Part 3 of 3
What kind of Buddhism did the BPS propagate?We might also want to ask, in the spirit of Tweed‘s American encounter with Buddhism, how to interpret Pfoundes‘ own engagement with Buddhism. The discussion of Fuso mimi bukuro above suggests that he was not able to relate effectively to existing Japanese Buddhism in the 1860s and first half of the 1870s. The combination of disestablishment, reform and Theosophy perhaps made it possible to renegotiate his relationship with Buddhism and identify as a Buddhist in the late 1880s. The sequence of events between 1888-1889 which led to his emergence as Buddhist missionary suggests that at some point it dawned on him that he knew more about Buddhism – and was himself by experience and inclination more Buddhist - than the self-styled 'esoteric Buddhists‘ of the Theosophical Society and that he could (and being Pfoundes, therefore should) confront them in defence of 'Buddhism pure and simple‘. It is probably also significant in this period that he could approach Buddhism in his familiar role as cultural mediator – Orientalist interpreter of Japan for Western audiences, but also expert provider of practical services to Japanese organisations engaging with the West. By the late 1880s, with the declining power of the traditionalist Buddhism he had once decried, he could express his undoubted love for Japanese culture through a claim to knowledge of "old Japan" grounded in his pre-Meiji experience and long residence72. It was only after his return to Japan that he would claim esoteric knowledge by virtue of the initiations and ranks he collected after 1893 in a variety of sects (Bocking 2013).
This perspective may explain some of the apparent contradictions in his own approach, in particular how a hostility to priestly superstition, claim to textual knowledge and appreciation for modernist / rational readings of Buddhism73 could coexist with a later ecclesiastical positioning (in Japan) and orientation to Japanese authenticity and esoteric knowledge. However this eclecticism may also represent his position as an active mediator: rather than simply reading Buddhism within one of several pre-existing western frames, he was actively seeking in this period to engage with potential converts. Just as he explored multiple (spiritualist, freethinking, socialist, general) audiences for his talks and tried out various (lecture, polemic, practical, ritual) strategies, so too perhaps he explored different "takes" on Buddhism to see what might work in the west.74
Conclusion: Charles Pfoundes, the London BPS and the history of global Buddhism
Crisis and return to JapanPfoundes‘ mission proved harder than anticipated. This appears most clearly in his personal life: while in the 1880s Mrs Pfoundes was recorded as accompanying him to various cultural events, by June 1891 they were seemingly separated (the 1891 census shows her 'visiting' a female relative on the South coast) while he was living in the Doughty Street commune.75 On 15 January 1892 The Two Worlds carried the following notice:
"CAPTAIN PFOUNDES' LECTURES. - We are requested to announce that all engagements must be cancelled for the present, in consequence of breakdown of health, our climate being very trying to one who has travelled and resided so much abroad." (p.36).
By Autumn 1892 Pfoundes had lost or perhaps resigned from his Admiralty job and he left for Kobe on the Monmouthshire on November 28th, never to return to Europe. The Buddhist Propagation Society‘s mission to London was over.
Pfoundes‘ personal crisis and the failure of the BPS mission went hand in hand. The real challenge, it seems, was Theosophy; and in particular Annie Besant. This brilliant, beautiful and dramatic figure had been a leading light of freethought, feminism and socialism (she is recorded as "de-arresting" a banner during a police attack on an 1877 demonstration) before encountering Theosophy in 1890 – 91, parallel to Pfoundes‘ mission. Her future role as President of the Theosophical Society (from 1907) and Indian nationalist leader was yet to come: in this period she was using her close friendship with the NSS' leader Charles Bradlaugh to enable her to speak on Theosophy at secularist venues and use his National Reformer (of which she was temporary editor in early 1890) to publicise her books. Opposition to Theosophy remained muted within the NSS until Bradlaugh‘s death in January 1891, at which point her opponents within the Society were able to attack Theosophy publicly. She finally broke with the "Secular Platform" in September (National Reformer 13 Sept 1891, p. 164). The same issue of the Reformer carried a notice of a meeting in the NSS' main venue where Mr G W Foote spoke on "What does Mrs Besant mean?"; there were other, similarly personalised titles.
