rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Tamil Buddhism and brahminism in Modern India
    sub title: Deep Resistance against Caste
  name:
    name part: Ayyathurai, Gajendran
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: Electronic books.
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: enk
    date issued: 2025
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: remote
    extent: 1 online resource : illustrations.
  abstract: This book explores Tamil Buddhism in modern India, focusing on its emergence as a response to caste-based oppression during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Central to this movement was Pandit Iyothee Thass (1845-1914), a pioneering intellectual who reinterpreted India's Buddhist past to challenge brahminical dominance. Thass reasoned that it was because many Indians followed Buddhist cultural and material traditions in ancient times, they were oppressed as untouchables and lower castes by self-privileging-caste groups, such as brahmins. Thus, Thass challenged brahminism/casteism in India by reconstructing and mobilizing a reading public about the casteless Buddhist history of Indians who were prone to caste oppression. His writings, petitions, and archives reveal the castelessness of Tamil Buddhists and their commitment for a radical political transformation in modern India. Key aspects of the Tamil Buddhist movement include public mobilization for caste-free societies, self-representation of oppressed communities, economic redistribution through affirmative action, and a feminist critique of caste and patriarchy. Through interdisciplinary methods from Critical Caste Studies, this monograph uncovers the intellectual history of Tamil Buddhism and its radical call for vernacular emancipation. It highlights how Indigenous, Tamil/Indian communities used Buddhist foundations to resist caste and envision a modern, casteless future.
  table of contents: Cover -- Half Title -- Series -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Colonialism, Brahminism, and Forms of Deep Resistance -- Imperatives of Critical Caste Studies -- Indigenous Indians/Tamils and Their Resistance Against Caste/casteism -- The Entrenchment of Brahmin Caste Frame -- The Propaganda of Brahminical Supremacy -- Implications of Brahminical Propaganda -- The Critical Caste Turn -- Engaging Tamil Buddhist Hermeneutics -- Identifying Forms of Deep Resistance Against Caste -- Chapters of Deep Resistance -- Note on Translation -- Part I counter-Hegemonic Poiesis -- 1 Critique of Brahmin Power -- Pandit C. Iyothee Thass -- Thass and the Long Legacy of Casteless and Anticaste Intellectuals and Archives -- Who Is Human? -- The Propaganda of Brahminism/casteism Via Vedas, Shastras, and Upanishads -- The Shankaracharya Demystified -- India's Past and Present -- Against Religious and Caste Instructions at School -- Polyphony of Deep Resistance -- Conclusion -- 2 Rejection of Caste Identities and Practices -- Madras Mahajana Sabha (1892) -- Untouchability Repudiated -- 'Saati' (Perform) Versus 'Jati' (Caste) -- Parayars Versus Paraiyars -- Unveiling the Milechars, the Brahmins -- Paraiyar Tolerance and Retribution -- Collective Resistance Against Imposed Identities -- Conclusion -- 3 Memory, History, and Casteless Consciousness -- Cultural and Communicative Memory of the Oppressed Tamils -- Critical Narratives of the Race-Oppressed and the Caste-Oppressed -- The History of India: Buddha as Indirar, Buddhists as Indiyar -- Tamil Buddhist Critique of Milechar Saivism -- Parayars as Tamil Buddhists -- Conclusion -- 4 Re-Membering the Tamil Buddhists -- Tamil Buddhist Knowledge and Pedagogy -- The Vernacular Buddhist Past of Brahminical Deities and Temples.
  table of contents: The Tamil Buddhist Demythologization of Brahminical Claims -- Tamil Buddhist Festivals: Pongal, Deepavali, and Kartikai -- Vernacular Emancipation of Paraiyars -- Heteroglossia of Tamil Buddhist Society -- Conclusion -- Part II modes of Casteless Praxis -- 5 Critical Caste Feminism -- Tamil Buddhist Women, Self-Recognition, and the 'Lady's Column' -- Sagodari and Ramabai On Caste and Patriarchy -- Thass, Feminist Critique, and Undoing Caste -- Conclusion -- 6 Caste, Indian National Congress, and Oppressed Tamils/Indians -- The Public Petition in 1891 -- The INC Against the 'Casteless Majority' -- The Agrarian Enrichment of Self-Privileging-Caste Swadeshis -- Education Is Not for Swadeshi Shops But for Agriculture and Manufacturing Skills -- Categorizing the Casteless for Caste Business and Religious Shops -- Conclusion -- 7 Self-Representation of the Casteless -- Writing and Publishing Against Caste -- The Non-Caste Dravidian Industrials Limited -- Call for Reparations: Land to the Tiller -- The Census and Indian Buddhists -- Emigration Against Caste: Anticaste Indentured Labourers -- Conclusion -- Epilogue -- Is Tamil Buddhism Messianic and Utopian? -- Tamil Buddhism and Other Buddhist Denominations -- Undoing Global Brahminism -- The Anticaste Modernism of Tamil Buddhism -- Bibliography -- Index.
  target audience: Professional and scholarly.
  note: Gajendran Ayyathurai.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  subject:
    geographic code: a-ii---
  subject:
    topic: Anti-caste movements
    geographic: India
  subject:
    topic: Buddhism
    geographic: India
  subject:
    topic: Caste
    topic: Religious aspects
    topic: Buddhism
  subject:
    topic: Caste-based discrimination
    geographic: India
  subject:
    topic: Tamil (Indic people)
    topic: Religion
  subject:
    topic: Bouddhisme
    geographic: Inde
  subject:
    topic: Castes
    topic: Aspect religieux
    topic: Bouddhisme
  subject:
    topic: Discrimination fondée sur la caste
    geographic: Inde
  subject:
    topic: Tamouls
    topic: Religion
  subject:
    topic: Asia
  subject:
    topic: HISTORY
  subject:
    topic: Social History
  subject:
    topic: Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
  subject:
    topic: POLITICAL SCIENCE
  subject:
    topic: Rituals & Practice
  subject:
    topic: Hinduism
  subject:
    topic: RELIGION
  subject:
    topic: Buddhism
  subject:
    topic: Caste
    topic: Religious aspects
    topic: Buddhism
  subject:
    topic: Caste-based discrimination
  subject:
    topic: Tamil (Indic people)
    topic: Religion
  subject:
    geographic: India
  classification: DS422.C3 A9 2025
  classification: 305.5/12208829430954
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  identifier: a3o6tbg9 cloudLibrary
  identifier: http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login
  record info:
    record content source: CLOUD
    record creation date: 251114
    record change date: 20260319210724.5
    record identifier: in00005728908
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng