Buddhist Reformist Movement in Sri Lanka Under the British Rule: Manufacturing of ‘Buddhist-Modern’ Subjects

Introduction

In nineteenth century Ceylon, Buddhist-modernity as well as the new middle class were in creation. Colonialism was transforming Sri Lankan society. The processual changes were taking place through the evolution of bureaucratic systems, education, transportation and communication, leading the society towards a whole new set of experiences. As a result of emerging economic and educational opportunities, the school-educated-English-speaking middle class was in creation. This new class was in search of a prominent identity and status on par with the materialising conditions. The caste-based social structures—which were fast losing their relevance—were not adequate to cater to the metamorphosing society.

In Sri Lanka, ‘Social class’ as it is understood today and largely delinked from caste was forming due to the proliferation of the plantation economy, liquor industry, roads and infrastructure, and other new economic opportunities that emerged due to colonial economic policies. While the forming middle class was in a prominent position in terms of wealth, the unsaid collective sense was that they needed to acquire more power in society; social status. In search of a prominent location within the emerging social hierarchy, the group started advocating the already existing Buddhist revivalist movement, quickly gaining popularity among the public. Earlier, the Buddhist revival movement was led by Buddhist monks. However, the rising middle class—equipped with western knowledge—transformed the ‘Buddhist revivalist movement’ into ‘Buddhist reformist movement’. The Buddhist revivalist movement attempted to restore the rapidly decaying Sinhala social framework, which manifested an organic union of social structure; śāsana (religion), and śāstra (learning). In turn, the reformist movement, formed under the theosophical society, attempted to ‘purify and reform Buddhism’.

Existing anthropological scholarship referred to the version of Buddhism that emerged in Sri Lanka following Buddhist reformism as ‘Protestant Buddhism’. The concept was initially presented by Gananath Obeyesekere, and was accepted by many anthropologists of that time, including Kithsiri Malagoda and George Bond. However, on the other hand some of the scholars also presented the same idea with minor modifications. Obeysekere (1970) concludes that, Protestant Buddhism reflected Protestant Christianity in both form and substance. This identification of ‘Buddhism’ as ‘Protestant’ was justified for several reasons; first, Protestant Buddhism has adopted characteristics from Protestantism. Second, similar to Protestantism in Europe, Protestant Buddhism was a revolutionary act against the existing religious practices and traditions—both Christianity and spirit religion. Third, the salient feature of the essence of Protestantism lies in the individual’s seeking their salvation without intermediaries (Obeyesekere and Gombrich 1988). Gombrich and Obeysekere identify several characteristics of protestant Buddhism including, Buddhism was not a religion but a philosophy and protestant Buddhism depends on English-language concepts (Obeyesekere and Gombrich 1988). Buddhist reformist movement used these characteristics to justify the use of Buddhism in modern subject creation.

Colonisation can have a varying degree of influence on different layers of society. The colonial society was changing in tandem with the changes taking place in Europe. From the late seventeenth century, Europe was going through material as well as ideological changes. The man-centred cosmic order was replacing the ‘God-centred’ cosmic order, making the idea of human well-being the core meaning of the universe (Zhao 2007). Parallel to the changes occurring in Europe, colonial societies experienced rapid socio-cultural and political changes. This paradigm shift influenced the colonies through education, bureaucratic systems, transportation and technological advances. Colonial Ceylon was gradually transforming itself into a ‘modern state’. The modern state had a distinct personality. The expanding bureaucratic systems had a significant but albeit varying, impact on colonial subjects. The temporality and the fragmented nature of the ‘colonised’ should be emphasised. Instead of locating the ‘colonised’ and the ‘coloniser’ in a meta-narrative of ‘colonisation’, one should understand these actors in a rather nuanced way.

Old systems and hierarchies in colonies were over-written by new ones. In the colonies, new changes occurred under the dominant political power enabling new possibilities and eradicating old possibilities. The modifications did not allow individual choices unconditionally but instead enlarged the choices conditioned through the ‘modern’ (Asad 1992). The ‘modern’ was involved in reforming the subjectivities and reorganising the social fields where these subjects were to act and be acted upon (Asad 1992). As per Asad (1992, 337), ‘the modern state—imperial, colonial, postcolonial—has been crucial to these processes of construction/destruction’. As a result of modern state-making, new social fields and modern subjectivities were emerging.

In this complex, I wish to answer what led the emerging middle class to be involved in the Buddhist reformist movement? Moreover, how were the middle class engaged in creating modern subjectivities? I do not wish to present a complete picture or the sole narrative or modern subject creation of Sri Lanka under colonial rule, instead to articulate one or few narratives under the process. The article’s main objective is to present how the Buddhist reformist movement, a composite of the new middle class, manufactured ‘Buddhist-modern’ subjects.

Creating ‘Our Own’ Modernity

What is modernity? Is there any difference between how modernity being perceived by the coloniser and the colonised? Can one understand the coloniser and the colonised as homogenous groups? In a nutshell, the coloniser and the colonised perceived modernisation differently. The way industrialisation and urbanisation crept into the colonised world differed greatly from that of the West. Western modernity was a gradual process that expanded and materialised with industrialisation and urbanisation (Doshi 2006, 16). While the West was directly undergoing the industrial revolution, the colonies were experiencing it in bits and pieces from afar. The pre-colonial world was already a hierarchical one. With colonisation, older hierarchies were weakening, and new ones were emerging. In this social–economic disarray, different community layers of the colony discern modernity differently.