As noted, Pfoundes had already spoken against Theosophy‘s claim to represent Buddhism in 1889 but he became prolific on the subject from 1891, giving at least 17 talks with titles like "Theosophy, theology and sophistry: dangerous humbugs". On 5 November 1891, for example, he ―treated largely on the many questionable acts of the leaders of Theosophy, having much personal knowledge of them. He completely deprived Theosophy of any attractions it may have previously possessed for any of his hearers. Our [spiritualist] rooms were filled, many persons being present who do not usually attend." (TTW 13 Nov 1891, p. 629). Annie Besant was a tough opponent and present in the same networks as Pfoundes (spiritualist and socialist even after she had broken with secularism); she was also an extraordinarily popular public speaker, and an extended polemic with her was likely to be exhausting at best. However delighted Pfoundes may have been in 1891 to see Besant leave the freethought circuit, the developing conflict between Theosophy and secularism in 1891 posed a problem for Pfoundes‘ Buddhist work, which entailed carving out a "third space", one neither Theosophist nor non-religious. He remained welcome at secularist venues as an anti-Theosophical speaker as the split developed, but it is hard to imagine that many of those remaining would have been attracted to Buddhism in this context. In some ways, perhaps, the ignorance of what Buddhism really was, which he inveighed against, carried the day, with Londoners mostly content to accept either Besant‘s version or reject all such follies on secularist or socialist grounds.
Failure and continuityThe BPS certainly "failed" in a number of senses. Most obviously, Pfoundes was unable to find a mechanism to convert his audiences into "Buddhists" in any sense he, or the Kaigai Senkyo Kai, were happy with. He was also unable to break through the more powerful arguments between Annie Besant‘s Theosophy, freethinkers, socialists, and scholarly Orientalists. Secondly, of course, the BPS did not continue after Pfoundes left for Japan and it has been omitted from the "official" history of UK Buddhism for precisely this reason (Turner, Cox and Bocking 2010 and 2013): organisational survivors projected back their own history as the history, and researchers until now have largely started from these organisational sources.
This reliance on internal histories has considerably skewed our understanding of the early years of global Buddhism. Because most studies look at organisations which 'succeeded‘, in the sense of continuing, the explanations offered for this success are rarely based on any systematic comparison with those which did not continue76. On the face of it, Pfoundes' mission was better-organised than either Ananda Metteyya‘s or even Dharmapala‘s (leading to the foundation of the BSGBI and the London Maha-Bodhi societies respectively). Pfoundes was able to draw effectively on existing networks (spiritualist, secularist, socialist); he understood the world of London public meetings and was an experienced and evidently successful speaker. He had a clear strategic direction and his topics spoke to key issues of the day (Theosophy vs rationality and ethics without God). Furthermore, he put in a consistent and substantial effort over a significant period. An organisational explanation for his failure does not seem convincing.
However, the institutional lack of continuity does not mean that the BPS had no influence on UK Buddhism. There was widespread popular (Franklin 2008) as well as scholarly (Almond 1988) interest in Buddhism in this period, which also saw a number of individual converts to Buddhism and Buddhist sympathisers (see Cox 2013 for Ireland, at this point part of the UK). It is not impossible that some of these – even some who subsequently supported Ananda Metteyya‘s 1908 visit – had heard Pfoundes speak.
Pfoundes‘ own larger point – that Buddhism could not be understood within Theosophical terms – was, however, certainly forgotten, under the influence not only of Allan Bennett‘s own Theosophical past (Harris 1998) but also the positioning of Christmas Humphrey‘s later Buddhist Society as the Buddhist Lodge of the Theosophical Society. By the 1920s and 1930s, the bitter arguments within Theosophy and between Theosophists and spiritualists, Hermeticists and others (Cox 2013 ch 4) were largely forgotten and Theosophy stood as a surviving organisation, from which a new generation of Buddhists was formed.
Nonetheless, the London branch of the BPS should now be firmly reinstated in the history of Western Buddhism. Its existence is significant in itself. It also sheds light on the immense difficulties faced in developing what with hindsight seems like the 'obvious‘ structure of any Buddhist mission to the west; a focus on practice (whether meditation, chanting or ritual) rather than doctrine as a point of entry, which underpins the development of a global Buddhism in the post-WWII period. The BPS also shows the complex interactions between Buddhism and atheism, spiritualism, Theosophy and socialism in a period before Buddhism‘s identification within the categories of "world religion" was an automatic one.
