Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India

by Douglas Ober

Received wisdom has it that Buddhism disappeared from the land of its origin between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, long forgotten until British colonial scholars rediscovered it in the early 1800s. Its full-fledged revival, the story goes, occurred in 1956, when the Indian constitutionalist and civil rights pioneer, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, converted to Buddhism along with half a million of his Dalit followers. Dust on the Throne provides a radically new perspective on what has long been called India’s modern Buddhist revival.

Through extensive examination of disparate materials held in archives and temples across South Asia, Douglas Ober explores Buddhist religious dynamics through the course of expanding colonial empires, intra-Asian connectivity, and the intellectual pursuits of nineteenth and twentieth century Indian thinkers. Dust on the Throne recovers the integral role of lesser-known anti-caste activists and Buddhist monastics in the making of modern global Buddhism. It also accounts for the powerful influence Buddhism exerted in shaping modern Indian history.

Genres: History, Buddhism, Religion, Nonfiction, Philosophy, India

392 pages, Hardcover

Published March 22, 2023

Reviews

[Nikko · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a real surprise. While certain pieces of this have been covered before, nothing tells the story of Buddhism in modern India like this does. I wish there was a bit more about Nepal, but understand that the scope is just to broad and it would have been too much of a tome.

A very worthwhile read.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!
Buddhism never died in India.
Brahmanical religions persecuted (at least as recorded in ancient texts) Buddhists for their anti-caste "heterodoxy". in some vernacular language saying sb "Buddhist is say sb an "idiot". And many Buddhists texts abused Brahminical figures. ancient mutual antagonism became transformed into compatibility & glory of India in 19th & 20th century.
But Ambedkarites saw Buddhism and Brahmanism like snake and mongoose.

Read this book!

[Anmol]

Pretty well-written and a solid approach to historiography for the most part. I'm glad that someone covered Kosambi and Sankrityayan's story in English. But I still think that Ober is trying to set up a reductivistic antagonism here - his discussion of Vivekananda's "love" for the Buddha is very simplistic, and relies heavily on Jyotirmaya Sharma, whose view of Vivekananda is definitely flawed. Also, the criticism of Gandhi and the Birlas is somewhat exaggerated, at least for me. They did a lot more for modern Indian Buddhism than Ober is willing to admit - indeed, even he appears confused at times about how to make sense of JK Birla.

[Vibhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

the best work of scholarship that i’ve ever read! my volume is loaded with sticky notes and bookmarks! i’ll be referencing this book more often than i could have ever imagined before having picked up this book

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

ground-breaking!

[Appu · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a view that Buddhism had completely disappeared from India and Indian consciousness by the end of the 1st millennium of the Christian era until the same was revived as a result of colonial scholarship. You get this impression, if you read the works of popular historians like John Keay and Charles Allen. This author tries to prove that Buddhism had never fully disappeared from India. Yes Buddhism had fallen from the pedestal and it was treated as a heterodox belief system but it was never forgotten. Yes, in the revival of Buddhism in the 19th century, British scholarship played a part but so did Indian scholarship.
This book brings to light Indian scholars like Rajendralal Mitra and Sharat Chandra Das (intrepid explorer of Tibet), Anagarika Dharmapala of the Mahabodhi Society, of Kripasaran of Bengal Buddhist Association, Iyothee Thass Pandithar and Lakshmi Narasu of Shakya Buddhist Society. These organisations did not agree with each other always. Anagarika the famous Sinhalese Bhikku had a single point agenda of reclaiming the Buddhist Holy sites in North India especially the Mahabodhi temple of Gaya for Buddhism. He was an advocate of Pan Buddhist solidarity. Bengal Buddhist Association relied on the support of the indigenous Buddhists of East Bengal who had never left the faith thanks to their close association with the Burmese. Sakya Buddhist Society was a South Indian initiative that saw Buddhism as an ideology that challenged Brahmanism. Revival of Buddhism was seen as challenging caste ridden society.
By the early 20th century, Buddhist revival was appropriated by the emerging Hindu national movement. Buddha was no longer seen as a heterodox thinker who challenged Sanatana Dharma rather he was seen as on offshoot of Hinduism and as a great son of India. Swami Vivekananda epitomised this perspective. It was taken up by Hindu Mahasabha and received financial support from Hindu philanthropists like JK Birla who endowed Buddhist Viharas with the same enthusiasm as he endowed temples. Mahabohi Society actively collaborated with HMS. This inturn prompted the Shakya Buddhists to move away from Mahabodhi Society.
In the first half of the 20th century an alliance was forged between Marxism and Buddhism. Indian socialists like Dharmanand Kosambi, Acharya Narendra Dev and Rahul Sankrityayan saw Buddhism as an ideology of liberation.
Into this milieu came Ambedkar, he drew on the Shakya Buddhist idea of Buddhism as an anti-caste anti Brahmanical ideology. He also appropriated the marxist idea that a world view must not just explain the world but change it. Ambedkar's Nava-yana Buddhism had a tense relationship with existing Buddhist revivalist movements of his time but certainly benefitted from a Buddhist friendly social and intellectual milieu.
The modern Indian republic under Nehru saw Buddhism as the most important soft power weapon in its arsenal. It brazenly adopted Buddhist symbols and Buddhist historical ties to propagate an ideology of Pan Asianism in its foreign policy.
Newton once said that if he had seen far, it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. The same could be said of Ambedkar and Buddhism. Ambedkar's embrace of Buddhism was not an innovation. He was merely making use of the work that had been going on for over a century towards Buddhist revival in India.

