ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses two of the most important pioneers of colonial era Buddhism in north India: the polyglot explorer and Marxist revolutionary, Rhul Snktyyan, and the Pali scholar and Gandhian nationalist, Dharmnand Kosamb. Although best known as scholars of Buddhism, it is their lesser-known personal lives-namely, their political involvement in anti-colonial efforts, social reform projects, and travels abroad. Through an examination of their activities and writings, the chapter reveals the methods they employed and the networks of support they utilized in order to propagate Buddhism. In particular, it focuses on two features common to both of their lives: first, their relations with transnational Buddhist organizations and Euro-American and other Asian intellectuals, and second, their collaborative efforts with Indian elites whom they shared similar social, educational and national concerns. These two factors, I argue, were essential to their reconfiguration of a modern Indian Buddhism that was relevant to contemporary Indian concerns.
