Editing Iyothee Thass (section)

== Biography ==
Thass was born Kathavarayan on 20 May 1845 in the Coimbatore district to a Parayar family; he grew up in the Nilgiris and later settled in Madras.<ref name="al98">Aloysius, G. (1998). ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity: A Buddhist Movement among the Tamils under Colonialism''. New Age International, p. 50 n. 1. Sources print his name in several ways: "Iyothee Thass" (used here), "Iyothee Thassar" (used by Aloysius in his later works), "Pandit C. Iyothee Thass" (Aloysius 1998, p. 58), "Ayothidasa Pandithar", and, in his own English signature of 1911, "Pandit C. Iyothee Doss". His birth year is given as 1845 by Aloysius (1998, p. 50) and in the portrait caption of the collected edition of his writings (cited below); LeVine and Gellner give 1865 (LeVine, Sarah, & David N. Gellner (2005). ''Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal''. Harvard University Press, p. 9), probably a slip.</ref> He took the name Iyothee Thass in honor of his teacher, a Siddha physician, practiced Siddha medicine himself, and is described as proficient in Tamil, Pali, Sanskrit, and English.<ref>Leonard (2021), "Caste-Less Tamils", p. 352; Ayyathurai, Gajendran (2011). ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness: Pandit Iyothee Thass, Tamil Buddhism, and the Marginalized in South India''. PhD dissertation, Columbia University, pp. 21, 216. All translations from Tamil in this dissertation are the author's own (p. 24 n. 51).</ref>

According to Aloysius, his public activity began in the Nilgiris with the Advaidananda Sabha organization (1870) and continued with requests, from 1881, that the "outcastes" be recorded in the census as original Tamils rather than Hindus.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 54–55; Aloysius, G. (2004). ''Dalit-Subaltern Emergence in Religio-Cultural Subjectivity: Iyothee Thassar & Emancipatory Buddhism''. Critical Quest, p. 24; Leonard (2021), "Caste-Less Tamils", p. 351. Aloysius (2004) lists the Dravida Mahajana Sabha (1891) and the Advaidananda Sabha (1870) as the first organization without stating how they relate.</ref> Leonard credits him and the Rev. John Rathinam with starting the magazine ''Dravida Pandian'' in 1885.<ref>Leonard (2021), "Caste-Less Tamils", p. 363.</ref> In 1891 he helped to found the Dravida Mahajana Sabha, whose memorial of ten demands was addressed to the Indian National Congress in December 1891. The first demand would have made it an offense to call anyone a "Parayan"; others concerned separate schools, scholarships, public employment, and access to all public water tanks and wells.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 55 and App. 1, pp. 195–196 (a translation from the ''Tamilan'' of 14 October 1908, where Thass reprinted the memorandum); Ayyathurai (2011), ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness'', pp. 59–60.</ref> In April 1892 he attended a meeting of the Madras Mahajana Sabha. In his own later account, a speaker repeated a legend that the poet Valluvar was born of a Brahmin father, and Thass retorted by asking from whose seed the Parayar B.A. and M.A. graduates, and the Iyer Brahmins held in jail, had been born.<ref>Aloysius, G. (Ed.) (1999). அயோத்திதாசர் சிந்தனைகள் ''Iyothee Thassar Cinthanaikal'' [Thoughts of Iyothee Thass], vols. 1–2. FRRC, St Xavier's College, vol. 1, item 56, pp. 132–134 (''Tamilan'' 2:34, 3 February 1909). The ''Tamilan'' issue number marks the end of the installment it names. Other versions of the meeting, including a temple-entry plea that was rejected, are in Ayyathurai (2011), ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness'', pp. 22–24, and Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 152.</ref> Ayyathurai reads the episode as the point at which Thass concluded that the caste and casteless populations shared no common identity; Aloysius argues that the rebuff sent him on a "search and research" that led him to conclude that the outcastes had originally been Buddhists.<ref>Ayyathurai (2011), ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness'', pp. 22–23; Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 152; Aloysius (2004), ''Dalit-Subaltern Emergence'', pp. 25–27.</ref>

