts of a Sri Lankan
nationalism. For Ambedkar nationalism had already come to fruition
in 1947, and he was an architect of the new nation's constitution.
Political independence fo Ambedkar, however, did not mean social
liberation from the schakles of the inequities of the caste system
and the tyranny of untouchability which condemned millions to
lifelong submergence and servitude. Though the Constitution had
outlawed the practice of untouchability, its reality in a myriad of
villages continued to sear the lives of its victims. The
untouchables had been granted concessions but their human dignity
had yet to be redeemed.
Ambedkar did not come to Buddhism until late in his life. His career
and actions have an unusual significance in Indian social history.
In the past a number of Bhakti - poets of Maharashtra (among whom
Chokha Mela, a Mahar, to which caste Ambedkar belonged) had stood
outside the portals of temples to beseech the Deity for succor
against the indignities and oppression inflict on them by the upper
castes led by their priests. Chokha Mela was honoured as a saint but
his Mahars continued to suffer caste depredation and tyranny.
Ambedkar refused to be a supplicant at the temple gates. These
temples and their deities had little use for him for they had
diminished, if not destroyed, the untouchables' human dignity. In
this he became the first successful untouchable leader to demand
justice, dignity and human rights for millions. Turning his back on
the darkened recesses of the temple Ambedkar led millions of his
followers into a new dawn with conversion to Buddhism.
Ambedkar was born on April 14, 1891, in Mhow in Madhya Pradeh, in
the Mahar caste. He was the son of Ramji Sakpal and his wife
Bhimabai (nee Murbadkar). The Sakpals and Mubadkars had served in
the Indian Army, then an avenue for upward mobility for the Mahars.
Bhimrao received his early education in Dapoli and Satara and
graduated from the Elphinstone High School in Bombay in 1907. His
name was now Ambedkar variously explained as either meaning "from"
Ambavade (his native village) or "gifted" to him by a Brahman school
teacher. Prior to his high school graduation Bhimrao was married to
Ramabai, daughter of a Mr. Walangrar who worked as a porter at
Dapoli. With the help of a scholarship from the Maharaja of Baroda,
Ambedkar went to Elphistone College and received his B.A. degree
from the University of Bombay in 1912. Then, again with financial
assistance from Baroda, Ambedkar went to Columbia University in New
York in 1913 where he received his M.A. in 1915 and his Ph.D. a year
later. In 1916 he was in London to become a Barrister-at-Law but as
his money ran out, he had to return to India in 1917. After a brief
spell in the Baroda State administration he went to Bombay to teach
law and business at the Sydenham College and the Government Law
School to augment his meagre earnings from his law practice. He went
back to London in 1920, this time with a scholarship from the
Maharaja of Kolhapur, where he completed his work for
Barrister-at-Law and D.Sc. in Economics and returned to India in
1923.(9)
From Mhow, Dapoli and Bombay Ambedkar had travelled for and wide
both spatially and intellectually. He scored some outstanding firsts
for a member of a Hindu untouchable caste, in high school
graduation, colleges and university degrees in Bombay, London and
Columbia, achievements considered impossible for a member of an
oppressed caste. He began his law practice in Bombay but was
increasingly involved in social and political movements mobilizing
the lower and untouchable castes. Between 1924 and 1949 Ambedkar
played the role of a stormy petrel in Indian politics confronting
great icons such as Gandhi and Nehru. He felt that Gandhi had pushed
the problem of the untouchables under a capacious rug called
"Harijans" (children of God). He demanded a fundamental
transformation in the social philosophy and structure of Hindu
society, stating that wherever there was caste there were bound to
be outcasts. He had secured political gains for the untouchables
through negotiations with the rulers and Gandhi (Poona Pact of
September 1932). But he realized that a few and halting political
concessions did nothing to change the social and economic conditions
of the untouchables as a whole. Ambedkar, in spite of his
illustrious academic career, his knowledge and understanding of law
and his political efforts had known personal humiliation as a Mahar.
