The Doctrine of the Aryas (1921)
Selected Essays of Allan Bennett, Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya - (Volume 2 of Allan Bennett, Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya: Biography and Collected Writings) - Elizabeth J. Harris
Allan Bennett [+]
Allan Bennett (1872-1923) was one of the first British men to gain higher ordination as a Buddhist monk and one of the seminal figures in the development of Buddhism in the UK.
Description
Published at the same time as ‘Buddhism and the Western World’, Bennett revisits here his ‘Aryan’ theory. This now discredited racial theory appears in a number of Metteyya’s writings. According to Metteyya, there were two branches of the ‘Aryan race’, those in India (Indo-Aryans) and those in the west. Here, he negatively contrasts western ‘Aryans’ with those of India. The former had chosen the external world and materialism. The latter had chosen the interior world and inner consciousness, particularly the giving up of selfhood and selfishness.