***
Chapter Twelve: Revivals
12.1 Christian Missionary Activity and Buddhist Response
In the last decades of the nineteenth century, all the widespread indigenous faiths in Ceylon -- i.e. Buddhism, Hinduism and the Islam -- went through so-called religious revivals. The usage of the term 'revival' in that respect reflects the opinion of many of the contemporary Christian missionaries on the island: that the indigenous religions were, for all practical purposes, 'dead.' Therefore, the emergence of Buddhist, Hindu and Moslem activism to defend their faiths against Christian proselytising efforts has been characterised as a revival. For the sake of comprehension (and because it has become so well-established a term among historians) the term 'religious revival' is used in this work as well -- notwithstanding the fact that the indigenous religions in Ceylon have not been unimportant prior to their revival. Even Governor Longden pointed out that "[i]f ever any religion was alive and has been kept alive in face of much to kill it, it is the Buddhism of Ceylon."1 The same can certainly be said about Hinduism and Islam on the island.
The Christian missionaries' belief that Buddhism in Ceylon was practically dead stemmed mainly from their misinterpretation of Buddhist tolerance. Soon after the arrival of the five important missionary societies on the island, all of them started to engage in proselytising. The London Missionary Society (LMS) came to Ceylon with four missionaries in 1805, but did not expand its missionary activities in the following decades. The American Mission, arriving in 1816, was only admitted to the Jaffna peninsula for political reasons. It established a large network of schools in that region during the following decades. Due to its geographical location, the American Mission hardly came in touch with Buddhism. The Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists and the Church (of England) Missionary Society (CMS) -- i.e. the Anglicans -- arrived in 1812, 1814 and 1818 respectively and established their headquarters in the Western and Southern Provinces. These missionary societies, thus, became the main opponents of the Buddhists.2 Although the Baptists, Wesleyans and Church missionaries alike immediately started to propagate Christianity and to discredit Buddhism, there was little Buddhist response in the beginning. The Buddhist behaviour towards the Christian religion and its propagators "seems to have been nonantagonistic."3
Malalgoda gives several examples for the Buddhist monks' tolerance towards the Christians. He names two bikkhus who assisted the Auxiliary Bible Society in Colombo to translate the Bible into the vernacular. Furthermore, at several occasions Buddhist monks helped in the preparation of places of Christian worship or placed the preaching-halls of their temples at the disposal of the missionaries.4 "The missionaries who took to itinerant preaching often spent the nights at Buddhist monasteries where they were received by the resident monks with the sort of hospitality with which they greeted their own brethren."5 It is not surprising that most missionaries did not understand the kindness and hospitality of the bikkhus. When a monk of the Kotte temple told the CMS missionary Rev. Selkirk "that the English people worshipped Jesus Christ, and that the Singhalese people worshipped Buddha, that they were both good religions",6 he expressed the Buddhists' altitude of peaceful religious coexistence. The Christians, however, took such manifestations of religious tolerance for apathy and indifference on the side of the sangha and became even more vigorous in their attacks against Buddhism.
The missionaries were especially active in the field of education. With the support of the colonial government, they de facto monopolised education and used this monopoly to teach religious instruction in their schools. The missionaries attached great importance to the expansion of their school network. The factionalism between the different Christian denominations, and the competition for primacy in the field of education throughout the nineteenth century illustrates this. But although the Christian missions attached such a high importance to education and to conversion through religious instruction in the schools, they -- after a couple of years -- also discovered the disadvantages of such a narrow focus on education. The missionaries found that they often only made nominal converts. Many pupils would behave like Christians in school, but practiced Buddhism or Hinduism at home. Therefore, the missionaries started to extend their proselytising activities beyond the field of education and engaged in preaching and the production of printed pamphlets and tracts.
Although preaching was the traditional and most honourable way to spread the gospel, the missionaries experienced considerable difficulties in that field in Ceylon. First of all, the itinerant life of a preacher was not at all as convenient as that of a school master or teacher. And the reaction of the villagers to their sermons was often not what the preachers expected. The practice of preaching was well-established in Buddhism as well and the villagers were used to listening to preachers. But, as Malalgoda points out, the villagers "had rather fixed notions about the "proper" time, place and manner of preaching. The missionaries ignored those to their own cost."8 Additionally, only few Christian missionaries had enough knowledge of Sinhala to deliver stirring sermons. Therefore, many Sinhalese did not take the Christian preachers too seriously and tried to avoid their sermons whenever possible. Nevertheless, the missionaries strongly believed in the importance of itinerant preaching and carried on with it. In the 1840s, they also started to entangle Buddhist monks in public debates with the intention to publicly prove the superiority of the Christian faith. But the bikkhus -- still nonantagonistic -- avoided such confrontations whenever possible throughout the 1840s and 1850s.9
[Each religion] contains a partial revelation of God's will, but each is incomplete; and He comes to fulfil them all. In each case Christianity seeks not to destroy but to take all that is right and raise it to perfection. Christianity is the full, final truth, towards which every religion has been straining.
-- Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester, 1904-1979, by Eric J. Sharpe
While the missionaries' success as preachers remained limited, they wielded more influence through the distribution of religious pamphlets and tracts. The Wesleyans acquired a printing press in 1815 and were followed by the CMS in 1823 and the Baptists in 1841. These presses were not only used to print translations of the Bible, Catechisms or Prayer Books, but to produce periodicals and pamphlets as well.10 The Christian tracts were issued in fairly large numbers and enjoyed a comparatively wide circulation. According to the managers of the printing presses, 1,500,000 copies had been circulated between 1849 and 1861." These pamphlets were of rather limited use in the making of converts. But this was not the direct goal of the missionaries anymore. The Christian missions had realised that their proselytising efforts would not show any effect as long as the Buddhist community did not react in some way. Therefore, the religious tracts primarily aimed at the provocation of the Buddhist leaders. They should induce the bikkhus to accept the Christian challenge and openly confront the missionaries. With the publication of a treatise called "Kristiyani Prajnapti" ("The Evidences and Doctrines of the Christian Religion") by the Wesleyan Rev. D. J. Gogerly in 1849 the missionaries finally achieved their goal. The treatise was reprinted in 1853 and 1856 and enlarged in 1861.12 Unlike previous Christian pamphlets "Kristiyani Prajnapti" did not so much rely on religious polemics but tried to give evidences and proofs for the superiority of Christianity. The treatise repeatedly challenged the Buddhist community to disprove its theses.13
The Christians finally got the Buddhist response that they had been waiting for so long. Surprisingly to the missionaries, the Buddhist did not merely respond by attending public debates. Buddhist reaction came in all three spheres of missionary activity: the acquisition of a printing press and the publication of Buddhist tracts was the first adopted measure. In the 1860s and 1870s, eloquent bikkhus successfully challenged missionary preachers in public debates. And in the 1870s and more significantly in the 1880s and 1890s the Buddhist community -- with outside help -- managed to expand their educational activities considerably. Therefore, the so-called revival of Buddhism was not caused by "the vigorous effort which is being made to revive Buddhism in Ceylon, upon the foundation of European interest and encouragement"14 -- an explanation frequently offered by the missionaries --, but by the missionaries' "vigorous effort" to provoke a Buddhist reaction to their frequent offences.
In 1855, the Church missionaries sold their Kotte printing press, because other presses had been established and the old press had become obsolete for the mission. Through various middlemen the Buddhists managed to acquire that press and started to issue Buddhist pamphlets on the same press that had been used against them for such a long time. Mohottivatte Gunananda founded the Sarvajna Sasanabhivrddhidayaka Dharma Samagama (the Society for the Propagation of Buddhism) in 1862 and used the press to issue replies to Gogerly's "Kristiyani Prajnapti." In the same year, a second press was established at Galle called the Lamkopokara Press. Hikkaduve Sumangala was responsible for most of the Lunkopokara publications.15
The first person [from the United Kingdom ever to be fully ordained as a Buddhist monk]was an Irish-born Japanese Buddhist called Charles Pfoundes, born Charles James William Pounds to Irish Anglican parents in the South East of Ireland in 1840. In 1889 Pfoundes, led a Buddhist mission to London as a representative of the Japanese “Buddhist Propagation Society” founded in 1887, and after spending three years there promoting Buddhism, returned to Kobe, Japan in 1892, never again to return to Europe.
-- Allan Bennett, by George Knowles
Around 1863, newly arrived in Japan, Charles changed his surname to Pfoundes, learned Japanese and developed a passion for studying Japanese customs and culture. He subsequently made a career for himself as an East-West middleman, based mainly in Japan but with a thirteen-year period (1879-1892) in London where he gave innumerable talks on Japan and other topics and in 1889 founded the ‘Buddhist Propagation Society’; the first-ever Buddhist mission to the West (Bocking et al. 2014).
-- -- Mrs Pounds and Mrs Pfoundes: A Futuristic Historical Essay in Honour of Professor Ursula King [Charles James William Pounds Pfoundes] [Excerpt], by Brian Bocking
Up until recently it has been widely accepted that the British monk Ananda Metteyya’s (Allan Bennett) founded and organized the first Buddhist mission to the West in London in 1908. Recent collaborative research by historians in Japan and Ireland however has shown that this assumption needs to be revised. In fact it was not Theravadian but rather Japanese Mahayana Buddhists who were the first to try to teach Buddhism in the West. In 1889 the Japanese-sponsored Buddhist Propagation Society (BPS) of Japan launched a mission to London led for three years by the Irish-born Buddhist Captain Charles Pfoundes. The Buddhist Propagation Society had chosen a particularly opportune time to send its mission. Gilbert and Sullivan’s Japanese-themed opera The Mikado was running to record crowds in London and several exhibitions of Japanese art in London and Paris had created a fascination in things Japanese.
-- The hidden history of Buddhism in the West [Charles Pfoundes], by Bhante Dhammika of Australia
This article challenges two general assumptions shared by scholars of Western Buddhism: (1) that the earliest Buddhist missions to the West were those established in California from 1899 onwards; and (2) that Ananda Metteyya‘s (Allan Bennett‘s) London mission of 1908 was the first Buddhist mission to London and thus to Europe. Recent collaborative research by scholars in Ireland and Japan demonstrates instead that the Japanese-sponsored 'Buddhist Propagation Society' (BPS) launched in London in 1889 and led for three years by the Irish-born Japanese Buddhist Charles Pfoundes predates both of the above-mentioned 'first' Buddhist missions....
