The hunt for Dhammaloka:
on the trail of early Irish-Buddhist links
on the trail of early Irish-Buddhist links
28 years unaccounted for...
Use of multiple aliases...
Use of multiple aliases...
Sedition conviction in Burma...
Police surveillance in Ceylon...
Fake death in Australia...
Final whereabouts unknown...
Public seminar with Laurence Cox, Mihirini Sirisena, Rachelann Pisani
In 1900, in a Burma
which had only been conquered by the British Empire 15 years before, an Irish
ex-sailor and ex-hobo was ordained as a Burmese Buddhist monk. Crossing the
boundaries of race and religion, he now became not only a barefoot beggar but a
leading critic of Christian missionaries who used the latest freethinking
(atheist) arguments to make his case that Asians should resist "the Bible,
the Gatling gun and the whisky bottle" brought by colonialism. Over the
next 12 - 14 years he travelled from Japan to Ceylon and from Nepal to
Singapore, confronting the colonial police, facing charges of sedition,
preaching to huge crowds, setting up Buddhist schools, challenging injustice
and corresponding with fellow-atheists and Buddhists around the world.
Dhammaloka's life was an uncomfortable challenge both to colonial assumptions of white and Christian superiority but also to later Asian nationalist accounts of purely national independence struggles. As a result, much of what we know about him comes from his opponents. But he was also keen to obscure his tracks, using many different aliases and on one occasion faking his own death. We cannot be certain as to his date of birth or early life, and the decades before he appears in Burma in his 40s are shrouded in mystery. Was he perhaps a political or trade union radical in the US, and did he have a past to hide from? Or was he a "beachcomber" in India or Ceylon, flying below the colonial radar? When did he die, and why is there no memory of the death of this intensely public figure?
The "Early western Buddhists in Asia" project involves archival research in Ireland, Britain, the USA, India and Sri Lanka in an attempt to track down some of the missing pieces of Dhammaloka's life. It also uses this research to explore further the experience of "poor whites" in colonial Asia, in particular those who "went native", subverting the strict racial hierarchies and their implications for class and gender - as well as the official histories of western Buddhism which privilege "gentleman scholars" rather than these early plebeian "beachcomber Buddhists". It also challenges Irish accounts which present the discovery of Asian Buddhism as a recent phenomenon linked to the 1960s or recent immigration, rather than a centuries-old engagement born out of shared colonial and imperial histories and which already led, in the later 19th century, to a number of Irish conversions to Buddhism - including a mysterious colleague of Dhammaloka's who officiated at the mass conversion of several thousand "untouchable" mine workers to Buddhism in an attempt to break out of Hindu caste structures in the first decade of the twentieth century.
Dhammaloka's life was an uncomfortable challenge both to colonial assumptions of white and Christian superiority but also to later Asian nationalist accounts of purely national independence struggles. As a result, much of what we know about him comes from his opponents. But he was also keen to obscure his tracks, using many different aliases and on one occasion faking his own death. We cannot be certain as to his date of birth or early life, and the decades before he appears in Burma in his 40s are shrouded in mystery. Was he perhaps a political or trade union radical in the US, and did he have a past to hide from? Or was he a "beachcomber" in India or Ceylon, flying below the colonial radar? When did he die, and why is there no memory of the death of this intensely public figure?
The "Early western Buddhists in Asia" project involves archival research in Ireland, Britain, the USA, India and Sri Lanka in an attempt to track down some of the missing pieces of Dhammaloka's life. It also uses this research to explore further the experience of "poor whites" in colonial Asia, in particular those who "went native", subverting the strict racial hierarchies and their implications for class and gender - as well as the official histories of western Buddhism which privilege "gentleman scholars" rather than these early plebeian "beachcomber Buddhists". It also challenges Irish accounts which present the discovery of Asian Buddhism as a recent phenomenon linked to the 1960s or recent immigration, rather than a centuries-old engagement born out of shared colonial and imperial histories and which already led, in the later 19th century, to a number of Irish conversions to Buddhism - including a mysterious colleague of Dhammaloka's who officiated at the mass conversion of several thousand "untouchable" mine workers to Buddhism in an attempt to break out of Hindu caste structures in the first decade of the twentieth century.
Wednesday December 5th,
2.30 – 5 pm
Seminar Room, Sociology Dept., Auxilia, North Campus, NUI Maynooth
Seminar Room, Sociology Dept., Auxilia, North Campus, NUI Maynooth
Admission free but
space is limited –
please email rachelannpisani@gmail.com to book a place
Supported by the Irish Research Council
please email rachelannpisani@gmail.com to book a place
Supported by the Irish Research Council
