Product Description

Today there are many Buddhists in the West, but for 2000 years the Buddha's teachings were unknown outside Asia. It was not until the late 18th century, when Sir William Oriental Jones, a British judge in India, broke through the Brahmin's prohibition on learning their sacred language. Sanskrit, that clues about the origins of a religion quite distinct from Hinduism began to be deciphered from inscriptions on pillars and rocks. This study tells the story of the search that followed, as evidence mounted that countries as diverse as Ceylon, Japan and Tibet shared a religion which had its origins in India yet was unknown there. British rule brought to India, Burma and Ceylon a whole band of enthusiastic Orientalist amateurs - soldiers, administrators and adventurers - intent on investigating the subcontinent's lost past. Unwittingly, these men helped lay the foundations for the revival of Buddhism in Asia during the 19th century and its spread to the West in the 20th. Charles Allen's book is a mixture of detective work and story-telling, as this acknowledged master of British Indian history pieces together early Buddhist history to bring a handful of extraoridinary characters to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #331894 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 322 pages

Review
'Few books have so succinctly yet accessibly investigated such a lesser-known yet seminally important corner of Indian history' -- Martin Booth, Sunday Times 'Allen has excelled himself, and this highly cultured and also finely illustrated offering is a thoroughly absorbing distraction' -- Justin Wintle, Financial Times 'In the nineteenth century, a group of enthusiastic Europeans ... set about unearthing evidence in India of ancient Buddhist teachings. Their fascinating story is told by Allen in an intriguing mixture of part detective work and part evocative storytelling' -- Daily Express

Justin Wintle, Financial Times
‘Allen has excelled himself, and this highly cultured and also finely illustrated offering is a thoroughly absorbing distraction’

Martin Booth, Sunday Times
Utterly fascinating...few books have so succinctly yet accessibly investigated such a less-known yet seminally important corner of Indian history

Customer Reviews

Excellent
The activities of the British orientalists in India are insufficiently appreciated, and this book is an excellent corrective to the current facile demonisation of these remarkable men. There are some wonderful characters here, and some inspiring stories. Certainly anyone with an interest in Buddhism should read this to appreciate just how much we owe our current understanding to these almost-forgotten sahibs.

Misleading title is an irritant
'Men who discovered India's lost religion' - Buddhism was invented but also declined in quite a short space of time, supplanted or weakened - by Hinduism or invasions - and later by Islam. Somehow however it migrated across Tibet and to China and elsewhere.

'Six generations of his [Charles Allen's] family served under the British Raj.' I think all of this book apart from introductory and summary chapters is biographical, often including several men who worked together, or travelled together, or happened to meet. The bibliography lists many 19th century books, the authors of some of them being the subjects of chapters. It wouldn't surprise me if he has a personal library, though the 'Oriental and India Office Collection' at the British Library, and Journal of the Royal Asiatic |Society 1788-1848 loom large too.

India's 'lost religion' was not, in fact, lost. The men listed here did astounding work in languages (Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan) - there are analogues to the Rosetta stone - and translations (they 'discovered' many works in those languages, typically in monasteries). They excavated what often turned out to be Buddhist monuments - stupas/topes, robbed-out monuments, man made caves, Ashokan pillars, the remains of huge towns. They made maps, for example of Benares. But everywhere they were helped and assisted - Buddhism existed but the technically-advanced ability of whites to travel permitted them to explore comparative versions of Buddhism. The men who carried out these activities are the subject of the book. The Buddha is not such a large part as the title suggests. There is a lot of local colour - accounts of battles for example, as often between local groups (Gorkhas, Mauryas, Sikhs..) as the British.

The problem I found is that to extract a thread of Buddhism is very difficult - the author is like a raconteur with an agonisingly precise memory of detail that isn't immediately relevant to the topic. In fact the book's structure, with some plates in pre-photographic form, and some of structures long ago demolished, mirrors the jumbled chaos of an archaeological site, where the newcomer is faced with the task of piecing together what happened.

Another irritant is what I take to be the author's lack of empathy with the past. Thus, a huge piece of land reported to have had stupas or stopes as far as the eye could see, have been flattened as a result of war. (Imagine Salisbury Plain's monuments all crushed). Sundry - generally Muslim - invaders pulverised and smashed many monuments. Charles Allen dislikes such behaviour when it's the Chinese in Tibet, but lightly passes over it in India. The same comment is true when he discusses invasions and massacres. This is of course his stylistic choice, but it removes an important signpost for the reader, since close reading is needed to check whether an account describes something small, or huge devastation.

Forgotten lamp of Asia
Forgotten lamp of Asia

Well written book, After reading 3-4 chapter I don't feel to keep the book down until I finish it.

This is must read book, This book shows us the search for Buddha in India, and the glorified period of India in the time of Ashoka. We are really thankful to those people who discovered the places related with Buddha.