THE LIFE OF ÑĀṆATILOKA THERA A Western Buddhist Pioneer THE LIFE OF ÑĀṆATILOKA THERA A Western Buddhist Pioneer Edited by Bhikkhu Ñāṇatusita BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY KANDY • SRI LANKA Buddhist Publication Society PO Box 61 54, Sangharaja Mawatha Kandy, Sri Lanka First published 2008 Copyright © 2008 Buddhist Publication Society ISBN National Library of Sri Lanka – Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Printed in Sri Lanka by CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 7 PART I : BUDDHISM IN GERMANY 11 PART II : THE LIFE OF ÑĀṆATILOKA THERA 23 Chapter 1: Youth ................................................................................................... 23 Chapter 2: to the Orient, 1902–1903 ............................................................ 32 Chapter 3: Ceylon and Burma, 1903–1910.................................................. 34 Chapter 4: Europe and Tunisia, 1910–1911 .................................................40 Chapter 5: Island Hermitage, 1911–1914 ...................................................... 45 Chapter 6: Sikkim, 1914......................................................................................50 Chapter 7: Confinement at Polgasduva, 1914.......................................... 54 Chapter 8: Internment Camp in Diyatalāva, 1914–1915 .......................57 Chapter 9: Concentration Camps in Australia, 1915–1916 ..................61 Chapter 10: Via Honolulu to Shanghai, 1916...........................................64 Chapter 11: China, 1917–1919 ............................................................................ 66 Chapter 12: In Germany Again, 1919–1920.................................................88 Chapter 13: To Japan, 1920................................................................................92 Chapter 14: To Bangkok via Java, 1921 ....................................................... 96 Chapter 15: Back in Japan, 1921–1923...........................................................101 Chapter 17: Last years in Japan, 1923–1926..............................................109 Chapter 18: Return to Ceylon, 1926 ............................................................ 112 PART III : BIOGRAPHICAL POSTSCRIPT 115 Chapter 19: Ceylon, 1926–1931 ........................................................................ 115 Chapter 20: Flowering Period, 1932–1939................................................. 121 Chapter 21: Internment in Dehra Dun, 1939–1946...............................138 Chapter 22: Last years, 1946–1957.................................................................153 Sixth Buddhist Council .................................................................................... 162 APPENDIX I : LIFE SKETCH OF VENERABLE ÑĀṆAPONIKA 169 APPENDIX II : THE LITERARY WORK OF ÑĀṆATILOKA THERA 181 Ñāṇatiloka Bibliography..................................................................................187 APPENDIX III : THE MONK DISCIPLES OF ÑĀṆATILOKA 202 ENDNOTES 207 INTRODUCTION This work on the first German Buddhist monk Venerable Ñāṇatiloka is not intended to be a hagiography but a straightforward historical record. Its purpose is to introduce the life of a Western Buddhist pioneer, the first bhikkhu in modern times from Continental Europe. It presents the story of a man who encountered formidable hardships in his spiritual search, but nevertheless succeeded in creating a basis for successive generations of Buddhist monks: as a precursor, a teacher, a reliable translator of Buddhist texts, and a founder of monasteries. Ñāṇatiloka’s autobiography reveals his determination to become a Buddhist monk despite many obstacles and uncertainties, and then to remain a monk in the face of severe hardships. As a German national, Ñāṇatiloka had to spend several years in internment camps during the two world wars; after World War I he was also banned for several years from re-entering the British colony of Ceylon, the then current name for Sri Lanka, and from settling in other Theravāda Buddhist countries. He describes his failed attempt to set up the first Buddhist monastery in Europe, and his consequent success in establishing the first-ever monastery for Westerners, the Island Hermitage, situated on a small island in a lagoon in the southwest of Ceylon. Ñāṇatiloka offers a window into a world which was still without passports and intercontinental plane travel; a world in which spiritual seekers from the West had to travel to Asia by ship, and once there, would meet with great discomforts, hardships, and a considerable risk of falling ill from then common and incurable diseases such as malaria and quite possibly dying from them, as happened to several Western disciples of Ñāṇatiloka. He writes about Asian countries and