Friday, March 17, 2023

The forgotten Irish Buddhist monk (video)

L. Cox, B. Bocking, TNTS, 8/13/20; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Researchers and authors Laurence Cox, Brian Bocking, and Alicia Turner

Laurence Cox and Brian Bocking on the "Forgotten and remembered: U Dhammaloka the Irish Buddhist monk"
(Transnational Network of Theravada Studies) Rainy Season Research Series, July-Oct. 2020 Rainy Season Research Series Seminar, July 24, 2020. 

The Irish Buddhist: Faced Down the British Empire
Speakers: Prof. Laurence Cox (National University of Ireland Maynooth) and Prof. Brian Bocking (University College Cork).

Abstract: This talk introduces one of the first Western Buddhist monks, his remarkable life (including his dramatic adventures in Burma and his travels with the Saopha of Kengtung). How and why he was forgotten – and what this tells us about memory, lineage, and the history in Buddhism.

Why does remembering U Dhammaloka ["U," pronounced \oo\, is just an honorific applied to any monk, the Burmese way of saying "venerable sir" or "mister"] make a difference?
  • Who was he? Ven. U Dhammaloka was born in Booterstown, County Dublin, in 1856 and given the name Laurence Carroll. He reportedly used at least five names, including Laurence Carroll, Laurence O'Rourke, and William Colvin. On occasion he used the nom de plume "Captain Daylight." He was Irish, a Dubliner, lived in the 1850s, and emigrated to the United States, possibly via Liverpool. He then worked his way across the USA as a migrant worker before finding work on a trans-Pacific ocean-liner. Leaving the ship in Japan, he made his way to Rangoon, Burma, arriving in the late 1870s or early 1880s, before the Third Anglo-Burmese War, which marked the final conquest of Burma by the British [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. More
The Rainy Season Research Series is courtesy of the Transnational Network of Theravada Studies (TNTS) and hosted by Shan State Buddhist University (SSBU) and King’s College London. Webpage: theravadastudies.org.

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