Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T06:04:04.884Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Idylls of the Buddh': Buddhist Modernism and Victorian Poetics in Colonial Ceylon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Sebastian Lecourt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay explores how Edwin Arnold's epic poem The Light of Asia (1879) popularized a formal analogy between Buddhism and Christianity. The poem was based on a series of missionary texts that had reshaped the Buddha's career into a close approximation of Jesus's in order to frame Buddhism as a fit object of Protestant conversion. Early anglophone readers in Sri Lanka, however, took it as evidence of Buddhism's equal stature and thus helped make The Light of Asia an international best seller and a touchstone for popular Buddhist nationalisms in the twentieth century. In this way Arnold's poem allows us to develop a more complex sense both of how literary forms globalize—how a literary construct can take on global purchase precisely because readers disagree over its meaning—and of the powerful role that specific literary media play in influencing these different interpretations.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 131 , Issue 3 , May 2016 , pp. 668 - 685
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Alexander, Sidney Arthur. Sakya-Muni: The Story of Buddha. Oxford: A. Thomas Shrimpton, 1887. Print.Google Scholar
Almond, Philip C. The British Discovery of Buddhism. New York: Cambridge UP, 1988. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altman, Rick. Film/Genre. London: British Film Inst., 1999. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Edwin. India Revisited. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1886. Print.Google Scholar
Arnold, Edwin. The Light of Asia; or, The Great Renunciation, Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and Founder of Buddhism (As Told in Verse by an Indian Buddhist). 1879. London: Trübner, 1885. Print.Google Scholar
Arnold, Edwin. The Light of the World; or, The Great Consummation. London: Longmans, Green, 1891. Print.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993. Print.Google Scholar
Bakker, Freek L. The Challenge of the Silver Screen: An Analysis of the Cinematic Portraits of Jesus, Rama, Buddha, and Muhammad. Boston: Brill, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Barber, Karin. “Introduction: Hidden Innovators in Africa.” Africa's Hidden Histories: Everyday Literacy and Making the Self. Ed. Barber, . Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2006. 1–24. Print.
Beal, Samuel. The Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese. London: Trübner, 1871. Print.Google Scholar
Bechert, Heinz. Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Ländern des Theravāda Buddhismus. Vol. 1. Frankfurt: Metzner, 1966. Print.Google Scholar
Berkwitz, Stephen C. “Buddhism in Sri Lanka: Practice, Protest, and Preservation.” Buddhism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives. Ed. Berkwitz, . Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2006. 45–72. Print.Google Scholar
Berkwitz, Stephen C. Buddhist Poetry and Colonialism: Alagiyavanna and the Portuguese in Sri Lanka. New York: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigandet, Paul Ambrose. The Life, or Legend, of Gaudama, the Budha of the Burmese. Rangoon: Pegu, 1858. Print.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Anne M. Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, Anne M. Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boes, Tobias. Formative Fictions: Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Bildungsroman. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Bond, George. The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka: Religious Tradition, Reinterpretation, and Response. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Chitnis, Suma. “Gearing a Colonial System of Education to Take Independent India towards Development.” Higher Education 26.1 (1993): 21–41. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, J. J. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Clausen, Christopher. “Sir Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia and Its Reception.” Literature East and West 17 (1973): 174–91. Print.Google Scholar
Cohen, Ralph. “History and Genre.” NLH 17 (1986): 203–18. Print.Google Scholar
Collins, Stephen. “What Is Literature in Pali?” Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Ed. Pollock, Sheldon. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003. 649–88. Print.Google Scholar
Courtney, W. L. “Socrates, Buddha, and Christ.” North American Review 140 (1885): 63–77. Print.Google Scholar
Dentith, Simon. Epic and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Britain. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devitt, Amy J. “Integrating Rhetorical and Literary Theories of Genre.” College English 62 (2000): 696–718. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dharmapala, Anagarika. Return to Righteousness: A Collection of Speeches, Essays, and Letters of the Anagarika Dharmapala. Ed. Guruge, Ananda. Colombo: Government, 1965. Print.Google Scholar
Dillingham, William B. Melville and His Circle: The Last Years. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Dimock, Wai Chee. Through Other Continents: American Literature across Deep Time. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Duff, David. Modern Genre Theory. London: Longman, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Esty, Jed. Unseasonable Youth: Modernism, Colonialism, and the Fiction of Development. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Fernando, Chitra. “English and Sinhala Bilingualism in Sri Lanka.” Language in Society 6.3 (1977): 341–60. Print.Google Scholar
Franklin, J. Jeffrey. The Lotus and the Lion: Buddhism and the British Empire. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Freadman, Anne. “Anyone for Tennis?” Genre and the New Rhetoric. Ed. Freedman, Aviva and Medway, Peter. London: Taylor, 1994. 43–66. Print.Google Scholar
Freadman, Anne. “Uptake.” The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre. Ed. Coe, R., Lingard, L., and Teslenko, T. Creskill: Hampton, 2002. 39–53. Print.Google Scholar
Gatrall, Jefferson. “The Color of His Hair: Nineteenth-Century Literary Portraits of the Historical Jesus.” NOVEL 42.1 (2009): 109–30. Print.Google Scholar
Gibson, Mary Ellis. Indian Angles: English Verse in Colonial India from Jones to Tagore. Athens: Ohio UP, 2011. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gombrich, Richard, and Obeyesekere, Gananath. Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Gooneratne, Yasmine. English Literature in Ceylon, 1815-1878. Dehiwala: Tisara Prakasakavo, 1968. Print.Google Scholar
