Colonial Challenges and Buddhist Revival 237caste name. In 1886 he published a manifesto arguing that Dalits
were not Hindus. And in 1891, he came in open conflict with the
nationalist movement when he attempted to bring a petition for the
removal of caste distinctions before the National Congress. At a
public meeting, demands for temple entry were rejected with outcries
from Brahman nationalists that ‘you have your own gods, Vishnu
and Shiva are not for you!’ (Aloysius 1998: 152).
By 1890 Iyothee Thass had become convinced, through studies
of his own, of the truth and significance of Buddhism. He sought
out Colonel Olcott of the Theosophical society, at that time running
a number of ‘free schools’ in Madras. In 1898 he went to Sri Lanka
along with one P. Krishnaswamy a teacher in one of the ‘free
schools’. As Olcott records in his diary, ‘they represented that their
race was the aborigines of this part of India, and at the time of the
Emperor Asoka, they were Buddhists’ (quoted Aloysius 1998: 51).
The Dalit representatives received a warm welcome, and on their
return established the Sakya Buddhist Society. The very name
indicates a claim to heritage, for they believed that the Valluva
Sakya subcaste of Paraiyas were descendents of Siddhartha’s own
Sakya clan.
The Sakya Buddhist Society (also known as the South Indian
Buddhist Association) attracted both Dalits and non-Dalits, but
found its mass base in Paraiyas, and spread whereever these were
migrating as labourers in the world market under colonalism—to
Burma, to South Africa. In India itself, the longest-living branch
was that established in the Kolar Gold Fields, where Paraiyas
worked as miners.
Many aspects of Iyothee Thass’ interpretation of history were
similar to Phule’s. Like Phule, Iyothee Thass used the ‘Aryan theory’
in reverse, characterising Brahmans as the ‘Aryan mlecchas’ who
had entered the country and enslaved what had been a free, equal-
itarian and prosperous people. Like others in the developing
Dravidian movement, he identified ‘Non-Aryan’ with Dravidian or
Tamil, seeing Buddhism as their ancient religion, spread through-
out the subcontinent. Iyothee Thass’ approach, however was
slightly different from that of Phule. In contrast to Phule’s emphasis
on conquest and subordination, Iyothee Thass emphasised the
infiltration of the ‘Arya-mlecchas’, and their takeover of what were
originally indigenous Tamil contributions. Thus the ‘Vedas’ were
identified as originally Buddhist oral ethical books; various popularBuddha’s life. Kosambi also made an effort to popularise
Buddhism, and spent some time trying to start a vihara in Bombay,
the Bahujan Vihara, which was designed to appeal to the Bombay
working class (ibid.: 389–399). Dharmananda’s son was the famous
D.D. Kosambi, still considered the leading Marxist historian of
India.
The major breakthrough in the mass revival of Buddhism in the
land of its birth took place, however, in Tamil Nadu. The credit for
this goes to a remarkable Dalit leader, Pandit Iyothee Thass—who
carried on the search for religious identity begun by Phule, and
took it to the revival of Buddhism itself. With Iyothee Thass, the
Buddhist revival leapt over the boundaries of bhadralok and
Brahman intellectual interest, and established itself among the
primarily Dalit masses in the context of the assertion of a Tamil,
non-Hindu identity.
Iyothee Thass and Sakya
Buddhism in Tamil Nadu
The life of Pandit Iyothee Thass (1845–1914) shows a remarkable
convergence of many themes: the great Dravidian movement in
south India, the firm equalitarianism and Enlightenment heritage
pioneered by Phule, and finally the re-establishment of Buddhism
in India, this time as the religion of Dalits.
Iyothee Thass was a Paraiya, trained as a traditional Tamil
Siddha physician—which itself had its roots in Tantra and in
Buddhism. His search for spiritual alternatives began quite early. In
1870, at the age of 25, he organised the lower castes of the Nilgiris
region into an Advaithananda Sabha, with a view to examining
the Advaita tradition as a resource for overcoming caste and varna
disabilities. But, due to an experience of rejection by upper caste
Hindus, Advaita was seen as insufficient. And, in contrast to Phule,
there had been enough revival of Buddhism and availability of
Buddhist ideas by the end of the 19th century for Iyothee Thass to
turn to the Dhamma as an alternative to the Brahmanic varnashrama
dharma. Thus he began to take an interest in Buddhism.
Iyothee Thass had from early years challenged the caste system.
In 1881 he demanded that the original inhabitants (that is, Dalits)
be recorded in the census as ‘original Tamils’ rather than by their
236 Buddhism in India