Chapter 5. Dharmapala and the British Empire

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Steven Kemper

Published:

2014

Publisher:

University of Chicago Press

Abstract The British Empire was another universalizing project, and Dharmapala's movements around the Empire produced an encounter between competing projects, one Buddhist and moralizing, the other British and legalizing. An overlooked part of Dharmapala's life was his attempt to civilize village life and enhance its cleanliness and hygiene, not to rationalize village practice or make villagers Protestant Buddhists. Instead those efforts sought to give Sinhala people British recognition and respect. In this context Dharmapala appears as the loyal opponent of imperial rule. His sojourn in London from 1925–27 was an attempt to present the Buddha's teachings in the metropole. But it was also an attempt to present an alternative form of civilization, Asian and Buddhist. The Empire was an interactive system. Giving Londoners Buddhism was a civilizing mission in the heart of Empire and an attempt to make them more compassionate to India and Sri Lanka.

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