Jagdish Kashyap
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Bhikkhu Jagdhish Kasyap (Kasyapji) was born in 1908 in Ranchi, Bihar, India; he died 28 January 1976. His birth name was Jagdish Narain, and the name Kasyap was given to him at his bhikkhu ordination in 1933.
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[edit] Education
- BA Patna College, 1929
- MA in Philosophy - Banares Hindu University, 1931.
- MA in Sanskrit - Banares Hindu University, 1932.
[edit] Biography
After finishing his MA's Kashyapji desiring to doctoral work in Buddhist philosophy was advised to study Pāli, and so resolved to go to Sri Lanka, to his parents dismay. They relented in 1933 and he joined the Vidyalankara Pirivena (now the University of Kelaniya). He was ordained by the venerable L. Dhammananda Nayaka Mahathero. During his time at the Vidyalankara Pirivena he translated the Digha Nikāya into Hindi.
On a trip to Japan he was stopped by the police in Malayasia due to his involvement in Gandhi's non-cooperation movement. He ended up spending a year living in Penong, learned some Chinese, lived in a Chinese vihara, and published a collection of lectures.
In 1936 he returned to Sri Lanka to spend time in a forest hermitage to practice meditation, which was quite unusual for a bhikkhu in his day. SO much so that his teachers tried to dissuade him from doing so. Kasyapji continued to practice meditation throughout his life. Towards the end of 1936 he returned to India and in 1937 he settled at Sarnath where he was involved in scholarly and translating work, principally of the Pāli Canon into Hindi. In Sarnath he became associated with the Mahabodhi Society and was soon helping with the institutional organisation and social services. He became the head master of a new high school founded by the Mahabodhi Society General Secretary Devapriya Valisinha. While in Sarnath he also persuaded the official of Banares Hindu University to offer courses in Pāli which he taught for free - even occasionally walking the 22 mile journey into Varanasi.
During this time Kasyapji took on a young English monk as a live in student for about nine months. Sangharakshita went on to found the Western Buddhist Order in 1968, and considers Kasyapji to have been an important teacher in both spiritual and secular senses.
In 1947 India became independent and there was a new sense of identity for Indians. In 1949 he toured his ancestral homeland - the ancient province of Magadha which was also the centre of ancient Buddhism. For the first time in many centuries the villages in Magadha saw a yellow robed bhikkhu, and were pleasantly surprised to find that he spoke their local dialect Magadhi. The locals had long forgotten their own history and Kasyapji was able to furnish many details. The very name of the state of Bihar comes from presence of so many Buddhist viharas in the past. He was able to point out the true identity of the images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas which were being worshipped as Hindu gods or local deities. Villages such as Sari-chak, near Nalanda previously had an association with the Buddha's chief disciple Sariputta. Finally he was able, by quoting passages from the Pāli texts, to demonstrate that Magadhi is still closely related to the Magadhi dialect.
After this visit Kasyapji offered to teach Pāli at Gaya College and at Nalanda College in Bihar-Sharif. Later when the Bihar state government decided to start an institute for Pāli studies at Nalanda, he was the obvious choice to head the project. In 1951 the institute became the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara.
1956 was the 2500th anniversary of the parinibbana of the Buddha, celebrated by the Indian government as the Buddha Jayanti. As part of the celebrations Kasyapji's work to bring out a Devanagari edition of the Pāli Canon was accepted as an official project, and was jointly sponsored by the government of Bihar, and the government of India. The first volumen appeared in 1956 on the occasion of the Buddha Jayanti, and the rest followed over five years - guided to completion with enormous effort and marathon labour by Kasyapji. At one point he sold his house to pay the salaries of workers when payments had been delayed.
During the Buddha Jayanti project Kasyapji returned to Varanasi and in 1959 he was asked to be the first Professor of Pāli and Buddhism at the Sanskrit University of Varanasi. He remained there until 1965 when he returned to Nalanda for a second term as Director of the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara. He retired in 1973. Having earlier developed diabetes, he became seriously ill in 1974 and spent his last two years bed ridden in the Japanese temple in Rajgir, from where he could see the Vulture Peak and the newly constructed Peace Pagoda. He died in 1976.
[edit] References
D.C. Ahir. The Pioneers of the Buddhist Revival in India. (Delhi, Sri Satguru Pub. : 1989)
[edit] External links
- My Eight Main Teachers A talk by Sangharakshita in which he describes his time with Kasyapji (amongst other teachers).