Western modernity refers to urbanisation, industrialisation, democratisation and empirical–rational approach to knowledge (Wagner 1994, 3). At its simplest, modernity is a shorthand term for modern society or industrial civilisation. Western modernity is associated with—(a) a certain set of attitudes towards the world, the idea of the world as open to transformation by human intervention (Giddens and Pierson 1988, 94). Enlightenment changed the cosmos from ‘nature controlled’ to ‘man controlled’, and modern enlightenment sciences were the tool to control and change nature; (b) a complex of economic institutions, especially industrial production and market economy (Giddens and Pierson 1988, 94). The phenomena of industrialisation, mass production, working on time in the factories are all connected with an economic institution; (c) A specific range of political institutions, including the nation-state and mass democracy (Giddens and Pierson 1988, 94). The idea of ‘autonomous individual’ is connected to the notion of ‘citizen’ and, in turn to the representative democracy and nation-state. With the advent of modernity, the information systems are constructed to form a new method of administrative power; the modern state (Giddens and Pierson 1988, 96). Print capitalism enabled the rapid and widespread expansion of knowledge.

New technologies changed how people looked at themselves and society (Wickramasinghe 2006). In the colonies, British authorities and missionaries used printing to propagate Christianity and modern education. The Christian churches, missionary schools and printing press waged war against the Buddhist tradition and scripture (Blackburn 2010). The Buddhist revivalist movement, on the other hand, followed in the footsteps of the missionaries and began producing its own rebuttals to the anti-Buddhist charges. As per Wickramasinghe (2006, 74), a revived Buddhism fed upon the burgeoning print industry to reach out to the newly literate people and rip them away from the ‘heresies’ preached by the Christian missionaries. The relationship between time and space transformed with the advent of new systems of communication and transportation.

The ‘modern’, which the colonies encountered was not the same to which Europe was exposed to, but ‘our own’ (Chatterjee 1997). How did colonial states make the ‘modernity’ ‘ours’? As Chatterjee (1997) points out, universal modernity enables us to identify the forms of our ‘own’ particular modernity. The technologies of power which emerged with the modern state in Europe did not operate in the same manner in the colonies. According to Scott (1995), modern power in its colonial career may have performed by ‘rules of difference’ non-identical with those in its European career. The ‘universal domain of free discourse, unfettered by differences of race and ethnicity’ was alien to colonies, as colonial modernity is entangled with the history of colonialism (Chatterjee 1997). Thus, the ‘colonial state’ and the ‘modern state’ are not the same, or the ‘colonial’ state was not merely a part of European history (Scott 1995).

How do Buddhism and Ceylon come into this discourse of ‘our own’ modernity? As Uyangoda (2018, 180) argues, ‘Buddhism had reinvented itself in a modernist idiom to deal with social and political conditions in India and Sri Lanka’. Buddhism did not deter itself from reinventing under modernity but offered a ‘method of reason’ to create ‘our own’ modernity or, in other words, ‘Buddhist-modernity’. The ‘local modernity’ was not a linear process that trickled down to the East from the West. However, ‘local modernity’ was the product of a conversation between the East and the West. In the nineteenth century Ceylon, this dialogue was facilitated by ‘Buddhism’, and was enabled through western ‘modern science’.

The Sri Lankan Buddhist reformist movement employed Buddhism as the ‘method of reason’ to deal with modernity. As per Chatterjee (1997), ‘true modernity consists in determining the particular forms of modernity that are suitable in particular circumstances; that is applying the methods of reason to identify or invent the specific technology of modernity that are appropriate to our purpose’. While European modernity had its method of reason: ‘modern science’, the reformist movement of Ceylon identified and introduced Buddhism as their method of reason aligning with modern sciences. Buddhism was the knowledge system primarily available to Sri Lankan Sinhalese, which had a powerful sense of authority. The hegemony did not merely emerge from the Buddhist canon but from how the Buddhist canon was ‘philosophised’ by the European thinkers. The Buddhist reformist movement connected selected sections of Buddhist canon with aspects of ‘modern sciences’ and made a nexus; the ‘method of reason’ for ‘Sri Lankan’ modernity—Scientific Buddhism. The campaign claimed that modern science is unauthentic because the Buddha has already preached the basics of many western scientific theories back in his time. Scientific Buddhism was the technological tool for creating modern Sri Lankan subjects. The educated middle class, well-versed Western knowledge systems were clever enough to fuse ‘Buddhism’ with ‘modern sciences’. In the middle of the chaos of social metamorphising, the middle class elevated their ‘social status’ using ‘scientific Buddhism’ as their intellectual and political technology. The Buddhist reformist movement packaged and propagated Buddhism as the religion of the ‘modern subjects’ of Ceylon.

