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Tamil Buddhism and brahminism in Modern India
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.
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.
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.
Includes bibliographical references and index.