In this article, we set out to demonstrate that the first London Buddhist mission was in fact established in 1889, predating even the Californian missions by a decade. From 1889 to 1892, the Irish-born Japanese Buddhist Charles J. W. Pfoundes (1840-1907) headed an official Buddhist mission known as the 'Buddhist Propagation Society'. This was based in Westminster, operated throughout London and its suburbs and was the first and indeed only foreign outpost of the Kaigai Senkyo Kai (lit. 'Overseas Propagation Society' but normally translated 'Buddhist Propagation Society'), an initiative of a group of reformist Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land) Buddhists based in Kyoto.
The Buddhist Propagation Society in London and Pfoundes' role in it were of course known to, and publicised by, his Buddhist sponsors in Japan at the time5 and at least one contemporary Japanese account6 was available to Notto Thelle, who in 1987 wrote:The Society for Communication with Western Buddhists (Obei Bukkyo Tsushinkai) was founded in 1887; it was later reorganized as the Buddhist Propagation Society (Kaigai Senkyo Kai, literally Overseas Missionary Society), under the leadership of Akamatsu Renjo. Its purpose was to propagate Buddhism in the West, through missionaries and publications. A branch office was established in London in 1890, and a journal was published, entitled Bijou of Asia [Ajia no hōshu].
…[a]nother Western Buddhist, C. Pfoundes, also supported Japanese Buddhists against Christianity. He had first come to Japan in the 1860s as an officer in the British navy and remained for about twelve years, of which he reportedly spent seven or eight years in Buddhist temples. As an admirer of the ancient Japanese civilization and of Buddhism, he had dedicated much of his time to lecturing on Buddhism in the United States (1876-1878) and in England (1878-1893). He served as secretary of the London branch of the Buddhist Propagation Society and came to Japan again in 1893 at the invitation of his Buddhist friends. In his many meetings he appealed to the national sentiment and attacked Christian missionaries for slighting Buddhism and despising Japan as a barbarian country. Both Olcott and Pfoundes left Japan after controversies with their Japanese sponsors.
-- The First Buddhist Mission to the West: Charles Pfoundes and the London Buddhist mission of 1889 – 1892, by Brian Bocking, University College Cork; Laurence Cox, National University of Ireland Maynooth; and Shin‘ichi Yoshinaga, Maizuru National College of Technology
For several years, the Buddhist-Christian confrontation remained mainly confined to religious publications. In 1865, however, Bulathgama Sumana proved his organisational talent when he accepted the Christian debating challenge and led the Buddhists into the first public controversy with the Christian missionaries at Baddegama near Galle. The Buddhists vastly outnumbered the Christians at the encounter16 and their debaters could easily match with the missionaries. But most important, the Baddegama controversy was a demonstration of power on the side of the Buddhists -- addressed to the Christians as well as to the Sinhalese population.17 Although the Baddegama Buddhist-Christian encounter was not so much a debate as an exchange of written questions and answers, it deeply impressed the audience. Rev. George Parsons' report on the Baddegama meeting has often been cited:
The spirit of controversy broke out in November last [i.e. November 1864], and though I was partly prepared for it, I was slow to believe it would become such a serious matter until urged by our people to prepare for a fierce contest. The result fully justified their anxieties, for never before in Ceylon was there such a marshalling of the enemy against Christianity. The one aim of the fifty priests and their two thousand followers who assembled here on February 8 [1865], was not to defend Buddhism but to overthrow Christianity.18
The public controversy at Baddegama was swiftly followed by another meeting in Varagoda in August 1865. Again, only written statements were exchanged. One year later, however, the first public Buddhist Christian debate took place at Udanvita. A second debate was held at Gampola in 1871.19 But it was the Panadura debate or 1873 that really boosted Buddhist self-confidence. The two-day event at Panadura on 26 and 27 August attracted about 5,000 listeners on the first day and, allegedly, more than 10,000 on the second.20 Speaking for the Buddhist sangha, Mohottivatte Gunananda clearly outperformed the Christian debaters David de Silva and F. S. Sirimanne. The Buddhists impressively demonstrated their mass mobilisation skills and the "potential that lay dormant."21 Although the Christians would never admit a 'defeat' in the Panadura debate, the Buddhists had no doubts about who had been 'victorious' in the public controversy and drew considerable strength and self-confidence from their performance at the debate.22 Bond even says that these public debates -- and specifically the Panadura debate and their publication by the Buddhist printing presses "marked the beginning of the lay Buddhist revival and reformation. When Gunananda defeated the Christians in debate at Panadura, lay Buddhists began to realize anew the potential of their own tradition."23 And the Panadura debate had other lasting effects as well: firstly, Mohottivatte's impressive achievements as public orator and defender of Buddhism made him a symbolic figure for the revival of Sinhalese Buddhism. And eventually, one copy of J. B. Peebles' American edition of John Capper's "A Full Account of the Buddhist Controversy held at Pantra"21 fell into the hands of one Colonel Henry' Steel Olcott, who will reappear later in this chapter, and aroused his interest in Ceylonese Buddhism.