Disciplining of the Body

The ‘disciplining’ of the body emerged in modern Europe. Under modernity, the body enters into a mechanism of ‘political anatomy’, which was also a machinery of power, which explores the body, breaks it down, calculates, rearranges and manipulates its elements, gestures and behaviours (Foucault 1975, 137). This machinery of power ‘defined how one may have a hold over others’ bodies, not only so that they may do what one wishes, but so, that they may operate as one wishes, with the techniques, the speed, and the efficiency that one determines’ (Foucault 1975, 137). The disciplining of the body produces ‘docile’ bodies (Foucault 1975, 137).

The disciplining of the body occurred in the colonies. Both the coloniser and the decolonising movements—which identified themselves as ‘saviours’ of newly formed nations—engaged in the process of ‘disciplining’. The goal was to produce ‘productive bodies’.

The disciplinary technologies stemmed from the institutional forms such as schools, prisons, workplaces, and hospitals to forge a docile body that could be subjected, used, transformed and improved (Foucault 1975). This disciplining process is carried in several ways; functioning in a restricted space, following a strict schedule, standardisation of action over time, controlling the space through drills, and training the body (Foucault 1975). In a factory, the procedure facilitates productivity, in a school, it assures orderly behaviour, in a town, it reduces the risk of dangerous crowds, wandering vagabonds, or epidemic disease (Foucault 1975, 24). The orderly behaviour in closed spaces increased productivity and nurtured the ideology to sustain the functioning of ‘disciplined’ bodies. Discipline ‘produces’ individuals; it is the specific technique of a power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise.

How does this idea of producing disciplined bodies connect to the manufacturing of modern Buddhist subjects in British Ceylon? The reformist movement consisted of the western educated middle class. They were unable to question the authority of the ‘universal truth’ taught in the schools; ‘the modern sciences’. The rising middle class aspiring to power was unable to overlook the significance of Buddhism, which served as the mechanism for appeasing the populace. The new middle class aspired to be ‘local leaders’. Their ‘authentic locality’ was pronounced with Buddhism. Buddhism was the ‘method of reason’ in making Sri Lankan society ‘modern’ in ‘our own’ means. Buddhism was a resort to the newly introduced total institutions such as schools and workplaces and the unregulated public spaces. The emerging middle class leading the Buddhist reformist movement used closed spaces such as schools, industrial colleges, and industrial spaces to discipline the bodies. The modern social institutions operated as formal and mass scale machines of crafting and producing modern subjects. There were other informal spaces where scrutiny was difficult. To these unregulated spaces, the reformist movement introduced different methods of discipline.

Industrialisation and Capitalism in Making

It is difficult to engage in a discussion about ‘Buddhist-modernity’ without discussing ‘industrialisation’. The nineteenth century Ceylon saw a different form of industrialisation than Europe. However, some of the attributes of European industrialisation did appear on the Island. The colonisers used Sri Lankan artisans in construction, boat building, and furniture repairing (Jayawardena 2000, 20). The British gave due recognition to these skilled craftsmen (Jayawardena 2000, 21). These artisans found places in the colonial commercial world with government contracts and funds (Jayawardena 2000, 21). In British Ceylon, few local families were engaged in small-scale industries. The Hewavitarne family was one of the prominent families in the lot and was involved in manufacturing furniture and household equipment—one of the largest in Asia and called ‘Maple of the East’ (Mc Milan 1928, 473). The leading figure of the Ceylon Buddhist reformist movement, Anagarika Dharmapala, is from the Hewavitarne family. Anagarika Dharmapala was highly interested in establishing industrial schools on the Island. During his world tour, he visited and observed the industrial schools in Europe and the US. In Dharmapala’s diary, one can find many entries about his visits to industrial schools in the US (Dharmapala 1903).

Dharmapala was fascinated by the idea that the village is self-sufficient in energy. On 18 May 1904 he writes, ‘At Neel cottage…. Went to see the weavers and the brass workers. Spent an hour. The brass workers came to show the process of decorating in brass’. Dharmapala was enthusiastic about observing and learning about the education systems, especially how schools in the US and the west are interested in teaching children technical work. In one diary entry, he mentions Italy. He states that ‘Marconi and Pino are the two great electricians in the world who have invented the wireless telegraph instrument and the hygroscope. India and Sri Lanka are full of ignorant people’ (Dharmapala 1904). Dharmapala argues that Buddhism is compatible with ‘industrial people’. ‘Buddhism is poor man’s religion, admirably adapted for the agricultural and industrial people’ (Dharmapala 1904).

The Buddhist reformist movement, under the Mahabodhi Society, was keen on publishing both in English and Sinhala languages. One of their popular English language journals was; United Buddhist World. The United Buddhist World published the Vesak speech by Rai Bahadur Norendro Nath Sen, where he described Buddhist Kingdoms in India. These kingdoms flourished thousands of years back, ‘under the Buddhist kings, literature, arts, industries and science, and especially the medical science flourished to a degree beyond our power of calculation’ (United Buddhist World 1909, 94). As per Norendro Nath’s argument, which was encouraged by the Ceylon Buddhist Reformist Movement, thousands of years back, Buddhist kingdoms had immense knowledge on many ‘modern sciences’, which was beyond the measurable capacity of modern times.

