Book review: Scholar of Buddhism in letter and spirit

Dharmanand Kosambi: The Essential Writings
Edited by Meera Kosambi
Permanent black
421 pages
Rs695

We all grew up learning the familiar story of the Buddha: that, at birth, an astrologer had predicted his destiny as a powerful king or a great saint; that his father, the king of Lumbini, pampered him in order to distract him from any quest for spiritualism; and that, in his youth, the sight of a sick man, an old man, and a dead body on a bier proved to be the turning point in his life.

One of the many achievements of the great Buddhist scholar, Dharmanand Kosambi, was to demolish this story as apocryphal. Citing appropriate references from ancient Pali manuscripts, Dharmanand established that Buddha was the son not of a king or an emperor but of a Shakya landowner; and that he was never named ‘Siddhartha’ although there is evidence that his real name was ‘Gotama’.

The name of Dharmanand Kosambi is unfamiliar outside the circles of Buddhism, Indology and Marathi literature. A lot more is known about his famous son, the Indologist and mathematician DD Kosambi.

However, such is the extraordinary story of Dharmanand’s life that comparisons have been drawn between his early 20th century itinerant adventures (to Kashi, Nepal, Baroda, Calcutta, Sikkim, Sri Lanka and Burma) and the travels of the seventh century Chinese monk Hiuen Tsiang who came to India to learn more about Buddhism.

As must have happened with Hiuen Tsiang, Kosambi, too, came close to death on a few occasions, but did not waver in his pursuit. One of the most rivetting stories is of the time he trudged into Nepal across the border from Raxaul, covering his bloodied feet with cloth as his shoes had worn out and his socks stolen.

By 34, he had acquired such a formidable reputation as a Pali-Buddhist scholar that Harvard University invited him to assist in editing the critical edition of Visuddhi-magga, the ancient Pali text.

Kosambi’s knowledge of Buddhism was not only academic but also empirical, as he had not only studied Sanskrit and Pali at great depth but also embraced Buddhism by becoming a monk.

He followed all the strict rules of monkhood, including begging daily for food, until he returned to life as a householder.

The author argues persuasively that Dharmanand’s Bhagavan Buddha is “generally regarded as the most authoritative historical documentation of the life and times of the Buddha” and that his writings most likely served as a source material for Babasaheb Ambedkar’s The Buddha And His Dhamma.

Unfortunately, much of Dharmanand’s writings remained confined to Maharashtra because of his resolve to propagate Buddhism among the Marathi masses.

It is only now that the amazing story of his life is available to English readers in the form of this volume, edited by his granddaughter, sociologist Meera Kosambi.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is a translation of his autobiographical writings, ‘Nivedan’, which describe his childhood in rural Goa, and his travels, both within and outside India, to the United States and later to Leningrad in 1928. Part II compiles his ‘Other Writings’, focusing on Buddhism.

 There are other selections, such as Dharmanand’s views on the suitability of socialism for India and his support and participation in Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent movement. Dharmanand, who was close to Gandhi in his final years, ended his life in June 1947 through starvation, by following the Jain practice of sallekhana at the Sevagram Ashram, Wardha.

His entire life story and his “less than considerate” relationship with his wife Balabai, have been presented succinctly in the Introduction by Meera Kosambi. But for some footnote references to the not-so-reliable Wikipedia, a lot of care and effort has gone into this book.