The Panadura debate of 1873 was the last public controversy betwcen Christians and Buddhists in Ceylon. By that time, the Buddhist sangha -- together with a number of laymen -- had responded to Christian agitation by means of the press and by attending public debates. Apparently, the Buddhists had drawn enough self-confidence from both these activities to enter the third and most important domain of Christian proselytising efforts: the 1870s saw the first Buddhist attempts to participate in the field of education. But progress in that sphere was slow and suffered many setbacks. Although Buddhist pansala schools and a number of monastic colleges (pirivenas) enjoyed a longstanding tradition in Ceylon and contributed significantly to the spread of literacy in the vernacular, it was far beyond their scope to make inroads into Christian controlled secular education. The bikkhu teachers in the pansalas and pirivvenas neither had the skills nor the will to offer their pupils the secular education that they received in missionary schools and that prepared them for secular careers.
Even when the Department of Public Instruction under the Directorship of H. W. Green (1883- 89) began to show some interest in the improvement and extension of the pansala schools, the Buddhist monks did not seize the opportunity and preferred to carry on with their traditional ways of instruction.25 Accordingly, Vidyodaya Pirivena under its principal Hikkaduve Sumangala was the only monastic educational institution registered for a government grant in the 1870s and 1880s.26 It became clear that the Buddhist sangha had neither the experience and skills nor the financial means to compete with the Christian missions in the field of education. Buddhist progress in education, therefore, depended largely on the participation of the Buddhist laity. With the help or Buddhist laymen, the first non-monastic Buddhist school was opened at Dodanduva in 1869 and registered for a government grant in 1872. But altogether only four Buddhist schools received a grant in 1880.27
12.2 The Buddhist Revival: Theosophist Organisation
The early Buddhist attempts to participate In the government's grant-in-aid school scheme failed thoroughly and could not penetrate Christian predominance in that field. The Buddhist sangha lacked the financial and organisational means to set up schools that could fulfill the grant-in-aid eligibility criteria. These deficits stemmed mainly from the non-existence of a broad lay basis and support from that direction. Thus, the Buddhist community depended on an external stimulus to generate more financial and organisational momentum. This stimulus arrived in Ceylon in the year 1880 in the person of Colonel Henry Steel Olcott.23 Being a man with broad philosophical interests and considerable organisational skills, Olcott had founded the Theosophical Society together with Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and William Quan Judge in 1875. The society was "dedicated to the uplifting of humanity through a better understanding of the oneness of life and the practical application of this principle."30 At about that time, a copy of Capper's account of the Panadura debate had fallen in Olcott's hands back in America and had got him interested in the Ceylonese Buddhists' struggle against Christian proselytising. Thus, Olcott and Blavatsky -- after having sailed to India in 1878 to establish the Theosophical Society's new headquarters there – visited the island in 1880. Olcott had been in touch with Hikkaduve Sumangala and Mohottivatte Gunananda before his arrival and word had spread that a Western supporter of Buddhism was on the way to Ceylon. Accordingly, Olcott and Blavatsky were awaited, welcomed and, indeed, celebrated by a huge crowd of Buddhists when they landed at Galle. A few days after their arrival, Olcott and Blavatsky publicly converted to Buddhism. Only later they stated that they had already embraced Buddhism back in New York and that their public conversion had merely been a confirmation thereof.31
After Theosophical Society founders H. P. Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Olcott heard about the debates, they wrote to Gunananda and Sumangala, who invited them to visit in Ceylon. Gunananda became an early member of the TS and remained such until his death. His membership certificate is serial number 116 of 1877.[1] He translated a portion of Isis Unveiled to Sinhalese.
-- Mohotiwatta Gunananda, by Theosophy Wiki
Notwithstanding Olcott's almost triumphal reception in Ceylon, the sangha and part of the Buddhist population were initially suspicious of his intentions. In fact, the ideas of Theosophy -- and, therefore, of the Theosophical Society -- and of Buddhism were not compatible. Theosophy neglects the primacy of one religion over the others. Strictly speaking, it neglects the relevance of sectarianism in religion. Many Buddhists were well aware of the contradiction in Olcott's conversion to Buddhism and his claim of being a Theosophist.32 But they were also ready to appreciate the potential benefits of Olcott's involvement: first, Olcott and the Theosophists were antagonistic to Christian proselytising and, thus, opposed the Christian missionaries' activitIes in Ceylon; second, the conversion of a Western sahib to Buddhism strongly supported any Buddhist claims to the superiority of their religion;33 and third, the leaders of the movement were well aware of Olcott's organisational skills.
Prior to Olcott's arrival in Ceylon, the participation of laymen in the Buddhist movement has been marginal. In the 1870s, some laymen had actively supported the erection of Buddhist run schools, but such help had been scarce and funds were constantly running low. Lay participation on a much broader basis was necessary if the Buddhists wanted to set up and run schools on their own. The Buddhist sangha had a lot of experience in preaching and the many inner-Buddhist sectarian controversies of earlier days had improved their debating skill. But neither could the sangha itself raise sufficient money nor were the monks skilled in secular teaching or the administration of schools. Low-Country businessmen, however, did have access to financial resources and had already acquired administrative experience in their various business operations. The new and growing class of educated Sinhalese had both an understanding of administration and some idea of teaching. The creation and expansion of a Buddhist school network, thus, depended on the contributions and the dedication of these affluent groups of lay Buddhists.
