The Caste Negotiations of Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) in Colonial Ceylon

Abstract

Analyses involving Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933) and his relationship to caste— rare enough as they are—often mirror conversations on the position of caste in Sri Lanka more generally. Despite the presence of caste and its previous significance in the island’s history, these discussions hold that caste no longer maintains a critical social purpose. Dharmapala’s formulation of Buddhism as an ethnocentric and hegemonic ideology that concealed rather than addressed social inequality within the island’s majority Sinhalese community perhaps also best summarises these narratives. Yet what is lost in these discourses is that caste remained an ever-present feature of Dharmapala’s social vocabulary and for his visions for both the Sinhalese ethnicity and for Buddhism more generally.

This article tracks Dharmapala’s caste engagements and the wider societal implications of his understanding of the phenomenon for Sri Lanka today through analyses of his writings and speeches both in English and in Sinhalese. As this article demonstrates, caste became an important instrument for Dharmapala to distinguish that which was good for society from that which was bad. Of mixed-caste parentage himself, Dharmapala remained exceedingly critical of Sri Lankan caste structures yet curiously respected—if not admired—those in neighboring India. As perhaps the most high-profile Buddhist anywhere in South Asia during his time, Dharmapala had an incomparable influence on publics across the wider region. While dismissing the significance of caste in religious practice, Dharmapala nonetheless accepted its traditional social function with caste reform rather than abolition at the core of his wider societal plans.