As British society dismissed colonized cultures, a Sri Lankan lawyer earned the respect of England’s elite through intellect, character and faith
By Dr. Kusum Pant Joshi
Some might know that sir muthu Coomaraswamy Mudaliar (1834–1877) was the first Hindu to be called to the English Bar, the first South Asian to be knighted by Queen Victoria and also the father of renowned polymath, Dr. Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. However, few know that he was a distinguished Hindu from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), who used his knowledge of English and Western ways to establish links with Britain’s upper crust and personally present diverse facets of Hindu thought, beliefs and culture to them. It is to his credit that he ventured to do so at a time when the West was not only generally ignorant about India, but was also severely biased against it.
What makes him interesting is that he played this pioneering role of bridge building by his sheer presence in the West, his social interactions with important Westerners, his publications and membership in significant intellectual bodies. Today, his extant articles, translations and publications bear eloquent testimony to the fact that he played a ground-breaking role in proudly introducing Hindu belief systems to the Western gaze.
Family Roots, Background, Education
Though technically from Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist island that looks like a tiny drop that has fallen off the southern tip of India, Muthu Coomaraswamy comes across in his surviving correspondence as someone who looked upon himself—and was also regarded by those he is known to have interacted with in the West—as an Indian and a Hindu. The explanation for this lies in the fact that firstly, Sri Lanka was part of what is known as “Greater India.” It is a vast geographical area consisting of parts of Asia which still bear numerous tangible signs of the spread and impact of India’s Hindu religion, art, language and knowledge systems. Moreover, Buddhism, Sri Lanka’s main religion, was an offshoot of Hinduism that was imported from India in the 3rd century bce. Secondly, Sri Lanka had been open to repeated invasions by three powerful South Indian Hindu kingdoms: the Pandyas (13th–15th century), Cheras and Cholas (10th–early 11th century) that had further strengthened India’s cultural and religious impact on Sri Lanka. Finally, there had been periodic waves of South Indian migrants to Sri Lanka who remained strongly rooted to the Hindu religion, traditions and culture of their original homeland.
Photo: Courtesy Kusum Joshi
It was into one such Hindu family of South Indian immigrants to Sri Lanka that Muthu Coomaraswamy was born on January 23, 1834. Headed by Gate Mudaliar Arumugampillai Coomaraswamy (1784–1836) and his wife Visalachchi Ammaiyar, a staunch Hindu and devotee of Lord Siva, his family belonged to the Mudaliar community, an influential group of Saivite Hindus. Generally affluent, the Mudaliars were also known for preserving and promoting Hinduism in Sri Lanka, and building and renovating temples.
Like many others in the Mudaliar community, Muthu’s father opted for government service and worked for the British after they took over Ceylon from the Dutch in 1796. This helped him increase his power and influence. Soon after Ceylon’s first Legislative Council was established in 1836, his father was elevated to the position of unofficial Council member. These distinguished services and social standing won Arumugampillai gold and silver medals, and considerable praise from various British Governors of Ceylon.
After his father’s early death, Muthu gained admission into Queen’s College in Colombo, where, in 1851, he won the prestigious Turnour Prize as the best student in Greek, Latin and the English classics. He then studied law and became an Advocate in 1856. In 1862, he became the Tamil representative in the Legislative Council.
Pioneering Work in the West
In July 1862, Muthu Coomaraswamy traveled to England and gained admission in London’s Lincoln’s Inn, a prestigious legal society for barristers, offering education, dining and accommodation. While in England, he did not confine himself to the study of law. Due to his family connections, he had arrived in London with a letter of introduction from no less a personage than the then Governor of Ceylon, Sir Charles Justin MacCarthy (1811–1864). This epistle was addressed to one of the leading lights of Victorian society, Richard Monckton Milnes (a.k.a Lord Houghton). Ensconced in Fryston Hall, his grand mansion in the midst of 200 acres of parkland in Yorkshire, Lord Houghton was a poet, politician and a man of culture, a distinguished member of the British elite.
With their sophistication and lavish hospitality, Lord and Lady Houghton had turned Fryston Hall into an alluring center where renowned figures from the UK’s intellectual, literary and political spheres met, socialized and exchanged ideas. Soon after his arrival in Britain, Muthu Coomaraswamy entered and became part of this exalted circle.