From the Kaigai Senkyo Kai to the 1899 California missionsPfoundes' mission to London is linked, indirectly at least, to the later 'first' Western Buddhist missions of 1899 in California. As it turned out, the London BPS was the only overseas operation successfully established by the Kaigai Senkyo Kai. Shimaji Mokurai, a leading intellectual in the modernisation of Jodo Shinshu, took over its presidency between August 1891 and March 1892,77 but the society had already started to decline. Nakanishi Naoki points out that the rapid demise of Kaigai Senkyo Kai had three main causes. Firstly, because it was, at least nominally, a transsectarian enterprise, Nishi Honganji could not take full responsibility for it. Secondly, the decline of Christian influence in Japan made it unnecessary for the sects to cooperate in such trans-sectarian missionary organizations. Thirdly, the Japanese economy experienced a panic in 1890 and when Kaigai Senkyo Kai faced economic difficulties it did not get enough financial support, either from the different sects or from Nishi Honganji.78
In addition, the favourable atmosphere toward foreign Buddhists turned hostile after 1890. This is clearly seen in the editorial articles of a leading Buddhist newspaper, Meikyo Shinshi, no. 3197 (1893-02-20) and no.3198 (1893-02-22) entitled "Gaikoku Bussha" (Foreign Buddhists). These severely criticised 'worship of the West' and claimed that all the Japanese needed to do for Westerners was give them the chance to learn Buddhism. In 1893 the last issue of Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo was published, and the final project was to send English books on Buddhism to the World‘s Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Matsuyama seems to have left Kyoto after the Kaigai Senkyo Kai was closed; he was killed in the March 1906 Meishan earthquake in Taiwan. But if it failed as an organisation, the Kaigai Senkyo Kai was certainly a success as a hub of the networks linking Japanese and foreign Buddhists. Even after the Senkyo Kai was closed down and the related Kyoto Theosophical lodge - if it was ever more than a paper organisation - ceased to be active, personal relationships would continue, such as that between Dharmapala and young Japanese Buddhists. In addition, imported Theosophical ideas influenced some reforming Buddhists connected with Hansei Kai.79
Moreover, although the Kaigai Senkyo Kai as such had declined by 1893, the Nishi Honganji subsequently resumed the spirit and work of Buddhist propagation under new leadership, supporting not only the Hawaiian Japanese community and the later West Coast American missions but operating or planning other - as yet largely undocumented - overseas Buddhist missions elsewhere, including in Singapore where, as we know from research on Dhammaloka,80 the Japanese mission in the colony was led from ca. 1899 to at least 1904 by a 'Reverend Ocha'.81 As late as December 1902, Shimaji Mokurai and others from Nishi Honganji (by now operating from Takanawa University as the short-lived 'International Young Men‘s Buddhist Association') were envisaging missions for the Philippines (Pinan), Hong Kong, China and Australia (Brisbane) which, if successful, might have matched Pfoundes‘ achievements in London.82 It is significant that the priests who were sent abroad during this period were mostly related to, or graduated from, Futsu Kyoko (or its successor Bungaku ryo) and shared the global perspective of the Kaigai Senkyo Kai. The best example here is Imamura Emyo, who propagated Buddhism in Hawaii. He was a nephew of Satomi Ryonen and a son-in-law of Hino Gien, both of whom were founding members of Kaigai Senkyo Kai.
Afterword: Charles Pfoundes and Ananda Metteyya?On the surface, there seems to be no connection at all between Pfoundes' 1889-92 Japanese-sponsored mission and Ananda Metteyya‘s much later Burmese-supported visit from Rangoon to London between May and October 1908. However, an analysis of the venues at which Pfoundes propagated 'Buddhism pure and simple‘ in the early 1890s shows that he lectured on Buddhism in at least three locations very close to Clapham Junction, a major railway station in South London. According to surviving records of the Theosophical Society of 1893, the youthful Allan Bennett was then living in London, in Dorothy Road, close to Clapham Junction and within easy walking distance of any one of Pfoundes' three venues (Crow 2009: 24). We have no direct evidence of Bennett being present at one of Pfoundes' BPS lectures but it seems almost inconceivable, given Bennett‘s well-documented interest in Eastern religions, that he would not have attended at least one talk by Pfoundes, whose name was well known to Theosophists. It may even be that Bennett was one of the 'young men' whom, Pfoundes reported to Matsuyama, he was instructing in Buddhism and would he hoped 'go to Europe and America to teach Buddhism. And … to China, Siam, Burma, Ceylon, India to do missionary work."83
Tracing Allan Bennett‘s interest in Buddhism to the Japanese-sponsored BPS may at first appear far-fetched, given that Bennett found Buddhism in Ceylon and was ordained in Burma. However, an intriguing and otherwise inexplicable statement made (and repeated) by Bennett‘s most devoted colleague J. F. McKechnie suddenly acquires relevance in light of Pfoundes' activities on behalf of the BPS in 1890s London. Speaking on Bennett‘s tenth death anniversary in 1933, McKechnie stated that, while he could not himself understand the reasons for it, Bennett was actually intending to go to Japan and only stopped off at Colombo.84 If Bennett first encountered 'Buddhism pure and simple' in the person of Pfoundes, then a latent ambition to visit Japan, the home of an authentic yet modern, pure and global form of Buddhism, makes perfect sense. However, without further evidence we cannot know for certain whether such a concrete link exists between Pfoundes‘ activities on behalf of the BPS and the much later 'first' Buddhist mission to London of Ananda Metteyya.
AcknowledgmentsEarlier versions of this paper were presented at the ISASR (Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions) 'Ireland, America and Transnationalism: studying religions in a globalised world‘ conference in Dublin, May 2013 and at the BASR/EASR/IAHR ‗Religion, Migration, Mutation‘ Conference in Liverpool, September 2013. The authors are grateful for helpful comments made during the anonymous review process for DISKUS.
AbbreviationsBPS Buddhist Propagation Society
BSGBI Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland
FMB Pfoundes: Fuso mimi bukuro
KBJ Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo
KS Kaigai Senkyo Kai
NR National Reformer
NSS National Secular Society
TS Theosophical Society
TTW The Two Worlds (online via
http://ehbritten.org/bibliography.html )
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Notes:1 ‘THE SCOTTISH BUDDHIST: Arrival in London‘ Times of India 9 May 1908,13. ‘BUDDHISM: Its Mission in the West‘ Times of India 19 May 1908, 8 summarises a piece by Ananda Metteyya in the London Daily Chronicle, while ‘WEST AND EAST‘ Times of India 25 May 1908, 6 reports on his first talk at the Royal Asiatic Society on Wednesday 6th May, commenting that ‘The Bhikkhu surveyed the principles of Buddhism and traced the life of its founder in a long address read from typed MSS, in slow, monotonous tones, and with an entire absence of the force and fire we generally associate with the proclamation of a new gospel or missionary enterprise‘.
2 Ananda Metteyya returned to London in 1914 with the intention of continuing to America. By this time ill-health had obliged him to disrobe and he remained in the UK until his death in 1923.
3 See e.g. Harris (1998). The Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland (BSGBI) was founded by T. W. Rhys-Davids and others in November 1907 solely in anticipation of Bennett‘s arrival and the BSGBI is similarly regarded as the first of its kind.
4 Tweed (2012) documents an intriguing musical link between the ‘other‘ Irish Buddhist U Dhammaloka and the earliest Japanese ‘Buddhist Missions of North America‘ established in California from 1899.
5 And to a wider Japanese public – the national Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper ran an article on the BPS in London on July 10, 1890. Our thanks to Okazaki Hideki for this and several other items of information.
6 Nakanishi Ushiro Shin Bukkyoron (On New Buddhism),1892.
7 Okazaki Hideki, "Meiji no airurandojin jukaiso C. Pfoundes ni tsuite" (On C. Pfoundes, an ordained Irish priest") p.6 Sekihō no.19 (Nomi Yutaka Kenkyūkai, March 2014).
8 A signal advantage to the digital researcher is that Pfoundes is the only man ever to have held that surname – he was baptised Charles Pounds but amended his name to Pfoundes soon after 1863 when he first became resident in Japan.
9 See also Cox 2013.
10 There is another version published in KBJ no.10 1890-5-27 (fig 1).
11 See Bocking (2013) for more detail on each phase of Pfoundes‘ life mentioned here.
12 On the name ‘Pfoundes‘ and his Japanese name Omoie Tetsunosuke 重井哲之助 see Bocking 2013, 32, n.9.
13 Reports of his death in 1907 as Kobe‘s ‘oldest resident‘ put his age at 79 (the British Consul) or 81 (the Straits Times); in fact he was 67. Bocking (2013) speculated that Pfoundes added these years in 1893 to explain to his Japanese sponsors his (otherwise premature) ‘retirement‘ from the Admiralty, but he may simply have been reoccupying his earlier Japanese persona from the 1860s. Pfoundes‘ 1878 Liverpool marriage certificate shows him (correctly) aged 38.