In 1898 Thass and a colleague, P. Krishnaswami, delegates of "Paraiah" committees, approached Henry Steel Olcott of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, and on 1 July 1898 sailed with him to [[Sri Lanka|Colombo]], where Thass took the Five Precepts from the monk Hikkaduwe Sumangala at the Maligakanda monastery.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 50–53, drawing on Olcott's diary and on Thass; Thass's own English account of 1911 is in Aloysius (1999), vol. 2, item 82, pp. 180–181. Olcott's diary records that the delegates described their people as the aboriginal Buddhists of Asoka's time, and its editor remarks that this had not been proved (Aloysius 1998, p. 51 n. 4). Ayyathurai (2011, p. 216) calls the event a "baptism" by a Sinhala monk; Aloysius's account indicates that it was the taking of the precepts, not ordination.</ref> On his return he established the Sakya Buddhist Society at Royapettah, with himself as general secretary; it opened branches at Kolar, Bangalore, Tirupattur, Secunderabad, Rangoon, and Durban, and Aloysius links its growth to miners, sappers, railway workers, and migrants to Burma and Natal.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 55; Aloysius (1999), vol. 2, item 82, pp. 180–184, which lists the branches and their secretaries; on the social base of the branches see also pp. 45–47 and 183 of Aloysius (1998). The date of his Buddhist turn varies: 1890 in his own appeal of 1911 ("So long back as the year 1890 I came to be convinced ... of the truths of Buddhism") and in Aloysius (2004), p. 28; 1898 in Aloysius (1998) and in his own later account; 1899 in Ayyathurai, Gajendran (2020). "Living Buddhism: Migration, Memory, and Castelessness in South India". ''History and Anthropology'' (online first, 14 December 2020): 1–19, p. 9 n. 5, which also dates the first Sakya Buddhist Association at Royapettah to 1899.</ref> In 1903 the Marathi Buddhist [[Dharmanand Kosambi]], during a stay in Madras, described a "Pandit Ayodhidas", probably Thass, as the leader of the city's Parayar Buddhists, who "did not get on" with the members of the Madras [[Maha Bodhi Society]], led by [[P Lakshmi Narasu|P. Lakshmi Narasu]]; Kosambi brought the groups together at a Bauddhashram in Royapettah.<ref>Kosambi, Dharmanand (1924). निवेदन ''Nivedan'' [Statement] (Marathi). Manoranjak Granthaprasarak Mandali, p. 115 (read from the page image). The page does not give the name "Thass"; the identification of "Ayodhidas" with Thass is an inference, as is the identification of the "Lakshminarasu Naidu" named there as president with Narasu (very probable).</ref> Ober reports that after Thass's death in 1914 the leadership of the Shakya Buddhist Society turned to Narasu, who became its president, while V. Geetha writes that the two parted ways, Narasu being the more rationalist; Thass's own writings examined in researching this article do not mention Narasu.<ref>Ober, Douglas (2023). ''Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India''. Stanford University Press, pp. 135–143; Geetha, V. (2021). ''Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India''. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 266. In his appeal of 1911 Thass names the American writer Paul Carus as the Society's president (Aloysius 1999, vol. 2, item 82, p. 181).</ref>

From 19 June 1907 Thass published and edited the weekly ''Oru Paisa Tamilan'' ("The One-Pice Tamilian"), later simply ''The Tamilan'', which included a women's column and campaigned for women's education.<ref>Ayyathurai (2011), ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness'', p. 21; Leonard (2021), "Caste-Less Tamils", pp. 351–353; Aloysius, G. (2010). ''Dalit-Subaltern Self-Identifications: Iyothee Thassar & Tamizhan''. Critical Quest, pp. 11–13, which puts its circulation at a couple of thousand at most; Ayyathurai (2020), "Living Buddhism", p. 14.</ref> Through it he serialized his historical writings, attacked brahmin-led nationalism and the swadeshi movement, and campaigned for the 1911 census, in which he urged the casteless to be recorded as "Indian Buddhists"; the Madras government agreed to show Buddhists separately.<ref>Aloysius (1999), vol. 1, items 175 (''Tamilan'' 4:27, 14 December 1910; pp. 307–308) and 187 (4:34, 1 February 1911; pp. 321–322); Ayyathurai (2011), ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness'', pp. 133–139; Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 74.</ref> In May 1911 he answered a reader who asked why he did not attend the Maha Bodhi Society's meetings in Madras: he objected that its members, while preaching that Buddhism had no caste, said they would teach the "lower classes" and thereby raised themselves, and that they denied rebirth and held that death was the end.<ref>Aloysius (1999), vol. 2, item 73, pp. 168–169 (''Tamilan'' 4:49, 17 May 1911). The doctrine is attributed to the Madras members, not to Anagarika Dharmapala. See also Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 145, 160. In item 100 (below) Thass attacks two unnamed men who "keep caste yet preach new Buddhism"; the sources do not identify them.</ref> His appeal of 1911 to Buddhists abroad says that honest co-workers are hard to find in "caste-ridden India" and asks European and American Buddhists to send missionaries.<ref>Aloysius (1999), vol. 2, item 82, pp. 180–184.</ref> In 1913 he described the Society's practices (images of the Buddha, the Five Precepts through monks, loyalty to British rule) and its achievements, including a separate census column and a separate burial ground.<ref>Aloysius (1999), vol. 2, item 100, pp. 439–441 (''Tamilan'' 6:51, 28 May 1913).</ref> His book ''Adivedam'' (the "first Veda") became, according to Ayyathurai, his most important work and remains the core text of the Hubli Buddhist community.<ref>Ayyathurai (2020), "Living Buddhism", p. 10; Ayyathurai (2011), ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness'', p. 101 n. 158. The date is given as 1911 by Ayyathurai (2020) and as a public release on 31 August 1912 by Aloysius (1998, p. 75); Aloysius (1999), pp. xlvii–xlviii, treats ''Adi Vedam'' (1912) as the one posthumous book that the movement did not alter, because it appeared under Thass's own supervision.</ref>

Thass died on 5 May 1914; Burmese monks officiated at the funeral.<ref name="al98d">Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 79. Ayyathurai (2011, p. 75) gives only the year.</ref> The ''Tamilan'' continued under his eldest son, C.I. Pattabiram, until 1917 and was revived in 1921 under G. Appaduraiyar.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 81, 88; Aloysius (2010), ''Dalit-Subaltern Self-Identifications'', pp. 11–13. Ayyathurai (2011, p. 21) and Leonard (2021, p. 351) give 29 April 1914 as the end of the weekly; the sources do not explain the difference.</ref> The Society's successor, the South Indian Buddhist Association, held general conferences between 1917 and 1945, most of them under Narasu's presidency (see [[Tamil Buddhist Movement]]).<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 89–101 and App. 5–9, pp. 209–229.</ref>