Here it is important to stress that the period we are referring to was the second half of the 19th century. It was a time when, as colonizers, the British ruling class and Britain’s populace was dominated, among other features, by a highly patronizing and derogatory attitude towards the colonized. They tended to assume that the British were on a “civilizing mission” and were justified in negating the culture and exploiting the economic and human resources of colonized people.
The fact that as late as 1910 Muthu Coomaraswamy’s son, Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy, had felt pushed to take up the cudgels against this negative attitude, demonstrates its existence and strength. Joined by an active group of open-minded Englishmen and women led by William Rothenstein and E.B. Havell, he managed to get a strong letter of protest published in The London Times of February 28, 1910, urging that it was high time to stop the British denigration of Indian culture and art. It was only after the appearance of this letter, followed by the establishment of London’s India Society that was dedicated to altering India’s negative perception, that anti-India bias prevalent in Britain slowly began to lift. It is, therefore, beyond any shadow of a doubt that the situation in the mid-1800s, when Muthu Coomaraswamy was active in the UK, must have been dire.
It is truly remarkable that despite the prevailing racism, paternalism and huge power imbalance that must have yawned between India and England, Muthu Coomaraswamy had the confidence to relate on a footing of equality with members of the British elite in their own home ground. Fortunately for him, the Houghtons were among a small group of influential, liberal, pro-abolitionist and open-minded Britons who were free of racial biases, mixed socially with colonial people and were also eager to learn about them.
Correspondence between Coomaraswamy and the Houghtons reveals the relationship of warmth and camaraderie that he was able to firmly establish and grow with them.
A perusal of Houghton’s biographer T.W. Reid’s The Life, Letters and Friendships of Lord Richard Monckton Milnes, also makes it apparent that Coomaraswamy played a crucial role in directly introducing and familiarizing Lord Houghton with Indian culture at a time when there was an absence of such direct sources of information or knowledge. “In the interval between his [Coomaraswamy’s] first sojourn and his death, for example,” writes Reid, “he visited England on several occasions, always to be received with hospitality by Milnes, who derived from his friendship a new pleasure, finding in him a link between the Western world, with which he was so familiar, and the thought and feeling of the far East, which he had hitherto known only through books.”
Lord Houghton’s use of the term: “Your Hindoo barrister” while writing about Coomaraswamy to his friend, MacCarthy, the Governor of Ceylon, also conveys that he had impressed him as a representative of the Hindu faith. This acquires special significance when we gather that, during his illness, Coomaraswamy extracted a promise from his host Lord Houghton that if he happened to die, his body, as required by Hindu tradition, would be cremated, not buried. The importance that Lord Houghton willingly gave to Coomaraswamy’s wish, reveals how vital he considered it and also how well Muthu had managed to impress his host of the significance of this ancient Hindu tradition.
Elaborating on this, T. W. Reid writes: “It happened that during his first visit to Yorkshire, Mr. Coomaraswamy suffered from a very serious illness, which at one time threatened his life, and through which he was assiduously nursed by the family at Fryston. A lively recollection still retained of the anxiety which Milnes showed at the time when Mr. Coomaraswamy was at the worst. He had given his guest a promise that if the illness from which he was suffering ended fatally, he should not be buried in the English fashion, but should be cremated. Those who knew Lord Houghton will understand how, having given that promise, he was eager to prepare for its fulfilment should the necessity unhappily arise; and a legend is still extant of the way in which he wandered about the broad domains and the umbrageous woods at Fryston, until he had at last fixed upon a spot which was, in his opinion, entirely suited to what would have been the first cremation on English soil in modern times.
“Fortunately for the object of these delicate attentions, the good nursing at Fryston proved effectual, saving him from the fate to which he had been dedicated. No one, it need hardly be said, rejoiced more heartily than Milnes at the recovery of his interesting friend, but mingled with his rejoicing was a droll sense of disappointment at the thought of the distinction [of arranging the first Hindu cremation in an English estate] which had been lost to Fryston forever.”