He was humiliated in the elections of 1952 when the Congress Party
contrived his defeat at the hands of a non-entity from one of the
"scheduled" castes. The upper caste Hindus in the Congress had
frustrated him but Ambedkar was not the one to meekly accept defeat
and ask for forgiveness and accommodation.(10)
Since the 1930's Ambedkar was deeply exercised with the subject of
interrelationships between Hinduism and current politics. The three
major influences in his family life and early childhood were a) the
religious ambience in his family; b) the humiliations he suffered at
the hands of the upper caste Hindus as a student and a professional
person and c) his six-plus years spent in the West. Each of these
shaped his thinking and defined the nature of his responses to
religion and politics in India.
His familial religious affiliation was with the Kabir Panth named
after Kabir who lived during the last quarter of the Fifteenth and
the opening decades of the Sixteenth centuries (tradition asserts
that Kabir died in AD 1518). Kabir was a disciple of Ramananda, the
founder of the Bhakti movement. Kabir was a rebel who attacked the
caste system and religious divisions and preached a doctrine of
loving devotion to the One and Loving God. The influence of the
Ramananda-Kabir Bhakti marga (path) continued through much of
Ambedkar's life.
If Bhakti attracted Ambedkar, so did the Sanskrit language. But
Brahmanical arrogance prevented him from learning the language then
regarded as the sole preserve of the Brahmans. All of this created
in him an uncompromising hostility to Hinduism. In 1948 he called
Hindu civilization an "infamy". For him what was defining in the
Hindu tradition was not the lofty metaphysics of the Vedanta which
identified the individual being with the Supreme but its social
doctrines enshrined in law codes such as the Manu Smriti which he
ceremonially torched in 1927.(11) Ambedkar had lost his patience
with faith in Hinduism for he doubted its ability to change its
social thinking and accord human dignity to millions who so
pathetically hovered at the fringes of Hindu society.
By the 1930's Ambedkar had begun to turn his back on Hinduism with
its chaturvarna (four "orders" which Gandhi accepted implicitly) as
a determinant in a system of division of social labour turning
millions of the panchamas (outcastes) into "invisible" humans.
Hinduism had not known genuine Reformation and its Renaissance was
much like a rediscovery of a long lost Brahmanical past. The ruling
caste hierarchies of the Brahman and intermediate castes (such as
the Maratha castes in Maharashtra and Yadavs in northern India) had
a vested economic and social interest in keeping the untouchables in
their "place". His Western experience had given him a taste for the
thrust and parry of rational thought and the power of ideas in
bringing about far-reaching social change. Hindu leaders, he felt,
were more interested in preserving their political and economic
power than in bringing about much-needed change in social thinking
and behaviour.(12)
The failure of the Hindu hierarchy in meaningfully helping the
submerged masses climb out of their state of degredation and despair
made Ambedkar pessimistic about the future of the untouchables in
Hindu society. At a conference at Yeola (Nasik distinct in
Maharashtra) he declared, more in sorrow that anger: "It is an
unfortunate fact that I have been born a Hindu; it was not in my
hands or change that. But I can say this with utmost gravity and
sincerity: I will not die a Hindu".(13) With this he put the Hindus
on notice that he was not a pity-mongering supplication of a Choka
Mela but a revolt against a faith and its social system that denied
human dignity to millions. He had begun a search for a faith that
would empower the untouchables to be human beings in their own
right.
Ambedkar had won for the untouchables a few economic and political
concessions and a possibility of functioning as a "pressure group"
in the game of party politics. He differed fundamentally from Gandhi
in matters of economic and social thinking. Gandhi was skeptical of
the benefits of "modernization". He denounced industrialization as
heartless and exploitative. He preached a return to a romantically
idealized village society. Ambedkar had grown out of that society
and the reality of that society was far from idyllic. For him the
Indian village was dead, for decades if not centuries. What was left
of it was a corpse ready for incineration or burial. For him the
best course for the untouchables was two-fold, leave the village to
escape the social and economic tyranny imposed by the intermediate
castes and seek their destiny in the industrializing urban areas and
leave Hinduism to its own devices for a new identity through another
faith.