14 Lewis and Clark Papers, Pfoundes handbill, ca.1902.
15 Lewis & Clark papers; typescript from Pfoundes headed ‘Pfoundes, Kobe, Japan‘ and stamped ‘Licensed Guide‘, ca. 1903.
16 Each item catalogued by Pfoundes in Japanese Art Treasures New York, 1876 with an introduction to the various types of Japanese art (Bronzes, Keramics, Lacquer Ware, Shippo or Cloisonne) and an appendix comprising an A-Z glossary of Japanese art and culture.
17 Blavatsky presumably got the Shinto creation material from Pfoundes‘ 1875 Fuso-mimi bukuro (p.79ff ‘Japanese Cosmogony‘). The source of her comment that he ‘studied for nearly nine years in the monasteries of Japan‘ is unknown.
18 The Shiba monasteries are mentioned in his first letter from London to Matsuyama (dated Oct 4 1889, published in Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo no.5, 15 December 1889, 15). On 25 October 1889 (letter published in KBJ no.8, 1890) Pfoundes wrote asking if he needed to receive kanjō (initiation), indicating that he lacked any such qualification.
19 Divyatchakchus (Sanskrit) is the divine eye, the first abhijñā or 'supernatural' knowledge. Omoie refers to Pfoundes‘ honorary Japanese name.
20 TTW 13 Nov 1891, p. 629 talks of Pfoundes ‘having much personal knowledge of [them]‘; see below.
21 For TTW‘s critique of Theosophy see e.g. ‘Theosophy, Occultism and Spiritualism‘ by ‘Sirius‘ in TTW Vol 1, 13, 10 Feb 1888 pp, 198-199. A stronger refutation is offered in ‘Spiritualism, Theosophy and Reincarnation No.1‘ in TTW Vol II, 91, 9 August 1889, 470-71. Hardinge knew her enemy; in 1875 she had been one of the six founder members of the Theosophical Society in New York.
22 Pfoundes may have known Hardinge Britten from New York days; he auctioned his oriental art collection there in 1876 only a few months after the TS, initially a Spiritualist society, was founded.
23 Sic in original; this was originally a Theosophical usage distinguishing ―universal knowledge‖ from what might be called actually-existing Buddhism.
24 Although Barrow (1986) shows that there were competing freethought ("scientific") and religious orientations within late C19th spiritualism, most TTW writers saw Spiritualism as correcting the inadequacies of ‘orthodox‘ Christianity.
25 An interesting claim, given that Pfoundes began his mission to teach ‘pure Buddhism' only a couple of months later. He probably means that as a proponent of ‘Buddhism pure and simple‘ he stands above the sectarian fray, Buddhist or Theosophical.
26 In his first letter as BPS London representative to Matsuyama, written on 4 October 1889, Pfoundes shows a high level of awareness of missiological issues. He identifies his problems as ‘What part of Buddhism I should take and how to criticize Christianity' (Kaigai Bukkyō Jijō no.7, 1890-02-25, p.28) and cautions that ‘we should learn from the failures of Christianity‘ (ibid. p.30).
27 Hansei Kai Zasshi no.1, (Aug 1887) p.32.
28 Hansei Kai Zasshi, no.1 (Aug 1887) p.33.
29 Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo, no.1 (3rd edition), 1889-03, p.129
30 In this article country names are as used in the relevant historical period.
31 Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo, no.1 (3rd edition), 1889-03, pp.133, 134
32 Bijou of Asia, no.1, p.2
33 In January 1889 regional newspapers in Birmingham and Bristol commented under the heading ‘A Japanese Buddhist Propaganda‘ on a Japan Weekly News report of the appearance of Bijou of Asia.
34 Six articles by Pfoundes are listed in The Campbell Theosophical Research Library index at
http://www.austheos.org.au/indices/LUCIFR.HTM.