In some projects, Sinhalese laymen had already participated before Olcott's arrival in Ceylon. The Vidyodaya Oriental College, for instance, owed its existence and its successful running largely to the efforts and the financial support of its Committee of Managers that consisted mainly of Low-Country businessmen such as Don Philip de Silva Apa Appuhami, Don Velon Vikramatilaka Appuhami, Hewavitharanage Don Carolis, Lansage Don Andris Perera and Wettasinghage Don Cornelis de Silva.34 From the establishment of the Vidyodaya Pirivena in the year 1873 until its registration for a government grant in 1877 the Committee carried most of the financial burden.15 This illustrates the importance of lay participation In the establishment of a Buddhist school network. Olcott instantly realised the potential of the Buddhist laity and also saw that a common organisational structure had to be created in order to overcome internal differences along caste and class lines. To provide the much needed organisational background, he founded the Buddhist branch of the Theosophical Society in 1880.
In fact, Olcott founded two independent branches of the Theosophical Society in Ceylon: a Buddhist branch and a non-Buddhist branch. The latter went by the name of Lanka Theosophical Society. Its secular approach to 'occult research' did not attract many members and it did not play a significant role in the revitalisation of Buddhist movement.36 The Buddhist branch soon became known as the Buddhist Theosophical Society (BTS) and emerged as the main organisation for the propagation of Buddhist interests in Ceylon. Olcott had established two separate divisions in the BTS, one lay and one clerical. Sumangala was the chairman of the clerical division that consisted of leading bikkhus of all different nikayas.37 [37. The Buddhist sangha has never been a homogenous body. Three main sects – nikayas – existed in Ceylon and competed for primacy. The Siam Nikaya represented only the goyigamas and goyigama interests. The Ramanya and Amarapura Nikayas were themselves subdivided along caste lines. Internal and external competition in and between these nikayas had made unity against Christian proselytising difficult. For additional information on the social structure of Sinhalese Buddhism see Hans-Dieter Evers, “Die Soziale Organisation der Singhalesischen Religion,” Koelner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 16, no. 2 (1964).] Olcott attached great importance to the integration and representation of the different nikayas in the clerical division of the BTS, but the innovative potential of the BTS was clearly concentrated in the lay division:
The real significance of the BTS [ ... ] lay in its providing an organization for the laity, who until that time had been divided by their loyalties to individual temples and branches of the Sangha. [ ... ] The lay organization of the BTS not only gave the laymen a new sense of unity in opposing the Christians, but it also gave them independence from the monks to participate in the reform of Buddhism. [ ... ] The new elite laity, with their activist inclinations, supported by this new freedom and intellectual encouragement, grew in the BTS and laid the foundations for reform.38
Branches of the Buddhist Theosophical Society were founded at Galle, Matara, Bentota, Welitara and Kandy. The headquarters were in Colombo. The lay division immediately attracted influential Sinhalese of "different caste and localities"39 and channelled their contributions and activities into one common path of action. This marked a new phase of Buddhist agitation and provided the Buddhist movement with hitherto unseen financial and administrative means. Nevertheless it has to be remarked that it was mainly Olcott's personal presence and influence that held the BTS together and in working condition. Olcott frequently left Ceylon to engage in other activities. During his absence the enthusiasm of parts of the laity and of the sangha seemed to fade somewhat. The financial devotion of the laymen to the Buddhist cause ebbed during these times of absence and especially Olcott's Buddhist Education Fund proved to be a limited success for similar reasons.40
12.3 The Buddhist Revival: Central Issues
The common goal of the Buddhist Theosophical Society and the Buddhist sangha was the propagation of Buddhism and the resistance against Christian proselytising efforts. Olcott himself attached prime importance to the progress of Buddhist educational institutions and, when he arranged a national Buddhist convention shortly before his first departure from Ceylon, the main topics discussed were the improvement of Buddhist educational facilities and the question of Buddhist temporalities.41 Returning to Ceylon in 1881, Olcott founded the Buddhist Education Fund and started touring the whole island to collect donations for the fund. However, apart from some notable contributions from affluent members of the new economic elite public generosity was very limited. By October 1884 the collections in the Western Province had only raised the modest sum of Rs 4,085.22. 42 In the Southern Province the collected sum amounted to Rs 6,906.43 in February 1885.43 As it had been decided that the donated sums were loaned on interest and only the interest would be spent, the available funds were meagre. Furthermore, only half of the proceeds were allocated to the establishment and upkeep of Buddhist schools. Therefore, the total sum available for the support of schools in the Southern Province in the year 1885 merely amounted to 235 Rupees and 41.4 Cents. This sum was unequally distributed to four schools in the Southern Province.44 Unsurprisingly, Olcott was not pleased with the working of the Buddhist Education Fund.