[Maura Elizabeth]

“Many scholars, colleagues, and friends told me that Indian Buddhism was dead,” Douglas Ober notes, “so I had better seek out a different subject.” Undeterred, Ober continued working on his dissertation project on the history of Indian Buddhism, which in 2023 he published in revised form as Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India (Stanford University Press/Navayana). Ober’s persistence has paid off: Dust on the Throne landed on the shortlist for the prestigious Cundill History Prize and has been lauded in numerous reviews for its depth, originality, and lyrical writing.

Ober’s starting point is to question the “modern myth” that Buddhism “all but died” in India after the 13th or 14th centuries, only “revived” when British colonists excavated archeological sites and translated texts in the 19th and 20th centuries. Dust on the Throne is a careful elucidation of how that so-called revival was actually a rewriting of history—one that obscures the vital role of Indian actors and the enduring presence of Buddhism in the country. Throughout the book, Ober foregrounds Indian Buddhists and thinkers who contributed to the reinvention of the religion, only to be pushed aside by attention on colonial figures. In chapters that cover topics such as Buddhism and its assimilation into Hinduism, B.R. Ambedkar and anti-caste Buddhism, Buddhism and Marxism, and India’s post-independence identity as a “secular Buddhist” nation, Ober considers Buddhism as a religion, a culture, a field of study, and a political issue.

Please visit the Association for Asian Studies #AsiaNow blog to read my interview with Douglas Ober about Dust on the Throne.

[Prayash Giria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was expecting Dust on the Throne to be a yet another boring conversion of an academic thesis into a jargon-heavy niche subject book. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find it genuinely engaging and accessible. It does a great job of articulating not just the evolution of Buddhism in modern India, but also distilling its surrounding political and cultural milieu. The net result is not just a read that teaches you about interesting people and incidents, but also nudges you to revisit and question historical narratives built on caste and privilege that you’d otherwise had never thought twice about, all without subjecting you to academic gibberish.

[Kandachamy Vijayakumaran · Rating 5 out of 5]

If anyone want to search the history of decline of Buddhism and sporadic attempts made by various individuals to revive it, this book is a starting point. You have copious flow of information with sources and references as you can find in any professional journal. It is also sprinkled with a number of rare photographs. It contains so much information that you can compile a book of trivia on the modern Buddhism in India, from this book.

[Ananta Pathak · Rating 5 out of 5]

an outstanding book on the often forgotten in the discourse - the origin and relevant practice of Buddhism in India. the book traced the thinkers, the events which had a great influence on how Buddhism become a influential discourse in India. The book opened a many new doors of thinking for me and I am glad that I came across the book and decided to read it.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

My journey in exploring India's history brought me to this to understand contemporary Indian Buddhism. One of the few books I have read that refer to South Indian influences/outcomes. Interesting to learn how important a political tool it was for Independent India among other things.

[Dhammananda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly astonishing work of scholarship. This book is bound to become a classic in the history of Indian Buddhism and it will be a long time before it will be surpassed.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent. Well-written and with an interesting set of notes and long bibliography.

[Pramod Pant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought it , enthralled , that it would be opening up a grand vista on life and Buddhism. Seriously ! Buddhism books do that to you in terms of expectations and looking up to .

And sometimes, one feels deceived . Not deliberately by the author , but just by not having been delivered the required pleasure . This is one such case , unfortunately !

This book was restricted to the deliberations of the last two hundred years of a thought that actually ran through the last two and a half millennia. It was avoidable!

The author also got caught up in the false, artificial, issue of Hinduism vrs Buddhism. All through the book, this shadow prevents illumination of Buddhism, that most illuminating of thoughts.

It is a shallow book . Mostly useless, except for the tidbits of modern day Indian take on Buddhism, here and there .