IS PĀLI STUDIES ON THE VERGE OF DISAPPEARANCE INITS OWN MOTHERLAND?

A CRITICAL OBSERVATION

Siddharth SinghProfessor,

Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies,Faculty of Arts,

Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi, INDIA

E mail: ssinghbhu@gmail.com

There is close relation of interdependence of PāliStudies and Buddhist Studies in India unlike it is in thecase of Buddhist Studies in western countries, whereBuddhism has gotten accepted and admired largely because ofvarious applied reasons including meditation, non-theisticapproach fitting to the mindsets of a large number ofwesterners and so on, whereas in India, those causes hardlyplayed any role in its revival in the modern India and evennow, social aspects and egalitarian approach of Buddhism ismuch more emphasized and fascinates the scholars duringregular discourses on Buddhism. Learning Pāli or studyingBuddhism in the west is more for practical application inlife rather seeking the job by studying it. As regard toTheravāda Buddhist countries, it is a part of regular life,a matter of cultural identity and therefore, a necessaryform of various academic curriculum in partial or fullmanner depending on the course being studied. A country likeIndia where Buddhists are around one to two percent of thetotal population and major section consists of Hindus andMuslims and among the adherents of which, it is almostimpossible to find even one percent no-God believers,spirituality is more subjected to Hinduism in the Indiansociety rather than Buddhism in general sense. Buddhism hasthe image of a rebellion or counter-religion, therefore,Buddhist social doctrines greatly fascinated the early post-colonial Buddhist scholars and activists like Rahul

Sankrityayan and Anand Kaushalyayan. Rahul became Marxistlater and Anand Ambedkarite, but interpreted the social lifefrom the Buddhist philosophical and social ideas.

Further, Yoga is so much close word to the Hindu’shearts that expecting Buddhist meditative path to replace oralternate the Yoga would be an illusion for any one, soagain there has been barely any scope for Buddhistspirituality to attract the people just because of havingthis virtue. Yes, that may be an additional path for commonHindus but without any compromise on the issue of the God’sexistence.

If Dr. Ambedkar interpreted the Buddhism into the formof a path leading to freedom from social suffering, and heneglected the entire discourses related to mind- training orspiritual aspects of Buddhism like rebirth, Nibbāna in thesense of freedom from rebirth; he might have done itdeliberately applying skillful means. He was well aware ofthe typical Indian Hindu mindset embedded into the factorslike Mokṣa, Eternal Self etc. and he never wanted hisfollowers to be entangled into any issue related to stufflike spiritual freedom, liberation from rebirth and so on.Because, it was difficult for the common followers tounderstand the nuances of philosophical differences ofBuddhism and Hinduism, there was a danger for them to fallinto the Hinduistic kind of blind faiths again and finallygoing back to the Hinduism realizing no real difference. Andin that case, they would have asked from Dr. Ambedkar:“Where and what is the difference?”

For Dr. Ambedkar and his followers, social sufferingslike untouchability, deprivation of any human and socialrights were the prime issues, that is why Dr. Ambedkar tookthe inspiration from Theravāda Buddhism or Pāli Buddhism,and selectively chose those ideas of that which could play arole of an appropriate substitute of Hinduism for theuntouchables and so called low caste people of India. Therevival of Buddhism in modern India is totally enshrinedinto the ideas contained into the Pāli literature. The wordslike ‘practicing Buddhist’ or ‘practicing Hindu’ is stillalien to the Indian society and spiritual aspects of

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Buddhism doesn’t play any major role among even Indian Neo-Buddhists, leave aside the question of it’s fascinationamong Hindus. In such case, how can we expect of Buddhiststudies to survive into a form of studies in India if itneither has enough spiritual seekers to study Buddhism fortheir inner gratification nor the people who could get thejob by studying it. The objective of the present paper is toevaluate how removal of Pāli from the highest civil servicesexamination called Indian Administrative Services i.e. IASmay gradually lead the entire Pāli and Buddhist Studies todie in its own motherland India. Since I have created aFacebook Page entitled “Save Pali and Buddhist Studies inIndia”1 and an Online petition site entitled “Save Pali,ancient classical Indian language of Buddhism in India”2 on“Care 2 Petition” to begin a movement against this decision,I realized it an opportune moment to put this issue beforethe Buddhists and academic circle of Buddhist studies in theworld through this paper. During my discussion held overFacebook, E mails and personally with others, I encounteredvarious questions raised by my Indian and foreigner friends,and many journalists of print and electronic media whileinterviewing me, regarding my movement. I felt a need toanswer all those questions into the form of a paper and I amtrying to address all those major questions in the followinglines.

Why Removal of Pāli from just one Indian exam IAS is soobjectionable? After all it just a competitive Exam:

In a recent decision, Government of India has removedthe Pāli, ancient classical language of India as a subjectfrom the main examination of the Civil Services examination(popularly known as Indian Administrative Services i.e. IAS)of India, 2013; conducted by UPSC (Union Public serviceCommission) of India. UPSC is India's central agencyauthorized to conduct the Civil ServicesExamination, Engineering Services Examination, CombinedDefense Services Examination, National Defence AcademyExamination, Naval Academy Examination and Combined Medical

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Services Examination.. Out of these, Civil ServicesExamination i.e IAS is the highest civil servicesexamination through which the top bureaucrats are selectedto administer the different departments of the centralgovernment of India. All the 28 states of India also conducta similar kind of examination called Provincial CivilServices (PCS), which selects the bureaucrats to work underthe territory of the same state only. The IAS may be postedanywhere in India and, within the respective states too theyare the bosses of the PCS officers.

The pattern of these examinations happens to be sameand only difference between IAS and PCS examinations is thatIAS is more difficult to qualify than PCS. Both of theseexaminations consist of three stages called Prelims, Mainsand Interview. Any Bachelor degree qualified student mayappear in these examinations and most of the youngsters,even Doctors and Engineers passed out from the most esteemedIndian institutions claim to have their dream of becomingIAS. The reason may be various: sometimes power and glamourattached with this job and sometimes true intention to bringa transformative change in the society. There has not beenthe provision of any language in the Preliminary Examination(Prelims) and all the languages including Pāli Language andLiterature and all the subjects of Social Science andScience etc. were an option to appear in the examination.One has to choose any two subjects since the year 2012 andnow, any one subject from 2013 onwards from the revised listof subjects to appear in the examination. Pāli was one ofthe optional subjects till 2012 and it was one of the mostsuccessful subjects so far, but it was removed in therevised syllabus applicable from the year 2013.1

? . Singh, Siddharth. “Save Pali and Buddhist Studies in India”. Facebook.com. 1 April 2013. Web. 29 June 2013. <https://www.facebook.com/groups/586673281343224/>.2 . Singh, Siddharth. “Save Pali, ancient classical Indian language of

Buddhism in India”. Care 2 Petitionsite. 2 April 2013. Web. 24 June 2013. <http://www.thepetitionsite.com/979/079/931/save-pali-ancient-classical-indian-language-of-buddhism-in-india/ / >.

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Pāli, being an ancient Indian language belonging to theBuddha, was an option among 51 subjects in the mains of thiscompetitive exam. Those who would take any other subject,whether any subject like Chemistry, Sociology or languageslike English, Sanskrit or else had the option of appearingnot only in the IAS examination but also in the PCSexamination of the different states taking the same option.The syllabus and papers of these examinations happen to beso lengthy and difficult that it is not possible for anyoneto take one subject for IAS and another one for PCS.

If we look into the background of Pāli and BuddhistStudies in India, the bitter truth is that it has survivedinitially mostly because of those who have switched over toPāli or Buddhist studies from Sanskrit or Indian philosophy,no matter whatever the result of that was. Some 2-3 decadesback, a few people were into this discipline, and gettingjobs as Lecturer/Assistant Professor was relatively easy andthey got fixed in the different academic institutions. Pālior Buddhist Studies was never a subject into the schoolsystem till grade/class XII, that is why there are noTeacher Training Programs like B.Ed (Bachelor of Education,a degree necessary to get teaching jobs in the schools up toGrade/Class XII) any where in India* and resultantly, nopossibility of school teaching jobs for them who didundergraduate or post-graduate from Pāli or BuddhistStudies. Now, then who are the Indian students takingadmission in the Universities like Banaras Hindu University(Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies) and Department ofBuddhist Studies in Delhi University, Jammu University,Nalanda Mahavihar and Pune University etc. NO, most of themare neither Buddhist nor passionate about Buddhism nor evenhad any previous knowledge of Buddhism except whatever theystudied about Buddha and Buddhism in their school historytextbooks. Most of those, whosoever has been taking thissubject as a discipline of study in universities/colleges* As per recent news, Pune University has a plan of initiating the Teacher Training Program in Pali. But, the bigger question is where those trained teachers would get the job if the subject itself is not taught in the schools.

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had only one hope that they would either appear in the IASexam of Government of India or PCS exams of Bihar state onlyas no other state’s PCS exam offer Pāli or Buddhist Studiesas an optional subject. The youngsters taking Pāli as anoption in these two examinations were already most prone tothe risk of career as they would either be an IAS officer,or PCS officer of Bihar state (which has been one of thepoorest states for a long period and where PCS exams areheld at the gap of several years) or would end up with thetotal unemployment. Whereas their competitor students optingany other subject have the choice of appearing in the PCSexams of every state in addition to IAS exam, they have thejob possibility in almost most of the higher educationinstitutions and additionally, if they did B.Ed course, theycould get the jobs in the schools too.

