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Mary Foster
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/12/19

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Mary Elizabeth Mikahala Foster

Mary Elizabeth Mikahala Foster born Robinson ( Honolulu, 20 September 1844 - Honolulu, 20 December 1930) was an American philanthropist.

Mary Foster was the eldest daughter of James Robinson, the first owner of Hawaii of English origin (arrived in the islands in 1820) and Rebecca Prever, descendant of King Kamehameha I. She was a friend of Queen Liliuokalani of whose government her brother was a minister, until the Kingdom of Hawaii was demolished by conspirators supported by the United States in 1895 and the Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed, followed by annexation to the USA in 1898.

Biography

Married to the Canadian shipowner Thomas Foster (born May 19, 1835, died August 20, 1889 in San Francisco) [1], in 1889 he was widowed [2] and endowed with great economic means and many landholdings in Hawaii. Since then he lived at the home of his sister Victoria Ward and her husband Curtis Perry Ward, a great landowner [1].

In 1860, Mary Robinson married Thomas R. Foster (1835-1889) of Nova Scotia, who had arrived in the Islands just three years earlier. He founded the Interisland Steam Navigation Company, and owned a shipyard, a shipping agency and a number of schooners. He died in 1889, leaving her a very wealthy widow, as she had also inherited substantial property from her father following his death in 1876.

-- Mary E. Foster, by Theosophy Wiki

The turning point in the life of Mary Foster came when Anagarika Dharmapala, the great reformer of the practice Buddhist of Ceylon, returning from the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893 where he had attended the first meeting of the World Parliament of Religions on a journey that from San Francisco was taking him to Yokohama made a stop in Honolulu [3] and converted it to Buddhism.

From that moment on he promoted a large number of activities that are part of the revitalization of Buddhism, of which Anagarika Dharmapala was the most famous exponent of southern Buddhism and Taixu of Buddhism in China.


The Mulagandhakuti Vihara in Sarnath.

In 1899 he promoted the construction of the new temple of the Honpa Hongwanji, a mission of the Pure Land Buddhism formed in Hawaii by Japanese immigrants [4], at whose inauguration Henry Steel Olcott of the Theosophical Society took part. He then sponsored the construction of the Sri Dharmarajika Vihara and Mulagandhakuti Vihara monasteries in Sarnath [5], a place where the historical Buddha had preached the first inoculation to the Pañcavaggiyā. The interiors of the Mulagandhakuti Vihara (imitated in 1904 and completed in 1931) were frescoed by the Japanese painter Nosu Kosetsu [6](野生 司 香雪Nousu Kōsetsu ) (1885-1973) [7] with a hybrid style, which drew inspiration both from the paintings of the Ajanta Caves and from the Art Nouveau.


The Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu.

Sponsorships at the Maha Bodhi Society included the purchase of the Calcutta and Madras headquarters, the first headquarters, in 1926, of the London Buddhist Vihara and the construction of a hospital in Ceylon. Anagarika Dharmapala returned to Hawaii twice more to meet her, in 1913 and 1925. Mary Foster asked to be considered her adoptive mother.

Mary Foster's last donation was 5 hectares of land in the center of Honolulu, bought years before with her husband by the German botanist William Hillebrand [8], offered to the city of Honolulu together with a fund of ten thousand dollars for its maintenance as a garden botanist. Currently the Foster Botanical Garden is the oldest in Hawaii and preserves a Ficus religiosa derived from a sucker of Sri Maha Bodhi brought to it in 1913 by Anagarika Dharmapala [9].

Upon the death of Mary Foster, Christian relatives, contrary to her latest provisions, celebrated a Christian rather than a Buddhist funeral [10].

Notes

1. http://www.islandregister.com/foster1.html
2. Foster Community Garden [ broken link ]
3. Michael C. Howard, Transnationalism and society, an introduction , McFarland, 2011, p. 199
4. Ho'okuleana: Buddhism in Hawai'i
5. The Island
6. Life of Buddha in frescoes [microform], Mulagandhakuti vihara, Sarnath (1900) https://ia600802.us.archive.org/15/item ... 00nosu.pdf
7. http://id.ndl.go.jp/auth/ndlna/00176140
8. The Walking Hawaiian
9. Ayya Vimala, Bodhi Trees Around the World: Hawaii Foster Botanical Garden http://www.shindharmanet.com/wp-content ... -Bodhi.pdf [ broken link ]
10. Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream , Routledge, 2000, p.243 ISBN 9780700712533

Other projects

• Wikimedia Commons contains images or other files on Mary Foster

External links

• ( EN ) Mary Foster , on Find a Grave .

*******************************

Mary E. Foster
by Theosophy Wiki
Accessed: 8/19/20

Mrs. Mary E. Foster was a Hawaiian Theosophist who was close to the Buddhist leader Anagarika Dharmapala and was a great benefactor of the Maha Bodhi Society of India.

Early life

Mary Elizabeth Makahala Robinson was born in Honolulu on September 20, 1844. Her parents were John James Robinson, a shipwrecked English sailor, and Rebecca Kaikilani Prever, who was a descendant of the famous Hawaiian king Kamehameha I. Thus, Mary was related to Queen Liliʻuokalani, who was six years older, and was one of the monarch's closest friends. Mark P. Robinson, Mary's brother, served as Queen Lili'uokalani's Minister of Foreign Affairs. [1] It was a difficult time to be royalty in the Islands. During the period 1893-1896, the queen was forcibly and illegally deposed by agents of the American government, and eventually Hawai'i was made a protectorate of the United States.

Mary was educated at the O'ahu Charity School, which provided English-language instruction to children of foreign residents married to Hawaiians.

In 1860, Mary Robinson married Thomas R. Foster (1835-1889) of Nova Scotia, who had arrived in the Islands just three years earlier. He founded the Interisland Steam Navigation Company, and owned a shipyard, a shipping agency and a number of schooners. He died in 1889, leaving her a very wealthy widow, as she had also inherited substantial property from her father following his death in 1876.[2]

Theosophical Society involvement

After her husband's death, Mary became interested in Theosophy, joining the Theosophical Society on May 12, 1882.[3] Initially a member of the Golden Gate branch in San Francisco, she soon organized lectures and classes in Honolulu. She helped to organize the Aloha Branch in February 1894, with Dr. Auguste Marques as lodge President.

Dr. Auguste Jean Baptiste Marques was a scientist, diplomat, and writer who lived in Hawai'i. He was President of the Aloha Branch and served as General Secretary of the Australian Section of the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Chennai, India.

Dr. Marques was born at Toulon, France on November 17, 1841. His father John, a general in the French army, was half Spanish and half French. His mother, Augusta Cooke, was half English and half Scottish, the daughter of a British general. Marques spent some of his boyhood in Morocco and Algiers. He completed study of medicine at the University of Paris, but his mother persuaded him for some unknown reason not to take the degree. He did complete a doctorate in science from the University of Lisbon. For a time he worked at the bureau of agriculture in Paris, but "after his mother's death in 1875, when he was 34, he began a prolonged world tour."

During his travels, he arrived in Hawai'i on December 30, 1878 on the City of Sydney, and decided to stay. He became a naturalized American citizen after Hawai'i became a protectorate of the United States.

After arriving in Hawai'i,

He soon helped found the Honolulu Library and Reading Room Association, later Honolulu's first public library, and he actively promoted fund-raising efforts, purchased books, and organized a music department. A self-proclaimed advocate of Portuguese interests in his early years in Hawai'i, Marques established the Anti-Asiatic Society to work for the restriction of the immigration of Japanese and Chinese laborers. After reading Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled in 1885, he became interested in Theosophy, traveling to Europe in 1888 to further his research on the topic.

After his exposure to Theosophy, he dropped his anti-Asiatic activities. He taught music, then French at Oahu College and Punahou Preparatory School during the years 1883-1891. An active supporter of the Hawaiian royalty, he served a one-year term as a member of the Hawaiian legislature in 1890. He was director of the Honolulu Symphony Society, and played the viola. He wrote for many periodicals about Hawaiian culture and mythology...

In February 1894, Dr. Marques worked with Mrs. Mary E. Foster to establish the Aloha Branch of the Theosophical Society, and he became its first President and host of weekly meetings. Mrs. Foster's brother Mark Robinson, a prominent banker and invester, was also involved; he hosted Theosophical gatherings at his home. They organized lectures and classes, and several other study groups. During the 1890s, Dr. Marques frequently contributed articles to Mercury and other Theosophical periodicals.

Mercury was published in San Francisco from 1894 to 1899, with William John Walters as the editor. It was initially written for children, since Walters was Conductor of the Lotus Circles children's group in San Francisco. However, following the split in the American Theosophical movement, the August 1895 issue announced that Mercury was "'A Theosophical Magazine'. Now the monthly magazine of the newly established American Section." In 1897, the Mercury Publishing Company produced a cookbook that included an advertisement for Mercury, calling the periodical "A Theosophical monthly, dedicated to the study of Oriental philosophy, the Occult Sciences and the Brotherhood of Man."

-- Mercury (periodical), by Theosophy Wiki

From 1899-1901, Dr. Marques served as General Secretary of the Australian Section, and he traveled to India as a delegate.

In December, 1901, Alexander Fullerton reported that Dr. Marques had resigned his membership. The reason is not known.

King David Kalākaua sent Marques on a diplomatic mission to Russia in 1886. Around 1907, Dr. Marques became Acting Consul in Hawai'i for France, and Vice Consul for Spain. For over 20 years, he represented the interests of France as Consular Agent and then Consul. He also became, at the same time, Consul for Panama (1909); and Vice Consul for Belgium (1914) and Russia (1908-1918). He worked out of his residence at 1928 Wilder Avenue in Honolulu.

Dr. Marques wrote numerous articles for Theosophical journals, mostly during the 1890s. The Union Index of Theosophical Periodicals lists 42 articles by or reviews of books by A Marques.

-- Auguste Marques, by Theosophy Wiki

They also established several other study groups. Her brother Mark Robinson, a prominent banker and invester, became a member on May 23, 1884; he hosted Theosophical gatherings at his home.[4][5] Theosophical lecturers came to Honolulu. Countess Wachtmeister arrived in 1896. She and Mrs. Foster had been corresponding cordially.

The Countess Wachtmeister was the companion and coworker of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (H.P.B.) from 1885 until Blavatsky's death in 1891. She lectured widely in the 1890s, and helped Annie Besant to form lodges in the United States.

-- Constance Wachtmeister, by Theosophy Wiki

From February 13-19, 1901, the President-Founder Colonel Olcott visited, and his lecture on "The Divine Art of Healing" was attended by the former queen Liliʻuokalani, who was a good friend of Mrs. Foster. It was fortunate for him that he chose to remain in Hawai'i a few days. The ship Rio de Janeiro on which he had arrived, struck a rock and sank while leaving harbor. He continued his journey on the S.S. Coptic. [6]

Anagarika Dharmapala

Following his remarkable success as a speaker at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, the Anagarika Dharmapala traveled by the steamer S.S. Oceanic via Honolulu, Japan, and Thailand as he returned to Ceylon. His ship stopped for a day in Honolulu in mid-October 1893, and a few local Theosophists met him:

Greeted and offered fresh fruit and flowers by Mary Foster, Auguste Marques, and an unidentified woman Theosophist, possibly Marie de Souza Canavarro, Dharmapala embarked on a short tour of Honolulu. Foster confided in Dharmapala about her uncontrollable temper and asked for advice. His counsel was evidently of great value to her as she commenced studying Theravadan Buddhism in conjunction with her Theosophical interests. A number of later newspaper accounts refer to Foster's traveling to Ceylon in 1893 and studying with the Buddhist monks at Anuradhapura, thereby horrifying her large kama'dina [native Hawaiian] family, who kept this fact secret.[7]

Dharmapala visited Hawai'i again in 1913, bringing Mrs. Foster the gift of a "Bo" tree for her garden. They met in person one final time in 1925.[8]

Support of Buddhist causes

Mary Foster provided funding for repairs to Buddhist temples in India and Ceylon, and to numerous schools, hospitals, and training programs in South Asia and Hawai'i. By some accounts she donated over $300,000 dollars to Buddhist causes.

Why a dollar today is worth only 3% of a dollar in 1893
Updated: August 12, 2020

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, today's prices in 2020 are 2,778.90% higher than average prices since 1893. This means that a dollar today only buys 3.47% of what it could buy in 1893. The U.S. dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 2.68% per year during this period, causing the real value of a dollar to decrease.

In other words, $100 in 1893 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $2,878.90 in 2020, a difference of $2,778.90 over 127 years.

[$300,000 in 1893 = $8,636,700 in 2020]
https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1893

These are some of the projects supported:

• Construction of Mulagandhikuti Vihara at Sarnath in India.
• English-Sinhala free school at Rajagiri near Colombo.[9]
• Hewawitharana Weaving School.
• [b]Maha Bodhi Press in Colombo, and its journals in Sinhala and English.[10]
• Industrial School at Sarnath.[11]
• Foster-Robinson Hospital for the Poor - a free ayurvedic hospital that remains part of Colombo General Hospital in Sri Lanka.
• Dharmarajika Vihara in Calcutta.
• Foster House at 86 Madeley Road, Ealing, London - opened on July 24, 1926 as the first missionary vihara to be founded outside the Asian continent. This also marked the birth of the British Mahabodhi Society.[12][13]

In Hawai'i, Mrs. Foster also gave land on Pali Highway to the Japanese Buddhists' Honpa Hongwanji Mission, where the first Buddhist temple in Honolulu was built in 1889; and she supported the Hongwanji High School.[14]

Foster Botanical Garden

The garden at Mrs. Foster's residence was planted with indigenous flora and ornamental specimens. She lived at 50 North Vineyard Boulevard, Honolulu for several decades after she and Captain Foster purchased the property in 1884 from a German botanist, who had nurtured the collection of flora for 30 years. Mrs. Foster purchased additional land and consulted with botanists to identify the varieties of plants.[15]

Giant lumbering Galápagos tortoises used to make their way amid the tropical terraced trails, with a niece or nephew of Mrs. Foster on their wide, smooth backs. The tortoises were a gift, like many of the plants, from visiting sea adventurers. When Mary Foster passed away the Galápagos tortoises went to the zoo.[16]

Dharmapala brought Mrs. Foster a cutting from an ancient tree planted in 288 B.C. at the Mahabodhi temple in Anuradhapura, Ceylon, that is a direct descendant of the famous "Bo" tree (Ficus religiosa) under which Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment. From the tree that took root in her garden, several other bo trees were provided to other gardens at Hawaiian Buddhist viharas and to the University of Hawaii - Manoa campus.[17][18] At her death in 1930, the property was bequeathed to the city of Honolulu as its first botanical garden.

Later years

At times Mrs. Foster traveled to San Francisco, and she may have also visited South Asia again. She spent time in Oahu, as well, where she established a land trust to save ahupua'a 'o Kahana, a beautiful wooded tract, from ranchers who wanted to burn it to create grassland. "Today it is run as a state park, which embraces and teaches Hawaiian culture."[19]

In her final year she lived with her younger sister, Victoria Ward, and the sister's three middle-aged daughters, in Honolulu.[20] Mary died on December 20, 1930.

Legacy

Mary Foster is remembered through the Foster Botanical Garden and many institutions named after her. "Mary Foster Day" was proclaimed by the mayor of Honolulu in 2006, and a Facebook account called Discover Mary Foster Day was established. A variety of hibiscus was named "Mary Foster."[21] A prayer service honoring Foster is held every month at the Foster-Robinson Hospital in Colombo.[22]Foster Lane in Colombo was named after her.

An author, Patricia Lee Masters, wrote a biographical novel in 2017 entitled Searching for Mary Foster: Nineteenth-Century Native Hawaiian Buddhist, Philanthropist, and Social Activist and published by the American Buddhist Study Center.[23]

Mrs. Foster is also mentioned in the song, "Beautiful Kahana" in these lines:

This is the home of the lady
Of the loving heart of India[24]

Notes

1. Frank Karpiel, "Theosophy, Culture, and Politics in Honolulu, 1890-1920," Hawaiian Journal of History 30 (1996), 172. Available at this website.
2. Frank Karpiel, "Theosophy, Culture, and Politics in Honolulu, 1890-1920," Hawaiian Journal of History 30 (1996), 172. Available at this website.
3. Theosophical Society General Membership Register, 1875-1942 at http://tsmembers.org/. See book 1, entry 8246 (website file: 1C/ 59).
4. Theosophical Society General Membership Register, 1875-1942 at http://tsmembers.org/. See book 1, entry 11199 (website file: 1D/43).
5. Frank Karpiel, "Theosophy, Culture, and Politics in Honolulu, 1890-1920," Hawaiian Journal of History 30 (1996), 172. Available at this website.
6. Anonymous, "Hawaii," The Theosophist 22.9 (June, 1901), 566-567.
7. Frank Karpiel, "Theosophy, Culture, and Politics in Honolulu, 1890-1920," Hawaiian Journal of History 30 (1996), 183. Available at this website.
8. Frank Karpiel, "Theosophy, Culture, and Politics in Honolulu, 1890-1920," Hawaiian Journal of History 30 (1996), 185. Available at this website.
9. Kumari Jayawarden, "The White Woman's Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia During British Rule" (Routledge, 2014), 165.
10. Kumari Jayawarden, "The White Woman's Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia During British Rule" (Routledge, 2014), 165.
11. Anāgārika Dharmapāla A Biographical Sketch Available at Wisdom Library.
12. "Anagarika Dharmapala," London Buddhist Vihara web page. Available at [http://www.londonbuddhistvihara.org/Dharmapala.htm LondonBuddhistVihara.org
13. M. P. Amarasuriya, "London Buddhist Vihara: Impetus and Consolidation 1925-28," Anagarika Dharmapala Trust. Available at Anagarika.org.
14. Mary Adamski, "Buddhist Roots," Star Bulletin (September 15, 2007). Available at Star Bulletin.
15. Nancy Arcayna, "Mysterious Mary Foster," Star Bulletin [Honolulu] (September 22, 2006). Available at this website.
16. Heidi Bornhorst, "Mary Foster Deserving of Celebration in Her Honor," Honolulu Advertiser (September 22, 2006). Available at HonululuAdvertiser.com.
17. Ven. Ayya Vimala, "Bodhi Trees Around the World: Hawaii – Foster Botanical Garden," Shin Dharm Net. Available at ShinDharmaNet.com].
18. Mary Adamski, "Buddhist Roots," Star Bulletin (September 15, 2007). Available at Star Bulletin.
19. Vinod Moonesinghe, "George Clooney, Mary Foster and Anagarika Dharmapala," Daily News [Sri Lanka] (February 29, 2012). Available at Daily News.
20. U. S. Census, 1930.
21. Heidi Bornhorst, "Mary Foster Deserving of Celebration in Her Honor," Honolulu Advertiser (September 22, 2006). Available at HonululuAdvertiser.com.
22. Nancy Arcayna, "Mysterious Mary Foster," Star Bulletin [Honolulu] (September 22, 2006). Available at this website.
23. Searching for Mary Foster in Better Hawai'i blog. October 6, 2018.
24. Vinod Moonesinghe, "George Clooney, Mary Foster and Anagarika Dharmapala," Daily News [Sri Lanka] (February 29, 2012). Available at Daily News.

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Fukuzawa Yukichi
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/12/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

At the time of Olcott and Dharmapala’s visit, Jiji Shimpo [Jiji Shinpo “Current Events”, Fukuzawa’s newspaper], a newspaper committed to Japan’s modernization, looked forward to a time when human beings would have less need for religion. In the face of missionary threat – and the prospect of life without religion relegated to the future – the paper argued that for now Jodo Shinshu should become the state religion:

Its preachers are skilful; the tact of its propagandists is remarkable; its temples, instead of being hidden away in sequestered spots like the strongholds of feudal barons, are built in populous and accessible places, and despite the license enjoyed by its priests in respect of marriage and flesh-eating, its influence spreads and alone among all the Sects, its prosperity remains unimpaired.98

The Christian editors of the Japan Weekly Mail reached the opposite conclusion: these qualities made it the least praiseworthy of Buddhist sects.

-- Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World, by Steven Kemper

In this Japanese name, the family name is Fukuzawa.


