The Politics of Anagārika Dharmapāla and Its Aftermath

Abstract

Anagārika Dharmapāla is primarily known in India for having begun an aggressive campaign for the restoration of the Mahābodhi Temple with the Buddhists led by him. For this purpose, he founded the Maha Bodhi Society in 1891 and began publishing The Maha Bodhi journal. In line with the anti-Hindu propaganda of the Victorian Indologists, Dharmapāla in both his writings and speeches, unequivocally contested the multireligious history of the Mahābodhi Temple. Dharmapāla was also behind inspiring a mass movement of South India’s low caste Tamils to embrace Buddhism. He and Iyothee Thass urged the dalits during the 1891 census to register themselves as “casteless Dravidians.” Notably, this mass movement of Tamil dalits to embrace Buddhism, inspired by Dharmapāla, occurred half a century before Ambedkar. To the Sri Lankans Dharmapāla is known for the revival of Buddhism and as an ardent Sinhala nationalist patriot. Before Dharmapāla began his campaign, Hindu-Buddhist conflict was unheard of at Bodh Gaya. He threw an open challenge to the mahant his proprietorship of the Mahābodhi Temple. However, after failing to evict the Śaivite mahant by buying him out, on 25 February 1895, he and his associates attempted to install a Japanese image of the Buddha in the Temple. However, Dharmapāla was thwarted in his attempt by the mahant. Thereafter, he went to the court of law. The Calcutta High Court in its judgment of 22 August 1895 announced that though the temple was the property of the mahant, the Buddhists, like the Hindus, had the right to perform worship at the temple. After the court judgement, Lord Curzon decided that the temple “would be held in trust by the government.” Later in 1920, Dharmapāla took the matter to the Indian National Congress which found it impossible to handle the issue as the freedom movement itself had been affected by communalism. After independence, the Bodh Gaya Temple Act, 1949 was passed on 19 June 1949 and the government of Bihar assumed responsibility for the management of the temple. In 2002, the Mahābodhi Temple became a designated World Heritage site. The Bodh Gaya Temple (Amendment) Act 2013 allowed the Gaya District Magistrate to be the Chairman of the Temple Management Committee, irrespective of her/his religious affiliation. Though people of all Indic faiths are still free to pray and worship at the Mahābodhi Temple, they do so as if it were now only a Buddhist shrine.