Most importantly, IAS is more than just ONE exambecause Provincial Civil Services (PCS) Commissions of allstates looks towards the IAS exams for its design ofexamination, subjects offered and other rules andregulations. Even they follow almost the same syllabus tooprescribed by IAS. There is all possibility that the subjectremoved from IAS exams has to be removed from the subjectlist of the PCS examinations of the states too, because inprinciple, they consider it as non-important to keep suchsubject in their own list if it not an option in the IAS. Ifwe talk of Pāli, as I earlier said, it is already availableonly in Bihar state’s PCS exam; no one knows how long thissituation would continue after its removal from IAS exam,2013.

If we look into this issue from the perspective of thecandidates, they always choose same set of two subjects(during previous years, now one subject as per revised rulesfrom 2013) because, more or less, syllabus of IAS and PCSremains same and appear in both the examination held ondifferent dates every year. So now, the biggest danger isthat Pāli, as an optional subject may be removed from Biharstate’s PCS exam too and after that, within Bihar too, mostprominent land of Buddhism, no Indian student would everinclined to study Pāli in the future.

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In India, unemployment is such a grave problem and noone can be expected to study any subject out of passion orjust for the sake of achieving inner peace at this stage,where day to day bread and butter is the biggest issue ofthe life..

My previous struggle to revive Pāli and Buddhist studies inthe higher educational institutions and PCS exam of UttarPradesh:

Briefly speaking, two states of India – Bihar and UttarPradesh (U.P.) have 7 out of 8 ancient greatest Buddhistpilgrimage sites except Lumbini, which is now in Nepal.Unfortunately, only Bihar state being the land of severalBuddhist sites like Bodh-gayā, Rajgaha (now Rajgir),Nālandā, Vesali (now Vaishali) etc. has Pāli as an optionalsubject in their PCS main examination. Uttar Pradesh, thestate I live in, is equally important from Buddhistperspective having various Buddhist sites Sarnath (ancientIsipatana Migadaya i.e. Buddha’s first sermon place),Kushinagara (ancient Kusinara i.e the Buddha’sMahāparinibbāna place), Sāvatthi (now Shravasti), Kosambi(now Kaushambi) and Sankisā etc. never considered Pāli to bean optional subject in the UP PCS examinations.

In the year 2007, a Dalit’s (Dalit means Oppressedclass denoting the so called lowest castes) political party(Bahujan Samāj Party or BSP) came into existence with thesupport of Brahman caste votes in the Uttar Pradesh underthe leadership of Ms. Mayawati, a so called Buddhist byfaith. Some considered it as positive sign of for socialharmony and others saw it as sheer opportunism and deviationfrom BSP’s genuine agenda of Anti-brahmanism and Dalitidentity. Anyways, I felt it a right time to run a movementto bring Pāli and Buddhist Studies as an optional subject inthe UP PCS examinations and University/colleges of the UPstate, because no one knew if they would come into poweragain or not. I prepared a memorandum narrating theimportance of UP in the history of Buddhism, spread ofBuddhism in the world and possible scope of the emergence of

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Buddhist tourism in the state by the arrival of moreBuddhists from South East Asia. I added the last point thatif UP incorporates Pāli or Buddhist Studies as a subject intheir PCS exams and open the departments of same in thestate sponsored colleges and universities; it would convey apositive message to the Buddhist countries resulting in theenhancement of state revenue. I had to use the skillfulmeans (Upāya Kaushalya) by mentioning the issue of monetarygain knowing the first and foremost question of Indianpoliticians what the state would get by initiating Pāli andBuddhist Studies in UP. I began a signature campaign forseveral months as I was not aware of the methods likeFacebook and Online Petition etc. and actually, these werealmost non-existent into the public sphere during that time.Sometimes I had to send the whole bunch of memorandum andsignatures to different cities just to get one signature ofany scholar or teacher of Buddhism. The signatures had to bein the continuation; therefore, I had to wait for the bunchto come back to me in order to get another signature. It wastiring and costly job. Considering the increasing expenses,my departmental Ph. D research students offered tocontribute money from their fellowships but I declined as itwas against my principle to receive money from my students.My target was to gather 1000 signatures and as soon as weachieved the target, I sent the entire bunch to the ChiefMinister Ms. Mayawati and photocopies of the same to theEducation Minister, Chairman of UP PCS and all otherrelevant people including senior IAS officers selectedthrough opting Pāli as an optional subject. I persuaded thethen Vice-chancellor of my University and Heads of theBuddhist Departments of other universities to write separateletters to the Chief Minister so that the Pali and BuddhistStudies could be revived in its ancient mainland.