Fukuzawa Yukichi
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, 1862.
Born January 10, 1835
Nakatsu, Oita, Japan
Died February 3, 1901 (aged 66)
Tokyo, Japan
Other names Shi-I (子圍)
Sanjyū-ikkoku-jin (三十一谷人)
Children 9

Fukuzawa Yukichi (福澤 諭吉, January 10, 1835 – February 3, 1901) was a Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur, journalist, and leader who founded Keio University, Jiji-Shinpō (a newspaper) and the Institute for Study of Infectious Diseases.

Fukuzawa was an early Japanese advocate for reform. Fukuzawa's ideas about the government work, and the structure of social institutions made a lasting impression on a rapidly changing Japan during the Meiji period.

Fukuzawa is regarded as one of the founders of modern Japan.

Early life


Monument of NAKATSU-Han warehouse and FUKUZAWA YUKICHI birthplace, at Hotaru-machi, Fukushima-ku, Osaka City, Japan.

Fukuzawa Yukichi was born into an impoverished low-ranking samurai family of the Okudaira Clan of Nakatsu (now Ōita, Kyushu) in 1835. His family lived in Osaka, the main trading center for Japan at the time.[1] His family was poor following the early death of his father, who was also a Confucian scholar. At the age of 5 he started Han learning, and by the time he turned 14 had studied major writings such as the Analects, Tao Te Ching, Zuo Zhuan and Zhuangzi.[2] Fukuzawa was greatly influenced by his lifelong teacher, Shōzan Shiraishi, who was a scholar of Confucianism and Han learning. When he turned 19 in 1854, shortly after Commodore Matthew C. Perry's arrival in Japan, Fukuzawa's brother (the family patriarch) asked Yukichi to travel to Nagasaki, where the Dutch colony at Dejima was located, in order to enter a school of Dutch studies (rangaku). He instructed Yukichi to learn Dutch so that he might study European cannon designs and gunnery.


Sailors of the Kanrin Maru, members of the Japanese Embassy to the United States (1860). Fukuzawa Yukichi sits on the right.


Fukuzawa Yukichi (posing with the photographer's twelve year old daughter: Theodora Alice Shew) in San Francisco, 1860.

Fukuzawa spent the beginning of his walk of life just trying to survive the backbreaking yet dull life of a lower-level samurai in Japan during the Tokugawa period.[2] Although Fukuzawa did travel to Nagasaki, his stay was brief as he quickly began to outshine his host in Nagasaki, Okudaira Iki. Okudaira planned to get rid of Fukuzawa by writing a letter saying that Fukuzawa's mother was ill. Seeing through the fake letter Fukuzawa planned to travel to Edo and continue his studies there because he knew he would not be able to in his home domain, Nakatsu, but upon his return to Osaka, his brother persuaded him to stay and enroll at the Tekijuku school run by physician and rangaku scholar Ogata Kōan[2]. Fukuzawa studied at Tekijuku for three years and became fully proficient in the Dutch language. In 1858, he was appointed official Dutch teacher of his family's domain, Nakatsu, and was sent to Edo to teach the family's vassals there.

The following year, Japan opened up three of its ports to American and European ships, and Fukuzawa, intrigued with Western civilization, traveled to Kanagawa to see them. When he arrived, he discovered that virtually all of the European merchants there were speaking English rather than Dutch. He then began to study English, but at that time, English-Japanese interpreters were rare and dictionaries nonexistent, so his studies were slow.

In 1859, the Tokugawa shogunate sent the first diplomatic mission to the United States. Fukuzawa volunteered his services to Admiral Kimura Yoshitake. Kimura's ship, the Kanrin Maru, arrived in San Francisco, California, in 1860. The delegation stayed in the city for a month, during which time Fukuzawa had himself photographed with an American girl, and also found a Webster's Dictionary, from which he began serious study of the English language.

Political movements


Fukuzawa Yukichi was a member of the Japanese Embassy to the United States (1860). (Washington shipyard).


Fukuzawa posing in Utrecht as part of the First Japanese Embassy to Europe, 1862.

Upon his return in 1860, Fukuzawa became an official translator for the Tokugawa bakufu. Shortly thereafter he brought out his first publication, an English-Japanese dictionary which he called "Kaei Tsūgo" (translated from a Chinese-English dictionary) which was a beginning for his series of later books. In 1862, he visited Europe as one of the two English translators in bakufu's 40-man embassy, the First Japanese Embassy to Europe. During its year in Europe, the Embassy conducted negotiations with France, England, the Netherlands, Prussia, and finally Russia. In Russia, the embassy unsuccessfully negotiated for the southern end of Sakhalin (in Japanese Karafuto).

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Tokugawa Bakufu (徳川幕府) and the Edo Bakufu (江戸幕府), was the last feudal Japanese military government, which existed between 1600 and 1868.[3] The head of government was the shogun,[4] and each was a member of the Tokugawa clan.[5] The Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo Castle and the years of the shogunate became known as the Edo period.[6] This time is also called the Tokugawa period[3] or pre-modern (Kinsei (近世)).[7]

-- Tokugawa shogunate, by Wikipedia

The information collected during these travels resulted in his famous work Seiyō Jijō (西洋事情, "Things western"), which he published in ten volumes in 1867, 1868 and 1870. The books describe western culture and institutions in simple, easy to understand terms, and they became immediate best-sellers. Fukuzawa was soon regarded as the foremost expert on all things western, leading him to conclude that his mission in life was to educate his countrymen in new ways of thinking in order to enable Japan to resist European imperialism.

In 1868 he changed the name of the school he had established to teach Dutch to Keio Gijuku, and from then on devoted all his time to education. He had even added Public speaking to the educational system's curriculum.[2] While Keiō's initial identity was that of a private school of Western studies (Keio-gijuku), it expanded and established its first university faculty in 1890. Under the name Keio-Gijuku University, it became a leader in Japanese higher education.

Fukuzawa was also a strong advocate for women’s rights. He often spoke up in favor of equality between husbands and wives, the education of girls as well as boys, and the equal love of daughters and sons. At the same time, he called attention to harmful practices such as women’s inability to own property in their own name and the familial distress that took place when married men took mistresses. However, even Fukuzawa was not willing to propose completely equal rights for men and women; only for husbands and wives. He also stated in his 1899 book New Greater Learning for Women that a good marriage was always the best outcome for a young woman, and according to some of Fukuzawa's personal letters, he discouraged his friends from sending their daughters on to higher education so that they would not become less desirable marriage candidates.[2] While some of Yukichi’s other proposed reforms, such as education reforms, found an eager audience, his ideas about women received a less enthusiastic reception. Many in Japan were incredibly reluctant to challenge the traditional gender roles, in spite of numerous individuals speaking up in favor of greater gender equality.

After suffering a stroke on January 25, 1901, Fukuzawa Yukichi died on February 3. He was buried at Zenpuku-ji, in the Azabu area of Tokyo.[2] Alumni of Keio-Gijuku University hold a ceremony there every year on February 3.

Works

Fukuzawa's writings may have been the foremost of the Edo period and Meiji period. They played a large role in the introduction of Western culture into Japan.

English-Japanese Dictionary

In 1860, he published English-Japanese Dictionary ("Zōtei Kaei Tsūgo"). It was his first publication. He bought English-Chinese Dictionary ("Kaei Tsūgo") in San Francisco in 1860. He translated it to Japanese and he added the Japanese translations to the original textbook. In his book, he invented the new Japanese characters VU (ヴ) to represent the pronunciation of VU and VA (ヷ) to represent the pronunciation of VA. For example, the name Beethoven is written as ベートーヴェン in Japanese now.

All the Countries of the World, for Children Written in Verse

His famous textbook Sekai Kunizukushi ("All the Countries of the World, for Children Written in Verse", 1869) became a best seller and was used as an official school textbook. His inspiration for writing the books came when he tried to teach world geography to his sons. At the time there were no textbooks on the subject, so he decided to write one himself. He started by buying a few Japanese geography books for children, named Miyakoji ("City roads") and Edo hōgaku ("Tokyo maps"), and practiced reading them aloud. He then wrote Sekai Kunizukushi in six volumes in the same lyrical style. The first volume covered Asian countries, the second volume detailed African countries, European countries were discussed in the third, South American countries in the fourth, and North American countries and Australia in the fifth. Finally, the sixth volume was an appendix that gave an introduction to world geography.

An Encouragement of Learning


First print of "An Encouragement of Learning" (1872), written by Fukuzawa Yukichi and Obata Tokujirō.

Between 1872 and 1876, he published 17 volumes of Gakumon no Susume ( 学問のすすめ, "An Encouragement of Learning" or more idiomatically "On Studying"[3]). In these texts, Fukuzawa outlines the importance of understanding the principle of equality of opportunity and that study was the key to greatness. He was an avid supporter of education and believed in a firm mental foundation through education and studiousness. In the volumes of Gakumon no Susume, influenced by Elements of Moral Science (1835, 1856 ed.) by Brown University President Francis Wayland, Fukuzawa advocated his most lasting principle, "national independence through personal independence." Through personal independence, an individual does not have to depend on the strength of another. With such a self-determining social morality, Fukuzawa hoped to instill a sense of personal strength among the people of Japan, and through that personal strength, build a nation to rival all others. His understanding was that western society had become powerful relative to other countries at the time because western countries fostered education, individualism (independence), competition and exchange of ideas.

Francis Wayland (March 11, 1796 – September 30, 1865), American Baptist educator and economist, was born in New York City, New York. He was president of Brown University and pastor of the First Baptist Church in America in Providence, Rhode Island. In Washington, D.C., Wayland Seminary was established in 1867, primarily to educate former slaves, and was named in his honor. (In 1899, Wayland Seminary merged with another school to become the current Virginia Union University, at Richmond, Virginia.)

-- Francis Wayland, by Wikipedia

An Outline of a Theory of Civilization


First print of An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (1875).

Fukuzawa published many influential essays and critical works. A particularly prominent example is Bunmeiron no Gairyaku ( 文明論之概略, "An Outline of a Theory of Civilization"[4]) published in 1875, in which he details his own theory of civilization. It was influenced by Histoire de la civilisation en Europe (1828; Eng. trans in 1846) by François Guizot .....

François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (French: [fʁɑ̃swa pjɛʁ ɡijom ɡizo]; 4 October 1787 – 12 September 1874) was a French historian, orator, and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848. A moderate liberal[1][2] who opposed the attempt by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, he worked to sustain a constitutional monarchy following the July Revolution of 1830.

He then served the "citizen king" Louis Philippe, as Minister of Education, 1832–37, ambassador to London, Foreign Minister 1840–1847, and finally Prime Minister of France from 19 September 1847 to 23 February 1848. Guizot's influence was critical in expanding public education, which under his ministry saw the creation of primary schools in every French commune. But as a leader of the "Doctrinaires", committed to supporting the policies of Louis Phillipe and limitations on further expansion of the political franchise, he earned the hatred of more left-leaning liberals and republicans through his unswerving support for restricting suffrage to propertied men, advising those who wanted the vote to "enrich yourselves" (enrichissez-vous) through hard work and thrift.

As Prime Minister, it was Guizot's ban on the political meetings (called the campagne des banquets or the Paris Banquets, which were held by moderate liberals who wanted a larger extension of the franchise)[3] of an increasingly vigorous opposition in January 1848 that catalyzed the revolution that toppled Louis Philippe in February and saw the establishment of the French Second Republic.....

During Guizot's tenure as foreign minister, he and Lord Aberdeen, the foreign secretary to Sir Robert Peel, carried on well, and thus they secured France and Britain in the entente cordiale. Part of the formation of the entente came about when Guizot secured the transfer of Napoleon's ashes from St. Helena to the French government.[8] The opposition in France denounced Guizot's foreign policy as basely subservient to England. He replied in terms of unmeasured contempt: "You may raise the pile of calumny as high as you will; vous n'arriverez jamais a la hauteur de mon dédain!" In 1845 British and French troops fought side by side for the first time in the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata.

The fall of Peel's government in 1846 changed these intimate relations; and the return of Palmerston to the foreign office led Guizot to believe that he was again exposed to the passionate rivalry of the British cabinet. A friendly understanding had been established between the two courts with reference to the future marriage of the young queen of Spain. The language of Lord Palmerston and the conduct of Sir Henry Bulwer (afterwards Lord Dalling) at Madrid led Guizot to believe that this understanding was broken, provoking the Affair of the Spanish Marriages after Guizot came to believe that Britain intended to place a Coburg on the throne of Spain. Determined to resist any such intrigue, Guizot and the king plunged headlong into a counter-intrigue, wholly inconsistent with their previous engagements to Britain and fatal to the happiness of the queen of Spain. By their influence she was urged into a marriage with a despicable offset of the house of Bourbon, and her sister was at the same time married to the youngest son of the French king, in direct violation of Louis Philippe's promises. This transaction, although it was hailed at the time as a triumph of the policy of France, was in truth as fatal to the monarch as it was discreditable to the minister. It was accomplished by a mixture of secrecy and violence. It was defended by subterfuges. Its immediate effect was to destroy the Anglo-French alliance, and to throw Guizot into closer relations with the reactionary policy of Metternich and the Northern courts.....

It was impossible to defend a system which confined the suffrage to 200,000 citizens and returned a chamber of whom half were placemen. Nothing would have been easier than to strengthen the moderate liberal party by attaching the suffrage to the possession of land in France, but blank resistance was the sole answer of the government to the moderate demands of the opposition. Warning after warning was addressed to them in vain by friends and by foes alike, and they remained profoundly unconscious of their danger till the moment when it overwhelmed them. Strange to say, Guizot never acknowledged either at the time or to his dying day the nature of this error, and he speaks of himself in his memoirs as the much-enduring champion of liberal government and constitutional law. He utterly failed to perceive that a more enlarged view of the liberal destinies of France and a less intense confidence in his own specific theory might have preserved the constitutional monarchy and averted a vast series of calamities, which were in the end fatal to every principle he most cherished. But with the stubborn conviction of absolute truth he dauntlessly adhered to his own doctrines to the end.....

Back in Paris in 1850, Guizot published two more volumes on the English revolution--Pourquoi la Révolution d'Angleterre a-t-elle reussi? and Discours sur l'histoire, de la Révolution d'Angleterre. In February 1850 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels co-wrote a critical assessment of this two-volume history.[11] ....

After having resigned as Prime Minister of France, he left politics. He was aware that the link between himself and public life was broken forever, and he never made the slightest attempt to renew it. The greater part of the year he spent at his residence at Val Richer, an Augustine monastery near Lisieux in Normandy, which had been sold at the time of the first Revolution. His two daughters, who married two descendants of the illustrious Dutch family of De Witt, so congenial in faith and manners to the Huguenots of France, kept his house. One of his sons-in-law farmed the estate. And here Guizot devoted his later years with undiminished energy to literary labour, which was in fact his chief means of subsistence.....

He remained throughout his life a firm believer in the truths of revelation, and a volume of Méditations on the Christian Religion was one of his latest works. But though he adhered inflexibly to the church of his fathers and combated the rationalist tendencies of the age, which seemed to threaten it with destruction, he retained not a tinge of the intolerance or asperity of the Calvinistic creed. He respected in the Church of Rome the faith of the majority of his countrymen, and the writings of the great Catholic prelates, Bossuet and Bourdaloue, were as familiar and as dear to him as those of his own persuasion, and were commonly used by him in the daily exercises of family worship....

During the 1820s, Guizot was among the darlings of the European liberal intelligentsia. His historical works such as Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe (1828) and Histoire de la civilisation en France (1830) were widely admired by such luminaries as John Stuart Mill ("I have dinned into people's ears that Guizot is a great thinker and writer"), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ("Guizot is a man after my own heart...He possesses deep knowledge, combined with an enlightened liberality"), Charles Sainte-Beuve ("this astonishing man about whom one could say so many things"), and Alexis de Tocqueville.[13]

Guizot's later resolute opposition to universal suffrage has led his critics to argue that he was a conservative or even reactionary.[14] However, it is more accurate to describe Guizot as a proponent of the juste milieu or political center that defended representative government against absolutism and the excesses of democracy.[14][15]

-- François Guizot, by Wikipedia

and History of Civilization in England (1872–1873, 2nd London ed.) by Henry Thomas Buckle.

Buckle's fame rests mainly on his History of Civilization in England.....its chief ideas are:[6]

1. That, owing partly to the want of ability in historians, and partly to the complexity of social phenomena, extremely little had as yet been done towards discovering the principles that govern the character and destiny of nations, or, in other words, towards establishing a science of history;
2. That, while the theological dogma of predestination is a barren hypothesis beyond the province of knowledge, and the metaphysical dogma of free will rests on an erroneous belief in the infallibility of consciousness, it is proved by science, and especially by statistics, that human actions are governed by laws as fixed and regular as those that rule in the physical world;
3. That climate, soil, food, and the aspects of nature are the primary causes of intellectual progress: the first three indirectly, through determining the accumulation and distribution of wealth, and the last by directly influencing the accumulation and distribution of thought, the imagination being stimulated and the understanding subdued when the phenomena of the external world are sublime and terrible, the understanding being emboldened and the imagination curbed when they are small and feeble;
4. That the great division between European and non-European civilization turns on the fact that in Europe man is stronger than nature, and that elsewhere nature is stronger than man, the consequence of which is that in Europe alone has man subdued nature to his service;
5. That the advance of European civilization is characterized by a continually diminishing influence of physical laws, and a continually increasing influence of mental laws;
6. That the mental laws that regulate the progress of society cannot be discovered by the metaphysical method, that is, by the introspective study of the individual mind, but only by such a comprehensive survey of facts as enable us to eliminate disturbances, that is, by the method of averages;
7. That human progress has been due, not to moral agencies, which are stationary, and which balance one another in such a manner that their influence is unfelt over any long period, but to intellectual activity, which has been constantly varying and advancing: "The actions of individuals are greatly affected by their moral feelings and passions; but these being antagonistic to the passions and feelings of other individuals, are balanced by them, so that their effect is, in the great average of human affairs, nowhere to be seen, and the total actions of mankind, considered as a whole, are left to be regulated by the total knowledge of which mankind is possessed";
8. That individual efforts are insignificant in the great mass of human affairs, and that great men, although they exist, and must "at present" be looked upon as disturbing forces, are merely the creatures of the age to which they belong;
9. That religion, literature and government are, at the best, the products and not the causes of civilization;
10. That the progress of civilization varies directly as "scepticism", the disposition to doubt and to investigate, and inversely as "credulity" or "the protective spirit", a disposition to maintain, without examination, established beliefs and practices.

-- Henry Thomas Buckle, by Wikipedia

According to Fukuzawa, civilization is relative to time and circumstance, as well in comparison. For example, at the time China was relatively civilized in comparison to some African colonies, and European nations were the most civilized of all.

Colleagues in the Meirokusha intellectual society shared many of Fukuzawa's views, which he published in his contributions to Meiroku Zasshi (Meiji Six Magazine), a scholarly journal he helped publish. In his books and journals, he often wrote about the word "civilization" and what it meant. He advocated a move toward "civilization", by which he meant material and spiritual well-being, which elevated human life to a "higher plane". Because material and spiritual well-being corresponded to knowledge and "virtue", to "move toward civilization" was to advance and pursue knowledge and virtue themselves. He contended that people could find the answer to their life or their present situation from "civilization." Furthermore, the difference between the weak and the powerful and large and small was just a matter of difference between their knowledge and education.

He argued that Japan should not import guns and materials. Instead it should support the acquisition of knowledge, which would eventually take care of the material necessities. He talked of the Japanese concept of being practical or pragmatic (実学, jitsugaku) and the building of things that are basic and useful to other people. In short, to Fukuzawa, "civilization" essentially meant the furthering of knowledge and education.

Criticism

Fukuzawa was later criticized as a supporter of Japanese imperialism because of an essay "Datsu-A Ron" ("Escape from Asia") published in 1885 and posthumously attributed to him, as well as for his support of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). Yet, "Datsu-A Ron" was actually a response to a failed attempt by Koreans to organize an effective reform faction. The essay was published as a withdrawal of his support.

According to Fukuzawa Yukichi no Shinjitsu ("The Truth of Fukuzawa Yukichi", 2004) by Yō Hirayama, this view is a misunderstanding due to the influence of Mikiaki Ishikawa, who was the author of a biography of Fukuzawa (1932) and the editor of his Complete Works (1925–1926 and 1933–1934). According to Hirayama, Ishikawa inserted anonymous editorials into the Complete Works, and inserted historically inaccurate material into his biography.