Gooneratne, Yasmine. “A Perspective on the Poetry of Sri Lanka.” Journal of South Asian Literature 12.1-2 (1976): 1–4. Print.Google Scholar
Graham, Colin. Ideologies of Epic: Nation, Empire, and Victorian Epic Poetry. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Hallisey, Charles. “Roads Taken and Not Taken in the Study of Theravada Buddhism.” Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism. Ed. Lopez, Donald S. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995. 31–61. Print.Google Scholar
Hallisey, Charles. “Works and Persons in Sinhala Literary Culture.” Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Ed. Pollock, Sheldon. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003. 689–746. Print.Google Scholar
Hardy, R. Spence. A Manual of Buddhism, in Its Modern Development. London: Partridge and Oakley, 1853. Print.Google Scholar
Harris, Elizabeth J. Theravada Buddhism and the British Encounter. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmeyr, Isabel. The Portable Bunyan. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaffe, Richard M. “Seeking Sakyamuni: Travel and the Reconstruction of Japanese Buddhism.” Journal of Japanese Studies 30.1 (2004): 65–96. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keane, Webb. Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley: U of California P, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Kinnard, Jacob. “When Is the Buddha Not the Buddha? The Hindu/Buddhist Battle over Bodhgayā and Its Buddha Image.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 66.4 (1998): 817–39. Print.Google Scholar
Ledger-Lomas, Michael. “The Great Consummation: Christ and the Epic in the Later Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Victorian Culture 14 (2009): 173–89. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leighton, Angela. On Form: Poetry, Aestheticism, and the Legacy of a Word. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Levine, Caroline. Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2015. Print.Google Scholar
The Light of Asia. Dir. Franz Osten and Himansu Rai. Perf. Himansu Rai, Seeta Devi, and Sarada Ukil. Emelka, 1925. Film.Google Scholar
“The Light of Asia.” Spectator 57 (1884): 1523. Print.Google Scholar
“Lord Byron as a Buddhist.” The Buddhist 2.1 (1889): 1. Print.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas. Art as a Social System. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Saba. “Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire: The Politics of Islamic Reformation.” Public Culture 18.2 (2006): 323–47. Print.Google Scholar
Malalgoda, Kitsiri. Buddhism in Sinhalese Society, 1750-1900. Berkeley: U of California P, 1976. Print.Google Scholar
McCutcheon, Russell. Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
McMahan, David. The Making of Buddhist Modernism. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Miller, Carolyn R. “Genre as Social Action.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151–67. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moretti, Franco. “Conjectures on World Literature.” New Left Review 1 (2000): 54–68. Print.Google Scholar
Niles, Henry T. The Dawn and the Day; or, The Buddha and the Christ. Toledo, 1894. Print.Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, Gananath. “Religious Symbolism and Political Change in Ceylon.” Modern Ceylon Studies 1 (1970): 43–63. Print.Google Scholar
Parry, Benita. “Problems in Current Theories of Colonial Discourse.” Oxford Literary Review 9.1-2 (1987): 27–58. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Richard. The Story of Gautama Buddha and His Creed: An Epic. London: Longmans, Green, 1871. Print.Google Scholar
“Poetical Extracts.” The Buddhist 3.31 (1891): 1. Print.Google Scholar
“Poetical Extracts.” The Buddhist 4.6 (1892): 1. Print.Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Berkeley: U of California P, 2006. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prothero, Stephen. The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Qualls, Barry V. The Secular Pilgrims of Victorian Fiction. New York: Cambridge UP, 1982. Print.Google Scholar
Rancière, Jacques. Aesthetics and Its Discontents. Trans. Corcoran, Steven. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
“The Reception of Mr. Edwin Arnold, C.S.I., by the Buddhists at the Pali Vidyodaya College, Maligakanda.” Weekly Ceylon Observer and Summary of Intelligence 26.6 (1886): 123–24. Print.Google Scholar
Rhys Davids, T. W. Buddhism: Being a Sketch of the Life and Teachings of Gautama, the Buddha. 1877. London: Soc. for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1887. Print.Google Scholar
Root, E. D. Sakya Buddha: A Versified, Annotated Narrative of His Life and Teachings; with an Excursus Containing Citations from the Dhammapada, or Buddhist Canon. New York: Charles B. Somerby, 1880. Print.Google Scholar
Russell, David R. “Rethinking Genre in School and Society: An Activity Theory Analysis.” Written Communication 14.4 (1997): 504–54. Print.Google Scholar
Saha, Subhas Chandra. Indian Renaissance and Indian English Poetry. Delhi: Prestige, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Seneviratne, H. L. The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
“The Singhalese and Mr. Rhys Davids.” Overland Ceylon Observer and Fortnightly Summary of Intelligence (1873): 224. Print.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Joseph. Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law. New York: Fordham UP, 2007. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, Herbert. Epic: Britain's Heroic Muse, 1790-1910. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tweed, Thomas A. The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1992. Print.Google Scholar
Veidlinger, Daniel M. Spreading the Dhamma: Writing, Orality, and Textual Transmission in Buddhist Northern Thailand. Honolulu: U of Hawai'i P, 2006. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, William Cleaver. Edwin Arnold as Poetizer and Paganizer. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1884. Print.Google Scholar
Wright, Brooks. Interpreter of Buddhism to the West: Sir Edwin Arnold. New York: Bookman, 1957. Print.Google Scholar
Yohannan, John D. “The Fin de Siècle Cult of FitzGerald's The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004. 5–19. Print.Google Scholar
Young, R. F., and Somaratna, G. P. V. Vain Debates: The Buddhist-Christian Controversies of Nineteenth-Century Ceylon. Vienna: De Nobili Research Lib., 1996. Print.Google Scholar