Narratives of Faith: Buddhism and Colonial Archaeology in Monsoon Asia

Abstract

In this paper, largely based on archaeological data, I argue that colonial intervention in 19th - 20th century South and Southeast Asia, a region that the French scholar Paul Mus termed Monsoon Asia, not only altered our understanding of monuments, essentially religious structures, from being abodes of god to objects of artistic and aesthetic appreciation, but also redefined the nature of Indic religions. Here I focus on Buddhism. Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893), the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India brought Buddhism to the forefront and established its study as a legitimate branch of scholarship in the second quarter of the 19th century. It is significant that many of Cunningham's formulations, such as his identification of places associated with the life of the Buddha, description of Buddha as a social reformer, the prominent role of the Mauryan ruler Asoka in spreading the faith and the degenerate nature of Buddhism after the 7th century AD continue to be repeated in secondary writings. In the latter part of this study I highlight the archaeology of one specific complex, the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya located on the Phalgu River, a tributary of the Ganga, 182 kilometres south of Patna, the capital of Bihar, but more significantly, the site where the Buddha attained Enlightenment. The objective is to comprehend the multi-layered narratives of religious architecture and the extent to which these were implicated in the politics of the colonial period.