“ The material in Fukuzawa Yukichi Complete Works (1958–1964) volumes 1 to 7 must be distinguished from that in volumes 8 to 16. Volumes 1 to 7 contain signed works, but the Jiji Shinpō editorials in volumes 8 to 16 are almost all unsigned works chosen by Ishikawa. Six of the editorials in volume 16 were written six months after Fukuzawa's death, and of course cannot have been written by Fukuzawa. ”

Legacy


Fukuzawa Yukichi
(Kinsei Meishi Shashin. Vol.2.)

Fukuzawa's most important contribution to the reformation effort, though, came in the form of a newspaper called Jiji Shinpō (時事新報, "Current Events"), which he started in 1882, after being prompted by Inoue Kaoru, Ōkuma Shigenobu, and Itō Hirobumi to establish a strong influence among the people, and in particular to transmit to the public the government's views on the projected national assembly, and as reforms began, Fukuzawa, whose fame was already unquestionable, began production of Jiji Shinpo, which received wide circulation, encouraging the people to enlighten themselves and to adopt a moderate political attitude towards the change that was being engineered within the social and political structures of Japan. He translated many books and journals into Japanese on a wide variety of subjects, including chemistry, the arts, military and society, and published many books (in multiple volumes) and journals himself describing Western society, his own philosophy and change, etc.


Fukuzawa appears on the 10,000 yen banknote engraved by Oshikiri Katsuzō

Fukuzawa was one of the most influential people ever that helped Japan modernize into the country it is today. He never accepted any high position and remained a normal Japanese citizen for his whole life. By the time of his death, he was revered as one of the founders of modern Japan. All of his work was written and was released at a critical juncture in the Japanese society and uncertainty for the Japanese people about their future after the signing of the Unequal treaties, their realization in the weakness of the Japanese government at the time (Tokugawa Shogunate) and its inability to repel the American and European influence. It should also be noted that there were bands of samurai that forcefully opposed the Americans and Europeans and their friends through murder and destruction. Fukuzawa was in danger of his life as a samurai group killed one of his colleagues for advocating policies like those of Fukuzawa. Fukuzawa wrote at a time when the Japanese people were undecided on whether they should be bitter about the American and European forced treaties and imperialism, or to understand the West and move forward. Fukuzawa greatly aided the ultimate success of the pro-modernization forces.

Fukuzawa appears on the current 10,000-yen banknote and has been compared to Benjamin Franklin in the United States. Franklin appears on the similarly-valued $100 bill. Although all other figures appearing on Japanese banknotes changed when the recent redesign was released, Fukuzawa remained on the 10,000-yen note.


Yukichi Fukuzawa's former residence in the city of Nakatsu in Ōita Prefecture

Yukichi Fukuzawa's former residence in the city of Nakatsu in Ōita Prefecture is a Nationally Designated Cultural Asset. The house and the Yukichi Fukuzawa Memorial Hall are the major tourist attractions of this city.[5]

Yukichi Fukuzawa was a firm believer that Western education surpassed Japan's. However, he did not like the idea of parliamentary debates. As early as 1860, Yukichi Fukuzawa traveled to Europe and the United States. He believed that the problem in Japan was the undervalued mathematics and science. Also, these suffered from a "lack of the idea of independence". The Japanese conservatives were not happy about Fukuzawa's view of Western education. Since he was a family friend of conservatives, he took their stand to heart. Fukuzawa later came to state that he went a little too far.[6]

One word sums up his entire theme and that is "independence". Yukichi Fukuzawa believed that national independence was the framework to society in the West. However, to achieve this independence, as well as personal independence, Fukuzawa advocated Western learning. He believed that public virtue would increase as people became more educated.[1]

Bibliography

Original Japanese books

1. English-Japanese dictionary (増訂華英通語 Zōtei Kaei Tsūgo, 1860)
2. Things western (西洋事情 Seiyō Jijō, 1866, 1868 and 1870)
3. Rifle instruction book (雷銃操法 Raijyū Sōhō, 1867)
4. Guide to travel in the western world (西洋旅案内 Seiyō Tabiannai, 1867)
5. Our eleven treaty countries (条約十一国記 Jyōyaku Jyūichi-kokki, 1867)
6. Western ways of living: food, clothes, housing (西洋衣食住 Seiyō Isyokujyū, 1867)
7. Handbook for soldiers (兵士懐中便覧 Heishi Kaicyū Binran, 1868)
8. Illustrated book of physical sciences (訓蒙窮理図解 Kinmō Kyūri Zukai, 1868)
9. Outline of the western art of war (洋兵明鑑 Yōhei Meikan, 1869)
10. Pocket almanac of the world (掌中万国一覧 Shōcyū Bankoku-Ichiran, 1869)
11. English parliament (英国議事院談 Eikoku Gijiindan, 1869)
12. Sino-British diplomatic relations (清英交際始末 Shin-ei Kosai-shimatsu, 1869)
13. All the countries of the world, for children written in verse (世界国尽 Sekai Kunizukushi, 1869)
14. Daily lesson for children (ひびのおしえ Hibi no Oshie, 1871) - These books were written for Fukuzawa's first son Ichitarō and second son Sutejirō.
15. Book of reading and penmanship for children (啓蒙手習の文 Keimō Tenarai-no-Fumi, 1871)
16. Encouragement of learning (学問のすゝめ Gakumon no Susume, 1872–1876)
17. Junior book of ethics with many tales from western lands (童蒙教草 Dōmō Oshie-Gusa, 1872)
18. Deformed girl (かたわ娘 Katawa Musume, 1872)
19. Explanation of the new calendar (改暦弁 Kaireki-Ben, 1873)
20. Bookkeeping (帳合之法 Chōai-no-Hō, 1873)
21. Maps of Japan for children (日本地図草紙 Nihon Chizu Sōshi, 1873)
22. Elementary reader for children (文字之教 Moji-no-Oshie, 1873)
23. How to hold a conference (会議弁 Kaigi-Ben, 1874)
24. An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (文明論之概略 Bunmeiron no Gairyaku, 1875)
25. Independence of the scholar's mind (学者安心論 Gakusya Anshinron, 1876)
26. On decentralization of power, advocating less centralized government in Japan (分権論 Bunkenron, 1877)
27. Popular economics (民間経済録 Minkan Keizairoku, 1877)
28. Collected essays of Fukuzawa (福澤文集 Fukuzawa Bunsyū, 1878)
29. On currency (通貨論 Tsūkaron, 1878)
30. Popular discourse on people's rights (通俗民権論 Tsūzoku Minkenron, 1878)
31. Popular discourse on national rights (通俗国権論 Tsūzoku Kokkenron, 1878)
32. Transition of people's way of thinking (民情一新 Minjyō Isshin, 1879)
33. On national diet (国会論 Kokkairon, 1879)
34. Commentary on the current problems (時事小言 Jiji Shōgen, 1881)
35. On general trends of the times (時事大勢論 Jiji Taiseiron, 1882)
36. On the imperial household (帝室論 Teishitsuron, 1882)
37. On armament (兵論 Heiron, 1882)
38. On moral training (徳育如何 Tokuiku-Ikan, 1882)
39. On the independence of learning (学問之独立 Gakumon-no Dokuritsu, 1883)
40. On the national conscription (全国徴兵論 Zenkoku Cyōheiron, 1884)
41. Popular discourse on foreign diplomacy (通俗外交論 Tsūzoku Gaikōron, 1884)
42. On Japanese womanhood (日本婦人論 Nihon Fujinron, 1885)
43. On men's moral life (士人処世論 Shijin Syoseiron, 1885)
44. On moral conduct (品行論 Hinkōron, 1885)
45. On association of men and women (男女交際論 Nannyo Kosairon, 1886)
46. On Japanese manhood (日本男子論 Nihon Nanshiron, 1888)
47. On reverence for the Emperor (尊王論 Sonnōron, 1888)
48. Future of the Diet; Origin of the difficulty in the Diet; Word on the public security; On land tax (国会の前途 Kokkai-no Zento; Kokkai Nankyoku-no Yurai; Chian-Syōgen; Chisoron, 1892)
49. On business (実業論 Jitsugyōron, 1893)
50. One hundred discourses of Fukuzawa (福翁百話 Fukuō Hyakuwa, 1897)
51. Foreword to the collected works of Fukuzawa (福澤全集緒言 Fukuzawa Zensyū Cyogen, 1897)
52. Fukuzawa sensei's talk on the worldly life (福澤先生浮世談 Fukuzawa Sensei Ukiyodan, 1898)
53. Discourses of study for success (修業立志編 Syūgyō Rittishihen, 1898)
54. Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi (福翁自伝 Fukuō Jiden, 1899)
55. Reproof of "the essential learning for women"; New essential learning for women (女大学評論 Onnadaigaku Hyōron; 新女大学 Shin-Onnadaigaku, 1899)
56. More discourses of Fukuzawa (福翁百余話 Fukuō Hyakuyowa, 1901)
57. Commentary on the national problems of 1877; Spirit of manly defiance (明治十年丁丑公論 Meiji Jyūnen Teicyū Kōron; 瘠我慢の説 Yasegaman-no Setsu, 1901)

English translations

• The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa, Revised translation by Eiichi Kiyooka, with a foreword by Carmen Blacker, NY: Columbia University Press, 1980 [1966], ISBN 978-0-231-08373-7
• The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa, Revised translation by Eiichi Kiyooka, with a foreword by Albert M. Craig, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-231-13987-8
• The Thought of Fukuzawa series, (Paperback) Keio University Press
o vol.1 福澤諭吉 (2008), An Outline of a Theory of Civilization, Translation by David A. Dilworth, G. Cameron Hurst, III, ISBN 978-4-7664-1560-5
o vol.2 福澤諭吉 (2012), An Encouragement of Learning, Translation by David A. Dilworth, ISBN 978-4-7664-1684-8
o vol.3 福澤諭吉 (2017), Fukuzawa Yukichi on Women and the Family, Edited and with New and Revised Translations by Helen Ballhatchet, ISBN 978-4-7664-2414-0
o Vol.4 The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi. Revised translation and with an introduction by Helen Ballhatchet.

Notes

1. Nishikawa (1993)
2. Hopper, Helen M. (2005). Fukuzawa Yukichi : from samurai to capitalist. New York: Pearson/Longman. ISBN 978-0321078025. OCLC 54694712.
3. Dilworth (2012)
4. Dilworth & Hurst (2008)
5. Adas, Stearns & Schwartz (1993, p. 36).
6. Adas, Stearns & Schwartz (1993, p. 37).

See also

• Jiji Shinpō
• Keio-Gijuku University
• List of motifs on banknotes
• Nakae Chōmin
• Natsume Sōseki
• Susumu Nishibe
• Tsuneari Fukuda
• Yamamoto Tsunetomo
• Zenpuku-ji

References

• Adas, Michael; Stearns, Peter; Schwartz, Stuart (1993), Turbulent Passage: A Global History of the Twentieth Century, Longman Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-06-501039-8
• Nishikawa, Shunsaku (西川俊作) (1993), "FUKUZAWA YUKICHI (1835-1901)" (PDF), Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, vol. XXIII (no. 3/4): 493–506, archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-24 () - French version (Archive)

Further reading

• Lu, David John (2005), Japan: A Documentary History: The Dawn of History to the Late Tokugawa Period, M.E. Sharpe, ISBN 978-1-56324-907-5
• Kitaoka, Shin-ichi (2017), Self-Respect and Independence of Mind: The Challenge of Fukuzawa Yukichi, JAPAN LIBRARY, translated by Vardaman, James M., Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture (JPIC), ISBN 978-4-916055-62-0
• Kitaoka, Shin-ichi (March–April 2003), "Pride and Independence: Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Spirit of the Meiji Restoration (Part 1)", Journal of Japanese Trade and Industry, archived from the original on 2003-03-31
• Kitaoka, Shin-ichi (May–June 2003), "Pride and Independence: Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Spirit of the Meiji Restoration (Part 2)", Journal of Japanese Trade and Industry, archived from the original on 2003-05-06
• Albert M. Craig (2009), Civilization and Enlightenment: The Early Thought of Fukuzawa Yukichi (Hardcover ed.), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-03108-1
• Tamaki, Norio (2001), Yukichi Fukuzawa, 1835-1901: The Spirit of Enterprise in Modern Japan (Hardcover ed.), United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-333-80121-5
• (in French) Lefebvre, Isabelle. "La révolution chez Fukuzawa et la notion de jitsugaku Fukuzawa Yukichi sous le regard de Maruyama Masao" (Archive). Cipango. 19 | 2012 : Le Japon et le fait colonial II. pp. 79-91.
• (in French) Maruyama, Masao (丸山眞男). "Introduction aux recherches philosophiques de Fukuzawa Yukichi" (Archive). Cipango. 19 | 2012 : Le Japon et le fait colonial II. pp. 191-217. Translated from Japanese by Isabelle Lefebvre.
o (in Japanese) Original version: Maruyama, Masao. "Fukuzawa ni okeru jitsugaku no tenkai. Fukuzawa Yukichi no tetsugaku kenkyū josetsu" (福沢に於ける「実学」の展開、福沢諭吉の哲学研究序説), March 1947, in Maruyama Masao shū (丸山眞男集), vol. xvi, Tōkyō, Iwanami Shoten, (1997), 2004, pp. 108-131.
• (in French) Fukuzawa Yukichi, L’Appel à l’étude, complete edition, translated from Japanese, annotated and presented by Christian Galan, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, april 2018, 220 p.

External links

• Fukuzawa, Yukichi | Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures (National Diet Library)
• "Encouragement for Learning" (Gakumon no Susume) by Fukuzawa Yukichi (Part One, English Translation)
• E-texts of Fukuzawa's works at Aozora Bunko (in Japanese)

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Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/13/19

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Ignatius Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln
Trebitsch-Lincoln as Chao Kung
Born 4 April 1879
Paks, Austria-Hungary
Died 6 October 1943[1]
Shanghai International Settlement
Nationality Hungarian
Occupation Adventurer, con artist

Ignatius Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln circa 1915

Ignatius Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln (Hungarian: Trebitsch-Lincoln Ignác, German: Ignaz Thimoteus Trebitzsch; 4 April 1879 – 6 October 1943), born Abraham Schwarz, AKA Ignaz Thimoteus Trebitzsch, AKA Moses Pinkeles, was a Hungarian adventurer and convicted con artist. Of Jewish descent, he spent parts of his life as a Protestant missionary, Anglican priest, British Member of Parliament for Darlington, German right-wing politician and spy, Nazi collaborator and Buddhist abbot in China. [!!!]

Early clerical career

Ignácz Trebitsch, Hungarian: Trebitsch Ignác(z) (later changed to Trebitsch Lincoln) was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in the town of Paks (also Orthodox shtetl) in Hungary in 1879, subsequently moving with his family to Budapest. His father, Náthán Trebitsch, (Hungarian: Trebitsch Náthán) was from Moravia.

After leaving school he enrolled in the Royal Hungarian Academy of Dramatic Art,[1] but was frequently in trouble with the police over acts of petty theft. In 1897 he fled abroad, ending up in London, where he took up with some Christian missionaries and converted from Judaism. He was baptised on Christmas Day 1899, and set off to study at a Lutheran seminary in Breklum in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, destined for the ministry. Restless, he was sent to Canada to carry out missionary work among the Jews of Montreal, first on behalf of the Presbyterians, and then the Anglicans. He returned to England in 1903 after a quarrel over the size of his stipend.

He became Tribich Lincoln (or I. T. T. Lincoln) by deed poll in October 1904[1] and secured British naturalisation on 11 May 1909.[2]

Member of Parliament

Trebitsch-Lincoln had the ability to talk himself into virtually any situation, and into any company. He made the acquaintance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who appointed him as a curate in Appledore, Kent, his last ecclesiastical post. Soon thereafter he met Seebohm Rowntree, the chocolate millionaire and prominent member of the Liberal Party, who offered him the position of his private secretary. With Rowntree's support, he was nominated in 1909 as the prospective Liberal candidate for the Parliamentary constituency of Darlington in County Durham, even though he was still a Hungarian citizen at the time. In the election of January 1910 he beat the sitting Unionist,[3] whose family had held the seat for decades. However, despite this dramatic entrance to political life, MPs were not at the time paid and Lincoln's financial troubles grew worse. He was unable to stand when a second general election was called in November 1910. Darlington returned to its old allegiance.

International confidence man

In the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War he was involved in a variety of failed commercial endeavours, living for a time in Bucharest, hoping to make money in the oil industry. Back in London with no money, he offered his services to the British government as a spy. When he was rejected he went to the Netherlands and made contact with the Germans, who employed him as a double-agent.

Returning to England, he narrowly escaped arrest, leaving for the United States in 1915, where he made contact with the German military attaché, Franz von Papen. Papen was instructed by Berlin to have nothing to do with him, whereupon Trebitsch sold his story to the New York World Magazine, which published under the banner headline Revelation of I. T. T. Lincoln, Former Member of Parliament Who Became a Spy. His book Revelations of an International Spy was published by Robert M. McBride in New York in 1916.[4]

The British government, anxious to avoid any embarrassment, employed the Pinkerton agency to track down the renegade. He was returned to England – not on a charge of espionage, which was not covered by the Anglo-American extradition treaty, but of fraud, far more apt in the circumstances. He served three years in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight, and was released and deported in 1919. His British nationality was revoked by the Home Secretary on 3 December 1918.[5]

Germany and Austria

A penniless refugee, Trebitsch-Lincoln worked his way bit by bit into the extreme right-wing and militarist fringe in Weimar Germany, making the acquaintance of Wolfgang Kapp and Erich Ludendorff among others. In 1920, following the Kapp Putsch, he was appointed press censor to the new government. In this capacity he met Adolf Hitler, who flew in from Munich the day before the Putsch collapsed.

With the fall of Kapp, Trebitsch fled south from Munich to Vienna to Budapest, intriguing all along the way, linking up with a whole variety of fringe political factions, such as a loose alliance of monarchists and reactionaries from all over Europe known as the White International. Entrusted with the organization's archives, he promptly sold the information to the secret services of various governments. Tried and acquitted on a charge of high treason in Austria, he was deported yet again.

Conversion to Buddhism

He ended up in China, where he took up employment under three different warlords including Wu Peifu. Supposedly after a mystic experience in the late 1920s, Trebitsch converted to Buddhism, becoming a monk. In 1931 he rose to the rank of abbot, establishing his own monastery in Shanghai. All initiates were required to hand over their possessions to Abbot Chao Kung,(Ch. 照空 pinyin: Zhào Kōng) as he now called himself, who also spent his time seducing nuns.

In 1937 he transferred his loyalties yet again, this time to the Empire of Japan, producing anti-British propaganda on their behalf. Chinese sources say that he also wrote numerous letters and articles for the European press condemning Japanese imperial aggression in China. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he also made contact with the Nazis, offering to broadcast for them and to raise up all the Buddhists of the East against any remaining British influence in the area. The chief of the Gestapo in the Far East, SS Colonel Josef Meisinger, urged that this scheme receive serious attention. It was even seriously suggested that Trebitsch be allowed to accompany German agents to Tibet to implement the scheme. He proclaimed himself the new Dalai Lama after the death of the 13th Dalai Lama, a move that was supported by the Japanese but rejected by the Tibetans.[6]

Heinrich Himmler was enthusiastic, as was Rudolf Hess, but it all came to nothing after the latter flew to Scotland in May 1941. After this, Adolf Hitler put an end to all such pseudo-mystical schemes. Even so, Trebitsch continued his work for the German and Japanese security services in Shanghai until his death in 1943.

Death

In response to a letter protesting the Holocaust which Trebitsch-Lincoln had written to Hitler, the Nazi High command requested that Japanese forces poison Trebitsch-Lincoln after they invaded Shanghai in 1943. The response to this request is not known; however, Trebitsch-Lincoln did die of stomach trouble in Shanghai in 1943, aged 64.