Marxism failed to attract him. His own deeply religious nature was
uncomfortable with Marxist materialism and historical determinism
and the Marxist reality of tyranny and suppression of dissent in the
Soviet Union. He had seen the intellectual subservience of the
Indian Marxists to their mentors in Russia and was wary of the
Indian left-wing intellectuals and their newly discovered
"secularism". He felt neither was capable of confronting the social
reality of the untouchables either in their dogmas or eagerness to
play "operational" politics in the Indian context.
His decision to leave the Hindu fold in 1935 led to a virtual
"conversion" stampede. Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and other sundry
religious votaries raced to his door with all kinds of promises. For
some of them it was a kind of a spiritual "auction" for the prize
was nothing less than the winning of millions of votaries and their
votes from among the ex-untouchables. He did not want his people to
be mere pawns on the chess board of political ambitions. Also he
knew that his followers were deeply affected by Bhakti and cherished
their "Indian-ness". Islam in India had a past of invasions and
fanatical suppression of non-Muslim challengers. Christianity was
tainted with its association with imperialist rule and was regarded
as much of "foreign" orgin as Islam.
What Ambedkar was seeking for his people was more than the removal
of the formal stigma of "untouchability" and consequent economic
deprivation and social degradation. He wanted for his people a new
faith, a new identity based on an ethical creed and a rationalistic
world-view. This, for obvious reasons, also had to be a part of the
"Indic" tradition. Buddhism, it seemed to him, was such a doctrine
and culture.
Buddhism, for Ambedkar was a religion of reason and compassion. The
Buddha had challenged Brahmanical priestly presumption with its
quasi-magical ritual and inequitous social hierarchy. Buddhism, for
Ambedkar, was a basically rational creed with faith in the ability
of man to be an architect of his own destiny. More than its monastic
ideals and emphasis on withdrawal from the world of everyday events,
Ambedkar saw in Buddhism a means for the untouchable to transcend
the limitations of caste and turn toward a "modern" rationalist
understanding of himself and his world. Buddhism had a glorious past
in philosophy and metaphysics, literature and art, social awareness
and meaningful effort in helping the individual find himself. He
wanted to get away from the Hindu mansion but not alienate himself
and his followers from their "Indian-ness". In a sense Ambedkar's
act in turning to Buddhism rather than Islam or Christianity was his
final gracious gesture toward the Hindus. He was saying that he was
leaving Hinduism but not abandoning the Indic tradition. As a
realist Ambedkar knew much that passed muster under the rubric of
Buddhism was not without blemishes and the insistence of monastic
Buddhism in its ascetic renunciation from the world was not
something he favoured. He had begunn to give his own interpretation
of what to him was the essential Buddhism committed to social
action, economic advancement and social "modernization". The new
Choka Mela had ceased imploring God to deliver him from humiliation
and deprivation but was ready and willing to march into an identity
of a new faith and its new distinctive culture. He had turned his
back on the old temple to find a new shrine promising revitalization
of the entire human being. Buddhism, thus, was not just another
religion but an opportune way of modernizing and energizing a
hitherto submerged and suppressed mass.
His call for conversion to Buddhism in 1956 was heeded in massive
numbers. In 1951 there were 2,487 Buddhists in Maharashtra (0.1% of
the population). In 1961 they were 2,789,501 (7.5%) far exceeding
the numbers of Christians (1.42%) and close to that the Muslims
(7.6%), Ambedkar's conversion had projected a new (14) community
claiming its own distinct place under the Indian sun.(14)
The careers of Dhammapala and Ambedkar point to the inadequacies of
accepted notions concerning so-called world-affirming and
world-negating typology in the history of world religions. Theravada
Buddhism, as revealed in a scripture-focussed understanding, is a
religion of world-renunciation. But its political and social thrusts
are clearly revealed in historical evidence of dynastic chronicles
and a mass of inscriptional material scattered across India, Sri
Lanka, Burma and Thailand. Ever since its inception laymen and
laywomen formed an integral and active part of the Theravada
Buddhist society and the role of the men and women of the world has
been no less distinguished than that of the monastic communities in
the making of its world. Dhammapala espoused Buddhism as a basis for
the Simhalese cultural reaffirmation; Ambedkar found in it a means
for social liberation and cultural transcendence.