The industrial schools were sponsored mainly by the Hewavitarne family (Dharmapala’s family), the Hewavitarne Weaving School at Rajagiriya, where weaving and kindred subjects were taught Hewavitarne Dyeing School at Peliyagoda. Both the institutions were managed by past scholars’ scholarship, founded by the same family (Mc Millan 1928, 474). The funds also worked in reverse logic. Buddhist missions were paths to make business links with foreign countries. Dharmapala searched for Buddhist links in Japan and India. As a result, Dharmapala found out that there is a possibility of making a business alliance with the Japanese business sector. Quoting Dharmapala, Kemper states that ‘other members of the Hewavitarne family thought similarly; his brother Edmund visited Japan to establish business connections’ (Kemper 2015, 155). The last act of Dharmapala’s life was setting apart thirty thousand rupees for the spread of industrial education in Sri Lanka (Kemper 2015). Dharmapala set this fund to send suitable Buddhist young men to Japan to learn industrial methods (Kemper 2015). Dharmapala looked forward to importing matchboxes from Japan through the family business, each emblazoned with the Mahabodhi Society Seal (Kemper 2015). The Mahabodhi society was, in a way, part of the family business. It was not a rare sight to see Don Karolis Appuhami and company advertisements in Sinhala Bauddhaya newspaper, which Mahabodhi Society published.

The Importance of the ‘Time’

Skilled labour and ‘modern bodies’ were fused under the ideology of ‘Buddhist reforms’. The bodies should be made for factory work, which operated within a time frame, as in Europe, according to a bell. The meaning of ‘time’ was redefined and became important in the development of the Buddhist-modern. The published material of the Buddhist reformist movement—both Sinhala and English—and the diary entries of Dharmapala emphasised the value of ‘time’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘being productive’. The European industrial revolution—advances in transportation and communication technologies—changed the idea of ‘time’ and acted upon ‘spaces’. Geographical spaces became closer, and time acquired a monetary value. ‘The users of these machines (car, tram, bicycle) were not only physically more mobile, but they could control and experience time in a way that was unthinkable before’ (Wickramasighe 2014: 05). The Enlightenment Sciences used ‘time’ to be ‘accurate’ in calculations. Some of the articles published in the Sinhala newspaper Sinhala Bauddhaya, explain the value of time—mixing it with Buddhism—and that one should not waste it (Sinhala Bauddhaya 1904). The article further talks about how ‘laziness’ can be one’s enemy and how being efficient can lead to a better life. In another article, ‘damned idlers ¹ are harmful to the country. Idlers in the country are increasing every day. As the idlers increase, the poverty of the masses also increases’ (Sinhala Bauddhaya 1909). In Dharmapala’s diaries, he continually talks about how lazy and inefficient his servants are. On 20 March (Tuesday) ‘went in the morning to Maligakanda, I used my umbrella to beat Jayasena. The servants were slow, and I had to scold them’ (Dharmapala Diary 1906). Dharmapala was a hard worker who only slept for four to five hours a day and had severe insomnia. In another diary entry Dharmapala mentions about the office assistant, ‘He comes at 9 a.m. Bathes at 11 a.m. Finishes his meals by 1.00 p.m. He works only 4 hours and during the time he chats, reads papers, etc’. (Dharmapala Diaries 1889). It is clearly shown that the ideas of ‘efficiency’ and ‘time management’ were essential to Dharmapala. The Buddhist Reformist Movement consists of the business-owning middle-class, actively manufacturing docile and disciplined bodies to feed into the emerging labour needs of their industries. Most importantly, these bodies are made out of ‘Buddhist-modern’ materials unique to the Sri Lankan context.

The ‘Autonomous Individual’

Modern age democracy and the market economy manufacture the ‘autonomous individual’. Individuals elect their representatives to govern bodies and perform and operate in the free market economies. The emergence and expansion of industrialisation gave birth to modern cities with industrial factories, where villages labour was attracted. The cities were hubs of the free market, where the autonomous individual, who was fast losing the traditional social networks, acted and was acted upon. The ‘individual’ or the ‘citizen’, gained power in modern democracies. The modern subjects are created ‘as capable of technological action, controlling his body and nature, and as autonomous towards his fellow human beings’ (Wagner 1994; 44–5). Modernity, which emerged under enlightenment encouraged the idea of ‘self-rule’ connecting the concepts of ‘liberty’ and ‘knowledge’ (Zhao 2007). Within this reorganisation of the self, the ‘free and knowledgeable subjects would strive towards the realisation of their nature, of reason, and common well-being’ (Wagner 1994, 9). Interestingly, the Buddhist reformist movement presented ‘Buddhism’ incompatible with the ideas of ‘autonomy’ and ‘individual’ then located Buddhism in the pedagogy of modern sciences. Dharmapala discusses about Buddha, ‘the Blessed One denounced every form of belief that destroyed individual activity. Dependence on a god helps to destroy self-reliance. A creator god has no place in the evolutionary scheme of the world’ (Dharmapala 1914). Dharmapala denies the idea of ‘dependence’ on a God, as God cannot be proved through Darwin’s notion of ‘evolution’. ‘The essence of genuine Buddhism is nothing but the striving for the deliverance from the evils of Samsara by each individual for himself’ (Sumangala 1913, 274). The liberation from samsara is assured through the modern ideas of ‘individuality’ and ‘liberation’.