35 On Oct 25 1889 Pfoundes wrote to Matsuyama ‘There are many who don‘t believe in Christianity. It is easy to have large audiences with Buddhism lectures.' Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo no.8, 1890, p.24
36 A profile of Pfoundes presumably based on this letter was published in KBJ no.3, 15 Oct 1889.
37 They were published serially in Japanese in KBJ, starting with no.3, 15 Oct 1889.
38 Letter of Pfoundes Oct. 4, 1889, published in KBJ no. 5, Dec. 15 1889.
39 The letter was published on the 18th.
40 In addition to the Japan Mail, Theosophical and Spiritualist journals, these included The Folk-Lore Record, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Young Folks’ Paper. A comprehensive Pfoundes bibliography has yet to be compiled.
41 Pfoundes was then 50, Rosa 34.
2 A pamphlet (undated) used by Pfoundes up to the early 1900s lists more than 160 topics on which he was prepared to lecture. Lewis & Clark Exposition, Oregon papers, pamphlet entitled ‘C Pfoundes; Kobe, Hiogo, Japan'
43 Presumably the School for Modern Oriental Studies [or Languages] established by the Imperial Institute in Union with University College and King‘s College, London, commencing in Autumn 1889 with ‘practical rather than academic‘ classes deliberately aimed at ICS recruits and business students. See
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13732203 and https://digitisedcollections.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/23381/104375_UMC%201892%2028_School%20for%20Modern%20Oriential%20Studies.pdf?sequence=29. T. W. Rhys Davids served on its first Managing Committee (see
http://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/library/archive/rhys).
44 'A Branch Theosophical Society in Japan‘ Bijou of Asia Vol.1, no.2, 1888, p.9.
45 ‘SPIRITUALISTIC ETHICS, &c‘ TTW 1891-11-13 p.631.
46 E.g. letter of Dec. 11 1889, in KBJ no. 9 1890-04-29, p. 29.
47 On Oct 4 1889 Pfoundes wrote to Matsuyama "Please send me the wood block for printing the handbill of BPS and Bijou of Asia. I propose the design of the handbill. Please put"juzu" (prayer beads) around the poster and put the mark of Buddhism on the upper area.…" (KBJ no.5 1889-12-15, p.17)
48 There is little overlap between the meetings announced in The Two Worlds and those announced in The National Reformer; they seem to have taken their meetings listings from information supplied by spiritualist and secularist venues respectively.
49 Pfoundes seldom followed other freethought circuit speakers in venturing outside London (presumably because of his Admiralty job); he also avoided the outdoors venues which were used during the summer season by those speakers with the voice and personality to handle such events.
50 A strategy not without its risks. The Theosophical Society sued Pfoundes and several newspapers (at least two of them successfully) for libel over the Bertram Keightley affair. In the Spring of 1890 readers of Lucifer were asked to keep their eyes peeled for any comments on Theosophy and send these to the TS Press section in Harrow; Pfoundes was singled out as having already received a writ for libel. Lucifer, March to August 1890, p.521. Our thanks to Chris Heinhold for this reference.
51 The Stepney/Mile End Road area had a long-established (since the 17th century) and influential Jewish presence, augmented in the 1880s by an influx of Eastern European Jewish refugees.
52 He also noted ―The poor people in the urban area are excluded from Christianity, so it is necessary to propagate Buddhism among them‖ (letter to KBJ 14 October 1889, p. 25).
53 The names are in katakana in KBJ. Islington is rendered ‘Ailington' which suggests Pfoundes wrote to Matsuyama in English. ‘Progress Hall‘ means a venue of the Progressive Association.
54 Another Irish Buddhist in the making; he formally became a Buddhist in Colombo the following July (Birmingham Daily Post, 28 August 1890, p.6). For more on Bowles Daly see Cox (2013) pp.229ff.
55 Letter published in KBJ 10, 1890-05-27, p.32.
56 'London Correspondence: Theosophical debate‘ Coventry Evening Telegraph Friday 16 June 1893.
57 Frederika MacDonald deserves further research; she may be the first female Buddhist missionary in the West. A report of the summer 1893 debate with Annie Besant describes her as ‘a lady well-known as an exponent of Buddhism‘. In a lecture delivered on 9 July 1893 MacDonald castigated Theosophy as secretive and backward (Edinburgh Evening News, 11 July 1893), suggesting she may have picked up the baton from Pfoundes when he left London in late 1892.
