Colonial rule and the Buddhist revival
Under British and French rule, Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Burma and beyond answer missionary pressure with a revival that recasts Buddhism as rational, modern and national.
- Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo — Richard Gombrich, Routledge (1988)
- Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka — Anne M. Blackburn, University of Chicago Press (2010)
- The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott — Stephen Prothero, Indiana University Press (1996)
- The Making of Buddhist Modernism — David L. McMahan, Oxford University Press (2008)
In nineteenth-century Ceylon (Sri Lanka), British rule ended royal patronage of the Sangha and Christian missionaries ran most schools. In 1873, at Panadura, the monk Mohottivatte Gunananda debated Christian preachers in public and was widely judged the winner. Reports of the debate inspired the American Henry Steel Olcott, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, who arrived in 1880, took the precepts, founded Buddhist schools and helped design the Buddhist flag.
- The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott — Stephen Prothero, Indiana University Press (1996)
- Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo — Richard Gombrich, Routledge (1988)
- Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka — Anne M. Blackburn, University of Chicago Press (2010)
His protégé Anagarika Dharmapala founded the Maha Bodhi Society in 1891 to win back Bodh Gaya, then controlled by a Hindu abbot, and took Buddhism to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Reformers stressed reason, ethics and meditation over ritual, an approach scholars call “Protestant Buddhism” or Buddhist modernism.
- Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo — Richard Gombrich, Routledge (1988)
- The Making of Buddhist Modernism — David L. McMahan, Oxford University Press (2008)
In Burma, monks such as U Ottama joined the anti-colonial struggle, and lay meditation movements spread. Meanwhile European scholars, such as those of the Pali Text Society (1881), studied and translated the texts, shaping how the West imagined Buddhism.
- The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings — Donald S. Lopez Jr., HarperSanFrancisco (2001)
- The Making of Buddhist Modernism — David L. McMahan, Oxford University Press (2008)
Why it matters today
The revival created much of Buddhism as people know it today: the Buddhist flag, Buddhist Sunday schools, lay meditation, the image of Buddhism as a "scientific" religion, and the restored pilgrimage sites of India. It also tied Buddhism closely to national identity, for good and ill.