See also

• Sidney Reilly

References

1. "Lincoln, Ignatius Timotheus Trebitsch". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/51599.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. "No. 28256". The London Gazette. 1 June 1909. p. 4176.
3. "No. 28338". The London Gazette. 11 February 1910. p. 1029.
4. I. T. T. Lincoln, Revelations of an International Spy. New York, Robert M. McBride & Company, 1916.
5. "No. 31065". The London Gazette. 13 December 1918. p. 14705.
6. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27931812
• Wasserstein, Bernard (1988). The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-04076-8.
• The Treacherous Mr. Trebisch by Eliza Segal
• "On the Trail of Trebitsch Lincoln, triple agent". New York Times. 8 May 1988. Retrieved 10 August 2008.
• John Gross (17 May 1988). "Books of The Times; On Clear Duplicity and Doubtful Consequence". New York Times. Retrieved 10 August 2008. by John Gross, 17 May 1988
• He was an author, fraudster, MP, fantasist, charmer... but he did not go to Belmarsh by Matthew Parris, 28 July 2003
• Ju-Zan 巨赞, "Yang heshang Zhao-Kong," 洋和尚照空 in Wenshi ziliao xuanji 文史资料选辑, No. 79, ed. Quanguo Zhengxie wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui 全国政协文史资料研究委员会, 1982, pp. 165–177.
• The self-made villain: A biography of I.T.Trebitsch Lincoln, By David Lampe & Laszlo Szenasi,Hardcover: 215 pages,Publisher: Cassell (1961),Language: English, ASIN: B0000CL8HL

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln
• Newspaper clippings about Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

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Shyamji Krishna Varma
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/17/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Pandit
Shyamji Krishna Varma
Native name
શ્યામજી કૃષ્ણવર્મા
Born 4 October 1857
Mandvi, Cutch State, British India (now Kutch, Gujarat)
Died 30 March 1930 (aged 72)
Geneva, Switzerland
Monuments Kranti Teerth, Mandvi, Kutch
Alma mater Balliol College, Oxford
Occupation Revolutionary, lawyer, journalist
Organization Indian Home Rule Society, India House, The Indian Sociologist
Movement Indian Independence Movement
Spouse(s) Bhanumati (m. 1875)
Parent(s) Karsan Bhanushali (Nakhua), Gomatibai

Shyamji Krishna Varma (4 October 1857 – 30 March 1930) was an Indian revolutionary fighter,[1] an Indian patriot, lawyer and journalist who founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and The Indian Sociologist in London. A graduate of Balliol College, Krishna Varma was a noted scholar in Sanskrit and other Indian languages. He pursued a brief legal career in India and served as the Divan of a number of Indian princely states in India.[2] He had, however, differences with Crown authority, was dismissed following a supposed conspiracy of local British officials at Junagadh[3] and chose to return to England. An admirer of Dayanand Saraswati's approach of cultural nationalism, and of Herbert Spencer, Krishna Varma believed in Spencer's dictum: "Resistance to aggression is not simply justified, but imperative".[2]

In 1905 he founded the India House and The Indian Sociologist, which rapidly developed as an organised meeting point for radical nationalists among Indian students in Britain at the time and one of the most prominent centres for revolutionary Indian nationalism outside India. Krishna Varma moved to Paris in 1907, avoiding prosecution.

Early life

Shyamji Krishna Varma was born on 4 October 1857 in Mandvi, Cutch State (now Kutch, Gujarat) as Shamji, the son of Krushnadas Bhanushali (Karsan Nakhua; Nakhua is the surname while Bhanushali is the community name), a labourer for cotton press company, and Gomatibai, who died when Shyamji was only 11 years old. He was raised by his grandmother. His ancestors belonged to Bhachunda (23°12'3"N 69°0'4"E), a village now in Abdasa taluka of Kutch district. They had migrated to Mandvi in search of employment and due to familial disputes. After completing secondary education in Bhuj he went to Mumbai for further education at Wilson High School. Whilst in Mumbai, he learned Sanskrit.[4]

In 1875, Shyamji married Bhanumati, a daughter of a wealthy businessman of the Bhatia community and sister of his school friend Ramdas. Then he got in touch with the nationalist Swami Dayananda Saraswati, a radical reformer and an exponent of the Vedas, who had founded the Arya Samaj. He became his disciple and was soon conducting lectures on Vedic philosophy and religion. In 1877, a public speaking tour secured him a great public recognition. He became the first non-Brahmin to receive the prestigious title of Pandit by the Pandits of Kashi in 1877.[citation needed] He came to the attention of Monier Williams, an Oxford professor of Sanskrit who offered Shyamji a job as his assistant.[4]

Oxford

Shyamji arrived in England and joined Balliol College, Oxford on 25 April 1879 with the recommendation of Professor Monier Williams. Passing his B.A. in 1883, he presented a lecture on "the origin of writing in India" to the Royal Asiatic Society. The speech was very well received and he was elected a non-resident member of the society. In 1881 he represented India at the Berlin Congress of Orientalists.

Legal career

He returned to India in 1885 and started practice as a lawyer. Then he was appointed as Diwan (chief minister) by the King of Ratlam State; but ill health forced him to retire from this post with a lump sum gratuity of RS 32052 for his service. After a short stay in Mumbai, he settled in Ajmer, headquarters of his Guru Swami Dayananda Saraswati, and continued his practice at the British Court in Ajmer. He invested his income in three cotton presses and secured sufficient permanent income to be independent for the rest of his life. He served for the Maharaja of Udaipur as a council member from 1893 to 1895, followed by the position of Diwan of Junagadh State. He resigned in 1897 after a bitter experience with a British agent that shook his faith in British Rule.

Nationalism

Having read Satyarth Prakash and other books of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Shyamji Krishna Varma was very much impressed with his philosophy, writings and spirit of Nationalism and had become one of his ardent admirers. It was upon Dayanand's inspiration, he set up a base in England at India House where were produced many revolutionaries like Madam Cama, Veer Savarkar, Lala Hardyal and Madan Lal Dhingra. Shyamji Krishan was also an admirer of Lokmanya Tilak and supported him during the Age of Consent bill controversy of 1890. However, he rejected the petitioning, praying, protesting, cooperating and collaborating policy of the Congress Party, which he considered undignified and shameful. In 1897, following the atrocities inflicted by the British government during the plague crisis in Poona, he supported the assassination of the Commissioner of Plague by the Chapekar brothers but he soon decided to fight for Indian Independence in Britain.

England

Ordained by Swami Dayanand Saraswati the founder of Arya samaj, Shyamji Krishan Verma upon his arrival in London stayed at the Inner Temple and studied Herbert Spencer's writings in his spare time. In 1900 he bought an expensive house in Highgate. His home became a base for all political leaders of India. Lokmanya Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Gandhi, Lenin etc., all visited him to discuss the Indian Independence Movement. Avoiding the Indian National Congress, he kept in contact with rationalists, free thinkers, national and social democrats, socialists, Irish republicans, etc.

He was much inspired by Herbert Spencer's writings. At Spencer's funeral in 1903, he announced the donation of £1,000 to establish a lectureship at University of Oxford in tribute to him and his work. A year later he announced that Herbert Spencer Indian fellowships of RS 2000 each were to be awarded to enable Indian graduates to finish their education in England. He had also announced additional fellowship in memory of the late Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj, along with another four fellowships in the future.

Political activism

In 1905, Shyamji focused his activity as a political propagandist and organiser for the complete independence of India. Shyamji made his debut in Indian politics by publishing the first issue of his English monthly, The Indian Sociologist, an organ and of political, social and religious reform. This was an assertive, ideological monthly aimed at inspiring mass opposition to British rule, which stimulated many intellectuals to fight for the independence of India.

Indian Home Rule Society

On 18 February 1905, Shyamji inaugurated a new organisation called The Indian Home Rule Society. The first meeting, held at his Highgate home, unanimously decided to found The Indian Home Rule Society with the object of:

1. Securing Home Rule for India
2. Carrying on Propaganda in England by all practical means with a view to attain the same.
3. Spreading among the people of India the objectives of freedom and national unity.

India House

Main article: India House


The Indian Sociologist, September 1908, London

As many Indian students faced racist attitudes when seeking accommodations, he founded India House as a hostel for Indian students, based at 65, Cromwell Avenue, Highgate. This living accommodation for 25 students was formally inaugurated on 1 July by Henry Hyndman, of the Social Democratic Federation, in the presence of Dadabhai Naoroji, Lala Lajpat Rai, Madam Cama, Mr. Swinney (of the London Positivist Society), Mr. Harry Quelch (the editor of the Social Democratic Federation's Justice) and Charlotte Despard, the Irish Republican and suffragette. Declaring India House open, Hyndman remarked, "As things stands, loyalty to Great Britain means treachery to India. The institution of this India House means a great step in that direction of Indian growth and Indian emancipation, and some of those who are here this afternoon may live to witness the fruits of its triumphant success." Shyamji hoped India House would incubate Indian revolutionaries and Bhikaiji Cama, S. R. Rana, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, and Lala Hardayal were all associated with it.[5]

Later in 1905, Shyamji attended the United Congress of Democrats held at Holborn Town Hall as a delegate of the India Home Rule Society. His resolution on India received an enthusiastic ovation from the entire conference. Shyamji’s activities in England aroused the concern of the British government: He was disbarred from Inner Temple and removed from the membership list on 30 April 1909 for writing anti-British articles in The Indian Sociologist. Most of the British press were anti–Shyamji and carried outrageous allegations against him and his newspaper. He defended them boldly. The Times referred to him as the "Notorious Krishnavarma". Many newspapers criticised the British progressives who supported Shyamji and his view. His movements were closely watched by British Secret Services, so he decided to shift his headquarters to Paris, leaving India House in charge of Vir Savarkar. Shyamji left Britain secretly before the government tried to arrest him.

Paris and Geneva

He arrived in Paris in early 1907 to continue his work. The British government tried to have him extradited from France without success as he gained the support of many top French politicians.[citation needed] Shyamji’s name was dragged into the sensational trial of Mr Merlin, an Englishman, at Bow Street Magistrates' Court, for writing an article in liberators published by Shyamji’s friend, Mr. James.

Shyamji's work in Paris helped gain support for Indian Independence from European countries. He agitated for the release of Savarker and acquired great support all over Europe and Russia.[citation needed] Guy Aldred wrote an article in the Daily Herald under the heading of "Savarker the Hindu Patriot whose sentences expire on 24 December 1960", helping create support in England, too. In 1914 his presence became an embarrassment as French politicians had invited King George V to Paris to set a final seal on the Entente Cordiale. Shyamji foresaw this and shifted his headquarters to Geneva. Here the Swiss government imposed political restrictions during the entire period of World War I. He kept in touch with his contacts, but he could not support them directly. He spent time with Dr. Briess, president of the Pro India Committee in Geneva, whom he later discovered was a paid secret agent of the British government.

Post-World War I

He offered a sum of 10,000 francs to the League of Nations to endow a lectureship to be called the President Woodrow Wilson Lectureship for the discourse on the best means of acquiring and safe guarding national independence consistently with freedom, justice, and the right of asylum accorded to political refugees. It is said that the league rejected his offer due to political pressure from British government. A similar offer was made to the Swiss government which was also turned down. He offered another lectureship at the banquet given by Press Association of Geneva where 250 journalists and celebrities, including the presidents of Swiss Federation and the League of Nations. Shyamji’s offer was applauded on the spot but nothing came of it. Shyamji was disappointed with the response and he published all his abortive correspondence on this matter in the next issue of the Sociologist appearing in December 1920, after a lapse of almost six years.

Death and commemoration


Shyamji Krishna Varma 1989 stamp of India


Kranti Teerth, Shyamji Krishna Varma Memorial, Mandvi, Kutch (replica of India House is visible in background)

He published two more issues of Indian Sociologist in August and September 1922, before ill health prevented him continuing. He died in hospital at 11:30 pm on 30 March 1930 leaving his wife, Bhanumati Krishnavarma.

News of his death was suppressed by the British government in India. Nevertheless, tributes were paid to him by Bhagat Singh and other inmates in Lahore Jail where they were undergoing a long-term drawn-out trial.[6] Maratha, an English daily newspaper started by Bal Gangadhar Tilak paid tribute to him.

He had made prepaid arrangements with the local government of Geneva and St Georges cemetery to preserve his and his wife’s ashes at the cemetery for 100 years and to send their urns to India whenever it became independent during that period. Requested by Paris-based scholar Dr Prithwindra Mukherjee, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi agreed to repatriate the ashes. Finally on 22 August 2003, the urns of ashes of Shyamji and his wife Bhanumati were handed over to then Chief Minister of Gujarat State Narendra Modi by the Ville de Genève and the Swiss government 55 years after Indian Independence. They were brought to Mumbai and after a long procession throughout Gujarat, they reached Mandvi, his birthplace.[7] A memorial called Kranti Teerth dedicated to him was built and inaugurated in 2010 near Mandvi. Spread over 52 acres, the memorial complex houses a replica of India House building at Highgate along with statues of Shyamji Krishna Varma and his wife. Urns containing Krishna Verma's ashes, those of his wife, and a gallery dedicated to earlier activists of Indian independence movement is housed within the memorial. Krishna Verma was disbarred from the Inner Temple in 1909. This decision was revisited in 2015, and a unanimous decision taken to posthumously reinstated him.[8][9]

In the 1970s, a new town developed in his native state of Kutch, was named after him as Shyamji Krishna Varmanagar in his memory and honor. India Post released postal stamps and first day cover commemorating him. Kuchchh University was renamed after him.

The India Post has issued a postal stamp on shyamji Krishna Varma on 4 October 1989.

References

1. Chandra, Bipan (1989). India's Struggle for Independence. New Delhi: Penguin Books India. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-14-010781-4.
2. Qur, Moniruddin (2005). History of Journalism. Anmol Publications. p. 123. ISBN 81-261-2355-9.
3. Johnson, K. Paul (1994). The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge. SUNY Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-7914-2063-9.
4. Sundaram, V. (8 October 2006) Pandit Shyamji Krishna Verma. boloji.com
5. ब्यावरहिस्ट्री डोट काम पर आपका स्वागत है. Beawarhistory.com. Retrieved on 7 December 2018.
6. Sanyal, Jitendra Nath (May 1931). Sardar Bhagat Singh.
7. Soondas, Anand (24 August 2003). "Road show with patriot ash". The Telegraph, Calcutta, India. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
8. "Modi dedicates 'Kranti Teerth' memorial to Shyamji Krishna Verma". The Times of India. 13 December 2010. Retrieved 12 November 2015.
9. Bowcott, Owen (11 November 2015). "Indian lawyer disbarred from Inner Temple a century ago is reinstated". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 November 2015.

Further reading

• Mr. Vishnu Pandya, Mr. Hitesh Bhanushali (1890). Krantiveer's Biography As A Story-Gujarati.

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The Californian Countess And Early Lankan Feminism [Miranda de Souza Canavarro]
by Vinod Moonesinghe
July 28, 2017

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

In March 1896, in the San Francisco suburb of Oakland, the Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist and missionary Hewavitarne (Anagarika) Dharmapala, on a lecture tour of the USA, met Countess Canavarro. Seeking spiritual sustenance, she struck him as determined and forceful. According to Tessa Bartholomeusz, four months after meeting her, Dharmapala proposed that she travel to Sri Lanka and establish an order of Buddhist “nuns”, and become full-time principal of the island’s first Buddhist girls’ high school, Sanghamitta, named for the first female Buddhist missionary to Sri Lanka.

On the evening of August 30, 1897, at the New Century Hall on New York’s Fifth Avenue, Dharmapala administered to the Countess Canavarro the five Buddhist precepts (pansil), making her the first female convert to Buddhism on American soil.

Practice in general

Lay followers often undertake these training rules in the same ceremony as they take the refuges. Monks administer the precepts to the laypeople, which creates an additional psychological effect.

-- Five Precepts, by Wikipedia

Thus, she became the first in a new order of “Buddhist nuns” which Dharmapala wanted to create in Sri Lanka, some seven centuries after female ordination died out. She took on the enormously significant religious moniker “Sister Sanghamitta”, recalling the ancient missionary, as well as the school she intended to run.

According to Thomas A. Tweed, the Countess, by the very act of conversion, caused a huge stir. In the rigidly Christian atmosphere of fin de siecle America, adopting another religion simply was not done. Although almost forgotten in the USA, in her day, she made a considerable impact on the spread of Buddhism, Bahá’íism, Hinduism, and esoterica in general.

Her effect on Sri Lanka, despite her short stay of three years, has been much greater. Her school still exists as Sri Sanghamitta Balika Vidyalaya, Punchi Borella, an offshoot of the co-educational Mahabodhi vernacular school resurrected by Dharmapala at Foster Lane. Her imaginings of what a Buddhist nun should be have had their effect on the order of Dasa Sil Mathas, even their attire being based on her original design.


Sri Sangamitta Balika Vidyalaya today. Image courtesy sangamitta.com

Sanghamitta Convent

Sanghamitta Girls’ School had a short but chequered history. Founded by the Women’s Education Society in 1891, its first principal, an Australian woman called Kate Pickett, drowned.

Louisa Kate Florence Pickett (1867 - 1891)
by WikiTree
Accessed: 11/17/19

[x]
Louisa Kate Florence (Kate) Pickett
Born 1867 in New Zealand
Daughter of Gilbert Pickett and Elise Adlerflug (von Tunzelmann) Pickett
Sister of Gilbert Francis Wolde Pickett, Edward William Pickett, Henry John Pickett, George Nicholas Pickett and Clara Hariett Elise (Pickett) Saxon
[spouse(s) unknown]
[children unknown]
Died 24 Jun 1891 in Musaeus College,Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Profile last modified 23 Oct 2019 | Last significant change:
23 Oct 2019
17:28: Jeff Thomas added Henry John Pickett (1860-) as sibling for Louisa Kate Florence Pickett (1867-1891). [Thank Jeff for this]

Biography

Louisa Kate Florence was born in 1867. She is the daughter of Gilbert Pickett and Elise von Adlerflug. [1]

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—On 28th of last month you published a cable headed "Suicide of a lady," Will you be so kind as to allow me through your paper to state the facts so as to clear the memory of my dear daughter. Miss (not Mrs) Pickett had been appointed principal of the Buddhist High School in Colombo at the beginning of June, and on the 24th of that month was found in a well in the school garden. An inquest was held, and the jury returned a verdict of "Found drowned." Her letters from Colombo were written in the best of spirits, the last one looking forward with great joy to her mother joining her there. She had long been wishing to teach there, and was exceedingly pleased when the way was opened for her to do so. The idea that she had renounced Christianity no doubt arose from the position she held, and also because she had taken a certain Buddhist obligation, viz.:—" I promise to respect life, truth, the property of others, to be charitable, and to be chaste." This she did to endeavour to strengthen in the minds of the mothers of the scholars her promise not to proselytise among them. I trust, Sir, you will publish the above, and I hope those papers which get yours in exchange will also be so kind as to notice it, as our friends are all over the colony from Stewart Island to Auckland.—l am, &c, Gilbert Pickett. (Formerly of Lake Wakatipu). Rockyside, August 25.[2]

Musaeus College is a private girls' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The school is named after its founding principal, Marie Musaeus Higgins (1855 – 10 July 1926) from Wismar, Germany, who served as the school's principal from 1891 to 1926. The origin of the school can be traced to the Women's Education Society of Ceylon, whose mission was to improve educational opportunities for girls, with instruction in English along with Buddhist principles. It had the backing of the Buddhist Theosophical Society, which previously founded the Ananda College for boys along similar lines. With help and guidance from Peter De Abrew and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, they founded the Sangamitta Girls' School at Tichborne Place, Maradana, around 1890, and wanted a European lady as its Principal. Colonel Olcott found a suitable candidate in Kate F. Pickett, the daughter of Elise Pickett, President of the Melbourne Theosophical Society. Miss Pickett arrived in Colombo on 10 June 1891 and had apparently settled into life in the school's boarding house when she was found on the morning of 24 June 1891 drowned in a well in the school grounds. Following an advertisement by Col. Olcott in The Path (the magazine of the Buddhist Theosophical Society), [Marie Musaeus Higgins] left for Ceylon, arriving on 15 November 1891[3]

Sources

1. http://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
NZ Birth registration 1867/31282
2. AN EXPLANATION.Otago Daily Times, Issue 9204, 26 August 1891
3. Wikipedia [[1]]

Louisa Roberts, a local teacher, acted as a stop-gap until Marie Musaeus Higgins, a German-American, arrived. In 1893, the latter broke away and started her own school, Musaeus College. Thereafter, Kate Pickett’s mother, Elise, served as school director, returning to Australia just before the Countess arrived.

Dharmapala and the Countess wanted to establish Sanghamitta on the lines of a Roman Catholic convent school, with Buddhist nuns teaching the girls. Accordingly, the school was relocated from its existing location, Tichbourne Hall, and moved to the same location as the ‘convent’—the Sanghamitta Upāsikārāmaya. Dharmapala and the Countess decided on Gunter House, a single-storey building set amidst a hectare of gardens in Darley Lane (now Foster Lane), which the Maha Bodhi Society bought for LKR 25,000 (LKR 30 million in today’s currency).