BUT, the whole movement proved to be a failure. Ididn’t receive a single line reply from any corner for amonth or two. I decided to send the photocopies of the pagesof the signatures again with a reminder memorandum to allthose again. After a long silence, I received two linestyped answer signed by any clerical staff of the language

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department that we don’t have any provision to promote any suchlanguage. In our list, we have only Sanskrit and Urdu to promote. I had nopath ahead to move for. Then, I contacted the EducationMinister Mr. Rakesh Dhar Tripathi (himself a Brahmin,nowadays being questioned by investigating agencies for hisalleged involvement the case of Rupees 400 Crore scam)through an acquaintance and received an unofficial answerthat Ms. Mayawati is not in the mood of irritating theBrahmin votes, therefore, no Buddhist agenda would be takeninto consideration during her 5 year term. After 5 year herparty BSP lost the power and now, there is no hope even tomake such demand.

What about Indian Government’s recent encouragement toBuddhism into the form of Conferences, Conclaves etc?

Observing a number of conferences/conclaves organizedby the Government of India and different Indian statesseparately during the recent years and funding to renovatethe Buddhist sites, someone might raise a question on myarguments that the Buddhism is being taken as a matter ofpriority by the Government of India and different Indianstates.

Government of India, during the last 10 years, andseveral states recently have realized that Buddhism may be agreat saleable commodity to enhance the revenue by fetchingthe Buddhist tourists in their states. Some states ruled bythe parties like B.J.P., the Hindu ideology orientedpolitically parties think that Buddhism, having a closephilosophical and religious proximity with the Hinduism, maybe a natural partner of the Hinduism to combat the Islamicor Christian fanatic forces. India’s recent politicalstrategy inclined towards “Look East Policy” is also playinga role in the organization of such events. In the contest ofthe cashing the name of the Buddha in order to collect thehuge revenue from tourism, there is a race among thedifferent states ruled by the various political parties. Onthe one hand, the Pāli and Buddhist studies are desperatelystruggling to survive as a discipline of study in the

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country but on the other hand, the government is spending ahuge amount of money to attract the tourists from Buddhistcountries. The name of the Buddha is being used even for thenuclear bomb test with the slogan of “Smiling Buddha” andfor the political nexus also by the Hindu fundamentalistgroups as a tool. If you participate in the Buddha Mahotsava(Buddha Festival), an event being organized by the variousstate governments of India nowadays on the days of theBuddha’s birth, enlightenment and Mahāparinibbāna, you willfind that the Buddha himself is absent from the wholeoccasion. The whole occasion appears more like a rulingpolitical party’s own program where there is neither anyconcern with the Buddha’s teachings nor there is any scopeof proper participation of the true scholars.

There is widespread discussion over the revival ofancient Nalanda tradition in India through national andinternational media by the establishment of NālandāInternational University since 2010 at Rajgir (site ofancient Rājagaha) of Bihar state and such step is trulyenthusiastic news for any scholar of Buddhism or Indology.But unlike ancient Nālandā University based on Buddhism andits allied subjects, four out of seven schools are theschools of Business Management, Information sciences andtechnology, International Relation and EnvironmentalStudies. The proposed school of Buddhist studies is mergedwith philosophy and comparative religion in the same schooland another school entitled “Languages and Literatures”doesn’t have any declaration of the languages proposed to bestudied within its fold and it is doubtful whether this listincludes the languages contributory to Buddhist Studies likePāli, Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese etc. or that too wouldbe decided according to the market demand. Interestingly,the schools to be opened in the Phase I does neither includeBuddhist Studies nor Languages and literature but the twoschools of Historical Studies and Ecology & EnvironmentalStudies. That shows that the Government of India desires toshow the inclination towards Buddha not for the true purposeof serving and propagating his ideas but for the fact that

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this name is marketable and may fetch the tourists andfunding from other Buddhist or Buddhism oriented nations.

I would like to reiterate that Buddhism in India needsserious and scholarly studies of Buddhism too apart fromthis revenue generating marketing of the Buddha andBuddhism. And, the study of Pāli and Buddhist Studies (as Iearlier said that both have an interdependent relation)depends on if it has any job perspective or not. Otherwise,there is no point for youngsters to study this entirely newsubject that has hardly any scope of jobs in any sphere oflife within India. Now, in this situation, the presence ofPāli in the IAS exam was one of the major reasons to attractmany Indian youngsters to opt and study the Pāli andBuddhist Studies, and at least this was playing a major roleto make this declining rich discipline survived in itshomeland. Removal of Pāli form this examination means tokill Pāli and Buddhist Studies in India for ever, at leastfor Indian future generations.