Notwithstanding the limited financial benefits accumulated through the Buddhist Education Fund, Buddhist participation in grant-in-aid education gradually grew during the 1880s and even gained some additional momentum in the 1890s. While there were only four Buddhist schools (all of these only offering vernacular education) registered for a government grant in 1880, 45 the year 1900 saw already 142 grant-aided schools under Buddhist management.46 The Buddhists ran 10.7% of all grant-aided schools in 1900 -- as against only 0.5% in 1880. Although the available figures -- albeit incomplete – suggest that a good part of that progress has been made in the 1890s, the modest proceeds of the Buddhist Education Fund -- together with other contributions -- facilitated the initial setting up of schools and financed their maintenance until they could register for a government grant.
The registration for such a grant was the prime goal of every school management. Although the grants were not particularly generous, they sufficed to keep a school up and running. Prior to the Theosophists' organisational input, most Buddhist bikkhus or laymen had neither the experience nor the organisational backing to set up a school that could fulfill the high government eligibility criteria. In those few cases in which a grant was awarded, the management faced the difficult task of maintaining the standard of the school, as grants were given on a yearly basis. The school at Dodanduva, for instance, had been the first Buddhist school in Ceylon to be registered for a government grant in 1872. But only two years later, the school lost the grant, because the inexperienced management had not been able to maintain the quality of the teaching and to achieve the necessary attendance quotas. Several other grant-aided Buddhist schools also lost their grants again due to very similar reasons.47 Therefore, the increase in the number and the quality of Buddhist schools during the 1880s and 1890s must largely be attributed to the organizational improvements in the Buddhist movement. The clerical division of the BTS played only a supporting role in that sphere. It was the growing involvement of Western-educated laymen in the Buddhist Theosophical Society and the contribution made by American and English Theosophists that enabled the Buddhist movement to provide high-standard secular education (partly in English) to a growing number of pupils.48
Although most activities of Olcott and the Buddhist Theosophical Society aimed at the expansion of Buddhist educational facilities, there were other issues as well that demanded the attention of the Buddhist revivalist movement. The unsolved Temple Lands Question,49 [Since their arrival in Ceylon, the British had tried to settle the so-called Temple Lands or Buddhist Temporalities Question. Most of the Buddhist temples traditionally owned substantial plots of land adjacent to the temples. This land was usually exempted from tax. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the British struggled to find a proper way to administrate this land, but failed to do so due to the diverging interests of the Colonial Government, the Colonial Office, the Christian pressure groups and the Buddhist community. For more information on the Buddhist Temporalities Question see K.D.G. Wimalarame, “The Impact of British Policy on the Buddhist Temporalities of Sri Lanka” (paper presented at the Multi-Disciplinary International Conference on the occasion of 50th Anniversary of Independence of Sri Lanka, 23-25 February 1998); Hans-Dieter Evers, Buddhism and British Colonial Policy in Ceylon, 1815-1875 (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, Institute of Asian Studies, 1964).… ] for instance, had been the second important topic at the Buddhist convention summoned by Olcott during his first stay in Ceylon. Little headway was made in that respect and the Buddhist Temporalities Question remained unsolved. However, the discussion of that problem further unified the Buddhist movement in its opposition to the Christian missionaries and the government -- a development that the Colonial Office had feared for a long time.50 In the year 1883, Colonel Olcott founded the so-called Buddhist Defence Committee as a further step toward the unification of the Buddhist movement. The foundation of the committee was a reaction to the Kotahena Riots of the same year and, particularly, to the government reaction to these riots.
On Easter Day 1883 a Buddhist procession passing by a Roman Catholic church at Kotahena was violently attacked by a Catholic mob who apparently felt offended by the lively procession. The police was not able to control the situation. About 30 persons were injured in the conflict and one Buddhist was lethally wounded.51 The so-called Riots Commission was appointed to investigate the incident. The report of the commission gives an elaborate description of the violent Buddhist-Christian encounter:
In the meantime matters were becoming serious at Kotahena. The Roman Catholic services in the morning had been concluded, and the congregation had dispersed, and all was apparently quiet. A little before one o'clock the neighbourhood was alarmed by the sudden and violent ringing of the cathedral bell, followed at once by the ringing of the bells in all the Catholic churches in the neighbourhood, and without delay, as if at a preconcerted signal, large bodies of men ready armed with clubs, and marked on the forehead and back with white crosses, began to assemble at St. Lucia's corner. [ ... ] Meantime, as the [Buddhist] procession advanced, reports were brought from the front that a crowd was gathering at Kotahena; and […] rumours reached them that disturbances had begun, and that a Buddhist priest had been assaulted. The procession, which up to this time was unarmed and unprotected, naturally became excited, and the male portion rushed into a timber yard close by and took possession of whatever sticks and weapons they could find. [The processions finally reached St. Lucia’s corner] The front ranks of each party, which were now close upon each other, broke through the line of police and commenced a hand-to-hand fight. The Buddhists, in order to force a passage, attempted to drive their carts through the Catholic mob, but the latter seized and killed the bullocks, broke up the carts, and burned them and their contents on the public highway. During a lull in the fight, Assistant Superintendent Holland succeeded in persuading a body of Catholics to follow him to the cathedral, where one of the Roman Catholic Fathers addressed them, and the crowd began to separate. A heavy shower of rain, and the appearance of a mounted military officer assisted in dispersing the men, and by the time a detachment of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers arrived all actual fighting had ceased [ ... ] During the riot many persons received severe injuries, one Buddhist being mortally wounded, and thirty persons including twelve constables, so seriously hurt as to necessitate their being admitted to hospital: this number was probably only a small proportion of the total number injured.52
Although several Catholic offenders were arrested, the Acting Queen's Advocate Charles Ferdinands released them as there was no reliable evidence for a conviction. This infuriated the Buddhist community. And the findings of the Riots Commission -- originally instated to respond to Buddhist demands for thorough investigation -- did little to moderate Buddhist public opinion as well.53 The Commission gave the following reasons for the violent outbreaks of 25 March 1883:
