Buddhism in India

Colonial Challenges and Buddhist Revival 227

Too much are the miseries of living beings,

How can one tolerate it?

Let my soul go to hell

So that the world may be redeemed (Raj Kumar 1995).

According to many scholars, the Mahima Dharma movement not

only represented the social protest of a wide section of the oppressed

in Orissa, but because of its serious challenge to the varna order,

the elite was ‘terrified of it and located it with apocalyptic visions’

(Pati 2001: 4207). That there was some reality behind this fear is

shown in a famous mass protest that took place in 1881. This

focused on the famous temple of Jagannath at Puri, which had been

the center of ‘Oriya’ identity since the medieval period. Part of the

‘crypto-Buddhism’ discussed in the last chapter was expressed in

the identification of Jagannath with Buddhism, with the three

images described as ‘Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha’. This was the

background of the protest of a section of the Mahima Dharma cult.

A group of 12 men and three women, with a leader described as

Dasaram, became involved in a rebellion against priestly control of

the temple. After a long ‘march’ that gained much publicity, people

entered the temple. The fanatic fear of the elite was shown in

reports later that they had had the intention of taking out the idol

and burning it. It seems that in fact the group had only carried a

pot of boiled rice and wanted to eat it in the temple—a symbol of

the breaking of caste restrictions. Popular tradition ever since has

associated Bhima Bhoi as the leader of this movement. This was an

early ‘direct action’, challenging the exclusion of low castes from

major temples. It seems very mild in comparison to the hysteria it

provoked in the press of the time and the legendary quality it has

gained in Orissa—but its importance is in its being a precursor

of more thoroughgoing and ideologically articulated anti-caste

movements.

Jotiba Phule: The Universal

Religion of Truth

Jotirao Phule (1827–1890) is considered a founder not only of the

anti-caste movement in India as a whole, but also of the farmers’

movement and even the women’s movement in Maharashtra. He

Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs in both western and coastal Orissa. It
provided an alternative to conversion to Christianity for seekers
of equality; it also had a missionary element; its revolt was uncon-
cerned with colonialism and directed instead against the varna
order (Pati 2001).
Bhima Bhoi, a poet who became the most famous follower of the
movement, had been adopted into a Khond (Adivasi) family and
was said to have been blind from birth, was converted in the 1860s.
He met opposition from Brahmans, and was beaten up in his own
village for begging for cooked food. He was also part of a major
faction within the Mahima Dharma movement. Mahima Swami
died in 1876 and after that there was a split, with Bhima Bhoi and
a group of kaupinadharisbuilding their own ashram (Eschmann
1978; Tripathi 1978).
Bhima Bhoi’s work includes poetry, many Mahima bhajans, and
several books. His writing stresses the welfare of the poor and
downtrodden, and carries echoes of Mahayana Buddhism and the
Bodhisattva ideal, especially as expressed by the 8th century Gujarati
poet Shantideva, whose Sanskrit poetic work Bodhicaryavarta,
famous throughout the Buddhist world up to China and Japan,
concludes,

May all those everywhere who are suffering bodily or mental pain

obtain oceans of happiness and delight through my merits.

May the blind see forms. May the deaf always hear.

May pregnant women give birth without pain, like Mayadevi.

May all have clothes, food, drink, ornaments of garlands and

sandal-wood

—whatever the mind desires that is good.

May the sick be well. May the weak be strong.

May all be released from bondage. May all have affectionate thoughts

for each other.

May all beings have unlimited life spans. May they always live

happily.

May even the word ‘death’ vanish!

For as long as space endures and the world exists,

may my own existence bring about the removal of the world’s suffering’

(X.2, 19–20, 22, 33, 55).

This statement of the Bodhisattva ideal was carried to an extreme
in the most famous and widely quoted verse of Bhima Bhoi:

226 Buddhism in India