The greatest misperception propagated as a cause of removalof Pāli from IAS Exam:

Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) of Indiaclandestinely removed Pāli as an optional subject from IASexam without releasing any justification. The agency claimedto constitute a committee and on the ‘supposed’recommendation of ‘undisclosed Report’, total 7 subjects areremoved from the list of the optional subjects, which are asfollows: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Pāli, Persian, andRussian.

Most commonly, there is a misperception not among onlyIndian academicians but also among foreigners that Pāli wasremoved because the number of the candidates opting Pāli inthe IAS exams were too less. UPSC didn’t release anystatement in that context but unofficially, they also claimthe same reason. I, myself, encountered such a questionmoved up by the side of my university’s highest authority,the Vice-chancellor, in my recent interview held for myProfessorship and without letting me answer the question, he

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emphatically claimed that there were hardly 2 or 3candidates appearing opting Pāli into IAS exams, that is whyUPSC didn’t feel any need of spending money and pain ofpaper making, sponsoring the experts to come to Delhi toevaluate the answer sheets and that is why they preferredto remove it. I was shocked by such an erroneous view of himand wanted to counter the wrong claim of him which couldhave been quite offending to him, because in this Indiansystem bosses are always right. Fortunately, one of theexperts took that pain of resolving the issue in adiplomatic way. He asked – “Yes, yes, people believe so. Areyou agreed? Is it a wrong claim or right?” I got anopportunity to answer the question and began presenting theUPSC’s own data telling the self evident truth, regardlessthe Vice-chancellor believed on my words or not.

But, the entire episode illustrated me the degree ofunawareness regarding the entire issue and I decided to putthe data before the people on the Facebook group created forthis purpose. Let me render here the recent available dataof the candidates appearing in the different subjects as perUPSC’s own released 62nd annual report 2011-12†, which can beseen online easily on the UPSC website3.

It shows that 351 candidates had appeared taking Pāli inIAS Mains Exams, 2010 and 27 out of those were successfuland recommended for interview. There were 51 subjects alltogether and Pāli had 351 candidates, which is more than thecandidates appearing in 36 subjects out of all 51 subjects.Those 36 subjects, less popular than Pāli, are still in thelist. Various Science subjects and all the literaturesubjects, except Hindi, including Sanskrit (109), English(30), Tamil (129), Telugu (118), and others had less numberof the candidates than the number of the candidates optingPāli. The subjects like Bodo, Dogri, Sindhi, Arabic, French† I am thankful to my former student Ujjwal Kumar for posting UPSC’s 62nd Annual Report (2011-12) on the Facebook group “Save Pali and Buddhist Studies in India”.

3. Union Public Service Commission. N.p.. Web. 27 March 2013.<http://www.upsc.gov.in/general/rti/62annualreport/62eng.pdf >.

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and German had only one candidate in these subjects.Persian, Bengali, Santhali and Assamese literature had 5, 3,2 and 2 candidates respectively. Marathi, Urdu, Panjabi,Manipuri and Oriya literatures have less than 50 candidates.The official list of the UPSC is self explanatory and can beunderstood by having just a glance of it. If we have a lookof the number of the candidates among the subjects removed,then it is as follows:

1. Chinese – NIL2. Russian – NIL3. Arabic – 1 (not recommended for interview) 4. French – 1 (not recommended for interview) 5. German – 1 (not recommended for interview) 6. Persian – 5 (none recommended for interview) 7. Pāli – 351 (27 candidates were recommended for

interview)

Kindly have a look of the above list. The literatureslisted from 1-6 may be given the logic of being foreignlanguage or less number of the candidates for their removal.Except Pāli, all the above subjects are of foreign origin;therefore, the logic behind the removal of all the foreignlanguages also doesn’t apply in the case of Pāli’s removalif one thinks so. Moreover, why those studying foreignlanguages in the different Indian universities shouldn’thave the right to appear in a competitive exam that is heldfor such high position, through which selected candidateshaving higher ranks become diplomats, and later, Ambassadorin the different countries? These languages may have lessnumber of the candidates at this juncture but that reason ispresent in the case of so many other subjects too like Bodo,Dogri, Sindhi and others too.

Previously, UPSC‘s 61st report, 2010-114 also depictsclearly that the number of the candidates appeared in theIAS Main Examination were 306 in the year 2009 and 345 in

4 . Union Public Service Commission. N.p.. Web. 27 March 2013.<http://www.upsc.gov.in/general/rti/61annual_report/61Annual%20Report%202010-11%20Eng.pdf>.

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the year. This number was only less than Hindi and highestamong the rest of the all Indian and Foreign languages.

Therefore, by whatever logic, whether it is the matter offoreign language or less number of the candidates, removalof Pāli from this exam can’t be proved justified and it is asheer betrayal with those young minds that were preparingfor this examination with Pāli subject for last severalyears. If members of such committee are not even aware ofthe origin and importance of Pāli, then it is the biggestsatire on the scholarship and knowledge of those esteemedmembers themselves who decided to remove it. This justreflects the ignorance of Indian bureaucratic system andpolitical leadership towards its India’s own linguistical,cultural and philosophical heritage.