NOTES
1 For ideas on Modernity see Rudolph, L.I. & Rudolph, S.H., The
Modernity of Tradition, Chicago, 1967, pp. 12-14.
2 For religion and nationalism see Van der Veer, P., Religious
Nationalism, Berkeley, 1994, pp. 118-119; for Theosophy and Buddhism
see Agarwal, C.V., The Buddhism and the Theosophical Movements,
Sarnath, 1993, pp. 13 ff.
3 For an earlier version of Dharmapala and the Simhalese renaissance
see Gokhale, B.G., "Anagarika Dharmapala - Toward Modernity Through
Tradition" in Smith, B.L. (Ed), Contributions to Asian Studies,
Leiden, 1975, pp. 30-39 for Dharmapala's life see Bhikshu
Samgharakshita, Anagarika Dharmapala, A Biographical Sketch, Kabdy,
1964, p. 2.
4 For the Goyigama caste see Bryce, Ryan, Caste in Modern Ceylon,
New Brunswick, 1953, p. 96.
5 Details of Dharmapala's career are based on Samgharakshita, Op.
Cit., and Guruge, A., (Ed), Return to Rightiousness, Colombo, pp.
XXXIII if; also see Wickramaratne, "Religion, Nationalism and Social
Change in Ceylon, 1865-1885" in Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society, No: 2, 1969, pp. 135 ff.
6 Guruge, Op. Cit., pp. LXI-LXXXIII.
7 Quoted in Samgharakshita, Op. Cit., p. 62.
8 For Dharmapala and "Protestant" Buddhism see Gombrich, R. &
Obeysekere, Buddhism Transformed, Princeton, 1988, pp. 13 ff,
221-227; 231-234 and passim.
9 For sources on Ambedkar's life and career see B.G. Gokhale, "Dr.
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar: Rebel against Hindu Tradition" in Smith,
B.L. (Ed), Religion and Social Conflict in South Asia, Leiden, 1976,
pp. 14-16; for details see Gokhale, J., From Concessions to
Confrontation, Bombay, 1993, pp. 83 ff.
10 Gokhale, B.G., Op. Cit., pp. 16-20.
11 Gokhale, J., Op. Cit., pp. 94-95, 164-165.
12 Gokhale, B.G., Op. Cit., pp. 18-19.
13 Ibid., pp. 21-22.
14 Ibid., p. 22.
15 For royal support to Buddhism see Gokhale, B.G., Asoka Maurya
(New York, 1966), pp. 67 ff; and Buddhism in Maharashtra (Bombay,
1976), pp. 120 if; for inter-relations between the Samgha and the
laity see Gokhale, B.G., New Light on Early Buddhism (Bombay, 1994),
pp. 13-24.
16 For these views see Blackburn, A.M. "Religion, Kinship and
Buddhism: Ambedkar's Vision of a Moral Community" in Journal of the
International Association of Buddhist Studies, Vol. XVI, No: 1, pp.
1-23.
Professor Emeritus, Department of History and Asian Studies, Wake
University, Winston-Salem, NC 27106, U.S.A.
Balkrishna Govind Gokhale, Professor Emeritus of History and Asian
Studies, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, has taught for
48 years, fifteen in India and thirty three in the United States.
His interest in Pali and Theravada Buddhism goes back to 1935. Among
his seventeen books and 95 papers published in the U.S., Canada,
U.K., France, Italy, Israel, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India, four
books and some 36 papers deal with Pali literature and Buddhist
history.