Blavatsky Et Al And Sri Lanka

[hermespan]

I was surprised to learn that the American based Theosophical Society of the late nineteenth century inspired a revival in Theravada Buddhism. So, western influences on Eastern religions/philosophies is not new.

[huli]

I, for one, wonder how anything non-Buddhist and American-based could affect anything in Theravada Buddhism, especially in the last century. Where can I learn more about this?

It is my understanding that the Theosophical Society has or had a headquarters in India at Adyar early this century. They were a very interesting group, still well-known, chiefly for being the "finders" of Krishnamurti.

But neither he, nor the Theosophists, were Buddhists, so I can't imagine how they would affect Buddhism. What say you?

[Several]

I visited the TS bookshop in Melbourne. Its fantastic. Literature on every religion there is or was, just browsing through the shelves you discover all sorts of gems. The Buddhism section is huge. First time I went I found a great little book on Bodhidharma. Not surprising that people 'discovered' Theraveda on their shelves. You go in looking for one thing and come out carrying three others you never heard of. I never got involved with the society itself. The staff were all really helpful and the shop always had a healthy patronage (Despite the fact its hidden away up on the third floor of an old office building).

[Xangsamhua]

Thank you, Hermespan for bringing up the topic of the Buddhist revival in Ceylon and Madame Blavatsky's and Colonel Olcott's involvement in it.

It was Colonel Olcott more than Madame Blavatsky that played an important role in the revival. When the two of them arrived in Galle in 1880 they took refuge in the Triple Gem, becoming the first Westerners to publicly do so. Mme Blavatsky returned to India, but Olcott came back to Ceylon the following year and soon became involved in the Buddhist Revival there. However, as Stephen Protheroe (author of God is Not One) points out:

Despite claims that Olcott initiated the Sinhalese Buddhist Revival, his connection with the movement was, as he himself recognized, neither as originator (credit Mohottivatte Gunananda) nor as culminator (credit Anagarika Dharmapala) but as organizer and articulator. It was Olcott who agitated for Buddhist civil rights, and who gave the revival its organizational shape by founding voluntary associations, publishing and distributing tracts, and, perhaps most important, establishing schools. It was he who articulated most eloquently the "Protestant Buddhism" synthesis. The most Protestant of all early "Protestant Buddhists," Olcott was a culture broker with one foot planted in traditional Sinhalese Buddhism and the other in liberal American Protestantism. By creatively combining these two sources, along with other influences such as theosophy, academic Orientalism, and metropolitan gentility, he helped to craft a new form of Buddhism that thrives today not only in Sri Lanka but also in the United States. http://aryasangha.or...tt-prothero.htm

The Theosophical Society draws on Eastern mysticism and esoteric Buddhism, Hinduism and Sufism. However, although largely a Western phenomenon, its early headquarters were and are still in Adyar, a district in Chennai (Madras). Theosophy also draws on Western mysticism and esoteric religious and philosophical thought. It sits in the mainstream of Perennial Philosophy and has no core doctrines as such. It is non-dogmatic, though a believer in karma would be much more at home in it than an evangelical Christian. The Society publishes extensively Theosophical and non-Theosophical works through its publishing house, Quest Books.

I think a practising Buddhist who is not philosophically dogmatic and who enjoys exploring philosophical questions would feel comfortable in Theosophical study circles and lectures. "Theosophy", meaning "divine wisdom", is closer to Vedanta than Theravada agnosticism, but this didn't seem to worry Olcott and Blavatsky or their Sinhalese hosts.

There's a long thoroughfare in Colombo named after Colonel Olcott. From memory, it runs for quite some distance between the main shopping and business precinct and the Fort railway station. It's Olcott Mawatha (Olcott Road).

Several, I used to visit the TS Bookshop in my university days when it was still located next to the Regent Theatre in Collins Street in the old Theosophical Society building. When I left the Melbourne Catholic Education Office in 1986 to relocate to Queensland my colleagues gave me a generous voucher for purchases at the new TS Bookshop in Russell Street. They knew my interests, and, in those days at any rate, Catholics were not discouraged from looking into other traditions.

[nidieunimaitre]

Too bad that the those americans could not plant enough buddhist seeds in Sri Lanka, as became painfully obvious during the civil war in Sri Lanka.

[Xangsamhua]

Too bad that the those americans could not plant enough buddhist seeds in Sri Lanka, as became painfully obvious during the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Cool username, NDNM.

[nidieunimaitre]

Too bad that the those americans could not plant enough buddhist seeds in Sri Lanka, as became painfully obvious during the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Cool username, NDNM.

cool answer, no NDNM because i do not know what that means ( is it a religious thing?)

Edited September 19, 2012 by nidieunimaitre

[nidieunimaitre]

I can not understand how somebody can call himself a buddhist, and speak about buddhism in Sri Lanka.

100.000 hindus were massacred, most of them civilians.

Reincarnation??? Not kill animals???

I do not mean to redicule your buddhist conviction (I assume you are an honest man), but please do not refer to Sri Lanka in connection with true buddhism.

What true buddhism is, is a matter for debate.

That Sri Lanka (or Thailand) are true buddhist states is NOT a matter for debate.

Edited September 19, 2012 by nidieunimaitre

[Xangsamhua]

Too bad that the those americans could not plant enough buddhist seeds in Sri Lanka, as became painfully obvious during the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Cool username, NDNM.

cool answer, no NDNM because i do not know what that means ( is it a religious thing?)