Yes, the only common factor among all the above removedsubjects is one and only one. And that is – neither of thesehave any vote bank that could put any political party orruling government into trouble because of their decision.

One may ask, OK, we can understand that foreign languagesdoesn’t have any vote bank but why not Pāli? Is Pāli not anissue for Buddhists of India? My reflections are as follows:

What about the support of Indian Scholars of Buddhism onthis issue?

There is a difference between the existence of Buddhismand Buddhist Studies in India. Indian Buddhism is divided intwo parts generally. The largest part of scholarly worldthat deals with Buddhist studies is not Buddhist, neither bybirth nor by faith. On the other hand, Neo-Buddhists whoform the largest part of Indian Buddhists are just Buddhistby faith but have little awareness or concern with what ishappening with the Pāli or Buddhist studies in India. But, Isense that this phase is a transitional phase in the historyof Amebdkar Buddhism and it has to cross over this phase inorder to be involved into pure Buddhist scholarly engagementin the future.

Now, when we talk of the Indian Buddhist academia, Idon’t intend to fall into this logical fallacy that it is

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important for any one to be a Buddhist by birth or faith inorder to become an honest scholar of Buddhism or act in thesupport of the restoration of it. The problem actually liessomewhere else. The teaching community of Buddhism in Indiaconsists of people came from various kinds of backgrounds,Sanskrit, Indian Philosophy, History, Tibetan, Pāli andBuddhist Studies both or only Pāli or only Buddhist Studies.Without getting into the danger of problem ofgeneralization, a brief overview might be important here.

The people came from Sanskrit background; no matter ifnow they are a teacher of Pāli, may have their top priorityof the restoration of Sanskrit; however, there have been andare instances that they have contributed greatly to BuddhistSanskrit literature. Many have come forward to join myFacebook group considering the Pāli and Sanskrit a commonheritage of Indian culture but we can’t expect from them todo more than that as their true commitment is always lyingwith Sanskrit. And in India, learning Sanskrit meanslearning Brahmanism, and Buddhism and Brahmanism can’t gotogether. So, their scholarly commitment may be there withBuddhist Sanskrit literature, but they can’t be expected tobe engaged in any activity supporting favoring Buddhismbecause, in their subconscious, Buddhism is an anti-Hindureligion that can never touch their God believer eternalsoul.

The very similar situation is with the people came fromthe background from Indian philosophy. They, up to the lastyear of Masters Degree studies, are trained by such adesigned curriculum that ends with a conclusion that AdvaitaVedanta is only supreme philosophy and their entirecomparative religion discourse takes place jut in order toprove that thesis only. Let’s see a most commonly askedquestion in the Graduate course of the examination: “IsŚankarācārya a Buddhist in disguise?”. Neutrally, thequestion intends to ask “if Śankarācārya (8th Century AD)borrowed his philosophy of Non-duality from Nāgārjuna’s (2nd

Century AD) philosophy of Śūnya? And one is supposed todeliver an answer with the conclusion, if s/he needs goodmarks, that “ NO, actually this was the Buddha who borrowed

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his philosophy from Upaniṣadas/Vedānta, and beingNāgārjuna’s philosophy dependent on the Buddha’s philosophy,the case is just opposite. Śankarācārya just based hisphilosophy on the Upanishadas/Vedanta and so is the case ofthe Buddha, therefore actually, the Buddha was the followerof Upaniṣadas in disguise, no question of Śankarācārya owinghis philosophy to Nāgārjuna.

Now, a researcher trained with such a mindset,coincidently gets the job into Buddhist studies on thebasis of his doctoral dissertation being based on Buddhism,s/he, in greater possibility, would be indifferent, if nothappy, to whatever good or bad happens to Buddhist studies,and especially Pāli Buddhist Studies.

The people dealing with ancient history in India haveshown their love and commitment for Pāli studies for thesources as a basis of their works. But, they have theavailability of English translation of Pāli literature astheir prime concern is addressed by that only. They don’tfeel the need of going into the literature availabledirectly in Pāli, however, that is essential for correctunderstanding of Buddhism. Because, most of the Indianscholars still teach the meaning of Dīpa in the lines of theBuddha last words, “Atta-dīpā Viharatha” as lamp light ratherthan island. Whatever is the case, the teaching community ofancient Indian history has no direct concern with thisissue, and therefore, like the people of Indian philosophy,they too are not bothered to restore or revive the PāliBuddhist Studies in India.