The convent, school, and an orphanage were soon up and running, large crowds attending the opening. There was no shortage of pupils for the school. The Countess, who styled herself as Mother Superior, came to be known by the children as Nona Amma (or Madam mother). Sister Dhammadinna (a Burgher woman called Sybil LaBrooy) managed the household, and several Sinhalese ‘nuns’ completed the staff.

In mid-1898, Catherine Shearer, a nurse from Boston’s Eliot Hospital, joined her, becoming ‘Head Sister’ Padmavatie. However, the two did not get along. The Countess expected Shearer to run things for her, while she busied herself with Mahabodhi Society work.

This friction between them betokened a deeper difference in attitudes. According to Bartholomeusz, the Countess considered Shearer “a dreamer”, but herself remained ignorant of the discipline expected from a Buddhist nun. Much against his will, she accompanied Dharmapala to Kolkata and appears, at some point, to have tried to seduce him. Finally, she removed herself from Gunther House and set up a convent on her own. This not only proved unsuccessful but also doomed the Sanghamitta Convent.


“Gunter House”, from The Open Court

Who Was Countess Canavarro?

As an infant, Miranda Maria Banta—born in 1849 in East Texas, accompanied her mother to California. At 17, she married post-master, insurance agent, and scalp-hunter Samuel Cleghorn Bates, having four children by him. Bartholomeusz thinks he may have been an abusive husband, leading her to leave him.

She probably met Lieutenant António de Souza Canavarro, scion of a noble family, on his way to become Portuguese consul-general in Hawai’i—then an independent country—in August 1882. By November the next year, she styled herself “Miranda A. de Souza Canavarro”.


António de Souza Canavarro. Image courtesy Wikimedia

A figure in West Coast high society, her conversion to Buddhism attracted considerable publicity.

Even the obscure Gazette Appeal of Marion County, Georgia, reported it:

This convert, whose purpose is to devote years of labor in the far east to uplift her sex, is the Countess M. De Canavarro, an American, formerly of San Francisco, who, to follow her chosen life surrenders, as the officiating priest announced, family, fortune, and title.

Years later, the whiff of scandal remained. The Greenfield, Iowa-based newspaper, Adair County Democrat claimed Dharmapala had hypnotised her and prevailed upon her to desert her family.


Countess Canavarro with teachers and students, from The Open Court

Companionate Marriage

In November 1900, after the Sanghamitta Convent debacle, the Countess returned to the USA, moving to the East Coast of the USA. She lectured on Buddhism and the Orient in general, several of her lectures being published.

Soon after, she entered a companionate marriage with a fellow Theosophist, Myron H. Phelps, a patent lawyer. The couple travelled to Sri Lanka posing as brother and sister. However, she continued describing herself as a Buddhist “nun”.

In December 1902, the Countess accompanied Phelps to Akka in Palestine, to meet ‘Abbás Effendí (`Abdu’l-Bahá ), the Bahá’í leader. The Countess interviewed ‘Abbás’ sister, Behiah Khanum, who provided the biographical material which went into Phelps’ book Life and teachings of Abbas Effendi. In late 1903, still bearing the name “Sister Sanghamitta”, she declared her acceptance of the Bahá’í faith.

Two years later, she and Phelps were to play host to the influential Hindu revivalist and moderniser Ponnambalam Ramanathan and his Australian secretary, Lillie Harrison, who would later become Ramanathan’s wife and take on the name Leelawathy. Ramanathan’s intellectual view of Hinduism attracted Phelps: by 1908, he would see himself as a Hindu.


The house in Akka, Palestine, where the Countess and Phelps met `Abdu’l-Bahá and Behiah Khanum. Image courtesy bahaihistoricalfacts.blogspot.com

Phelps left the Countess, journeying to India to join the independence movement. Almost bankrupt, she moved to a farm in Blackstone, Virginia, in a companionate marriage with Deuel Sperry, the longest-lasting of her relationships. She continued to lecture, but concentrated on writing: she produced several novels and the autobiographical “Insight into the Far East”.

In 1922 she moved back to Hawai’i, settling later in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, from where she would travel to the Ananda Ashrama, founded by the Swami Paramananda in nearby La Crescenta. For, in the last phase of her life, she adopted Vedanta Hinduism. She passed away in Glendale on July 25, 1933.


Countess Canavarro’s grave in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. Image courtesy findagrave.com

Legacy

Her legacy affected not only the future of Eastern religion in the United States of America, but also the development of Buddhism, which had already arrived in the USA along with the Chinese who flooded into California with the 1849 Gold Rush. The Countess represented a different type of Buddhist.

Even more profoundly, her example affected the way in which Sri Lankan society looked at women. Hitherto, crushed by Victorian values, the female gender were considered nothing more than sexual playthings or baby-making machines. According to Bartholomeusz,

The Countess and her “sisters,” by choosing to become world-renouncers, challenged the stereotype of the pious Buddhist woman as wife and mother; they helped to make renunciation a respectable choice for Buddhist women in Ceylon.

Despite the Buddha’s teaching enhancing the position of women, stressing the ability of women to achieve enlightenment and the existence of female arhants, later accretions to the canon made out that the feminine body proved a barrier to understanding the Dhamma. The Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition had, for seven centuries, lacked a female branch of the Sangha. This reinforced the idea of women being mentally inferior to their male counterparts, which became dogma.

Countess Canavarro, by resurrecting the image of the Buddhist woman seeking enlightenment, demonstrated the intellectual equality of genders and overthrew this perspective. Her action proved vital to the development of feminism in this island.

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International Congress of Orientalists
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/18/19

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Dharmapala was certain the mahatmas were living in the Himalayas, the evidence lying in the very sophistication of their communications, and his reasoning makes clear how much he wanted to believe:

It cannot be believed that there is no Hermit in Tibet who had attained the Dhyanas. During the Buddha era or in a non-Buddhist era for there could be panna abigannalabis (seekers who had attained five stages of wisdom). These great beings should exist there. The letters sent to Mr. Sinnett are from two Buddhist hermits. Any other man from another religion would not be able to write letters of that nature.59

He knew that both Master Moriya and Koot Hoomi were trying to revive the sasana in India (Diary, May 9, 1924).60 In 1897 he began discussing his own desire to visit Tibet (Sarnath Notebook no. 101). Traveling home from America that year, he stopped in Paris to attend the Congress of Orientalists. There he announced to the delegates his intention to visit Tibet "in search after truth."61 Eventually he recognized that his disability made the trek throroughly impractical, writing in his diary that “in the next life I hope to be born physically strong to climb the Himalayas and to study the sacred science” (May 9, 1924).

As a young man, Dharmapala was serious enough about the trek to cause his father to make him an offer – call off the trip in return for a meditation retreat in Colombo (Sarnath Notebook no. 101).

_______________

Note:

61. Anagarika Dharmapala, “European Explorers of TIbet," Journal of the Maha Bodhi Society 7 (1899): 115. Lord Reay [Donald Mackay, 11th Lord Reay], Sir Alfred Lyall, and Sir Charles [Alfred] Elliot were in the audience, and Elliot promised to write the commissioner of Darjeeling [Richard T. Greer, Deputy Commissioner, Darjeeling, Aug. 6, 1897] to afford Dharmapala facilities for the trip.

-- Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World, by Steven Kemper

The International Congress of Orientalists, initiated in Paris in 1873, was an international conference of Orientalists (initially mostly scholars from Europe and the USA). The first thirteen meetings were held in Europe; the fourteenth congress was held in Algiers in 1905. Papers were primarily about philology and archaeology. The Proceedings of the Congresses were published. The work of the International Congress of Orientalists is carried on by the International Congress of Asian and North African Studies.[1]

Congress locations and dates

• 1st International Congress of Orientalists – Paris, 1873
• 2nd International Congress of Orientalists – London, 1874[2]
• 3rd International Congress of Orientalists – St Petersburg, 1876
• 4th International Congress of Orientalists – Florence, 1878
• 5th International Congress of Orientalists – Berlin, 1881
• 6th International Congress of Orientalists – Leiden, 1883
• 7th International Congress of Orientalists – Vienna, 1886
• 8th International Congress of Orientalists – Stockholm and Christiania, 1889
• 9th International Congress of Orientalists – London, 1892[3][4]
• 10th International Congress of Orientalists – Geneva, 1894[5]
• 11th International Congress of Orientalists – Paris, 1897
• 12th International Congress of Orientalists – Rome, 1899[6][7]
• 13th International Congress of Orientalists – Hamburg, 1904
• 14th International Congress of Orientalists – Algiers, 1905 - the first Congress outside Europe
• 15th International Congress of Orientalists – Copenhagen, 1908
• 16th International Congress of Orientalists – Athens, 1912
• 17th International Congress of Orientalists – Oxford, 1928
• 18th International Congress of Orientalists – Leiden, 1931[8]
• 19th International Congress of Orientalists – Rome, 1935
• 20th International Congress of Orientalists – Brussels, 1938[9]
• 21st International Congress of Orientalists – Paris, 1948[10]
• 22nd International Congress of Orientalists – Istanbul, 1951
• 23rd International Congress of Orientalists – Cambridge, 1954[11]
• 24th International Congress of Orientalists – Munich, 1957
• 25th International Congress of Orientalists – Moscow, 1960[12]
• 26th International Congress of Orientalists – New Delhi, 1964
• 27th International Congress of Orientalists – Ann Arbor, 1967[13] – the first Congress in the USA
• 28th International Congress of Orientalists – Canberra, 1971
• 29th International Congress of Orientalists – Paris, 1974 [14]

Proceedings and Transactions

• 2nd - Report of the proceedings of the second International Congress of Orientalists held in London, 1874 (London, Trübner, 1874). The Rosetta Stone was viewed.[2]
• 6th - Bulletin du sixième Congrès international des orientalistes. Leide, 1883 (Leyden? 1883).
• 9th - Transactions of the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists. Held in London, 1892. Edited by E. Delmar Morgan. (London, 1893).
• 14th - Actes du XIVe Congrès international des orientalistes. Alger, 1905 (Paris, 1906-08).
• 17th - Proceedings of the seventeenth International congress of orientalists, Oxford, 1928 (Nendeln, Liechtenstein : Kraus Reprint, 1968).
• 22nd - Proceedings of the Twenty Second Congress of Orientalists held in Istanbul, September 15th to 22nd, 1951. Edited by Zeki Velidi Togan (Istanbul, 1953-).
• 23rd - Proceedings of the Twenty-third International Congress of Orientalists : Cambridge, 21st - 28th August 1954, ed. Denis Sinor (Nendeln/Liechtenstein : Kraus, 1974).
• 26th - Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth International Congress of Orientalists : New Delhi 4 - 10th January, 1964, ed. R N Dandekar (Poona Bhandarkar Oriental Research Inst. 1970).
• 27th - Proceedings of the twenty-seventh International Congress of Orientalists. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 13th-19th August 1967. Ed. by Denis Sinor with the assistance of Tania Jacques, Ralph Larson, Mary-Elizabeth Meek (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1971).
• 28th - Proceedings of the 28 International Congress of Orientalists, Canberra, 6-12 January 1971, by A R Davis (Sydney : University of Sydney/Department of Oriental Studies, cop. 1976).

References

1. Orientalists, International Congress Of, in Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, 2004. https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... l-congress - accessed 4 April 2018
2. Jump up to:a b The Rosetta Stone Breakthrough CBS News
3. The Ninth International Congress of Orientalists. London, 1892 The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Oct., 1892), pp. 855-876. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25197124
4. The Statutory Ninth International Congress of Orientalists, by H. Cordier, T'oung Pao Vol. 2, No. 5 (1891), pp. 411-433.https://www.jstor.org/stable/4524916
5. Tenth International Congress of Orientalists, Held at Geneva, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Oct., 1895), pp. 879-892. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25207765
6. http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/orientalists/index.a4d
7. The Twelfth International Congress of Orientalists. Rome, 1899 The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Jan., 1900), pp. 181-186. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25208183
8. The Eighteenth International Congress of Orientalists, 1931, by Mrs. R. L. Devonshire, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland No. 1 (Jan., 1932), pp. 111-113. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25194425
9. THE TWENTY-FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS, PARIS 23rd to 31st of July 1948, by R. N. Dandekar, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 29, No. 1/4 (1948), pp. i-xxvi. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44527096
10. THE TWENTY-FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS, PARIS 23rd to 31st of July 1948, by R. N. Dandekar, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 29, No. 1/4 (1948), pp. i-xxvi. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44527096
11. THE TWENTY-THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS CAMBRIDGE, by R. N. Dandekar, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute Vol. 35, No. 1/4 (1954), pp. i-xxviii. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41784971
12. The 25th International Congress of Orientalists Roderick MacFarquhar The China Quarterly No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1960), pp. 114-118. https://www.jstor.org/stable/763311
13. The International Congress of Orientalists Stanford J. Shaw Middle East Studies Association Bulletin Vol. 2, No. 2 (May 15, 1968), pp. 15-20. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23058403
14. THE XXIXth INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS K. Czeglédy Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Vol. 28, No. 2 (1974), pp. 288-290. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23657444

External links

• International Congress of Orientalists on Worldcat.org

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Part 1 of 2

Five precepts
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/18/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

The five precepts (Pali: pañcasīla; Sanskrit: pañcaśīla) or five rules of training (Pali: pañcasikkhapada; Sanskrit: pañcaśikṣapada[1][2])[note 1] is the most important system of morality for Buddhist lay people. They constitute the basic code of ethics to be undertaken by lay followers of Buddhism. The precepts are commitments to abstain from killing living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. Within the Buddhist doctrine, they are meant to develop mind and character to make progress on the path to enlightenment. They are sometimes referred to as the śrāvakayāna precepts in the Mahāyāna tradition, contrasting them with the bodhisattva precepts. The five precepts form the basis of several parts of Buddhist doctrine, both lay and monastic. With regard to their fundamental role in Buddhist ethics, they have been compared with the ten commandments in Abrahamic religions[4][5] or the ethical codes of Confucianism. The precepts have been connected with utilitarianist, deontological and virtue approaches to ethics, though by 2017, such categorization by western terminology had mostly been abandoned by scholars. The precepts have been compared with human rights because of their universal nature, and some scholars argue they can complement the concept of human rights.

The five precepts were common to the religious milieu of 6th-century BCE India, but the Buddha's focus on awareness through the fifth precept was unique. As shown in Early Buddhist Texts, the precepts grew to be more important, and finally became a condition for membership of the Buddhist religion. When Buddhism spread to different places and people, the role of the precepts began to vary. In countries where Buddhism had to compete with other religions, such as China, the ritual of undertaking the five precepts developed into an initiation ceremony to become a Buddhist lay person. On the other hand, in countries with little competition from other religions, such as Thailand, the ceremony has had little relation to the rite of becoming Buddhist, as many people are presumed Buddhist from birth.

Undertaking and upholding the five precepts is based on the principle of non-harming (Pāli and Sanskrit: ahiṃsa). The Pali Canon recommends one to compare oneself with others, and on the basis of that, not to hurt others. Compassion and a belief in karmic retribution form the foundation of the precepts. Undertaking the five precepts is part of regular lay devotional practice, both at home and at the local temple. However, the extent to which people keep them differs per region and time. People keep them with an intention to develop themselves, but also out of fear of a bad rebirth.

The first precept consists of a prohibition of killing, both humans and all animals. Scholars have interpreted Buddhist texts about the precepts as an opposition to and prohibition of capital punishment,[6] suicide, abortion[7][8] and euthanasia.[9] In practice, however, many Buddhist countries still use the death penalty. With regard to abortion, Buddhist countries take the middle ground, by condemning though not prohibiting it. The Buddhist attitude to violence is generally interpreted as opposing all warfare, but some scholars have raised exceptions. The second precept prohibits theft. The third precept refers to adultery in all its forms, and has been defined by modern teachers with terms such as sexual responsibility and long-term commitment. The fourth precept involves falsehood spoken or committed to by action, as well as malicious speech, harsh speech and gossip. The fifth precept prohibits intoxication through alcohol, drugs or other means.[10][11] Early Buddhist Texts nearly always condemn alcohol, and so do Chinese Buddhist post-canonical texts. Buddhist attitudes toward smoking differ per time and region, but are generally permissive. In modern times, traditional Buddhist countries have seen revival movements to promote the five precepts. As for the West, the precepts play a major role in Buddhist organizations. They have also been integrated in mindfulness training programs, though many mindfulness specialists do not support this because of the precepts' religious import. Lastly, many conflict prevention programs make use of the precepts.

Role in Buddhist doctrine

Buddhist scriptures explain the five precepts as the minimal standard of Buddhist morality.[12] It is the most important system of morality in Buddhism, together with the monastic rules.[13] Śīla (Sanskrit; Pali: sīla) is used to refer to Buddhist precepts,[14] including the five.[1] But the word also refers to the virtue and morality which lies at the foundation of the spiritual path to enlightenment, which is the first of the three forms of training on the path. Thus, the precepts are rules or guidelines to develop mind and character to make progress on the path to enlightenment.[1] The five precepts are part of the right speech, action and livelihood aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path, the core teaching of Buddhism.[1][15][note 2] Moreover, the practice of the five precepts and other parts of śīla are described as forms of merit-making, means to create good karma.[17][18] The five precepts have been described as social values that bring harmony to society,[11][19] and breaches of the precepts described as antithetical to a harmonious society.[20] On a similar note, in Buddhist texts, the ideal, righteous society is one in which people keep the five precepts.[21]

Comparing different parts of Buddhist doctrine, the five precepts form the basis of the eight precepts, which are lay precepts stricter than the five precepts, similar to monastic precepts.[1][22] Secondly, the five precepts form the first half of the ten or eleven precepts for a person aiming to become a Buddha (bodhisattva), as mentioned in the Brahmajala Sūtra of the Mahāyāna tradition.[1][23][24] Contrasting these precepts with the five precepts, the latter were commonly referred to by Mahāyānists as the śrāvakayāna precepts, or the precepts of those aiming to become enlightened disciples (Sanskrit: arhat; Pali: arahant) of a Buddha, but not Buddhas themselves. The ten–eleven bodhisattva precepts presuppose the five precepts, and are partly based on them.[25] The five precepts are also partly found in the teaching called the ten good courses of action, referred to in Theravāda (Pali: dasa-kusala-kammapatha) and Tibetan Buddhism (Sanskrit: daśa-kuśala-karmapatha; Wylie: dge ba bcu).[13][26] Finally, the first four of the five precepts are very similar to the most fundamental rules of monastic discipline (Pali: pārajika), and may have influenced their development.[27]

In conclusion, the five precepts lie at the foundation of all Buddhist practice, and in that respect, can be compared with the ten commandments in Christianity and Judaism[4][5] or the ethical codes of Confucianism.[24]

History

The five precepts were part of early Buddhism and are common to nearly all schools of Buddhism.[28] In early Buddhism, the five precepts were regarded as an ethic of restraint, to restrain unwholesome tendencies and thereby purify one's being to attain enlightenment.[3][29] The five precepts were based on the pañcaśīla, prohibitions for pre-Buddhist Brahmanic priests, which were adopted in many Indic religions around 6th century BCE.[30][31] The first four Buddhist precepts were nearly identical to these pañcaśīla, but the fifth precept, the prohibition on intoxication, was new in Buddhism:[27][note 3] the Buddha's emphasis on awareness (Pali: appamāda) was unique.[30]

In some schools of ancient Indic Buddhism, Buddhist devotees could choose to adhere to only a number of precepts, instead of the complete five. The schools that would survive in later periods, however, that is Theravāda and Mahāyāna Buddhism, were both ambiguous about this practice. Some early Mahāyāna texts allow it, but some do not; Theravāda texts do not discuss this practice at all.[33]

The prohibition on killing had motivated early Buddhists to form a stance against animal sacrifice, a common ritual practice in ancient India.[34][35] According to the Pāli Canon, however, early Buddhists did not adopt a vegetarian lifestyle.[22][35]