In one of the articles in the United Buddhist World, the reformist author understands the idea of ‘forgiveness of sins’ is against the laws of cause and effect (United Buddhist World 1910, 464–5). The cause and effect are similar to ‘Karma’, and the individual is accountable for their acts. The ‘Buddhist-modern-individual’ is ‘free’ from the control of ‘superior/divine’ being or ‘independent’ or ‘autonomous’ as a citizen. The Buddhist-modern subject is manufactured by assembling the modern political-economic being—autonomous individual—with the modern scientific notion of reason, cause and effect. The idea of ‘autonomous individual’ is structurally indistinguishable from the discourse of ‘being free’ from the ‘colonial masters’. Buddhism was the ideological resistance to colonialism, which aligns with the modern western sciences and philosophies. The idea of ‘autonomous individual’ also connects with the concept of ‘modern democracy’ and the right of the citizen to elect representatives to govern on behalf. The movement makes an analogue between the modern democracies and the ancient Buddhist Kingdoms of India. ‘The Buddhist kings were not absolute rulers. The people elected them, and the people had the power to depose any sovereign who went against the people’s wishes (siṁhala bauddhayā 1909). The ancient Buddhist kingdoms had already been practicing the ‘science of governing’, which the ‘modern states’ are only now discovering.

Modern Education and Modern Subject Making

The majority of the lay members of the Buddhist reformist movement were products of modern western education. The British education system was two-fold; English medium education and the vernacular languages. English education promised upward social mobility in trade, government positions, social status, and high dowry value for a man (Bond 1988). After 1870, the colonial state withdrew from English education, except for Royal College, known initially as the Colombo Academy, and missionaries singlehandedly controlled the English education system (Wickramasinghe 2006, 75). Vernacular education, elementary, was controlled by the colonial government (Wickramasinghe 2006, 75). The English schools were the single point of entry to the ruling class and were fed with a world view based on English textbooks, the world of modern knowledge, and scientific advances (Wickramasinghe 2006, 75). The growth of the plantation economy gave birth to a new elite class who could afford to educate themselves in Sri Lanka and Europe.

The purpose of introducing modern education to the colony was to produce a class that could perform the roles assigned to them by the British (Bond 1980). Introduction of the modern education system has two effects on the society and Buddhism: (a) In most parts, The Buddhist monks controlled the traditional Sinhala educational system. Modern education replaced the long-established Sinhala educational system displacing the monks from teaching, one of their traditionally assigned duties; (b) The new modern education with Western and Christian curriculum alienated the new middle class from their Sinhala Buddhist heritage (Bond 1988, 16–7). Caste was replaced with the class as the avenue to power and status (Bond 1988). This emerging middle class turned to Christianity formally, while others stayed Buddhist, but only nominally (Bond 1988, 18). As per Buddha Sasana Commission Report, these English educated laymen, ‘a class of so-called Buddhists who did not go to the temple, did not know Buddhism, did not know the bhikkhus and considered Buddhist customs and practices as something to look down upon’ (Bond 1988). These middle-class lay Buddhists saw Buddhism as a ‘philosophy’ instead of a religion—a difference they learned from their western education (Bond 1988). Even though the growing middle class was adapting to western culture, the British did not allow them to become full compradors of colonial society (Bond 1988).

On the one hand, the new middle class was alienated from the general masses of the colony, and on the other hand, they were not part of the westerners (Bond 1988). The emerging middle class were alienated both from the locals and from the westerners and neither could they claim ownership to the British rule nor the local social status. Although being distanced from their Buddhist roots, Anglicised elites began to see Buddhism as a key to their appeal (Bond 1988, 22). These anglicised elites learned Buddhism and modern science as a subject in the school. They found Buddhism and modern sciences as the most appropriate domains to please both locals and Westerners. This group took over the leading roles of the Buddhist revivalist movement and transformed it into a Buddhist reformist movement.

The Buddhist schools managed mainly by the reformist movement were funded with arrack money. Mrs Jeramias Dias, born to the Rodrigo family of Panadura, who amassed wealth through arrack trade, donated one lakh of rupees to start a college for the Buddhist girls, qualified teachers from England and America were engaged in teaching (De Silva 2014). The same lady donated 12,000 LKR to build a Science laboratory at the Ananda College (United Buddhist World 1916, 168). Ironically, young Buddhist students benefited from the ‘arrack money’ with the blessing of the Buddhist reformist movement.