58 TTW 1890-03-21 p.221.
59 Takakusu also wrote from the Pfoundes home that ‘A Theosophist in Paris named Barb (Barbu?) is applying for the Paris branch of B.P.S. but there is a trouble between Gaborieau and Barb. So you (B.P.S. in Japan) should not take sides' (Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo no.11 1890-06- 30, p.27); a reminder that London was not the only great capital in Europe to be targeted by the fledgling BPS.
60 Sheffield Daily Telegraph 1890-06-14 p.1. Notice in same paper 1890-05-30 “June 15, Capt. Pfoundes”.
61 NR 4 Jan 1891, p. 15. Presumably this was one of two travelling Nishi Honganji priests who a few weeks later on 22 February performed a Buddhist ceremony at the Musée Guimet in Paris (‘Parisian Topics' The Standard 23 Feb 1891, p.5).
62 TTW 1891-06-12 p.366
63 This was allied to vegetarianism but campaigned in particular for wholemeal bread on health grounds.
64 Lloyds Weekly Newspaper 1891-08-23, p.9
65 Lloyd‘s Weekly London Newspaper 1892-02-07, p.7
66 This was the start of Pfoundes' interest in oriental congresses (see Bocking 2013)
67 The Bristol Mercury, Fri 1892-09-09 p.8
68 A newspaper account of the first publication of Bijou of Asia was headed ‘A Buddhist Propaganda‘. The Latin term Propaganda originally referred to a committee of cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church responsible for foreign missions, founded in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. It was used in the sense of foreign missionary activity up to the 1930s when it acquired the meaning of false or biased information.
69 Pfoundes did not appear to think that London needed more missionaries in addition to himself.
70 See Shimaji Mokurai "Kaigai senkyō kai ni tsugu" (An address to the members of BPS), KBJ no.24 1892-03-27 pp.7, 8. This assumption was soon to be challenged by the experience of the Japanese delegates to the Chicago World‘s Parliament of Religions in 1893.
71 Letters sent to the Japan Herald mention missionaries living the good life and the poor calibre of converts. Living modestly himself, Pfoundes valued sincere seekers after truth.
72 There are similarities to Irish Buddhist sympathiser, Lafcadio Hearn. There is as yet no evidence of any direct connection though the two very likely knew of each other in Japan after 1893.
73 He notes "The stories of yogis or miracles seem not to be liked by people here" (letter to KBJ 14 October 1889, p. 27).
74 While an earlier generation of scholarship (Almond 1988, Snodgrass 2003) paid particular attention to the influence of western academic interpretations of Buddhism, Tweed (2000) has shown that even within purely western contexts this "rationalist" approach was but one among many. Franklin (2008) shows just how ubiquitous the reference to Buddhism was within Victorian culture (see Dolce (2006) for perceptions of Japanese Buddhism in particular), while Cox (2013) and Bocking et al. (2014) emphasise the role of Asian agency, and individual westerners within Asian contexts. It can be seen from the evidence presented here that
Pfoundes, who was well acquainted with scholars such as Max Muller and T. W. Rhys Davids on the London scholarly circuits, was far from simply reproducing a single, western (let alone academic) frame of interpretation of Buddhism.
75 See Cox (2013, p 224).
76 See Bocking et al. 2014 and Cox 2013, ch 5 for a range of examples of early Buddhist “might-have-beens”.
77 KBJ no.23 (1891-08) p.40.
78 Nakanishi Naoki, "Kaigai senkyo kai to sono jidai" (Kaigai Senkyō Kai and its era) in Reprint Edition of Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo (Kyoto, Sannin sha, forthcoming).
79 See Yoshinaga (2012).
80 Bocking 2010
81 Bocking 2010
82 See Bocking 2010 and Ryukoku Daigaku Shuppanbu 1939, p. 822. In 1902 the KS was superseded by the short-lived ‘International Young Men‘s Buddhist Association' formally launched at a September 1902 ceremony in Tokyo attended by various Pure Land luminaries - and the ‘other‘ Irish Buddhist, U Dhammaloka, visiting from Burma.
83 Kaigai Bukkyo Jijo no.7, 25 Feb 1890. p.29
84 Elizabeth Harris, ‘Ananda Metteyya: controversial networker, passionate critic'. Contemporary Buddhism 14:1, 78-93, p.82, citing Crow 2009, p. 44.