In Early Buddhist Texts, the role of the five precepts gradually develops. First of all, the precepts are combined with a declaration of faith in the triple gem (the Buddha, his teaching and the monastic community). Next, the precepts develop to become the foundation of lay practice.[36] The precepts are seen as a preliminary condition for the higher development of the mind.[3] At a third stage in the texts, the precepts are actually mentioned together with the triple gem, as though they are part of it. Lastly, the precepts, together with the triple gem, become a required condition for the practice of Buddhism, as lay people have to undergo a formal initiation to become a member of the Buddhist religion.[27] When Buddhism spread to different places and people, the role of the precepts began to vary. In countries in which Buddhism was adopted as the main religion without much competition from other religious disciplines, such as Thailand, the relation between the initiation of a lay person and the five precepts has been virtually non-existent. In such countries, the taking of the precepts has become a sort of ritual cleansing ceremony. People are presumed Buddhist from birth without much of an initiation. The precepts are often committed to by new followers as part of their installment, yet this is not very pronounced. However, in some countries like China, where Buddhism was not the only religion, the precepts became an ordination ceremony to initiate lay people into the Buddhist religion.[37]

In China, the five precepts were introduced in the first centuries CE, both in their śrāvakayāna and bodhisattva formats.[38] During this time, it was particularly Buddhist teachers who promoted abstinence from alcohol (the fifth precept), since Daoism and other thought systems emphasized moderation rather than full abstinence. Chinese Buddhists interpreted the fifth precept strictly, even more so than in Indic Buddhism. For example, the monk Daoshi (c. 600–83) dedicated large sections of his encyclopedic writings to abstinence from alcohol. However, in some parts of China, such as Dunhuang, considerable evidence has been found of alcohol consumption among both lay people and monastics. Later, from the 8th century onward, strict attitudes of abstinence led to a development of a distinct tea culture among Chinese monastics and lay intellectuals, in which tea gatherings replaced gatherings with alcoholic beverages, and were advocated as such.[39][40] These strict attitudes were formed partly because of the religious writings, but may also have been affected by the bloody An Lushan Rebellion of 775, which had a sobering effect on 8th-century Chinese society.[41] When the five precepts were integrated in Chinese society, they were associated and connected with karma, Chinese cosmology and medicine, a Daoist worldview, and Confucian virtue ethics.[42]

Ceremonies

In Pāli tradition

In the Theravāda tradition, the precepts are recited in a standardized fashion, using Pāli language. In Thailand, a leading lay person will normally request the monk to administer the precepts by reciting the following three times:

"Venerables, we request the five precepts and the three refuges [i.e. the triple gem] for the sake of observing them, one by one, separately". (Mayaṃ bhante visuṃ visuṃ rakkhaṇatthāya tisaraṇena saha pañca sīlāniyācāma.)[43]

After this, the monk administering the precepts will recite a reverential line of text to introduce the ceremony, after which he guides the lay people in declaring that they take their refuge in the three refuges or triple gem.[44]

He then continues with reciting the five precepts:[45][46]

1. "I undertake the training-precept to abstain from onslaught on breathing beings." (Pali: Pāṇātipātā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.)
2. "I undertake the training-precept to abstain from taking what is not given." (Pali: Adinnādānā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.)
3. "I undertake the training-precept to abstain from misconduct concerning sense-pleasures." (Pali: Kāmesumicchācāra veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.)
4. "I undertake the training-precept to abstain from false speech." (Pali: Musāvādā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.)
5. "I undertake the training-precept to abstain from alcoholic drink or drugs that are an opportunity for heedlessness." (Pali: Surāmerayamajjapamādaṭṭhānā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.)

After the lay people have repeated the five precepts after the monk, the monk will close the ceremony reciting:

"These five precepts lead with good behavior to bliss, with good behavior to wealth and success, they lead with good behavior to happiness, therefore purify behavior." (Imāni pañca sikkhāpadāni. Sīlena sugatiṃ yanti, sīlena bhogasampadā, sīlena nibbutiṃ yanti, tasmā sīlaṃ visodhaye.)[47]

In other textual traditions

See also: Buddhist initiation ritual

The format of the ceremony for taking the precepts occurs several times in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, in slightly different forms.[48]

One formula of the precepts can be found in the Treatise on Taking Refuge and the Precepts (simplified Chinese: 归戒要集; traditional Chinese: 歸戒要集; pinyin: Guījiè Yāojí):

1. As all Buddhas refrained from killing until the end of their lives, so I too will refrain from killing until the end of my life.
2. As all Buddhas refrained from stealing until the end of their lives, so I too will refrain from stealing until the end of my life.
3. As all Buddhas refrained from sexual misconduct until the end of their lives, so I too will refrain from sexual misconduct until the end of my life.
4. As all Buddhas refrained from false speech until the end of their lives, so I too will refrain from false speech until the end of my life.
5. As all Buddhas refrained from alcohol until the end of their lives, so I too will refrain from alcohol until the end of my life.[49]

Similarly, in the Mūla-Sarvāstivāda texts used in Tibetan Buddhism, the precepts are formulated such that one takes the precepts upon oneself for one's entire lifespan, following the examples of the enlightened disciples of the Buddha (arahant).[45]

Principles

Precept / Accompanying virtues[10][22] / Related to human rights[50][51]

1. Abstention from killing living beings / Kindness and compassion / Right to life
2. Abstention from theft / Generosity and renunciation / Right of property
3. Abstention from sexual misconduct / Contentment and respect for faithfulness / Right to fidelity in marriage
4. Abstention from falsehood / Being honest and dependable / Right of human dignity
5. Abstention from intoxication / Mindfulness and responsibility / Right of security and safety

The five precepts can be found in many places in the Early Buddhist Texts.[52] The precepts are regarded as means to building good character, or as an expression of such character. The Pāli Canon describes them as means to avoid harm to oneself and others.[53] It further describes them as gifts toward oneself and others.[54] Moreover, the texts say that people who uphold them will be confident in any gathering of people,[13][55] will have wealth and a good reputation, and will die a peaceful death, reborn in heaven[45][55] or as a human being. On the other hand, living a life in violation of the precepts is believed to lead to rebirth in an unhappy destination.[13] They are understood as principles that define a person as human in body and mind.[56]

The precepts are normative rules, but are formulated and understood as "undertakings"[57] rather than commandments enforced by a moral authority,[58][59] according to the voluntary and gradualist standards of Buddhist ethics.[60] They are forms of restraint formulated in negative terms, but are also accompanied by virtues and positive behaviors,[10][11][22] which are cultivated through the practice of the precepts.[14][note 4] The most important of these virtues is non-harming (Pāli and Sanskrit: ahiṃsa),[34][62] which underlies all of the five precepts.[22][note 5] Precisely, the texts say that one should keep the precepts, adhering to the principle of comparing oneself with others:[64]

"For a state that is not pleasant or delightful to me must be so to him also; and a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?"[65]

In other words, all living beings are alike in that they want to be happy and not suffer. Comparing oneself with others, one should therefore not hurt others as one would not want to be hurt.[66] Ethicist Pinit Ratanakul argues that the compassion which motivates upholding the precepts comes from an understanding that all living beings are equal and of a nature that they are 'not-self' (Pali: anattā).[67] Another aspect that is fundamental to this is the belief in karmic retribution.[68]

In the upholding or violation of the precepts, intention is crucial.[69][70] In the Pāli scriptures, an example is mentioned of a person stealing an animal only to set it free, which was not seen as an offense of theft.[69] In the Pāli commentaries, a precept is understood to be violated when the person violating it finds the object of the transgression (e.g. things to be stolen), is aware of the violation, has the intention to violate it, does actually act on that intention, and does so successfully.[71]

Upholding the precepts is sometimes distinguished in three levels: to uphold them without having formally undertaken them; to uphold them formally, willing to sacrifice one's own life for it; and finally, to spontaneously uphold them.[72] The latter refers to the arahant, who is understood to be morally incapable of violating the first four precepts.[73] A layperson who upholds the precepts is described in the texts as a "jewel among laymen".[74] On the other hand, the most serious violations of the precepts are the five actions of immediate retribution, which are believed to lead the perpetrator to an unavoidable rebirth in hell. These consist of injuring a Buddha, killing an arahant, killing one's father or mother, and causing the monastic community to have a schism.[22]

Practice in general

Lay followers often undertake these training rules in the same ceremony as they take the refuges.[1][75] Monks administer the precepts to the laypeople, which creates an additional psychological effect.[76] Buddhist lay people may recite the precepts regularly at home, and before an important ceremony at the temple to prepare the mind for the ceremony.[2][76]

The five precepts are at the core of Buddhist morality.[46] In field studies in some countries like Sri Lanka, villagers describe them as the core of the religion.[76] Anthropologist Barend Terwiel [de] found in his fieldwork that most Thai villagers knew the precepts by heart, and many, especially the elderly, could explain the implications of the precepts following traditional interpretations.[77]

Nevertheless, Buddhists do not all follow them with the same strictness.[46] Devotees who have just started keeping the precepts will typically have to exercise considerable restraint. When they become used to the precepts, they start to embody them more naturally.[78] Researchers doing field studies in traditional Buddhist societies have found that the five precepts are generally considered demanding and challenging.[76][79] For example, anthropologist Stanley Tambiah found in his field studies that strict observance of the precepts had "little positive interest for the villager ... not because he devalues them but because they are not normally open to him". Observing precepts was seen to be mostly the role of a monk or an elderly lay person.[80] More recently, in a 1997 survey in Thailand, only 13.8% of the respondents indicated they adhered to the five precepts in their daily lives, with the fourth and fifth precept least likely to be adhered to.[81] Yet, people do consider the precepts worth striving for, and do uphold them out of fear of bad karma and being reborn in hell, or because they believe in that the Buddha issued these rules, and that they therefore should be maintained.[82][83] Anthropologist Melford Spiro found that Burmese Buddhists mostly upheld the precepts to avoid bad karma, as opposed to expecting to gain good karma.[84] Scholar of religion Winston King observed from his field studies that the moral principles of Burmese Buddhists were based on personal self-developmental motives rather than other-regarding motives. Scholar of religion Richard Jones concludes that the moral motives of Buddhists in adhering to the precepts are based on the idea that renouncing self-service, ironically, serves oneself.[85]

In East Asian Buddhism, the precepts are intrinsically connected with the initiation as a Buddhist lay person. Early Chinese translations such as the Upāsaka-śila Sūtra hold that the precepts should only be ritually transmitted by a monastic. The texts describe that in the ritual the power of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas is transmitted, and helps the initiate to keep the precepts. This "lay ordination" ritual usually occurs after a stay in a temple, and often after a monastic ordination (Pali: upsampadā); has taken place. The ordained lay person is then given a religious name. The restrictions that apply are similar to a monastic ordination, such as permission from parents.[86]

In the Theravāda tradition, the precepts are usually taken "each separately" (Pali: visuṃ visuṃ), to indicate that if one precept should be broken, the other precepts are still intact. In very solemn occasions, or for very pious devotees, the precepts may be taken as a group rather than each separately.[87][88] This does not mean, however, that only some of the precepts can be undertaken; they are always committed to as a complete set.[89] In East Asian Buddhism, however, the vow of taking the precepts is considered a solemn matter, and it is not uncommon for lay people to undertake only the precepts that they are confident they can keep.[33] The act of taking a vow to keep the precepts is what makes it karmically effective: Spiro found that someone who did not violate the precepts, but did not have any intention to keep them either, was not believed to accrue any religious merit. On the other hand, when people took a vow to keep the precepts, and then broke them afterwards, the negative karma was considered larger than in the case no vow was taken to keep the precepts.[90]

Several modern teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Sulak Sivaraksa have written about the five precepts in a wider scope, with regard to social and institutional relations. In these perspectives, mass production of weapons or spreading untruth through media and education also violates the precepts.[91][92] On a similar note, human rights organizations in Southeast Asia have attempted to advocate respect for human rights by referring to the five precepts as guiding principles.[93]

First precept

Textual analysis

The first precept prohibits the taking of life of a sentient being. It is violated when someone intentionally and successfully kills such a sentient being, having understood it to be sentient and using effort in the process.[71][94] Causing injury goes against the spirit of the precept, but does, technically speaking, not violate it.[95] The first precept includes taking the lives of animals, even small insects. However, it has also been pointed out that the seriousness of taking life depends on the size, intelligence, benefits done and the spiritual attainments of that living being. Killing a large animal is worse than killing a small animal (also because it costs more effort); killing a spiritually accomplished master is regarded as more severe than the killing of another "more average" human being; and killing a human being is more severe than the killing an animal. But all killing is condemned.[71][96][97] Virtues that accompany this precept are respect for dignity of life,[62] kindness and compassion,[22] the latter expressed as "trembling for the welfare of others".[98] A positive behavior that goes together with this precept is protecting living beings.[11] Positive virtues like sympathy and respect for other living beings in this regard are based on a belief in the cycle of rebirth—that all living beings must be born and reborn.[99] The concept of the fundamental Buddha nature of all human beings also underlies the first precept.[100]

The description of the first precept can be interpreted as a prohibition of capital punishment.[6] Suicide is also seen as part of the prohibition.[101] Moreover, abortion (of a sentient being) goes against the precept, since in an act of abortion, the criteria for violation are all met.[94][102] In Buddhism, human life is understood to start at conception.[103] A prohibition of abortion is mentioned explicitly in the monastic precepts, and several Buddhist tales warn of the harmful karmic consequences of abortion.[104][105] Bioethicist Damien Keown argues that Early Buddhist Texts do not allow for exceptions with regard to abortion, as they consist of a "consistent' (i.e. exceptionless) pro-life position".[106][8] Keown further proposes that a middle way approach to the five precepts is logically hard to defend.[107] Asian studies scholar Giulo Agostini argues, however, that Buddhist commentators in India from the 4th century onward thought abortion did not break the precepts under certain circumstances.[108]

Ordering another person to kill is also included in this precept,[9][95] therefore requesting or administering euthanasia can be considered a violation of the precept,[9] as well as advising another person to commit abortion.[109] With regard to euthanasia and assisted suicide, Keown quotes the Pāli Dīgha Nikāya that says a person upholding the first precept "does not kill a living being, does not cause a living being to be killed, does not approve of the killing of a living being".[110] Keown argues that in Buddhist ethics, regardless of motives, death can never be the aim of one's actions.[111]

Interpretations of how Buddhist texts regard warfare are varied, but in general Buddhist doctrine is considered to oppose all warfare. In many Jātaka tales, such as that of Prince Temiya, as well as some historical documents, the virtue of non-violence is taken as an opposition to all war, both offensive and defensive. At the same time, though, the Buddha is often shown not to explicitly oppose war in his conversations with political figures. Buddhologist André Bareau points out that the Buddha was reserved in his involvement of the details of administrative policy, and concentrated on the moral and spiritual development of his disciples instead. He may have believed such involvement to be futile, or detrimental to Buddhism. Nevertheless, at least one disciple of the Buddha is mentioned in the texts who refrained from retaliating his enemies because of the Buddha, that is King Pasenadi (Sanskrit: Prasenajit). The texts are ambiguous in explaining his motives though.[112] In some later Mahāyāna texts, such as in the writings of Asaṅga, examples are mentioned of people who kill those who persecute Buddhists.[113][114] In these examples, killing is justified by the authors because protecting Buddhism was seen as more important than keeping the precepts. Another example that is often cited is that of King Duṭṭhagāmaṇī, who is mentioned in the post-canonical Pāli Mahāvaṃsa chronicle. In the chronicle, the king is saddened with the loss of life after a war, but comforted by a Buddhist monk, who states that nearly everyone who was killed did not uphold the precepts anyway.[115][116] Buddhist studies scholar Lambert Schmithausen argues that in many of these cases Buddhist teachings like that of emptiness were misused to further an agenda of war or other violence.[117]

In practice

See also: Religion and capital punishment § Buddhism, and Abortion in Japan

Field studies in Cambodia and Burma have shown that many Buddhists considered the first precept the most important, or the most blamable.[46][95] In some traditional communities, such as in Kandal Province in pre-war Cambodia, as well as Burma in the 1980s, it was uncommon for Buddhists to slaughter animals, to the extent that meat had to be bought from not-Buddhists.[46][63] In his field studies in Thailand in the 1960s, Terwiel found that villagers did tend to kill insects, but were reluctant and self-conflicted with regard to killing larger animals.[118] In Spiro's field studies, however, Burmese villagers were highly reluctant even to kill insects.[63]

Early Buddhists did not adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. Indeed, in several Pāli texts vegetarianism is described as irrelevant in the spiritual purification of the mind. There are prohibitions on certain types of meat, however, especially those which are condemned by society. The idea of abstaining from killing animal life has also led to a prohibition on professions that involve trade in flesh or living beings, but not to a full prohibition of all agriculture that involves cattle.[119] In modern times, referring to the law of supply and demand or other principles, some Theravādin Buddhists have attempted to promote vegetarianism as part of the five precepts. For example, the Thai Santi Asoke movement practices vegetarianism.[59][120]

Furthermore, among some schools of Buddhism, there has been some debate with regard to a principle in the monastic discipline. This principle states that a Buddhist monk cannot accept meat if it comes from animals especially slaughtered for him. Some teachers have interpreted this to mean that when the recipient has no knowledge on whether the animal has been killed for him, he cannot accept the food either. Similarly, there has been debate as to whether laypeople should be vegetarian when adhering to the five precepts.[22] Though vegetarianism among Theravādins is generally uncommon, it has been practiced much in East Asian countries,[22] as some Mahāyāna texts, such as the Mahāparanirvana Sūtra and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, condemn the eating of meat.[10][121] Nevertheless, even among Mahāyāna Buddhists—and East Asian Buddhists—there is disagreement on whether vegetarianism should be practiced. In the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, biological, social and hygienic reasons are given for a vegetarian diet; however, historically, a major factor in the development of a vegetarian lifestyle among Mahāyāna communities may have been that Mahāyāna monastics cultivated their own crops for food, rather than living from alms.[122] Already from the 4th century CE, Chinese writer Xi Chao understood the five precepts to include vegetarianism.[121]

Apart from trade in flesh or living beings, there are also other professions considered undesirable. Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanh gives a list of examples, such as working in the arms industry, the military, police, producing or selling poison or drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.[123]

In general, the first precept has been interpreted by Buddhists as a call for non-violence and pacifism. But there have been some exceptions of people who did not interpret the first precept as an opposition to war. For example, in the twentieth century, some Japanese Zen teachers wrote in support of violence in war, and some of them argued this should be seen as a means to uphold the first precept.[124] There is some debate and controversy surrounding the problem whether a person can commit suicide, such as self-immolation, to reduce other people's suffering in the long run, such as in protest to improve a political situation in a country. Teachers like the Dalai Lama and Shengyan have rejected forms of protest like self-immolation, as well as other acts of self-harming or fasting as forms of protest.[60]

Although capital punishment goes against the first precept, as of 2001, many countries in Asia still maintained the death penalty, including Sri Lanka, Thailand, China and Taiwan. In some Buddhist countries, such as Sri Lanka and Thailand, capital punishment was applied during some periods, while during other periods no capital punishment was used at all. In other countries with Buddhism, like China and Taiwan, Buddhism, or any religion for that matter, has had no influence in policy decisions of the government. Countries with Buddhism that have abolished capital punishment include Cambodia and Hong Kong.[125]

In general, Buddhist traditions oppose abortion.[108] In many countries with Buddhist traditions such as Thailand, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, however, abortion is a widespread practice, whether legal or not. Many people in these countries consider abortion immoral, but also think it should be less prohibited. Ethicist Roy W. Perrett, following Ratanakul, argues that this field research data does not so much indicate hypocrisy, but rather points at a "middle way" in applying Buddhist doctrine to solve a moral dilemma. Buddhists tend to take "both sides" on the pro-life–pro-choice debate, being against the taking of life of a fetus in principle, but also believing in compassion toward mothers. Similar attitudes may explain the Japanese mizuko kuyō ceremony, a Buddhist memorial service for aborted children, which has led to a debate in Japanese society concerning abortion, and finally brought the Japanese to a consensus that abortion should not be taken lightly, though it should be legalized. This position, held by Japanese Buddhists, takes the middle ground between the Japanese neo-Shinto "pro-life" position, and the liberationist, "pro-choice" arguments.[126] Keown points out, however, that this compromise does not mean a Buddhist middle way between two extremes, but rather incorporates two opposite perspectives.[107] In Thailand, women who wish to have abortion usually do so in the early stages of pregnancy, because they believe the karmic consequences are less then. Having had abortion, Thai women usually make merits to compensate for the negative karma.[127]