I. The proximity of the Buddhist temple and the Roman Catholic cathedral at Kotahena.
2. The gradual revival of Buddhism and the controversies consequent thereon.
3. The protracted nature of the Buddhist festival, and the grand scale in which it was carried out by so bitter an opponent of the Christian religion as Migettuwatte Unnanse.
4. The continuance of the Buddhist festival through Holy Week.
5. The spreading of false reports regarding insults to Christian religion, which were believed by the Roman Catholics, and greatly exasperated them.
6. The apparent inability of the Roman Catholic authorities to control the more ignorant of their flock.
7. The indiscretion and indecision displayed by the police in granting, withholding, and cancelling [procession] licenses.
8. The insufficiency of the information possessed by the police, and defective arrangements made by them, as well as their neglect to properly vindicate the law on the first appearance of disorder; and their failing to realize, till too late, the magnitude of the disturbance on Easter-day.54
Disappointed by the release of the Catholic suspects and by the appeasing report of the Riots Commission, the Buddhists contacted Olcott who arrived in Ceylon in January 1884. The Buddhist Defence Committee was founded and Olcott was appointed a "special delegate, to represent the Buddhists and their cause, i.e., to seek redress for grievances in addition to other rights and privileges".55 Thus, Colonel Olcott eventually became the official spokesman of the Sinhalese Buddhist community in that matter. He visited Governor Gordon, who had recently taken over the Governorship from Longden, and brought forward the Buddhist complaints against Ferdinands and the Riots Commission. Olcott not only sought a just investigation of the Kotahena riots, but pressed for a formal declaration of the government's religious neutrality, the appointment of Buddhist registrars, the settlement of the Buddhist Temporalities Question and the recognition of Vesak56 as a public holiday.
Olcott also directly intervened with the Colonial Office and the Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Derby. Although Derby was generally sympathetic to Olcott and his request, the Colonial Office left the final decision to Governor Gordon.57 In his despatch of 18 February 1884, Gordon informed Derby about his meeting with Olcott and the latter planned to travel to London and bring the matter directly before the Secretary of State. Gordon stated that Olcott obviously occupied an influential position in the Buddhist community -- although Olcott himself might have overestimated his importance according to Gordon.58 Probably as a tribute to Olcott's influence, Gordon gave in to some of the Buddhists' minor demands. He made Vesak a public holiday and followed Olcott's suggestion to reconsider the Temple Lands problem. On the other hand, Gordon refused to appoint Buddhist registrars or to officially declare the government's neutrality in religious affairs.59 Thus, the politically more important demands of the Buddhists were declined. Moreover, the ordinance to improve the management of temple lands introduced by Gordon in 1889 quickly proved to be unsuccessful.60 However, Gordon's modest and mostly symbolic concessions further enhanced his public image as a "friend of the natives". Olcott as well profited from the concessions and fortified his position within the Buddhist revivalist movement in Ceylon.61
The Buddhist Defence Committee and its work as a pressure group was one of the first cases of open political agitation on the Buddhist side. The immediate benefits were limited, but by the time the Buddhist community became more vociferous. The firm Buddhist resistance to the highly oppressive quarter-mile rule of 1891 illustrates this. Although Buddhist agitation could not prevent the retrospective implementation of the quarter-mile rule, the improved organizational backing of the Buddhists enabled them to circumvent the ordinance's provisions and further expand their school network in the 1890s.62 But it was not only the enhanced organisation of the Buddhist movement that gave additional momentum to Buddhist demands. During the so-called Kalutara Bo tree affair63 Buddhists laymen held:
the first anti-government mass demonstration [on 26 November 1896] concerning religion in the south western coastal area, the centre of the Buddhist revival. It came after a full century of British rule and foreshadowed both the more widely supported agitation over sacred space.64
Without the encouragement of the BTS or any other Buddhist organization, a petty dispute between the British authorities and the local Buddhists over a Bo tree and a Buddhist shrine led to a mass assembly of Buddhist laymen and an explicitly anti-government demonstration. This highlights the changing quality of Buddhist resistance and agitation during the 1890s and the importance of the lay element in the movement. Therefore, Olcott's main impact on the Buddhist revivalist movement was the provision of an organisational background to increase and strengthen the participation of the Buddhist laity. The new economic elites played a crucial role in the expansion of Buddhist educational facilities, in the provision of funding and in the organisation of the movement. In their identification with the Buddhist cause they saw a means to enhance their social status and to challenge the primacy of the traditional elites.65 During the closing years of the nineteenth century, Buddhist consciousness and resistance spread among the lower social ranks as well -- as it can be seen in the Kalutara demonstration of 1896. It was in those years that the religious nationalism of the Buddhist movement gradually acquired political nationalist qualities.66 Although Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism became an eminent political force only in the twentieth century – for the first time in the Temperance Movement67 -- its roots reach back to the Buddhist revivalist movement of the 1880s and 1890s. The growth of political nationalism on the soil of religious ideas must mainly be attributed to the influence of the economic elites who tried to use the movement as a public base to support their own claims to political representation and social elite status.