The Buddhist reformist movement established and regulated the Buddhist education institutions (pirivenas). These Buddhist education institutions were mostly the learning spaces of Buddhist monks and encouraged oriental studies, including Pali language, (United Buddhist World 1919). The institutions were incubators of the majority local culture, ‘Sinhala Buddhist’. The emerging middle class funded the Buddhist education institutions, making them the guardians of the ‘Sinhala Buddhist culture’. For example, Dharmapala’s grandfather, Don Karolis Hewavitarne, a successful businessman, donated the land to build Vidyodaya pirivena (Dharmapala 1927). The Hewavitarne family considered these institutions as part of their business. The ‘Maligakanda (Pirivana) was much of a family affair as H. Don Carolis and Company’ (Kemper 2015, 386). Many members of the Hewavitarne family were active members of the reformist movement; Dharmapala’s deceased brothers (1880, 1885 and 1915) had been significant supporters of the Mahabodhi Society (Kemper 2015). The local elites marked their presence in both oriental and western educational domains, pleasing both Westerners and locals. Modern education and Oriental studies that countered modern education were controlled, maintained and sustained by the same group—Buddhist reformists and local pioneers in commerce and trade.

Manufacturing of ‘Buddhist-Modern’ Subjects: Non-Institutional ‘Disciplining’

There was a need to change the entire social cosmos. At first, only modern institutions were used as incubators of manufacturing Buddhist subjects, and later unregulated spaces were congregated to the mission. The unregulated spaces—domestic and informal sectors—were difficult to manage due to the absence of a constant surveillance mechanism. In the absence of constant surveillance mechanisms, the reformist movement used hegemonic means to control the unregulated spaces.

The ‘unknown lands’ were discovered and controlled under the justification of ‘civilising the heathens’. The ‘duty’ of the colonial master is to tame the ‘untamed’, name the ‘undiscovered’ and ‘civilise’ the heathens with the promise of ‘healthy’, ‘improved’ local bodies based on the knowledge of western medicine. The entire process of civilisation was connected to the edifice of ‘modern science’. The colonial elites often rejected the fact that science is imported from the West. However, they shared positive and transformative powers of sciences and in a way that allied themselves with the imperialist officials (Seth 2009). In Ceylon, modern science was often presented with Buddhism, which was not merely a religion, but a ‘scientific’ and ‘philosophical’ knowledge system. As per that logic, ‘Science’ was not superior or wholly imported from the ‘West’, but was already found by Lord Buddha thousands of years back. The second generation of the developing middle class had the opportunity to pursue western education—either in British Sri Lanka or in the United Kingdom—and become medical physicians, engineers and other professionals. The mission of ‘civilising’ or ‘disciplining’ the local colonial body should be read against the background, where Buddhist reformist groups were actively engaged in ‘civilising’ or ‘taming the body’ of the ‘common man’ by often linking the understanding of the ‘correct behaviour’ with ‘scientific Buddhism’. The reformist movement produced a Buddhist-modern code of ethics or etiquette for the locals.

Further, the country’s consumption patterns changed rapidly; the conditions of the households changed, the use of furniture improved, dressing and sense of fashion altered, and sewing machines and gramophones became markers of social status (Denham 1911). The new middle class, primarily businessmen and estate owners, propagated a hegemonic ideology to sustain their wealth. This class used the Buddhist reformist movement in propagating ‘modernity’, ‘civilisation’ and ‘discipline’ as part of Buddhism. The discourse on modernity and civilising the body is partly based on ‘consumerism’, both services and goods; wearing clothes, keeping up with correct postures vis-à-vis the furniture one uses, cleanliness with soap, school education, use of hospitals, and so on. Thus, the ideological seeds that were essential to sustain the new class’s ‘wealth’ were planted through the Buddhist Reformist Movement. The base for the new science–economic endeavour was led through Buddhism.

Dharmapala was introduced to the European project of civilising the body through modern education and western culture. The colonial Europeans devised a sophisticated scheme of ‘civilising’, including moral and material advancement, to legitimise the invasion’s brutality (Mann 2004). This scheme was influenced by the ‘disciplining’ occurring in their motherlands (Mann 2004). In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the notion of ‘improvement of humankind’ was prevalent among the political and economic elites of Great Britain (Mann 2004, 15). The English middle class was in charge of the civilisation mission (Twell 2009). At the same time, in England, a new Methodist Christian movement was gaining traction, and early British civilising ideas were converted into more coherent ones (Mann 2004, 14). While the early Evangelical movement, led by the Anglican church, was fuelled by emotions, the newly formed Methodist church placed a greater emphasis on the rationality of the Gospel and created new forms of discipline and social behaviour (Mann 2004, 15). In the nineteenth century England, the upper-middle class supported the idea of ‘Victorian respectability’—which was more of a product of the Methodist Christian movement (Mann 2004). The notion of ‘civilising/disciplining’ the body which arose among the European middle-class drew certain ideas from the fifteenth century Dutch thinker Desiderius Erasmus (Elias 2000). Erasmus’ work is about people’s behaviour in society, particularly but not exclusively outward bodily propriety (Elias 2000, 48). The book is dedicated to a noble boy and guides young boys (Elias 2000). The impact of the ‘Victorian civilisation’ project trickled down to the British colonies; to ‘save the heathens’, introduce them to sanitary and hygienic practices and teach them correct postures. In the piece, the focus would not be how the British acted upon the bodies of the locals to discipline them but how the western-educated new elites of the colony were involved in disciplining the bodies of the local masses.