Second precept

Textual analysis

The second precept prohibits theft, and involves the intention to steal what one perceives as not belonging to oneself ("what is not given") and acting successfully upon that intention. The severity of the act of theft is judged by the worth of the owner and the worth of that which is stolen. Underhand dealings, fraud, cheating and forgery are also included in this precept.[71][128] Accompanying virtues are generosity, renunciation,[10][22] and right livelihood,[129] and a positive behavior is the protection of other people's property.[11]

In practice

The second precept includes different ways of stealing and fraud. Borrowing without permission is sometimes included,[59][77] as well as gambling.[77][130] Psychologist Vanchai Ariyabuddhiphongs did studies in the 2000s and 2010s in Thailand and discovered that people who did not adhere to the five precepts more often tended to believe that money was the most important goal in life, and would more often pay bribes than people who did adhere to the precepts.[131][132] On the other hand, people who observed the five precepts regarded themselves as wealthier and happier than people who did not observe the precepts.[133]

Professions that are seen to violate the second precept include working in the gambling industry or marketing products that are not actually required for the customer.[134]

Third precept

Textual analysis

The third precept condemns sexual misconduct. This has been interpreted in classical texts to include adultery with a married or engaged person, rape, incest, sex with a minor (or a person "protected by any relative"), and sex with a prostitute.[135] In later texts, details such as intercourse at an inappropriate time or inappropriate place are also counted as breaches of the third precept.[136] Masturbation goes against the spirit of the precept, though in the early texts it is not prohibited for laypeople.[137][138]

The third precept is explained as leading to greed in oneself and harm to others. The transgression is regarded as more severe if the other person is a good person.[137][138] Virtues that go hand-in-hand with the third precept are contentment, especially with one's partner,[22][98] and recognition and respect for faithfulness in a marriage.[11]

In practice

The third precept is interpreted as avoiding harm to another by using sensuality in the wrong way. This means not engaging with inappropriate partners, but also respecting one's personal commitment to a relationship.[59] In some traditions, the precept also condemns adultery with a person whose spouse agrees with the act, since the nature of the act itself is condemned. Furthermore, flirting with a married person may also be regarded as a violation.[77][135] Though prostitution is discouraged in the third precept, it is usually not actively prohibited by Buddhist teachers.[139] With regard to applications of the principles of the third precept, the precept, or any Buddhist principle for that matter, is usually not connected with a stance against contraception.[140][141] In traditional Buddhist societies such as Sri Lanka, pre-marital sex is considered to violate the precept, though this is not always adhered to by people who already intend to marry.[138][142]

In the interpretation of modern teachers, the precept includes any person in a sexual relationship with another person, as they define the precept by terms such as sexual responsibility and long-term commitment.[135] Some modern teachers include masturbation as a violation of the precept,[143] others include certain professions, such as those that involve sexual exploitation, prostitution or pornography, and professions that promote unhealthy sexual behavior, such as in the entertainment industry.[134]

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Part 2 of 2

Fourth precept

Textual analysis

The fourth precept involves falsehood spoken or committed to by action.[137] Avoiding other forms of wrong speech are also considered part of this precept, consisting of malicious speech, harsh speech and gossip.[144][145] A breach of the precept is considered more serious if the falsehood is motivated by an ulterior motive[137] (rather than, for example, "a small white lie").[146] The accompanying virtue is being honest and dependable,[22][98] and involves honesty in work, truthfulness to others, loyalty to superiors and gratitude to benefactors.[129] In Buddhist texts, this precept is considered second in importance to the first precept, because a lying person is regarded to have no shame, and therefore capable of many wrongs.[143] Untruthfulness is not only to be avoided because it harms others, but also because it goes against the Buddhist ideal of finding the truth.[146][147]

In practice

The fourth precept includes avoidance of lying and harmful speech.[148] Some modern teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh interpret this to include avoiding spreading false news and uncertain information.[143] Work that involves data manipulation, false advertising or online scams can also be regarded as violations.[134] Terwiel reports that among Thai Buddhists, the fourth precept is also seen to be broken when people insinuate, exaggerate or speak abusively or deceitfully.[77]

Fifth precept

Textual analysis

The fifth precept prohibits intoxication through alcohol, drugs or other means, and its virtues are mindfulness and responsibility,[10][11] applied to food, work, behavior, and with regard to the nature of life.[129] Awareness, meditation and heedfulness can also be included here.[122] Medieval Pāli commentator Buddhaghosa writes that whereas violating the first four precepts may be more or less blamable depending on the person or animal affected, the fifth precept is always "greatly blamable", as it hinders one from understanding the Buddha's teaching and may lead one to "madness".[16] In ancient China, Daoshi described alcohol as the "doorway to laxity and idleness" and as a cause of suffering. Nevertheless, he did describe certain cases when drinking was considered less of a problem, such as in the case of a queen distracting the king by alcohol to prevent him from murder. However, Daoshi was generally strict in his interpretations: for example, he allowed medicinal use of alcohol only in extreme cases.[149] Early Chinese translations of the Tripitaka describe negative consequences for people breaking the fifth precept, for themselves and their families. The Chinese translation of the Upāsikaśila Sūtra, as well as the Pāli version of the Sigālovāda Sutta, speak of ill consequences such as loss of wealth, ill health, a bad reputation and "stupidity", concluding in a rebirth in hell.[16][150] The Dīrghāgama adds to that that alcohol leads to quarreling, negative states of mind and damage to one's intelligence. The Mahāyāna Brahmajāla Sūtra[note 6] describes the dangers of alcohol in very strong terms, including the selling of alcohol.[151] Similar arguments against alcohol can be found in Nāgārjuna's writings.[152] The strict interpretation of prohibition of alcohol consumption can be supported by the Upāli Sūtra's statement that a disciple of the Buddha should not drink any alcohol, "even a drop on the point of a blade of grass". However, in the writing of some Abhidharma commentators, consumption was condemned or condoned, depending on the intention with which alcohol was consumed.[153]

In practice

As for the fifth precept, this is regarded as important, because drinking alcohol is condemned for the sluggishness and lack of self-control it leads to,[69][154] which might lead to breaking the other precepts.[16] In Spiro's field studies, violating the fifth precept was seen as the worst of all the five precepts by half of the monks interviewed, citing the harmful consequences.[16] Nevertheless, in practice it is often disregarded by lay people.[155] In Thailand, drinking alcohol is fairly common, even drunkenness.[156] Among Tibetans, drinking beer is common, though this is only slightly alcoholic.[152] Medicinal use of alcohol is generally not frowned upon,[142] and in some countries like Thailand and Laos, smoking is usually not regarded as a violation of the precept. Thai and Laotian monks have been known to smoke, though monks who have received more training are less likely to smoke.[40][157] On a similar note, as of 2000, no Buddhist country prohibited the sale or consumption of alcohol, though in Sri Lanka Buddhist revivalists attempted unsuccessfully to get a full prohibition passed in 1956.[40] Moreover, pre-Communist Tibet used to prohibit smoking in some areas of the capital. Monks were prohibited from smoking, and the import of tobacco was banned.[40]

Thich Nhat Hanh also includes the aspect of mindful consumption in this precept, which consists of unhealthy food, unhealthy entertainment and unhealthy conversations, among others.[134][158]

Present trends

In modern times, adherence to the precepts among Buddhists is less strict than it traditionally was. This is especially true for the third precept. For example, in Cambodia in the 1990s and 2000s, standards with regard to sexual restraint were greatly relaxed.[159] Some Buddhist movements and communities have tried to go against the modern trend of less strict adherence to the precepts. In Cambodia, a millenarian movement led by Chan Yipon promoted the revival of the five precepts.[159] And in the 2010s, the Supreme Sangha Council in Thailand ran a nationwide program called "The Villages Practicing the Five Precepts", aiming to encourage keeping the precepts, with an extensive classification and reward system.[160][161]

In many Western Buddhist organizations, the five precepts play a major role in developing ethical guidelines.[162] Furthermore, Buddhist teachers such as Philip Kapleau, Thich Nhat Hanh and Robert Aitken have promoted mindful consumption in the West, based on the five precepts.[158] In another development in the West, some scholars working in the field of mindfulness training have proposed that the five precepts be introduced as a component in such trainings. Specifically, to prevent organizations from using mindfulness training to further an economical agenda with harmful results to its employees, the economy or the environment, the precepts could be used as a standardized ethical framework. As of 2015, several training programs made explicit use of the five precepts as secular, ethical guidelines. However, many mindfulness training specialists consider it problematic to teach the five precepts as part of training programs in secular contexts because of their religious origins and import.[163]

Peace studies scholar Theresa Der-lan Yeh notes that the five precepts address physical, economical, familial and verbal aspects of interaction, and remarks that many conflict prevention programs in schools and communities have integrated the five precepts in their curriculum. On a similar note, peace studies founder Johan Galtung describes the five precepts as the "basic contribution of Buddhism in the creation of peace".[164]

Theory of ethics

Studying lay and monastic ethical practice in traditional Buddhist societies, Spiro argued ethical guidelines such as the five precepts are adhered to as a means to a higher end, that is, a better rebirth or enlightenment. He therefore concluded that Buddhist ethical principles like the five precepts are similar to Western utilitarianism.[60] Keown, however, has argued that the five precepts are regarded as rules that cannot be violated, and therefore may indicate a deontological perspective in Buddhist ethics.[165][166] On the other hand, Keown has also suggested that Aristoteles' virtue ethics could apply to Buddhist ethics, since the precepts are considered good in themselves, and mutually dependent on other aspects of the Buddhist path of practice.[60][167] Philosopher Christopher Gowans disagrees that Buddhist ethics are deontological, arguing that virtue and consequences are also important in Buddhist ethics. Gowans argues that there is no moral theory in Buddhist ethics that covers all conceivable situations such as when two precepts may be in conflict, but is rather characterized by "a commitment to and nontheoretical grasp of the basic Buddhist moral values".[168] As of 2017, many scholars of Buddhism no longer think it is useful to try to fit Buddhist ethics into a Western philosophical category.[169]

Comparison with human rights

Keown has argued that the five precepts are very similar to human rights, with regard to subject matter and with regard to their universal nature.[170] Other scholars, as well as Buddhist writers and human rights advocates, have drawn similar comparisons.[51][171] For example, the following comparisons are drawn:

1. Keown compares the first precept with the right to life.[50] The Buddhism-informed Cambodian Institute for Human Rights (CIHR) draws the same comparison.[172]
2. The second precept is compared by Keown and the CIHR with the right of property.[50][172]
3. The third precept is compared by Keown to the "right to fidelity in marriage";[50] the CIHR construes this broadly as "right of individuals and the rights of society".[173]
4. The fourth precept is compared by Keown with the "right not to be lied to";[50] the CIHR writes "the right of human dignity".[173]
5. Finally, the fifth precept is compared by the CIHR with the right of individual security and a safe society.[173]

Keown describes the relationship between Buddhist precepts and human rights as "look[ing] both ways along the juridical relationship, both to what one is due to do, and to what is due to one".[173][174] On a similar note, Cambodian human rights advocates have argued that for human rights to be fully implemented in society, the strengthening of individual morality must also be addressed.[173] Buddhist monk and scholar Phra Payutto sees the Human Rights Declaration as an unfolding and detailing of the principles that are found in the five precepts, in which a sense of ownership is given to the individual, to make legitimate claims on one's rights. He believes that human rights should be seen as a part of human development, in which one develops from moral discipline (Pali: sīla), to concentration (Pali: samādhi) and finally wisdom (Pali: paññā). He does not believe, however, that human rights are natural rights, but rather human conventions. Buddhism scholar Somparn Promta disagrees with him. He argues that human beings do have natural rights from a Buddhist perspective, and refers to the attūpanāyika-dhamma, a teaching in which the Buddha prescribes a kind of golden rule of comparing oneself with others. (See §Principles, above.) From this discourse, Promta concludes that the Buddha has laid down the five precepts in order to protect individual rights such as right of life and property: human rights are implicit within the five precepts. Academic Buntham Phunsap argues, however, that though human rights are useful in culturally pluralistic societies, they are in fact not required when society is based on the five precepts. Phunsap therefore does not see human rights as part of Buddhist doctrine.[175]

See also

• Anagarika – one who keeps the eight precepts on a more permanent basis, or as preparation to ordain.
• Dhammika Sutta
• Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, five principles applied in geopolitics, for which the same term is used
• Five hindrances
• Five Virtues (in Sikhism)

Notes

1. Also spelled as pañcasīlani and pañcasikkhāpadani, respectively.[3]
2. The fifth precept has also been connected with right mindfulness.[16]
3. The 6th century CE Chāndogya Upaniśad contains four principles identical to the Buddhist precepts, but lying is not mentioned.[32] In contemporary Jainism, the fifth principle became "appropriation of any sort".[27]
4. This dual meaning in negative formulations is typical for an Indic language like Sanskrit.[61]
5. However, anthropologist Melford Spiro argued that the fundamental virtue behind the precepts was loving-kindness, not "the Hindu notion of non-violence".[63]
6. Not to be confused with the early Buddhist Brahmajala Sutta.

Citations

1. Getz 2004, p. 673.
2. Terwiel 2012, pp. 178–9.
3. Terwiel 2012, p. 178.
4. Keown 2013b, p. 638.
5. Wai 2002, p. 4.
6. Alarid & Wang 2001, pp. 236–7.
7. Keown 2016a, p. 213.
8. Perrett 2000, p. 110.
9. Keown 2016b, p. 170.
10. Gwynne 2017, The Buddhist Pancasila.
11. Wijayaratna 1990, pp. 166–7.
12. Gowans 2013, p. 440.
13. Goodman, Charles (2017). Ethics in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archivedfrom the original on 8 July 2010.
14. Edelglass 2013, p. 479.
15. Powers 2013, āryāṣtāṅga-mārga.
16. Harvey 2000, p. 77.
17. Osto 2015.
18. McFarlane 1997.
19. De Silva 2016, p. 79.
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170. Keown 2012, pp. 31–4.
171. Seeger 2010, p. 78.
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173. Ledgerwood & Un 2010, p. 541.
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External links

• For a Future to Be Possible: classic work about the five precepts, by Thich Nhat Hanh and several other authors
• The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics: by Robert Aitken, about the precepts in Zen Buddhism
• Excerpt from the Pāli Canon about the precepts, on website Access to Insight, archived from original on 7 May 2005
• Dissertation about the role of the precepts in modern society, and the aspect of heedfulness (apamada)
• Article with overview of the role of the precepts in Buddhist teachings, by scholar of religion Donald Swearer (registration required)

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Accessed: 11/19/19

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Call for papers: 2020 Symposium Sep
by naomiappleton

We invite proposals for papers for the 45th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, which will be held at the University of Edinburgh, on 24th-26th April 2020. The theme this year is “Comparison(s)”. Our purview includes both religions of South Asian origin wherever in the world they are being practised, and those of non South Asian origin present within South Asia. We welcome papers based upon all research methods, including textual, historical, ethnographic, sociological and philosophical.

Presenters are allocated forty minutes for their paper and twenty minutes for discussion, and will normally be expected to pay their own conference registration and expenses. The Symposium fee, including food and accommodation, will be in the region of £245, with a non-residential rate of around £85. Registration details will be released in the new year. Limited financial assistance may be available for early career scholars or scholars from South Asia. If your participation depends upon such support please indicate this when you submit your abstract.

We also welcome proposals from doctoral students, who will be allocated twenty minutes for their paper and ten minutes for discussion, and offered free registration at the Symposium. PG papers need not address the symposium theme, though it is an advantage if they do so.

We are delighted to announce our keynote speakers: Dr Jacqueline Suthren Hirst, who recently retired from Manchester University, will speak on “A Life of Comparisons”, and Prof. Oliver Freiberger of the University of Texas at Austin, will speak on “Comparing Religion Within and Beyond South Asia”.

If you would like to give a presentation, please send a title and abstract (maximum 500 words) to Dr Brian Black, b.black@lancaster.ac.uk, by the end of November 2019.

Dates for 2020 event Jul
by naomiappleton

The 2020 Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions will be held 24th-26th April in Edinburgh, with the theme of Comparison(s).

A call for papers will be issued in early September, and booking will open in December/January.

Booking closed for 2019 symposium Apr
by naomiappleton

Booking is now closed. If you have booked then you should have received confirmation of all the arrangements and a copy of the final programme.

Booking open for 2019 Symposium Jan
by naomiappleton

Booking is now open for the 2019 Symposium, which will be held at the Storey Institute, Lancaster, from Friday 12th to Sunday 14th April. A provisional programme is below.

As always, we offer two booking rates: residential £190, non-residential £85

We do not offer a reduced rate for students or other unwaged attendees. However, if you are a PhD student or early-career academic in the UK and unable to access institutional funding please email naomi.appleton@ed.ac.uk as there may be some financial assistance available.

The residential rate includes two nights of accommodation, in this case at the Travelodge in central Lancaster, where we have secured preferential rates, with breakfast served at the Storey Institute.

Both the residential and non-residential rates include teas/coffees throughout, dinner Friday and Saturday, and lunch Saturday and Sunday.

Please note: We regret that we are unable to issue a visa invitation letter unless you are a speaker at this event. We can provide confirmation of your booking, but this will not normally be sufficient for a visa application.

Booking this year is through PayPal. You do not need your own account to book – if you follow the link it will give you the option of booking using a credit or debit card.

Residential rate: £190

Non-residential rate: £85

Draft programme for 2019 Symposium

Friday 12th April

2:00-2:15: Arrival; Welcome

2:15-3:30: Keynote Speaker: Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad (Lancaster University): Anger and Gender: A Sideways Look Through Rasa Theory at Draupadī and Bhīma

3:30-4:00: Break

4:00-5:00: Lidia Wojtczak (SOAS): Menstruation, Transgression and the Othering of the Female Body in the Sanskrit Tradition

5:00-6:00: James Mallinson (SOAS): Women and early haṭhayoga

Saturday 13th April

9:00-10:00: Veena Howard (California State University, Fresno): Queen Gāndhārī’s Mapping the Battlefield through the “Divine Eye:” Toward the Hermeneutic of Reversing the Masculine Gaze and Resisting Violence

10:00-11:00: Emily Hudson (Independent Scholar): Hard-Hearted Kings and Their Abandoned, Long-Suffering Queens: Gendered Aesthetics in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa

11:00-11:30: Break

11:30-12:00: Katie Work: (Lancaster): Gender Balancing in Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa and the Adbhuta Rāmāyaṇa

12:00-1230: Joanna Gruszewska (Krakow): Dialogues between women and Brahmins in the Therīgāthā

12:30-1:00: Annalisa Bocchetti (Naples): Gender constructions in the theological dimension of the Sufi premākhyāns: a look at Usmān’s Citrāvalī

1:00-2:00: Lunch

2:00-2:30: Monika Hirmer (SOAS): Becoming the Goddess: Reimagining Gender and Motherhood in a Contemporary South Indian Śrīvidyā Tradition

2:30-3:00: E. Sundari Johansen Hurwitt (CIIS): The Goddess and Her Shadow:
Gender, Menstruation, Purity, and Power in Kumārī Worship in Assam

3:00-3:30: Ruth Westoby (SOAS): Rajas: female principle of the yogic body

3:30-4:00: Break

4:00-5:00: Ofer Peres (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Worldly Affairs: Femininity and Divinity in a Premodern Tamil Literary Work

5:00-6:00: Simon Brodbeck (Cardiff University): Patrilocality in the Harivaṃśa

Sunday 14th April

9:00-10:00: Marzenna Jakubczak (Pedagogical University of Cracow): The motif of tree goddess and women’s empowerment in the ancient and contemporary India

10:00-11:00: Paolo Rosati (Sapienza University of Rome): The origin of the yoni pīṭha in Tantric mythology: Gender dialectic and śakti’s supremacy at Kāmākhyā

11:00-11:30: Break

11:30-12:45: Keynote Speaker: Sondra Hausner (University of Oxford): Gender, Ritual, and Hierarchy: Ascetic Inversions at the Great Indian Kumbh Mela

12:45-1:00: Closing Remarks

1:00-2:00: Lunch, then departure

Call for papers, 2019 symposium Sep
by naomiappleton

We invite proposals for papers for the 44th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, which will be hosted by Lancaster University, 12-14 April 2019.

The theme this year is ‘gender’. Our purview includes both religions of South Asian origin wherever in the world they are being practised, and those of non South Asian origin present within South Asia. We welcome papers based upon all research methods, including textual, historical, ethnographic, sociological and philosophical.