Coomaraswamy’s letters also reveal that Lord Houghton was not the only one on whom he managed to make an imprint of his spiritual or religious beliefs through his personal interactions. For example, it is interesting to note that he was not only acquainted with Benjamin Disraeli, but that after Coomaraswamy’s death, this eminent Jew turned Christian politician and novelist developed a character named Kusinara, modeled on Coomaraswamy. He introduced this character in 1880–81 in his last unfinished novel, titled Falconet, published later in 1905.
The fact that Disraeli presented Kusinara in his novel as a representative of Buddhism—an offshoot or reform movement from Hinduism—points out that Muthu Coomaraswamy had impressed him through his discussions on Indian philosophy during his sojourn in the West.
Some letters written to the Houghtons by Muthu Coomaraswamy from Europe also mention his attending meetings addressed by prominent Western thinkers of his times. Even a single brief excerpt on India and Hinduism taken from one of his letters is enough to make the intensity of his pride in and deep concern about Hinduism crystal clear. For instance, in a letter from Paris dated September 29, 1864, written to Lady Houghton, he writes: “… let me tell you what I have done since I left England. At Paris I met the famous Victor Cousin whom I had longed to see for a very long time. I learnt his opinion on religious philosophy and also the importance he attached to the further study of Indian philosophy. Paris is full of Orientalists; it is quite the fashion there now to dabble in Eastern languages. Cousin influenced me to devote myself to the works of Indian philosophy. His ‘eclecticism’ in fact must continue to be imperfect until Indian philosophy is better known.”
Next, simultaneously expressing both regret at the low position generally accorded to Hinduism in the West, as well as a sense of relief that many prominent Western thinkers there were heaping praise on Hinduism, he wrote: “In the humiliating position in which the Hindus are placed now, the fervour with which a Cousin, a Renan and a Max Muller praises Hindu philosophy and the Sanskrit language and literature, acts, in my mind at least, as a potent ‘soothing solace.’ It was something in favor of the despised Hindu to hear from the first Philosopher of France that all the systems of philosophy which are going through their periodical cycles now in Europe have had their rise and fall before on the banks of the Ganges. ‘Sur les bords du Ganges Quant à moi’ [On the banks of the Ganges…As for me].”
Muthu Coomaraswamy’s letterheaded paper in the 1860s also loudly proclaims his pride in his religious, literary and cultural roots. It displays an elephant’s head at the center and inspiring Sanskrit words around it that urge the wise to follow dharma, the path of righteousness, with a tenacity as though death was holding them by their hair.
Blazing a Trail for Other Hindus
Besides functioning as a personal source of information on Hinduism to those he met and interacted with, Coomaraswamy managed to pursue his legal studies and was called to the English Bar in 1863. It is also noticeable that in the years that followed, it became common for upwardly mobile South Asians, including Hindus, to travel to England to qualify as barristers and be called to the Inns of Court without having to take any step that compromised their faith. Indeed, this trend became so common that it was soon completely forgotten that it was Muthu Coomaraswamy whose pioneering and strenuous efforts had silently blazed a new trail that countless Hindus could follow.
To understand the magnitude of his contribution, let us recount the situation regarding admission to the English Bar that prevailed through much of the 19th century. The conservative nature of British society was such that only those who were willing to take a Christian oath could be called to the English Bar. The first Jewish barrister was admitted by 1833, but the doors were still closed to Hindus. An examination of South Asian and Indian names that appear in the records of various English Inns of Court reveals that an Indian, Ganendro Mohan Tagore (from the same family as that of poet Rabindranath Tagore), was called to the Lincoln’s Inn in 1862. He was not a Hindu, but a Bengali Hindu convert to Christianity in 1851.
It has not been possible to ascertain whether Muthu Coomaraswamy took an oath of allegiance on a Hindu religious book or a secular oath to become a barrister. What is known is that he had to canvas assiduously before a special committee to be accepted as a barrister without having to compromise his Hindu faith by taking the usual Christian oath. Committee members held several meetings before they eventually gave their formal approval. His personal correspondence also shows that he had received considerable assistance in this task from Lord Houghton and his socio-political connections.