Tibetan studies in India is much closer to Brahmanicalstudies in outer sphere of life in India since long,therefore, any issue related with Pāli Buddhism is not amatter of concern for them in a larger sense. Any academic,social or political Buddhist issue, which is beyond thediscourse of Tibet doesn’t attract them.

The battle to bring the Pāli at dignified status inIndia might be more difficult in the future because on theone hand, government’s prime concern is fetching touristsand foreign students from Buddhist countries and for thatpurpose, just Department of Buddhist Studies as a title is

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more attractive. Finding the easy path of reading andunderstanding the Buddhism through secondary sources, peoplegetting teaching jobs in these departments too don’t showany urge to learn Pāli language and literature in order todevelop a better understanding of oldest Buddhist teachings.Soon, there would be no demand of young Pāli learningseekers too considering its absence from IAS exams.Consequently, there would be a great scarcity of those whodeal directly with the Pāli language and literature in thefuture India and Buddhism would be left for market readersonly observing demand and supply of the aspects of Buddhismin India.

Pāli is not considered even as an official classicallanguage of India, No kidding:

Perhaps most of the Indian Buddhist scholars eventhemselves are not aware that, Government of India doesn’tconsider Pāli as one of the official classical languages ofIndia. When I began my movement against the Indian Govt.’sdecision of removal of Pāli from the IAS exam, I thought itto be an easy battle by arguing that Pāli is a classicallanguage of India as all of us belonging to Buddhist Studiesin India always believed, therefore, it must not be removedfrom the said exam. In order to validate my argument, when Imoved towards the facts, I was astonished to know that evenafter 66 years of freedom from British rule; Pāli is notclassified as an official classical language of India.Languages thus far declared to be Classical by the Indiangovernment are Tamil (in 2004), Sanskrit (in 2005),Kannada, Telugu (in 2008), and Malayalam (in 2013).

In a 2006 press release, Minister of Tourism & CultureAmbika Soni told the Rajya Sabha (upper house of the IndianParliament) the following criteria were laid down todetermine the eligibility of languages to be considered forclassification as a "Classical Language":

“High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years; A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuableheritage by generations of speakers; The literary tradition be original and not

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borrowed from another speech community; The classical language and literaturebeing distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between theclassical language and its later forms or its offshoots.” 5

Doesn’t Pāli language and literature fulfill the abovecriteria? Do we need to educate the Indian bureaucrats andpolitical leaders that Pāli, which is said to be the dialectof the Buddha’s own teachings, contained in Tipiṭaka, whichis a treasure of Buddhist knowledge and became carrier ofthe propagation of Buddhism in the entire world, is your ownclassical language? This issue is equally, or perhaps moreimportant, for us because it demeans the antiquity, vastnessand greatness of Pāli literature in its own motherland.

Last words:

In such circumstances, the prime responsibility ofcombating any decision harming the Pāli or Buddhist studieslies with the people mentioned in the below mentioned fourcategories mainly:

1. Indian scholars, teachers of higher institutions(Universities and Colleges) trained primarily inPāli or Theravāda Buddhist Studies.

2. Buddhist organizations and Societies of India3. Buddhists by birth or faith like Amedkarite

Buddhists, traditional Buddhists4. Religious and political leaders, academic

institutions, organizations and people of theBuddhist inclination from the whole world,especially from the Buddhist countries

India is not a Buddhist country and has approximately1-2 percent Buddhist population, therefore, there is nopoint talking of religious inclination from the childhood ina larger sense. The increasing number of the Buddhists, ifthat may be the case, is the result of population increase

5 . "Languages of India." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 3 Jul2013. Web. 4 Jul 2013.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_languages_of_India#Official_classical_languages>

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among traditional Buddhists or largely, Neo- Buddhistfamilies as it happens usually in the case any othersociety. But that doesn’t show any radical inclinationtowards Buddhism in India by other believers. A few minorconversions in Maharashtra by Dalits because of theinfluence of Dr. Ambedkar’s influence there or theconstruction of Buddhist temples by the nationals of theBuddhist countries at the historical Buddhist pilgrimagesites in India can’t be taken as any major impact touchingthe roots of common Indian masses. For masses, especiallyHindus, the Buddha is still an incarnation of the SupremeGod Vishnu. It should also be admitted that that feeling maymake them pay homage by bowing down before the statue of theBuddha if they happen to visit any Buddhist temple coincidentlyfor the purpose of picnic or tour; but for no reason, it canbe a place for them to do worship par se as they usually dowhen they pay visit to any Vishnu, Shiva, Hanuman andKrishna or any other Hindu god’s temple.

