Editing P Lakshmi Narasu (section)

== Biography ==
Narasu was born in 1861 and died on 14 July 1934.<ref name="dates">Ober, Douglas (2023). ''Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India''. Stanford University Press, p. 140 (1861–1934); Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 65 (born 1860) and 99 (died 14 July 1934). Sources print his name in several ways: "P. Lakshmi Narasu" (used here), "Laxmi Narasu" (Ayyathurai, Gajendran (2011). ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness: Pandit Iyothee Thass, Tamil Buddhism, and the Marginalized in South India''. PhD dissertation, Columbia University, pp. 136, 214), "Lakshminarasu" (Geetha, V., & S.V. Rajadurai (1998). ''Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: From Iyothee Thass to Periyar''. Samya), "Lakshminarasu Naidu" (Kosambi, Dharmanand (1924). निवेदन ''Nivedan'' [Statement] (Marathi). Manoranjak Granthaprasarak Mandali, p. 115), and "Laximnarasu Naidu" (Murugesan, K., & C.S. Subramanyam (1975). ''Singaravelu: First Communist in South India''. People's Publishing House, p. 8). Geetha and Rajadurai, Kosambi, and Murugesan and Subramanyam do not state that their man is the author of ''The Essence of Buddhism''; the identification, which is very probable, is assumed in this article wherever one of these sources is cited. The college is spelled "Pachaiyappa College" by Ober and "Pachiappa's College" by Aloysius.</ref> According to Douglas Ober, he was the son of a prominent advocate in the Madras courts and a product of colonial schools; he studied the physical sciences at Madras University, was appointed assistant professor at Madras Christian College, moved in 1908 to Pachaiyappa's College, and taught there until his retirement in 1924.<ref name="ober23">Ober (2023), ''Dust on the Throne'', p. 140. Ober calls his field chemistry. Ambedkar's preface of 1948 (Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 231) and Aloysius (1998, p. 65) say physics; Ayyathurai (2011, p. 214 n. 307) says physics; Bahulkar says physics and chemistry (in: Gokhale, Pradeep P. (Ed.) (2021). ''Classical Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism and the Question of Caste''. Routledge, ch. 8, p. 152); and Anagarika Dharmapala's introduction of 1907 says only "professor of science". Ambedkar's preface calls him principal of Pachaiyappa's College, which no other source consulted states.</ref> Aloysius, whose introduction to Narasu's posthumous collection is Ober's main biographical source, writes that Narasu came from a "backward" community but that his family had risen to respectable positions under colonial rule; he also reports a Telugu background and only a rudimentary command of Tamil.<ref>Ober (2023), ''Dust on the Throne'', p. 140 (summarizing Aloysius's introduction to Narasu, P. Lakshmi (2002). ''Religion of the Modern Buddhist''. Edited and introduced by G. Aloysius. Samyak Prakashan, p. xv); Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 82.</ref>

Narasu took part in the Buddhist societies of Madras from about the turn of the century. Aloysius lists him with M. Singaravelu among the lecturers of the Madras Buddhist programme from about 1898 to 1900 and calls him an early companion of Thass.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 58, 65.</ref> In 1903 the Marathi Buddhist [[Dharmanand Kosambi]] found in Madras a Maha Bodhi Sabha whose president, a Professor Lakshminarasu Naidu, was probably Narasu; he was Kosambi's teacher in comparative religion and sometimes lectured at the Sunday gatherings of the Bauddhashram in Royapettah.<ref>Kosambi (1924), निवेदन ''Nivedan'', pp. 115–116. The pages do not name Thass, and the identification of the "Lakshminarasu Naidu" named there with Narasu is an inference.</ref> Murugesan and Subramanyam name Narasu and Singaravelu as the principal speakers at the meetings of the Madras [[Maha Bodhi Society]].<ref>Murugesan & Subramanyam (1975), ''Singaravelu'', pp. 8, 146.</ref> Accounts of his relationship with Thass differ. Ayyathurai calls Narasu an associate of Thass; V. Geetha writes that the two worked together briefly and then "parted ways", Narasu being the more rationalist and Thass the more esoteric; and Kosambi's account of 1903 shows the Maha Bodhi circle and Thass's followers as separate groups that did not get on.<ref>Ayyathurai (2011), ''Foundations of Anti-caste Consciousness'', pp. 136, 214 n. 307; Geetha, V. (2021). ''Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India''. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 266; Kosambi (1924), निवेदन ''Nivedan'', p. 115. Thass's own writings examined for the entry on [[Iyothee Thass]] do not name Narasu. Ober (2023, p. 228) writes that the relations of Singaravelu with both Thass and Narasu appear to have been strained.</ref>