Most interestingly, in one of the diary entries, Dharmapala states that ‘to do good karma, man has to be civilised’ (10 August 1927). Dharmapala links the ‘civilising mission’ with Buddhism. For ‘man’ to do good karma, the person has to be ‘civilised’ first. As Kemper suggests,

In Dharmapala’s case, class consideration shaped his thinking about proper behaviour. The Buddhists with whom Dharmapala associated with, his immediate supporters, his family, and members of the Mahabodhi Society at home and abroad were in his judgement civilised people. So were the English people he encountered in London. The lower-class behavior of both colonial officials and Sinhala villagers owed to their lack of civilisation. (Kemper 2015, 24)

However, the important questions to ask is, what elements were included in the process of civilising, who all were involved in the process and what were the means used in the process.

Daily Routine of the Lay Buddhist

The Buddhist reformist movement suggested a daily routine for lay Buddhists. The routine drew from Buddhism as well as hygienic practices, which emerged with the advancement of medical science. Hygiene and sanitation became prominent with the advancement of medical science. Initially, the focus was on ‘curing’ and later on ‘preventing’. The knowledge paradigm in medicine and health shifted from the notion of treating the disease to the mission of sustaining the patient’s health (Foucault 1975). Since the mid-nineteenth century, urban hygiene and sanitation issues were on the municipal and medical agendas in Britain and British India (Mann 2004, 15). The Ceylon Buddhist reformist movement merged hygiene and sanitation with the ‘daily routine of Buddhist layman’. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Dharmapala produced a booklet called ‘Daily Routine of the Lay Buddhist’ ² (Gihi Dina Charyawa), given immense publicity by Sinhala Bauddhaya, the Sinhala newspaper published by Maha Bodhi Society. The word gihi is rooted in Buddhist literature as opposed to monkhood. The booklet starts with a general note about how a Buddhist should arrange their daily routines, including meditation, kindness to all the sentient beings, and then preaching one of the Suttas (Karaniya Metta Suthraya) before starting the daily chores. The daily routine was presented connecting to the Buddhist teachings.

The audience of this booklet was mostly those who cannot otherwise be captured under any regulated spaces. As Kemper suggests, this booklet, Gihi Dina Charyawa was Dharmapala’s (2015, 433) first attempt to ‘civilise’ the peasants. The book has twenty subtitles including, wearing clean clothes, good manners in the dining table, duties of a woman, duties of a donor to a monk. Every section has one or a few points which are related to hygiene and sanitation. Under the first section of the booklet, ‘Table Manners’, it states, one should wash face, hands and legs prior to eating, one should have a small towel or handkerchief on the lap when eating, one should not wipe lips and hands from the same sheet or handkerchief, one should not wipe the lips or hands from anyone else’s handkerchief or towel, one should not put their fingers inside the mouth or bite nails, dirty table cloth should not be used on a dining table and one should not drink from leftover water from other one’s glass. Under the section which explains ‘chewing beetle’, Dharmapala states that, after chewing beetle, one should not spit at the doorstep, in the train or on the road where people commute. There is a section for ‘wearing clean clothes’, where Dharmapala suggests that it does not matter how poor a person is, one should not wear dirty clothes but wear a fine white cubit cloth as the underwear and never should wear if it has sweat and should wash their clothes every day or once in two days, bathe every day and it is appropriate to keep face, chest, armpits clean, one should not talk or breathe from the mouth when they are in the toilet, should not let urine and faeces touch each other as it creates a toxic gas, after easing oneself, the entire area should be wiped and washed from water and after washing the hands one should clean their hands from soap or clay, one should not stand and urinate in public places or in front of people. The section on ‘how to behave in public meetings’ has some points about clean clothes.

There is a section for women. A wife should keep the entire house clean and neat and should facilitate her husband and children. As per Dharmapala’s booklet, children should keep themselves clean and should not spit on the roads. In the booklet, he suggests not spit on the road or in public places and be clean. Interestingly, Anagarika Dharmapala’s book advising laypeople how to behave on different occasions has many similarities with the earlier mentioned book by Desiderius Erasmus on how to be ‘civilised’.

Facilitating a Healthy Labour Force Through Unregulated Spaces

The colonial state was morphing into a nation-state. The wealthy and educated locals were eager to become the future leaders of the country. The future leaders and entrepreneurs aspired for a healthy labour force. The modern state is centred around the ‘population’. In the eighteenth century, the development of ‘population’ as an economic and political concern was one of the significant advances in the methods of power: population as wealth, the population as workforce or labour capacity, population balanced between its growth and the resources it possessed (Foucault 1978, 25). The government was dealing with ‘population’, its distinctive phenomena and peculiar variables: birth and death rates, life expectancy, fertility, condition of health, frequency of illnesses, patterns of dietary and habitation (Foucault 1978, 25). According to Foucault (1978, 25), States are inhabited based on their industry, products and other institutions, rather than the natural trend of propagation. The Buddhist reformist movement consisted of new elites, was busy transforming the country into a nation-state. The local elites created a ‘healthy labour force’ that can be employed in their industries and actively participated in the appearing market.