Presenters are allocated forty minutes for their paper and twenty minutes for discussion, and will normally be expected to pay their own conference registration and expenses. The Symposium fee, including food and accommodation, is predicted to be £190, with a non-residential rate of £85. Registration details will be released in the new year. Limited financial assistance may be available for early career scholars or scholars from South Asia. If your participation depends upon such support please indicate this when you submit your abstract.

We also welcome proposals from doctoral students, who will be allocated twenty minutes for their paper and ten minutes for discussion, and offered free registration at the Symposium (including accommodation). Doctoral student papers do not have to address the theme of gender, but are more than welcome to do so.

We are delighted to announce our keynote speakers and their provisional paper titles:

• Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Fellow of the British Academy and Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Lancaster University: ‘Anger and Gender: A Sideways Look Through Rasa Theory at Draupadī and Bhīma’
• Sondra Hausner, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oxford: ‘Gender, Ritual, and Hierarchy: Ascetic Inversions at the Great Indian Kumbh Mela’

If you would like to give a paper, please send a title and abstract (maximum 500 words) to Dr Brian Black, b.black@lancaster.ac.uk, by Friday 16 November 2018.

Plans for 2019 and 2020 Symposia Jul
by naomiappleton

After having an excellent time in Durham this past spring, we have provisional details for 2019 and 2020:

The 2019 Symposium will take place in Lancaster, 12th-14th April, with the theme of Gender. A call for papers will be circulated in August, and further details will be posted on the website.

The 2020 Symposium will be held in Edinburgh, dates tbc (but in April sometime), with the theme of Comparison(s).

After these two symposia, we will be looking for a new person (or people) to take on the running of the symposium. If anyone is interested in becoming the convenor, secretary or treasurer from 2020, or in finding out more about these roles, please let me know: naomi.appleton@ed.ac.uk.

Final programme for 2018 Symposium Mar
by naomiappleton

Booking is now closed, and we are all looking forward to the event. Registered participants will receive a copy of the Abstracts book and some helpful information about the venues etc by email next week. Here is the final schedule:

Friday 13th April

1.30pm Introduction and welcome

1.45-3.00pm Opening keynote: Professor Kunal Chakrabarti (JNU)- ‘Laksmi’s Other: Brahmanical Construction of a Negative Goddess’

3.00-3.30pm Tea and coffee

3.30-4.30pm Prof. Elizabeth M. Rohlman (University of Calgary) – ‘Regions and Regionality in the Mahāpurāṇas: The Literary Cultures and Religious Communities of Western India in the Markāṇdeya Purāṇa’

4.30-5.30pm Dr Marzenna Jakubczak (Pedagogical University of Cracow) – ‘Non-theistic devotion in the classical and neo-classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga

5.30-7.00pm Dinner at Lebeneat Restaurant

7.00-8.00pm Dr Brian Black (Lancaster University) and Dr Naomi Appleton (University of Edinburgh) – ‘Teaching Indian Religions in Schools’

Saturday 14th April

9.00-10.00am Dr Christopher V. Jones (University of Oxford) – ‘Mystery and Secrecy in the Mahāyāna: A Shared Theme in the ‘Lotus’ and ‘Nirvāṇa’ Sūtras’

10.00-11.00am Prof. Natalie Gummer (Beloit College, Wisconsin) – ‘Reassessing Rasa: Sūtras, Sovereignty, and the Ritual Substance of Speech’

11.00-11.30am Tea and coffee

11.30-1.00pm Postgraduate papers

Sophie Barker (Lancaster University) – ‘“Why Would I Want to Get Married?” Negotiating Permission for Renunciation in the Therīgāthā’

Sayori Ghoshal (Columbia University NY) – ‘Locating Race in the Question of Religion in modern India’

Güzin A. Yener (University of Oxford) – ‘Practices of Kurukullā: Feminine Wisdom of Love, Power and Magic in Tibetan Buddhism’

1.00-3.00pm Lunch and then free time to explore the city

3.00-4.00pm Postgraduate papers

Durga Kale (University of Calgary) – ‘Whole Cosmos in Her Bosom: The Making of a Multifarious Deity in Coastal Maharashtra’

Zuzana Špicová (Charles University, Prague) – ‘“He Never Touched the Ground”: Bhīṣma’s Two Falls’

4.00-4.30pm Tea and coffee

4.30-5.30pm Dr Elizabeth Cecil (Leiden University) and Dr Laxshmi Greaves (Independent Researcher, Cardiff) – ‘Adorning the Lord with Garlands: 
Liṅga Worship as Lived Religion in the Images of Early North India’

5.30-6.30pm Durham roundtable discussion featuring:

Rachel Barclay (Curator, Oriental Museum)

Robin Coningham (UNESCO Professor, Archaeology)

Yulia Egorova (Reader, Anthropology)

Jonathan Miles-Watson (Associate Professor, Theology and Religion)

Tanju Sen (Community Engagement Officer, Oriental Museum)

7.00pm Dinner at Claypath deli then evening of socialising

Sunday 15th April

9.00-10.00am Dr Mikel Burley (University of Leeds) – ‘Dance of the Deodhās: Divine Possession, Blood Sacrifice and the Grotesque Body in Assamese Goddess Worship’

10.00-11.00am Dr Garima Kaushik (Nalanda University) – ‘Socio–economic imperatives in the emergence of the Sapta Matrikas Iconography’

11.00-11.30am Tea and coffee

11.30-12.45 Closing keynote: Professor (Emerita) Eleanor Nesbitt (University of Warwick) – ‘Idolatry and ethnography: reflections on two centuries of western women’s writing about Sikhs’

12.45-1.00pm Closing remarks

1.00-2.00pm Lunch and then departure

[admin]

Mandatory celibacy at the heart of what's wrong
by James Carroll
Jun 9, 2010

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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The question is often asked, “Why should celibacy and chastity be a sine qua non rule and condition of regular chelaship, or the development of psychic and occult powers?” The answer is contained in the Commentary. When we learn that the “third eye” was once a physiological organ, and that later on, owing to the gradual disappearance of spirituality and increase of materiality (Spiritual nature being extinguished by the physical), it became an atrophied organ, as little understood now by physiologists as the spleen is — when we learn this, the connection will become clear. During human life the greatest impediment in the way of spiritual development, and especially to the acquirement of Yoga powers, is the activity of our physiological senses. Sexual action being closely connected, by interaction, with the spinal cord and the grey matter of the brain, it is useless to give any longer explanation. Of course, the normal and abnormal state of the brain, and the degree of active work in the medulla oblongata, reacts powerfully on the pineal gland, for, owing to the number of “centres” in that region, which controls by far the greater majority of the physiological actions of the animal economy, and also owing to the close and intimate neighbourhood of the two, there must be exerted a very powerful “inductive” action by the medulla on the pineal gland.

All this is quite plain to the Occultist, but is very vague in the sight of the general reader. The latter must then be shown the possibility of a three-eyed man in nature, in those periods when his formation was yet in a comparatively chaotic state. Such a possibility may be inferred from anatomical and zoological knowledge, first of all; then it may rest on the assumptions of materialistic science itself.

It is asserted upon the authority of Science, and upon evidence, which is not merely a fiction of theoretical speculation this time, that many of the animals — especially among the lower orders of the vertebrata — have a third eye, now atrophied, but necessarily active in its origin. [363] The Hatteria species, a lizard of the order Lacertilia, recently discovered in New Zealand (a part of ancient Lemuria so called, mark well), presents this peculiarity in a most extraordinary manner; and not only the Hatteria punctata, but the chameleon, certain reptiles, and even fishes. It was thought, at first, that it was no more than the prolongation of the brain ending with a small protuberance, called epiphysis, a little bone separated from the main bone by a cartilage, and found in every animal. But it was soon found to be more than this. It offered — as its development and anatomical structure showed — such an analogy with that of the eye, that it was found impossible to see in it anything else. There were and are paleontologists who feel convinced to this day that this “third eye” has functioned in its origin, and they are certainly right. For this is what is said of the pineal gland in Quain’s Anatomy (Vol. II. ninth edit., pp. 830-851. “Thalamencephalon” Interbrain): —

“It is from this part, constituting at first the whole and subsequently the hinder part of the anterior primary encephalic vesicle, that the optic vesicles are developed in the earliest period, and the fore part is that in connection with which the cerebral hemispheres and accompanying parts are formed. The thalamus opticus of each side is formed by a lateral thickening of the medullary wall, while the interval between, descending towards the base, constitutes the cavity of the third ventricle with its prolongation in the infundibulum. The grey commissure afterwards stretches across the ventricular cavity. . . . . The hinder part of the roof is developed by a peculiar process, to be noticed later, into the pineal gland, which remains united on each side by its pedicles to the thalamus, and behind these a transverse band is formed as posterior commissure.

“The lamina terminalis (lamina cinerea) continues to close the third ventricle in front, below it the optic commissure forms the floor of the ventricle, and further back the infundibulum descends to be united in the sella turcica with the tissue adjoining the posterior lobe of the pituitary body.

“The two optic thalami formed from the posterior and outer part of the anterior vesicle, consist at first of a single hollow sac of nervous matter, the cavity of which communicates on each side in front with that of the commencing cerebral hemispheres, and behind with that of the middle cephalic vesicle (corpora quadrigemina). Soon, however, by increased deposit taking place in their interior, behind, below, and at the sides, the thalami become solid, and at the same time a cleft or fissure appears between them above, and penetrates down to the internal cavity, which continues open at the back part opposite the entrance of the Sylvian aqueduct. This cleft or fissure is the third ventricle. Behind, the two thalami continue united by the posterior commissure, which is distinguishable about the end of the third month, and also by the peduncles of the pineal gland. . . . .

“At an early period the optic tracts may be recognised as hollow prolongations from the outer part of the wall of the thalami while they are still vesicular. At the fourth month these tracts are distinctly formed. They subsequently are prolonged backwards into connection with the corpora quadrigemina.

“The formation of the pineal gland and pituitary body presents some of the most interesting phenomena which are connected with the development of the Thalamencephalon.”

The above is specially interesting when it is remembered that, were it not for the development of the hinder part of the cerebral hemispheres backwards, the pineal gland would be perfectly visible on the removal of the parietal bones. It is very interesting also to note the obvious connection to be traced between the (originally) hollow optic tracts and the eyes anteriorly, the pineal gland and its peduncles behind, and all of these with the optic thalami. So that the recent discoveries in connection with the third eye of Hatteria punctata have a very important bearing on the developmental history of the human senses, and on the occult assertions in the text.

It is well known, (and also regarded as a fiction now, by those who have ceased to believe in the existence of an immortal principle in man,) that Descartes saw in the pineal gland the Seat of the Soul. Although it is joined to every part of the body, he said, there is one special portion of it in which the Soul exercises its functions more specially than in any other. And, as neither the heart, nor yet the brain could be that “special” locality, he concluded that it was that little gland tied to the brain, yet having an action independent of it, as it could easily be put into a kind of swinging motion “by the animal Spirits [364] which cross the cavities of the skull in every sense.”

Unscientific as this may appear in our day of exact learning, Descartes was yet far nearer the occult truth than is any Haeckel. For the pineal gland, as shown, is far more connected with Soul and Spirit than with the physiological senses of man. Had the leading Scientists a glimmer of the real processes employed by the Evolutionary Impulse, and the winding cyclic course of this great law, they would know instead of conjecturing; and feel as certain of the future physical transformations of the human kind by the knowledge of its past forms. Then, would they see the fallacy and all the absurdity of their modern “blind-force” and mechanical processes of nature; realizing, in consequence of such knowledge, that the said pineal gland, for instance, could not but be disabled for physical use at this stage of our cycle. If the odd “eye” in man is now atrophied, it is a proof that, as in the lower animal, it has once been active; for nature never creates the smallest, the most insignificant form without some definite purpose and use. It was an active organ, we say, at that stage of evolution when the spiritual element in man reigned supreme over the hardly nascent intellectual and psychic elements. And, as the cycle ran down toward that point when the physiological senses were developed by, and went pari passu with, the growth and consolidation of the physical man, the interminable and complex vicissitudes and tribulations of zoological development, that median “eye” ended by atrophying along with the early spiritual and purely psychic characteristics in man. The eye is the mirror and also the window of the soul, says popular wisdom, [365] and Vox populi Vox Dei.

In the beginning, every class and family of living species was hermaphrodite and objectively one-eyed. In the animal, whose form was as ethereal (astrally) as that of man, before the bodies of both began to evolve their coats of skin, viz., to evolve from within without the thick coating of physical substance or matter with its internal physiological mechanism — the third eye was primarily, as in man, the only seeing organ. The two physical front eyes developed [366] later on in both brute and man, whose organ of physical sight was, at the commencement of the Third Race, in the same position as that of some of the blind vertebrata, in our day, i.e., beneath an opaque skin. [367] Only the stages of the odd, or primeval eye, in man and brute, are now inverted, as the former has already passed that animal non-rational stage in the Third Round, and is ahead of mere brute creation by a whole plane of consciousness. Therefore, while the “Cyclopean” eye was, and still is, in man the organ of spiritual sight, in the animal it was that of objective vision. And this eye, having performed its function, was replaced, in the course of physical evolution from the simple to the complex, by two eyes, and thus was stored and laid aside by nature for further use in AEons to come.

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena P. Blavatsky

Like all Catholics, I gratefully depend on the faithful ministry of the many good priests who serve the church. Yet I offer a broad critique of something central to their lives and identities -- the rule of celibacy. Many priests will recognize the truth of what I describe. I write from inside the question, having lived as a celibate seminarian and priest for more than a decade when I was young. In the Bing Crosby glory days, celibacy was essential to the mystique that set priests apart from other clergy, the Roman collar an “Open sesame!” to respect and status. From a secular perspective, the celibate man or, in the case of nuns, woman made an impression simply by sexual unavailability. But from a religious perspective, the impact came from celibacy’s character as an all-or-nothing bet on the existence of God. The Catholic clergy lived in absolutism, which carried a magnetic pull.

The magnet is dead. Celibacy cuts to the heart of what is wrong in the church today. Despite denials from Rome, there will be no halting, much less recovering from, the mass destruction caused by the priest sex abuse scandal without reforms centered on the abandonment of celibacy as a near-universal prerequisite for ordination to the Latin-rite priesthood.

No, celibacy does not “cause” the sex abuse of minors, and yes, abusers of children come from many walks of life. Indeed, most abuse occurs within families or circles of close acquaintance. But the ongoing Catholic scandal has laid bare an essential pathology that is unique to the culture of clericalism, and mandatory celibacy is essential to it. A special problem arises when, on the one hand, homosexuality is demonized as a matter of doctrine, while, on the other, the banishment of women leaves the priest living in a homophilic world. In some men, both straight and gay, the stresses of such contradictions lead to irrepressible urges that can be indulged only by exploitation of the vulnerable and available, objects of desire who in many cases are boys, whether prepubescent or adolescent. Now we know.

Celibacy began in the early church as an ascetic discipline, rooted partly in a neo-Platonic contempt for the physical world that had nothing to do with the Gospel. The renunciation of sexual expression by men fit nicely with a patriarchal denigration of women. Nonvirginal women, typified by Eve as the temptress of Adam, were seen as a source of sin.

But it was not until the Middle Ages, at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, that celibacy was made mandatory for all Roman Catholic clergy -- a reform bracing clerical laxity and eliminating inheritance issues from church property. But because the requirement of celibacy is so extreme, it had to be mystified as sacrificial -- “a more perfect way” to God. Monastic orders of both males and females had indeed discovered in such sexual sublimation a mode of holiness, but that presumed its being both freely chosen and lived out in a nurturing community. (Religious orders continue to this day with the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as a proven structure of service and contemplation. The vows of such orders are a separate question.) But when the monastic discipline of “chastity” was imposed on all priests as “celibacy,” something went awry. The system broke down during the Renaissance and the Reformation, with the Counter-Reformation hierarchy more attached to it than ever.

From our sister publication: GSR in the Classroom is a supplementary curriculum for use in Catholic middle and high schools and faith formation programs. Learn more.

Not sex, but power was the issue. The imposition of sexual abstinence was a mode of control over the interior lives of clergy, since submission in radical abstinence required an extraordinary abandonment of the will. In theory, the abandonment was to God; in practice, it was to the “superior.” The stakes were infinite, since sexual desire marked the threshold of hell. The normally human was, for priests, the occasion of bad faith.

Obsessive sexual moralism, along with that bad faith, spilled out of pulpits. The confessional booth became a cockpit for screening “mortal sins,” with birth control emerging as the key control mechanism over the laity. If they were willing to abide by this intrusion and its burdens, it was only because the celibate priest could be seen to have made an even greater sacrifice. They were subject to an even greater control.

As is suggested by the contemporary hierarchy’s apparent equanimity about the exodus of tens of thousands of priests, and the crisis of ministry it has caused, church authorities will pay any price to maintain a vestige of that control. That is why bishops have exchanged their once ample influence on matters of social justice for a strident single-issue obsession with abortion, a last-ditch effort to control the intimate sexual decisions of laypeople. When it comes to their clergy, the single-issue obsession remains celibacy.

This nearly changed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), when the bishops prepared to reconsider both birth control and celibacy. Until then, an insufficiently historically minded church had regarded such contingent questions as God-given absolutes. What was the point of even discussing them, since change was out of the question? But change was suddenly in the air. What? St. Peter was married? Even before the council acted, the myth that these disciplines were eternally willed by God was broken.

The conservative wing of the hierarchy panicked. Pope Paul VI astonished the council fathers, and the Catholic world, by making two extraordinary interventions that violated the letter and the spirit of the council. In late 1964, just as the fathers were about to debate the question of “responsible parenthood,” the pope ordered them not to take up the question of “artificial contraception.” Snap! Birth control was “removed from the competence of the council.”

But there was every sign that the council fathers, when they inevitably took up the subject of the priesthood, were still going to discuss celibacy, as if change were possible there. Yet it was politically unthinkable that the church could maintain the prohibition of birth control, the burden belonging to the laity, while letting clergy off the sexual hook by lifting the celibacy rule. Therefore, in late 1965, Paul VI made his second extraordinary intervention to forbid any discussion of priestly celibacy. A council had initiated the discipline, but a council was now not qualified even to discuss it. The power play was so blatant as to lay bare power itself as the issue. And just like that, Catholics had reason to suspect that celibacy was being maintained as a requirement of the priesthood because of internal church politics, not because of any spiritual motive. God was not the issue; the pope was. The abrupt elimination of the mystical dimension of vowed sexual abstinence left it an intolerable and inhuman way to live, which sent men streaming out of the priesthood, and stirred in many who remained a profound, and still unresolved, crisis of identity. Paul VI sought to settle the celibacy question with his 1967 encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, which proved to be a classic instance of the disease calling itself the cure.

The celibacy encyclical, maintaining the weight of “sacrifice” on clergy, prepared the way for the laity-crushing Humanae Vitae in 1968, with its re-condemnation of birth control. In response to the pope’s initial removal of birth control from the “competence” of the council, one of its leading figures, Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens of Belgium, rose immediately with a warning; “I beg you, my brother bishops, let us avoid a new ‘Galileo affair.’ One is enough for the church.” Galileo was famously forced to renounce what he had seen through his telescope, an imposition of dishonesty. (“And yet it moves,” he was reported to have muttered under his breath.) Paul VI’s twin re-impositions of the contraception and celibacy rules plunged the whole church into a culture of dishonesty. Catholic laypeople ignore the birth control mandate. Catholic priests find ways around the celibacy rule, some in meaningful relationships with secret lovers, some in exploitive relationships with the vulnerable, and some in criminal acts with minors. If a majority of priests are able to observe the letter of their vow, how many do so at savage personal cost? Well-adjusted priests may live happily as celibates, but how many regard the broad discipline as healthy? Insisting that celibacy is the church’s “brilliant jewel,” in Paul VI’s phrase, defines the deceit that has corrupted the Catholic soul.

But the most damaging consequence of mandatory celibacy lies in its character as the pulse of clericalism. The repressively psychotic nature of this inbred culture of power has shown itself in the still festering abuse scandal. Lies, denial, arrogance, selfishness and cowardice -- such are the notes of the structure within which Catholic priests now live, however individually virtuous many of them nevertheless remain. Celibacy is that structure’s central pillar and must be removed. The Catholic people see this clearly. It is time for us to say so.