I began my movement during the first week of April,2013 and tried to propagate this issue by creating OnlinePetition, Facebook group, writing individual letters to thePrime Minister, Minister of Human Resource Development(which includes higher academic affairs) and Minister ofPersonnel, Public Grievance and Pensions and wrote personalletters to appeal most of the Heads of the department of theBuddhist Studies of Indian universities, available E mailsof Ambedkarite Buddhist leaders, different branches ofBuddhist Societies like Mahabodhi Society of India and otherof such organizations and made several phone calls todifferent people of Buddhist circle. Our department too senta letter opposing this decision with the signature of ourHead, Professor Bimalendra Kumar. I tried to draw theattention of the different International Buddhist mediasources too like Buddhist Channel, which played a great rolein propagating this issue at international forum.Resultantly, some of the highly concerned people likeBhikkhu Bodhi (USA), Hema Goonatilake (Editor, BuddhistTimes, Sri Lanka), Susantha Goonatilake (President, RoyalAsiatic Society) and Sanath Kirti de Silva stepped forward

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to extend their help to me on this issue and Royal AsiaticSociety, Sri Lanka prepared a statement to send it to thePrime Minister, India. Numerous people from India and abroadjoined the Facebook group and signed the Online Petition onCare 2 Petition too. I tried to seek the attention of theIndian print and electronic media too and little result wasachieved into the form of the news publication into somelocal leading news papers like Times of India, Pioneer, andsome Hindi news paper. Additionally, some TV news channelslike NBS and News Express covered a story too.

But, during the struggle of last three months, I tendto observe various factors that are disheartening for anyengaged activist, which compelled me to write this paper toevaluate critically the entire Buddhist world of India,which has been almost unresponsive on this issue so farbarring a few incidents of joining the Facebook group orsigning the petition on insistence.

The older generation of Indian teaching community ofancient Indian knowledge is still far from technologicalskills. And perhaps, new generation teachers who got thepermanent job in the universities/colleges till the age of62 or 65 years are so self-contented in their life oracademically engaged into the flood of routinely heldconferences that they have little or no time to engagethemselves socially for the future generation.

Further, not a single Indian Buddhist society repliedon my appeal, which depicts that their websites and E mailsrespond to only those who want to make donations to them. Aconversion specialist Ambedkarite Buddhist leader, visiblein the many conferences in the different countries with theclaim of being an engaged Buddhist, replied me after a monthof me writing him the appeal, in a single line that myactivism is appreciable by him and his friends, but he isvery busy now a days in other activities. It seems that thedestiny of any religion ultimately ends up by going into thehands of priestly class, which began to behave in a similarmanner all over the world. I am afraid if we have to see therevolutionary Ambedkarite Buddhism also heading towards thesame fate.

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Ambedkarite Buddhists may play a great role in therestoration of Pāli studies in the modern India because theyhave a large population at least in one state Maharashtra,where they can mount pressure on their political leaders andparliamentarians to raise these issues at relevantplatforms. I am still waiting to see them showing any trueengagement regarding this issue so that we could see amovement taking birth on this issue.

Some foreigner friends have been asking me if theirreaction or criticism really matters for Indian government.I claim, YES. It actually may be more important for Indianpolitical leaders and bureaucrats so that they could realizethat Pāli a not a dead and useless language, which is beingstudied by a handful people only and has nothing relevant tooffer to the world. It is being studied, taught andpracticed in the entire world, not only in the South EastAsia.

The removal of Pāli by UPSC and non-recognition of Pālias an Indian classical language calls for a strong protestnot only by those who are related with the Pāli & BuddhistStudies in India but also by all those who study, respect orrelate themselves with Indology or Buddhism in whatever waysin the whole world. Those who think that the welfare of Paliand welfare of Buddhist Studies are two different issues areon the wrong path, especially in the case of India. For acertain period, Buddhist Studies may enjoy the governmentalpatronage for the sake of the propagation of Buddhisttourism etc., but ultimately those departments will alwaysbe on the risk of being merged either with theschools/departments of Philosophy or History or Sanskritand, gradually would succumb to death into the form ofdissolution. Pali Studies is the only distinctive featurethat helps Buddhist Studies to be logically and doctrinallydifferent and protects it from the risk of merger. If we orInternational forums of Buddhists didn’t react at this pointof time on such decision of the Indian government, it wouldbe a disastrous error into the world history of Buddhism.This issue must be taken into serious consideration by allthe International forums of the Buddhists in the world and a

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strong message, either into the form of resolution, appealor condemnation, should be forwarded to the Indiangovernment through the Indian embassies in order to drawtheir attention towards this issue.

The authorities of Indian government are so thickskinned and, unlike technologically advanced countries, farfrom online stuff like E mails, Online Petitions, Facebookgroup and Twitter etc., therefore, these tools have littlehope of becoming successful in India at least. Even then,without losing any hope my struggle would be continuedtaking inspiration from the last message of the Buddha,“Appamādena Sampādetha” i.e Strive vigilantly.

References:

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