Ananda Metteyya’s Legacy
The Life of Allan Bennett, Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya - (Volume 1 of Allan Bennett, Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya: Biography and Collected Writings) - Elizabeth J. Harris
Elizabeth J. Harris [+]
University of Birmingham
John L. Crow [+]
Florida State University
Description
Chapter Six explores a selection of the diverse ways in which Ananda Metteyya was appropriated and remembered after his death, by both Buddhists and esotericists. In Asia, he was remembered as a pioneer of Buddhist mission to the west, a symbol of the international appeal of Buddhism in the face of western Christian hegemony. In western esoteric and occultist circles, he was lauded as a magician who never left occultism behind, becoming an almost mythical role model. Within western Buddhist groups, his pioneering 1908 mission was not forgotten but new initiatives, which distanced themselves from his memory, developed. In the 1990s, however, the Sri Saddhatissa International Buddhist Centre in London brought him to the fore again, through an annual event that commemorated the 1907 mission. The chapter argues that few posthumous representations of Ananda Metteyya, including academic ones, brought the whole of his life together, taking into account his significance not only within the transmission of Buddhism to the west but also within western esotericism.