cultures, such as China and Japan, which have drastically changed since he was there. He gives a first-hand account of the terrible Great Kanto Earthquake, which hit the Tokyo area in 1923. He also describes life in the internment camps in Australia where he and his German disciples were interned during World War I. 7 The Life of Ñāṇatiloka Thera This book can be regarded as an amalgam of various materials, written by different authors and obtained from different sources, but all relating directly or indirectly to Ñāṇatiloka. The book consists of three main parts. Part I is an essay on the early history of Buddhism in Germany by Walter Persian, a German journalist, co-founder of the Hamburg Buddhist Society (BGH) and later leader of the Buddhist Society of Germany (BGD). Part II is the autobiography itself. Part III is a biography of the later part of Ñāṇatiloka’s life intertwined with brief biographies of some of his later disciples. There is also an appendix with the biography of Venerable Ñāṇaponika Thera, and another appendix with an extensive bibliography of all the works written by Ñāṇatiloka. Persian’s essay on the early history of Buddhism in Germany was earlier published in a Buddhist journal.1 I have reproduced it in Part I to serve as an introduction to Ñāṇatiloka and his cultural background. The autobiography of Ñāṇatiloka, which constitutes Part II, does not cover his whole life but runs from his birth in Germany in 1878 to his return to Ceylon in 1926 after banishment. The biography in Part III, based on Dr Hecker’s work, deals with the thirty years after 1926 and is supplemented by the accounts of some of Ñāṇatiloka’s disciples and contemporaries. Because Ñāṇatiloka did not finish the autobiography, it is somewhat unpolished and could have been improved upon in many ways. For example, he mentions nothing about how he, as a Buddhist monk, was treated by non-Buddhists in Europe. But, as Ñāṇatiloka writes at the very beginning of the autobiography, his purpose in writing it was merely to provide a few facts about his life. Nevertheless, despite these defects, the autobiography is intrinsically interesting and valuable as a source of information about the early Western adoption of Buddhism. The German text of the autobiography was first published in Der Erste Deutsche Bhikkhu, edited by Dr Hellmuth Hecker (Konstanz, 1995) (From now on abbreviated as EDB). This is the first translation of it to appear in print. A draft translation of the autobiographical part of the Konstanz edition was prepared by S. Anālayo. This translation, partly modified as a result of suggestions from a number of proofreaders, was eventually 8 Introduction passed on to me. I compared it with the German translation and made many corrections and improvements. For Part III, I further translated and added some of the biographical material found in the second part of Der Erste Deutsche Bhikkhu, an account of Ñāṇatiloka’s life after 1926, intertwined with accounts and biographies of some of his disciples and other people who knew him. I also added other material not found in Hecker’s work, such as the works of Eidlitz and Wirz, which I have translated from the German, and some notices, etc., I found in old Buddhist journals such as The Buddhist Review. Some of this material can also be found on the extensive Neobuddhismus website of Dr. Alois Payer at www.payer.de/neobuddhismus. The focus is less on Ñāṇatiloka in the biographical Part III. This is because Ñāṇatiloka’s life was not so eventful during this period and because there is no material by Ñāṇatiloka himself. To make this part more interesting, and to show the import and results of Ñāṇatiloka’s teaching efforts, it has been supplemented with accounts of Eidlitz, Wirz and with brief biographies of later disciples of Ñāṇatiloka such as Ñāṇamoli. The biography of Venerable Ñāṇaponika, written by Bhikkhu Bodhi, has been added as an appendix. I thought it worthwhile to include this because Ñāṇaponika and Ñāṇatiloka lived together for many years and Ñāṇaponika was Ñāṇatiloka’s designated literary heir. Ñāṇaponika became an influential Buddhist writer and publisher as cofounder and long-time president of the Buddhist Publication Society. Appendix II consists of bibliographical information related to Ñāṇatiloka. I was at first uncertain whether the whole of the autobiography should be published or not. However, in order to represent Ñāṇatiloka’s story as he wrote it, I decided, after consulting others, not to leave out anything. The original autobiography, in German, was not published until 1995. For some years it was at the Island Hermitage in Dodanduva, where it was written and typed out in 1948. It was then kept at the Forest Hermitage in Kandy, to which Ñāṇatiloka moved in 1951. The text had been written on thin airmail