The Irish Buddhist: A remarkable account of the elusive Dhammaloka

The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk Who Faced Down the British Empire

Author: Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox & Brian Bocking

ISBN-13: 978-0190073084

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Guideline Price: £25.99

This is a remarkable account of the life of Laurence Carroll, who was born in the 1850s in Booterstown, in south Co Dublin, and, after various peregrinations which are largely unaccounted for, was ordained the first European Burmese Buddhist monk in Rangoon (now Yangon), in 1900.

On his ordination, Carroll took on the name of Dhammaloka, “light of the Buddhist law”, and began his new life, which was to last 13 years, as an activist and promoter of Theravada Buddhism on tours throughout Burma and southeast Asia where he preached to many thousands.

With the zeal of the convert and considerable self-promotion, he spoke on the three evils as he saw them: “the Bible, the bottle and the Gatling gun.” Burma was then ruled by the British and as part of India, and Dhammaloka railed against western missionaries and attempts to convert the Burmese, alcohol and colonialism. The subtitle of the book, The Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire, makes too big a claim for him but the empire inevitably led to his undoing.

It is speculated that Dhammaloka left Ireland in the 1870s, probably for Liverpool and then for New York where almost three decades of his life are largely unaccounted for. The three authors, all authorities on Buddhism, have spent a decade of digital and archive-based scholarship recovering and discovering pieces of evidence of this “plebeian intellectual” in an attempt to fill out the blanks in his life.

Pathological liar

Unfortunately, Dhammaloka, who operated under a number of aliases, appears to this reader to be a pathological liar, misleading everyone he encountered including journalists and writers. In piecing together the lost decades in America, the forgiving authors present a number of “competing chronologies” and agree that after arriving in New York, Dhammaloka worked his way across America, he may have had to beg for food in Chicago, became a hobo, rode the trains to San Francisco and from there sailed to Japan, possibly as a deckhand.

Bizarrely, Dhammaloka appears at length in Harry Franck’s A Vagabond Journey Around the World based on their encounter on a journey from Calcutta to Rangoon. He told Franck that while working as a tallyman on the Rangoon docks, he became absorbed by Buddhism and gave all his belongings away, “even his socks”, and joined Tavoy monastery. It had a reputation of being open to foreigners and Dhammaloka was ordained there in 1900.

By “taking the robe” Dhammaloka was not seeking the quiet life and as soon as he could he began his missions throughout Burma and southeast Asia, denouncing Christian missionaries, alcohol – he may have been an alcoholic – and the colonial power. His oratory was more rabble-rousing than philosophical but effective. He was also an incorrigible self-publicist and not averse to supplying his own copy about his triumphs.

In 1902 he abruptly left for Japan for Buddhist conferences. But the authors’ close analysis of these conferences and movements tilts the book away from the general reader. Dhammaloka was determined to be involved in these congresses but also to access as much publicity for himself as a “western monk” as possible. His impact in Japan was a curiosity and negligible. When billeted with a married monk he asked to be moved. He also appears to have been uncomfortable around women. At another monastery, he fell out with his new host, the head abbot, but not before borrowing and embellishing his title.

Fraud

When he departed Japan via Hong Kong and Penang to Singapore he was now calling himself “Lord High Abbot” and occasionally wearing the black robes of Japanese monks. In Singapore, the initially supportive, Killarney-born editor of the Straits Times, Edward Alexander Morphy, now smelled a fraud, ridiculing in print Dhammaloka’s bogus title and the expanding array of letters after his name.

Subsequent adventures included a fractious speaking tour of Ceylon where his friend, the Buddhist campaigner Anagarika Dharmapala, recorded Dhammaloka refusing to speak at events and his constant complaining, while other monks were alarmed about how vengeful he was. He abruptly left before the tour was complete and fell out with his host, a recurring theme. In the meantime, he had established the “Buddhist Tract Society” which was engaged in publishing pamphlets and articles, some penned by Dhammaloka and mostly of an anti-Christian or “free-thinking” bent. The authors reveal that Dhammaloka may have written verses but I was relieved to read these “remain undiscovered”.

The propaganda and inflammatory speeches finally caught up on him in Moulmein (now Mawlamyine) and he was arraigned for sedition. Dhammaloka lost and appealed in the High Court in Rangoon. The presiding judge, Cork-born Daniel Twomey, was wearing the black robes this time and, rejecting the appeal, bound Dhammaloka to the peace. It had the desired effect. Dhammaloka was seen by the colonial authorities as an irritant rather than a tangible threat and he left for Australia. In a temperance hotel in Melbourne he faked his own death by writing to newspapers. Always the self-publicist, this backfired to the extent that where and when he actually died is not recorded but it is likely to have been in Asia and not long after his “greatly exaggerated” first death. The authors have done an immense job in textual and religious sleuthing to diligently resurrect the many lives of the elusive Dhammaloka.

Joseph Woods has lived in Japan and Myanmar. His Monsoon Diary was reviewed in these pages