"Ni dieu, ni maitre" ("neither God nor master"). I shortened it to NDNM.

From Wikipedia, Anarchism and religion:

Anarchists "are generally non-religious and are frequently anti-religious, and the standard anarchist slogan is the phrase coined by the (non-anarchist) socialist Auguste Blanqui in 1880: `Ni Dieu ni maître!’ (Neither God nor master!).

[Xangsamhua]

Yes, it seems that ethnocentrism may have trumped the Buddhadharma in the Sri Lankan civil war.

Mind you, I don't know a lot about it, but have heard that some of the clergy expressed some bloodcurdling views.

But I don't know that we could blame Colonel Olcott or the other Buddhist revivalists for that.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Xangsamhua

[nidieunimaitre]

Yes, it seems that ethnocentrism may have trumped the Buddhadharma in the Sri Lankan civil war.

Mind you, I don't know a lot about it, but have heard that some of the clergy expressed some bloodcurdling views.

But I don't know that we could blame Colonel Olcott or the other Buddhist revivalists for that.

I fully agree about that colonel.

But I do blame people who can mention buddhism (or any other religion) without blinking an eye.

[Rancid]

Both Alcott and Blavatsky became Buddhists at the same time. Alcott had undertaken to help revive Buddhism back then.

Buddhism is largely a moral code, Theosophy is much larger in scope as deals with how the universe forms and humanities evolution and part in that.

Blavatsky was unsurprisingly maligned by Christian groups, but she did largely introduce the concepts of karma and reincarnation to the west. Read her The Secret Doctrine (original not the revised version) and see if you dont find it both challenging and thought provoking.

[Orton Rd]

Alcott was a child abuser and Blavatsky a fraudulent medium. They thought they had found the new messiah in Khrisnamurti but he soon abandoned them, and the clutches of Alcott. Was into all this rubbish in the early 70's but thankfully forgotten most of it. Annie Bessant was another one and Alice Baily's with her impenetrable books about this cobbled together mysticism.  

[Rancid]

On 8/6/2020 at 8:15 PM, Orton Rd said:

Alcott was a child abuser and Blavatsky a fraudulent medium. They thought they had found the new messiah in Khrisnamurti but he soon abandoned them, and the clutches of Alcott. Was into all this rubbish in the early 70's but thankfully forgotten most of it. Annie Bessant was another one and Alice Baily's with her impenetrable books about this cobbled together mysticism.  

This is a bit of a long rant but quite a few things were raised. Blavatsky wasn't a medium as the term is commonly understood. I've never come across that claim about Olcott, sure you aren't mistaking him with Leadbeater, he was I believe a pedophile. After Blavatsky's death (she founded modern theosophy), Bailey and Leadbeater rewrote her seminal work the Secret Doctrine, that adulterated version is still widely distributed today, particularly by the Theosophical Society Adyar as three volumes whereas Blavatsky only ever released two.

 

Leadbeater was a former priest, he and Baily reworked the book with over 10,000 alterations to give it a more Christian bent. They came to take over The Theosophical Society, Blavatsky in fact had walked away from the Indian lodge long ago as it was trying to perpetrate Indian fundamentalism and caste superiority, something she didn't approve of.

 

Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) has been described as "the leading Buddhist missionary of our time" and "a towering figure in the work for the spiritual resurgence of Asia." Dharmapala himself attributed all this to Blavatsky, who he said encouraged him to begin his work for Buddhism. He remarked "C.W.L. (Leadbeater) and A.B. (Bailey) are spiritualistic acrobats. They know the diplomacy of necromancy; but they succeed. In 1907, I attacked them furiously; but as I say they are diplomats and they know what way to go to get hold of the people who desire for occult studies. … Col. Olcott loved power more than truth. He feared A.B. (Bessant) … Theosophy of C.W.L. and Besant is a travesty of the doctrine taught by H.P.B. In 1900 I wrote in my diary that the 3rd Vol. of the S.D. was a fabrication of A.B. She is clever and managed to do what she willed. … Every attempt should be made to warn true Theosophists of A.B.’s & C.W.L.’s writings. The latter is a necromancer and a diabolical liar."

 

Leadbeater (again) announced in 1909 that Krishnamurti was to be his chosen vessel and vehicle as the "The Lord Christ-Maitreya, the World Teacher". His teachings were not theosophical and quite at odds with Blavatsky. 20 years later Krishnamurti admitted that he was no such thing.

 

Theosophy eventually split and the United Lodge of Theosophists based in the US and UK, only relates to the original texts, they now have little in common with the original Theosophical Society, as they believe their latter revised teachings were nonsensical and dangerous mysticism. In fact Leadbeater, Bailey and Bessant were the forerunners of what has become today New Age, some things are right but its mostly wrong and seems designed for profit and personal aggrandizement rather than enlightenment. In fact many a member of the current Theosophical Society doesn't even know who Blavatsky was.

 

The Secret Doctrine is a very challenging read, obvious penned by a massive intellect and covers an enormous range of ideas and philosophy relating to what we are, where we came from, how the universe formed, moral imperatives etc. It has no conflict with Buddhism, in fact theosophy was endorsed by the Dalai Lama. I suspect you must have unfortunately come across the Leadbeater Bailey teachings.