Muthu Coomaraswamy’s pioneering role of running from pillar to post, to the point of risking his personal health, led to his eventual success in overcoming the need for an oath “upon the true faith of a Christian” to become a barrister. His case did not result in changing the law for everyone, but it was a crucial first step in the direction of ushering in fundamental changes that freed the UK’s judicial and political spheres from religious restrictions or constraints, in a significant move towards secularization.
Commenting on his seminal but unsung contribution, Lord Houghton had remarked soon after his death: “I held him in great esteem. He has never received due credit for the energy with which he opened the Bar of England to all Eastern subjects of the Empress of India.”
Another distinction conferred upon him was when he became the first Hindu to be knighted by Queen Victoria in 1874. This also received wide coverage in the English press.
Joining Major Intellectual Bodies
Besides translating Indian philosophical works (sidebar pg. 64), Muthu Coomaraswamy sought membership in important British intellectual and official bodies. This gave him opportunities to become acquainted with important current questions, issues and concerns of those in the corridors of power. It also enabled him to express his own views on such matters during meetings of these bodies and in their official publications.
Thus, in 1862, a year before the publication of his English translation of Arichandra, he contributed a paper to the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society on a fundamental and highly significant part of Hinduism that was practiced by his family and many Hindus in India and Ceylon. Under the title Saiva Siddhantam (or the Doctrine of Lord Siva), he explained and provided insight into the peculiar philosophical tenets of this worldview or system of thought. To widen its reach, he later appended an extract of this paper to the end of Arichandra.
Similarly, he was a member of The Royal Society of Arts, The Royal Geographical Society, The Geological Society of London, The Athenaeum Club, London and the Asiatic Society, Paris. The Anthropological Review and Journal of the Anthropological Society of London of February 1864 mentions that he delivered a paper on the ethnology of Ceylon.
Marriage and Premature Death
Muthu Coomaraswamy, at age 41, married an Englishwoman in London in 1875. Taking the Houghtons into confidence and sharing the happy tidings with them, he wrote: “The Lady is Kentish by her mother’s side and belongs to an old family of Hertford; some of her ancestors having been high sheriffs of the community.” Explaining why he had chosen an English wife, he added: “I found that I am so situated that unless I marry here I shall have to go unmarried altogether….I find more than ever the necessity of an intelligent companion, and my mother has very verily given me permission to marry an European.”
After their wedding, his wife, Elizabeth Clay Coomaraswamy (née Beeby), moved with him to live in Ceylon. It was while they were there that their son, Ananda, was born—a man who would grow into an international figure, towering for decades like a mighty Colossus in his role as an interpreter of Indian thought and culture to the world. Muthu later dispatched his wife and son to England intending to join them shortly. Sadly, he fell ill and failed to recover.
His sudden death in 1877 raised an unprecedented wave of public interest and was also widely reported in the British press. According to a contemporary report: “Over a thousand persons, representing every class of Colombo, assembled in nearly a hundred carriages, in the Borella Cemetery to witness the cremation of the remains of the Hon. Sir M. Coomaraswamy. The body was conveyed to the cemetery on a hearse surmounted by a pagoda-shaped construction of white linen. Behind the hearse was a string of nearly a hundred carriages, among the occupants of which were many of the most important state dignitaries and officials.” After the end of the elaborate Hindu cremation ceremony, his ashes were carried by his mother all the way to Benares for the asthi visarjan, or formal immersion in the holy River Ganga.
Had he not been so unexpectedly snatched away by death, it can hardly be doubted that there would have been further contributions from him towards raising awareness about Hinduism in particular and to Indology in general. Finally, one is tempted to imagine that if the dead have the power to see what is accomplished by their progeny, Muthu Coomaraswamy must have derived both comfort and pride from observing the vast body of work on India and Hinduism undertaken, completed and brought to the notice of the world by his illustrious son, Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. His son’s achievements must have surely seemed to him like a fulfilment of the labor of love he had initiated.
Religious Writings and Translations
Muthu Coomaraswamy’s keenness to showcase Hindu thought, ideals and literature in the West found tangible expression when he took up the task of translating a series of important works from Tamil and Pali into the English language.