12.4 The Hindu Revival
The emergence of political nationalist overtones in the Buddhist revivalist movement during the 1890s also had an impact on Buddhist-Hindu relations. Years before Buddhism started to defend itself against Christian inroads, the Tamil Hindus of northern Ceylon had already witnessed a gradual revival of their religion. The economic situation in the Jaffna Peninsula, the greater importance attached to education, the backing by South Indian Hindus and the individual contribution of Arumugam Navalar are some of the more often cited causes for the comparatively early take-off of Hindu religious revivalism. When the Buddhists eventually followed the Hindu example, relations between Hindu and Buddhist revivalists were usually amicable.68 Hindu and Buddhist interests were welded together by the existence of a common foe -- Christianity. On the Hindu side the brothers Ponnambalam Ramanathan and Ponnambalam Arunachalam even actively supported the Buddhist movement. Ramanathan -- in his role as Tamil MLC -- supported the recognition of Vesak as a public holiday, suggested to found a National Buddhist Hindu College and donated Rs 25.000 to that cause. However, he later withdrew this donation, when the Buddhist-Hindu joint-venture failed due to a conflict over the management of the college.69
The Hindu revival was mostly free of political nationalist aspirations. In the first place, the vellala caste was the motor behind Hindu revivalism. Being the Tamil counterpart to the Sinhalese goyigamas, the vellalas occupied the top position in the Tamil caste system. Accordingly, the main social and political aim of the vellala Hindu revivalists lay rather in the preservation of their superior position. Openly nationalist or anti-colonial agitation would not have been very helpful in that respect. Similarly, the comparatively tight educational network -- both missionary and indigenous -- that had been established in the Jaffna Peninsula and the high importance attached to education by the Tamils had secured them an influential position in the colonial administration by the second half of the nineteenth century – at least in comparison to Sinhalese or Muslim representation in that sphere. Therefore, social and political emancipation through the proclamation of nationalist ideas and notions was neither necessary nor helpful for the Hindu revivalists. The rigid Tamil caste system and the resulting social stratification practically excluded lower castes from participating in the revivalist movement. The movement did not aim at social reform -- a fact frequently pointed out by De Silva70 --, nor did it propagate nationalist ideas. Thus, Hindu revivalism can be characterised as a cultural and religious revivalism aiming at the maintenance of the social and political status quo.
The leading figure in early Hindu revivalism was Arumugam Navalar (1822- 1879). Educated at a Wesleyan Methodist school, Navalar started teaching at the Methodist Central School in Jaffna after his graduation and helped to translate the Bible into Tamil. In 1848, he quitted his post and founded his first Saivite school.71 The foundation of Hindu schools as an alternative to the Christian missionary schools remained an important issue throughout Navalar's life, but his contribution to the preservation of orthodox Saivism72 [72. Hindu revivalism was more precisely the revival of Saivism – the Hindu worship centring on the cult of Siva. The particular form of Saivism celebrated was the Saiva Siddhanta (“Established Truth”) philosophy which had become a largely Tamil and literate discourse after the twelfth century in south India, with the principal texts being the agamas. […] In essence, Siddhanta outlines a doctrine of existence as consisting of manifestations of the supreme godhead, Siva, as well as a scheme for the maintenance of life and the acquisition of knowledge leading to release (moksa).” Ibid., 394] was even more significant. In that context, Navalar was active in the restoration and renovation of many Hindu temples in the Jaffna Peninsula. He publicised an impressive number of Saivite religious texts, thus "preserving the heritage of the Hindus in Sri Lanka".73 He used his education and the organisational skills acquired at the Wesleyan school in favour of the Hindu cause.
Like many other Ceylon Tamils, Navalar had received and benefited from a Christian education, but had never converted to Christianity. Attending Christian schools -- even if it was necessary to impersonate a good Christian while at school -- was widespread among the well-to-do Tamils due to the boundless "love of the Jaffnese to obtain some knowledge of English at any cost.”74 The importance that the Tamils attached to education in general (and to English education in particular) stemmed from the limited economic opportunities of the Jaffna Peninsula. Extraordinarily high population density, increasing pressure on land and the lack of urbanisation and industrialization severely affected the economic prosperity of the peninsula. 75 Therefore, "[t]he acquisition of education, specifically English education, became the substitute for industrialization and economic growth in the peninsula. It helped to mop up excess manpower from the land and the Tamils of Jaffna were well poised to take advantage of the new opportunities.”76 The existence of a tight-knit network of Wesleyan and American missionary schools in the densely populated northern areas facilitated the acquisition of vernacular and English education. At the same time, the importance attached to education by the Tamils accelerated the establishment of indigenous educational facilities. Although the missionary societies fought bitterly against the foundation of Tamil schools, there were as many as 65 Saivite and private schools on the island with an average attendance of 4,289 pupils in the year 1900.17