The ‘Buddhist-modern’ family should facilitate the production of a healthy and efficient labour force. The gendered roles should be compatible with the materialising new socio-economic structure. Women were occupied in the household chores, and, as per the booklet, they had to undertake the five Buddhist precepts and preach other Buddhist sermons which are relevant. If there are children, women should worship Buddha with the children. On full moon days, ³ women should go to the temple and observe Sil, ⁴ it is the woman’s duty to offer food for the monk who comes for alms. As per the booklet, women have to take care of their husbands and children, and she has to be kind to the children and the servants and protect her virtue. She should not be lazy; not waste time. Most interestingly, women should teach the children how to be courageous, not to be lazy, respect adults and teachers, and protect the village and the country. The woman is the crucial link to the next generation to create self-disciplined adults who can be assimilated into the labour force and market forces. The gender roles have been set clearly. The woman’s role was the unpaid caretaker of the family, the smallest unit in the modern capitalist world—in material and psychological means.

Under the section which advises the carters, it states that the carter should go to a temple at least once a week, should feed the cattle well and apply oil, gently rub the legs of the cattle after a journey, and should not scold the cattle with filthy words and should not cut the tail of the cattle. These ideas come from the Buddhist understanding of showing love and kindness (Maithriya) to all the animals. However, it is important to ask why Dharmapala has selected this specific vocation to impart advice. The number of carters expanded with the expansion of road networks (Jayawardena 2000), and carters were important in carrying goods from place to place since trains were not a popular means of transportation. The new entrepreneur class used carts to transport the goods and raw materials to relevant markets. In that sense, it is crucial and valuable to ‘discipline’ and ‘civilise’ the carters.

There is a section on village protection societies. Under this section, it is advised to village headmen and village monks to keep the village society members away from liquor, inappropriate sexual acts, lying, jealousy, dirty words, killing, and stealing. Furthermore, the village society should make village people, including the headmen, observe Sil on full moon Poya days and go to the temple at least once a week. In the section where he advised teachers, Dharmapala states that teachers should not smoke, take liquor, and consume beef or other low animals. ⁵ Teachers should go to the temple with students and observe Sil and teachers should teach the students to focus through a breathing meditation (Anapanasathiya). These sections align with the disciplining of the body and producing Buddhist modern subjects. The disciplined bodies are easy to control, obey the rules and productive in economic sense.

In every section, there are some points connecting Buddhism with everyday life or how to lay the foundation of everyday life based on Buddhism. All the ethics in the book are built upon the Buddhist meditation and five precepts. Meditation is connected with ‘concentration’ and ‘efficiency’, which is essential to create ‘productive modern subjects’. Dharmapala wanted the ‘Buddhist-modern subject’ to sustain newly emerged capitalism, which benefited his family and middle-class friends.

Conclusion

The Buddhist reformists of nineteenth century Ceylon were composite of the new middle class searching for power. They were lost as they could not locate themselves in orthodox social hierarchies where caste was prominent or British hierarchies where the race was dominant. This growing middle class attempted to gain power through direct means by contesting for elections and changing the masses’ ideology. While the first generation mainly contributed to the reformist movement through funds, the second generation was privileged enough to educate themselves abroad or local missionary schools. They were the ideological pillars—where they fused modern sciences with Buddhism—of the movement.

New trends, new thoughts, new ideas, new knowledge and new groups appeared in society. The world’s political, economic and cultural landscapes were shifting, and we were creating ‘our own modernity’. While European modernity had its method of reason: ‘science’, Sri Lankan modernity had its method of reason; ‘scientific Buddhism’. New ‘scientific’ models of the west were adapted into the emerging modern systems, schools, and workplaces on the Island. These models were often presented as ‘Buddhist-Scientific’. Many institutions were established under the Buddhist Reformist Movement: schools, hospitals, orphanages, and industrial schools. The funding for the movement came from both local as well as foreign middle-class well-wishers. The Hewavitarne family was one of the leading local funders of the movement. The unregulated spaces where the formal controlling apparatuses could not reach were manipulated through different means.

The sciences of enlightenment and Buddhism were connected with the ‘Modernisation project’. While the new middle class aspired to a higher position in the society by becoming the leaders of the locals, they could not escape from the western knowledge paradigm they were trapped in. In turn, they wanted to become proud members of the British colonial administration, where they were not given similar status with the British. To put it simply, this new elite class aspired to be both superiors to the locals and proud members of the ruling colonial layer. The group learned Buddhism in schools through textbooks—mostly translated to English by enthusiastic western scholars who saw east colonies as the ‘exotic orient’—similar to other sciences and art subjects. The knowledge production was funded by the East India Company, which used the newly produced knowledge to exploit the colonies. The Buddhist reformist movement was creating Buddhist-modernity, with ‘productive’, ‘healthy’ bodies or a labour force. While the Buddhist-modern subjects were easily and orderly manufactured in the regulated spaces of total institutions, the facilitating subjects were created in the unregulated domestic and informal sector spaces. The different mechanism was in place to cater for the different needs provoked by the new socio-political-economic structures. The entire mechanism led to the creation of ‘Buddhist-modern’ docile bodies which catered to the newly emerging economic structures. These subjects were the tools as well as regenerating units of the new political–economic structures. These Buddhist-modern subjects realised their strengths as skilled labour or as disciplined docile bodies in the very labour force materialising under the trade and manufacturing owned by the new middle-class, who were the very agents of the Buddhist reformism.