THE SOUTH WALES DAILY NEWS

Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales

27 April 1908

(page 4)

Buddhist Mission to Britain.

The Buddhist monk who has just come to London is to make his first public appearance at a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, which is to be held on the 6th of May. On that occasion he will deliver an address in explanation of the principles of Buddhism. It appears from what he has said to interviewers that the monk, whose real name is Alan Bennett Macgregor [Allan Bennett], was converted to Buddhism by Sir Edwin Arnold’s “Light of Asia.” This is somewhat remarkable, for though Sir Edwin Arnold had much sympathy with the doctrines of Buddhism he never accepted them as a religions revelation or system. The monk avows that his object is to save Western civilization, which he believes will be extinguished unless it adopts the principle of Buddhism. His views appear socialistic in character. The latest principle of Western civilisation, he says, is individualism, and all Western laws are based on an exaggerated respect for the individual. Political panaceas, like Socialism, he says, will be of no real benefit, for they attack the symptoms rather than the disease. Even the dogmas of Christianity give sanction to the same idea, by teaching that every man has an immortal soul which goes on living after his death. Against the evils of individualism Buddhism, according to Mr. Macgregor, is to be the only remedy, for its fundamental idea is that the evils of the world are due to the exaggeration of the individual. There are, he said, no orphanages in Burmah, because when the parents die the villagers adopt the children and treat them as their own.