The first was his English translation of a Tamil play inspired by the life of one of India’s most revered ancient Hindu rulers, Raja Harishchandra. Regarded as the founder of the Solar dynasty, this legendary king is still revered by Hindus as the epitome of truth.
Titled Arichandra: The Martyr of Truth, the translation was dedicated to Queen Victoria and published by London’s highly prestigious Elder, Smith and Company in late 1863. At the tail end of the book, he appended a section of notes containing 150 points providing clear information and insights to those unfamiliar with India and Hindu thought. Taking advantage of being given an audience at Windsor Castle by Queen Victoria in December 1863, he seized the opportunity to present a copy of his book to Her Majesty the Queen.
His introduction in the book was an unequivocal declaration to the Western world of the antiquity of the literary and creative genius of the Hindus:
“The researches of Oriental scholars have shown the world of letters in Europe that the literature of the Hindus abounds in dramatic works. One of these, the Sakuntalá, or Fatal Ring—the chef d’œuvre of Kalidasa, ‘the Shakespeare of India,’ has called forth the following tribute of admiration from no less a poet, philosopher, dramatist and critic than the immortal Goethe. [His] lines have been thus rendered into English by Professor Eastwick, as cited by Professor Monier Williams in his recent translation of that play: ‘Wouldst thou the young year’s blossoms and the fruits of its decline, and all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed, wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine? I name thee, O Sakuntalá! and all at once is said.’
“Though it may not be easy to find another work which merits so high an encomium, yet the glories of the Indian drama end not here: indeed the labors of Professor Wilson prove that even in Sanscrit and Pracrit there exist many other plays of rare excellence, deserving the attention of the learned men of the Western world. Nor are dramatic works confined to these languages: for in all the numerous tongues which serve as the media of thought for India’s millions of inhabitants, dramas of some kind or other are extant.
“The Indian mind has shown itself active in this direction, not merely in ancient times, but modern events also have furnished the materials for novel and perhaps fantastic plays. The far-famed Nil Darpan [1861, by Deenbandhu Mitra], which was the offshoot of the great indigo controversy and the nucleus of so much excitement in Indian politics, is not quite unknown to English readers.”
Next, to stress that the Hindus were not morally backward, as often assumed by its colonial rulers, but had a long tradition of upholding morality and truth, Muthu Coomaraswamy added the following lines about the play: “Besides its great popularity, and its thereby affording foreigners an excellent key to the peculiarities of the national tone of thought, its claims to distinction rest also on the moral which it conveys. The whole gist of this play may be summed up in the words, ‘Better die than lie!’
“It may, therefore, be a source of some encouragement to those who inculcate the desirability of improving the benighted Indians with a better code of morals than that which their own systems of philosophy teach, that even amongst them are to be found admirers of such characters as Arichandra, who, though persecuted for his persistent adherence to truth and virtue, yet maintains his constancy to the last, regardless of consequences, in the midst of the most excruciating tortures, and in the presence of death itself.”
The year 1874 was very fruitful for Coomaraswamy. He brought out another translation, titled Sutta Nipata or The Sermons and Discourses of Gotama Buddha. It was an English translation from Pali, published by Trubner & Co., London.
That same year, he published an equally significant translation titled The Dathavansa or A History of the Tooth-relic of Gotama Buddha. It was a rendering from Pali into English with notes, published by Trubner & Co., 1874. Being ancient verses assigned to the period between 290–310 ce, his book drew the attention of no less an eminent Pali scholar than Rhys Davids, who reviewed it extensively in the prestigious English journal The Academy on September 26, 1874.
At the start of Dathavansa, there is mention of yet another translation. This is a collection of 100 poems that Coomaraswamy selected and translated into English from his native Tamil language. Titled Tayumanavar, it is a collection of Hindu philosophical poems by a Tamil Saivite poet of Tamil Nadu who lived between 1705–1742. The inspiration behind this translation was the fact that these poems expounded the Vedantic-Siddhantic school of Hinduism taught to Coomaraswamy by his mother, a deeply religious Hindu woman and devotee of Lord Siva.
About The Author
Kusum Pant Joshi is a social historian, researcher, writer and editor. She serves as the Chief Researcher for the South Asian Cinema Foundation, London.