Editing Narendra Deva (section)

== Ideas ==

The sources show that Deva produced his own interpretation of Buddhist doctrine and history, extensively but mostly without political comment. However, no Buddhist vocabulary has been found inside his Marxist or socialist argument in the texts consulted in the research for this article. Furthermore, no institutional Buddhist activism has been found; his role was scholarly and pedagogical. And a personal Buddhist identity or conversion is not established: his memoir does not call him a Buddhist, a biographer reports that he called religion a dangerous social force, and Ankit nevertheless concludes that he was "a Marxist and a Buddhist" to the end.<ref>Ankit (2017), "Marxist Guru", pp. 6, 14. The characterization is the author's own verdict.</ref>

Deva wrote that he would give up his party before giving up Marxism, and he is described as a "self-avowed Hegelian and Marxist".<ref>Nauriya (2015), ''Non-violent Action'', pp. 2, 73, citing a letter of 3 September 1952; Ankit (2017), "Marxist Guru", p. 7.</ref> His Patna address of 1934 is called a foundational document of Indian socialism.<ref>Nauriya (2015), ''Non-violent Action'', pp. 20–23.</ref> In 1947 he described Marx as one of the great humanists, called the Soviet system a distortion, and held that "socialism alone is full democracy".<ref>Ankit (2017), "Marxist Guru", pp. 9–10.</ref> Anil Nauriya argues that he never moved toward anti-Marxism; the same author contends that a Marxist tradition outside the communist parties has been neglected in Indian historiography, which is his argument rather than an established finding.<ref>Nauriya (2015), ''Non-violent Action'', pp. 17–18, 73–74.</ref> Deva's essays in the 1979 collection are conventional Marxist and socialist arguments. The essay "Religion and Socialism" gives a Marxist critique of religion as ideology, with no reference to Buddhism.<ref>Deva (1979), ''Towards Socialist Society'', pp. 283–286, which repeats text from "Human Basis of Socialism", pp. 217–223. The text is from an OCR copy; check the page image before quoting.</ref> His 1955 Gaya statement "The Role of Ethics in Socialism" rests socialist morality on liberty, equality, and the common good (in Hindi, ''swatantra'', ''samata'', ''lokahit''), whose roots it traces to sages, saints, and Sufis without citing Buddhist sources.<ref>Deva (1979), ''Towards Socialist Society'', pp. 302–306. The address is dated 26 December 1955 by Ankit (p. 14 n. 117) and 29 December 1955 in the 1979 volume.</ref>

Deva respected Gandhi but rejected a "synthesis" of Marxism and Gandhism, holding that Marxism would prefer non-violence if it works.<ref>Nauriya (2015), ''Non-violent Action'', pp. 15–16. The statement is traced to the article "Marxvaad Aur Socialist Party" (1950–51).</ref> In June 1945 he told Gandhi that he doubted power could be won from the British without some violence.<ref>Deva (1956), ''Bauddha-Dharma-Darshan'', fm. 68; Nauriya (2015), ''Non-violent Action'', p. 55 n. 220.</ref> His memoir explains Gandhi's mass appeal among orthodox Hindus, who would not follow his conduct in matters of Hindu observance, by the claim that "śramaṇa culture" has influenced the Indian masses far more than the Brahmanical tradition.<ref>Deva (1956), ''Bauddha-Dharma-Darshan'', fm. 67 (paraphrase; the page was read from the image).</ref>

''Bauddha-Dharma-Darshan'' is a scholarly treatise of five parts and twenty chapters, covering the Buddha's life and teaching, the canon, Mahayana, general doctrines, the four philosophical schools, and Buddhist logic. There is no explicit socialist or Marxist content in the book. The social passages that do occur are brief:
* In chapter 1 he presents Indian culture as two streams, Brahmanical and śramaṇa, and describes the Brahmin priesthood as having made itself "as it were, gods", which provoked ritual critique and revolt (pp. 1–3).
* Writing on the materialist teacher Ajita Kesakambali, he remarks that ancient Indian thought stressed the results of action rather than the existence of God as the basis of social morality (p. 2).
* In chapter 2 he narrates suttas in which the Buddha denies that birth makes a Brahmin or an outcaste, and adds in his own voice that the Buddhist order "had a place for everyone" while Shudras were excluded from austerities and Vedic study (pp. 14–15). In chapter 3 he notes that the ''Ambattha'' and ''Assalayana'' suttas offer a picture of the varna order and its defects (p. 31).
* In chapter 1 he also gives an account of the sangha's governance: authority first rested with the whole community, then passed to councils of elders and later to a single head, which reduced the laity's influence (pp. 12–13).<ref>Deva (1956), ''Bauddha-Dharma-Darshan'', pp. 1–3, 12–15, 31. Read from the page images; the Hindi text of pp. 14–15 is of low resolution, so no wording is quoted here.</ref>

The claim that Deva combined Marxism and Buddhism comes from others. Jagannath Upadhyaya, in a tribute printed in the 1956 book, writes that Buddhism's opposition to caste, scripture-worship, and belief in a god above gods, and its idea of saving society through the individual, shaped Deva before his turn to socialism, and that socialism then "gave it a new lustre"; Upadhyaya describes the result as a necessary synthesis of Marxism with Indian culture and ethics, and mentions Deva's idea of a "Nava-Sanskriti-Sangh" (new culture fellowship), about which nothing more is known from the sources consulted.<ref>Upadhyaya, Jagannath (1956). "आचार्यजी और बौद्धदर्शन" [Acharyaji and Buddhist Philosophy]. In: Deva (1956), ''Bauddha-Dharma-Darshan'', fm. 52–56. Paraphrase; the page was read from the image, and the last sentence on Sarvodaya and Bhoodan is hard to parse at that resolution and is not relied on.</ref> Sri Prakasa's preface to the same book credits Deva with first bringing Buddhism and Buddhist ideas into Indian political discussion, "though he himself may not have felt it".<ref>Deva (1956), ''Bauddha-Dharma-Darshan'', fm. 71 (paraphrase of the preface of 14 March 1956).</ref> The unsigned blurb of the 1979 volume says his source of inspiration was Buddhist philosophy combined with Marxism, "a synthesis between Marxism and Buddhism", while accepting class struggle but stressing morality.<ref>Deva (1979), ''Towards Socialist Society'', foreword and p. 7.</ref> Asoka Mehta is quoted as saying that Deva was profoundly influenced by Marx, "but probably more by Buddha", and Ober writes that the Praja Socialist Party's "social humanism" owed much to Deva's study of Buddhism.<ref>Ankit (2017), "Marxist Guru", p. 1; Ober (2023), ''Dust on the Throne'', p. 250.</ref> These are interpretive framings, in part hagiographic in tone. In a report of a 1947 speech, printed in the 1979 volume, Deva is said to have argued that religion misleads people but that some religions had progressive trends, and that the Buddhist school of philosophers belonged to those; this is the nearest the 1979 volume comes to a link, but it is a newspaper report rather than his own prose.<ref>Deva (1979), ''Towards Socialist Society'', pp. 120–121, footnote citing the ''National Herald'', 25 July 1947.</ref> Ankit also reports that Deva's early writings (one dated October 1925) distinguished ''dharma'' from narrow ''sampradaya'' and used Buddhism to argue for people's welfare against individual nirvana; the dating of this material is unclear, and the content of his Buddhist scholarship is not analyzed in any of the secondary sources used here.<ref>Ankit (2017), "Marxist Guru", p. 6 and nn. 37–38.</ref>