Narasu's first book, ''The Essence of Buddhism'', grew out of essays that he had contributed to South Indian magazines, and it appeared in 1907 with an introduction by Dharmapala.<ref>Narasu (1907), ''Essence of Buddhism'', Preface, p. vii; Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 65. Ober (2023, p. 141 and bibliography) dates Dharmapala's foreword to a 1912 edition; Ayyathurai's bibliography records a Madras edition of 1912 published by S. Varadachari; the third edition, with Ambedkar's preface, was published at Bombay by Thacker & Co. in 1948 (Aloysius 1998, App. 10, p. 232).</ref> After Thass's death in 1914, Ober writes, the leadership of the Shakya Buddhist Society turned to Narasu, who became its president and, according to Ober, opened new branches, lectured at national conferences, and presided over conversions and over reformed marriage ceremonies that did without brahmin priests.<ref>Ober (2023), ''Dust on the Throne'', p. 140.</ref> Aloysius adds that the movement regarded him as Thass's successor, although members from the Kolar Gold Fields elected M.Y. Murugesam general president.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 83 n. 16.</ref> Narasu presided over the first four General Conferences of the (South Indian) Buddhist Association, held at Madras on 4 November 1917, at Bangalore on 21 November 1920, at Madras on 6–8 April 1928, and on 21 May 1932.<ref name="conf">Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 89, 97–98 and App. 5–9, pp. 209–229 (the resolutions, in Aloysius's translation). The conferences are numbered inconsistently in the source.</ref> The resolutions passed at them included, in 1928, a membership test that rejected idol worship, ritual customs, and caste discrimination; marriage reform, including a wedding badge (''thali'') bearing the Bodhi tree and the wheel of the Dharma, and equal inheritance for men and women on the Burmese model, on motions of Narasu; requests for a separate Buddhist column in the census and separate seats in the legislatures; and, in 1917 and 1920, expressions of loyalty to the British government.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', App. 5–9, pp. 209–229 (1928 res. 3; 1920 res. 1 and 7; 1928 res. 16). The 1920 address was to George V and "the benign British Government of India"; the 1917 resolution presented the abolition of caste as beneficial to the government. The sources used do not say at which conference each of Narasu's motions was moved.</ref> The 1928 conference authorized him to present its resolutions to the government and to brief the Simon Commission; its guests included E.V. Ramasamy Naicker (Periyar) and M. Singaravelu, but the source does not record what they said.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', pp. 97, 209–229 (1928 res. 15 and 21). In 1930 the Narasingapuram branch was revived through the efforts of Narasu, Singaravelu, and others (p. 95).</ref>

Narasu's relations with the Maha Bodhi Society worsened as his materialist reading of karma and rebirth and his criticism of the sangha became known. The Society had helped to fund the Perambur vihara of the Shakya Buddhist Society, completed according to Ober in 1920, and it published a report of a South Indian Buddhist conference at Bangalore that omitted key sentences of Narasu's presidential message.<ref>Ober (2023), ''Dust on the Throne'', p. 142. Ober's text places the censored message at the second conference, held at Bangalore, but his n. 80 (p. 314) compares two printings of the transcript of the third conference of 1928 (the Maha Bodhi Society's journal, vol. 36/7, 1928, pp. 329–32, and the ''Indian Social Reformer'', vol. 38, 1927–28, pp. 584–86). Aloysius's chronology records the opening of the Perambur vihara in May 1922; the difference is not explained.</ref> In the four years before his death the rift became open, and the Maha Bodhi Society sued Narasu in a civil court, claiming that he had illegally occupied the vihara premises; Ober reports that the case was resolved only sixty years later in the Madras High Court.<ref>Ober (2023), ''Dust on the Throne'', p. 143 and n. 83 (p. 314), which gives the case numbers as OS 2736 of 1981 and CS 274 of 1980 and refers to articles in the Maha Bodhi Society's journal of 1932–34 for the Society's side of the dispute. Thass had criticized the Madras members of the Society in 1911 (see [[Iyothee Thass]]).</ref>

Narasu appeared in public life outside the Association as well. A "Lakshminarasu" described as a Buddhist scholar and friend of the Adi Dravidas criticized Annie Besant in ''New India'' on 17 November 1916 for saying that a Paraiyar must work out his karma, and in an address to the South Indian Buddhist Association reported in ''Kudi Arasu'' of 29 March 1931 he is reported to have called the Buddha's creed the oldest samadharmic creed in existence.<ref>Geetha & Rajadurai (1998), ''Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium'', ch. 1, p. 20, and ch. 11, p. 2 (the page numbers restart in each chapter of the electronic copy used). The gloss "in this instance socialism" is the authors', not Narasu's, and whether the word "samadharmic" renders Narasu's own words was not checked; the reports of both items are second-hand.</ref> The Association's conference of 1932 recommended his ''Essence of Buddhism'' in Tamil as its authoritative book.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', App. 5–9, pp. 225, 228 (the 1945 conference approved a Tamil explanation of Buddhism based on the book as the common text).</ref> In 1934, according to Aloysius, Narasu rejected the argument of C.K. Kuppusamy that Buddhism and world communism do not differ.<ref>Aloysius (1998), ''Religion as Emancipatory Identity'', p. 106 n. 4, which cites an issue of a 1934 periodical given as "TMLN" 8:38; the periodical was not seen.</ref> A sympathetic Bombay journalist who visited several branches of the Society in 1936 regretted that its leadership had not followed either Thass or Narasu.<ref>Ober (2023), ''Dust on the Throne'', p. 197.</ref>