Pāḷi English Dictionary
Sutta Search
The Buddha and the Sahibs
by
Charles Allen
John Murry, A Division of Hodder Headling,
London, 2003
With a Note on
An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies
Together with an Account of the Detaining in Captivity the Author and Divers other Englishmen Now Living there, and of the Author's Miraculous Escape
by
Robert Knox
Originally Published by Richard Chiswell, 1681
Reprinted by Anson Street Press, an imprint of Creative Media Partners
The Buddha and the Sahibs
An account of the entry of Buddhism into England from its very first mention. This is a very readable work and is highly recommended as giving us a picture of the people and circumstances that first brought the Buddha's system to the West.
"From the back cover: Today there are many Buddhists in the West but remarkably, for two thousand years, the Buddha's teachings were unknown outide Asia. This is the extraordinary story of a handful of soldiers, adinistrators and adventureres brought to India by British rule who reintroduced Buddhism to the subcontenent and of the miticulous Detective work, scholarship and personal sacrifice involved."
An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies
This book is mentioned by Allen as being the first word of Buddhism to hit England. It hardly goes into a description of that subject at all, but as for the rest it is a fascinating read. I thought it was going to be a hard row to hoe because I assumed the language it would use (being written c. 1680) was going to be "archaic" ... ahum ... but it was completely understandable. In fact it could be argued that as a consequence of the precision used in the language of its construction, that it is more easily understood than the language used today.
I think the most valuable lesson to be learned from both these books is how corrupt Buddhism had become. I think it would be well to reflect for a minute as to how corrupt it may be in our own time. The arrogance of man in proclaiming the perfection of his understanding of what amounts to his own self-serving ideas is astounding and we can get a good look at how that arrogance played out in two time frames from these books. And then, of course, point to our own understanding as being the perfectly correct one finally achieved.
