Thomas William Rhys Davids

• 1. Introduction

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  Thomas William Rhys Davids was serving as Magistrate of Galle in Sri Lanka. A document written in an unfamiliar script was brought into his courtroom as evidence in a case about ecclesiastical law. He did not yet know that the script was Pali, or that it would shape the rest of his life. Within decades this British magistrate would found the Pali Text Society. He also helped establish the British Academy and London's School for Oriental Studies. How did a civil servant in a British colony end up founding scholarly institutions instead of finishing a career in government? What cut short his time in Sri Lanka, and who carried his work forward in the language he had found almost by accident?

• 2. A Clergyman's Son

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  Thomas William Rhys Davids was born on the 12th of May 1843 in Colchester, Essex, England. His father, a Congregational clergyman from Wales, was affectionately known as the Bishop of Essex. Rhys Davids' mother ran the Sunday school at his father's church before her death at the age of 37, following childbirth. He was her eldest son.

  Rhys Davids set his sights on a Civil Service career, and it led him to study Sanskrit under A.F. Stenzler at the University of Breslau. He paid his way through those studies by teaching English to local residents. In 1863 he returned to Britain, passed the civil service examinations, and received a posting to Sri Lanka, then still known as Ceylon.

• 3. Buried Cities

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  In 1871 Rhys Davids was posted as Assistant Government Agent of Nuwarakalaviya, where Anuradhapura served as the administrative centre. The governor overseeing the region, Sir Hercules Robinson, had founded the Archaeological Commission back in 1868. The ancient Sinhalese city of Anuradhapura had stood abandoned since an invasion in 993 CE, and Rhys Davids joined the effort to excavate it.

  He began collecting inscriptions and manuscripts, publishing a series of articles from 1870-1872 for the Ceylon branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Journal. He also learned the local language and spent extended time among the people he governed.

  That immersion in Sri Lankan scholarship stood in sharp contrast to what was about to happen to his official career there.

• 4. A Career Undone

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  Personal differences between Rhys Davids and his superior, C. W. Twynham, triggered a formal investigation into his conduct. A tribunal reviewed the case and dismissed him from the Civil Service for misconduct. Investigators uncovered a number of minor offenses, along with grievances over fines improperly exacted from both his subjects and his own employees.

  Stripped of his official position, Rhys Davids would have to rebuild his scholarly life entirely outside colonial administration.

• 5. Chairs Without Salaries

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  After leaving Sri Lanka, Rhys Davids studied for the bar and briefly practiced law. He kept publishing scholarly work on Sri Lankan inscriptions and translations throughout this period.

  From 1882-1904, Rhys Davids served as Professor of Pali at the University of London. The post carried no fixed salary, paying only through lecture fees. In 1905 he took up the Chair of Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester.

  Rhys Davids devoted much of this period to promoting Theravada Buddhism and Pali scholarship in Britain. He lobbied the government, working with the Asiatic Society of Great Britain, to expand funding for the study of Indian languages and literature. Many of his arguments framed that funding as a way to strengthen Britain's hold on India.

  His personal life during these academic years would soon become closely intertwined with his professional one.

• 6. A Marriage of Scholars

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  In 1894 Rhys Davids married Caroline Augusta Foley, herself a noted scholar of Pali. Rhys Davids, unlike his wife, was an outspoken critic and opponent of Theosophy.

  The couple had three children. Their eldest, Vivien, took part in the Girl Guide movement and counted Robert Baden-Powell among her friends. Their only son, Arthur Rhys Davids, became a Royal Flying Corps fighter ace credited with 25 victories before he was killed in World War I.

  Rhys Davids died on the 27th of December 1922 in Chipstead, Surrey. His death did not stop the work already underway; several of his major translations would only reach readers afterward.

• 7. A Library of Translations

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  Rhys Davids' first major work, Buddhist Birth Stories, known as the Jataka Tales, appeared in London in 1880.

  Between 1890-1894, Rhys Davids translated the Questions of King Milinda for Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East series. It appeared as volumes 35 and 36, later reprinted in Delhi by the publisher Motilal Banarsidass.

  Working with William Stede, Rhys Davids compiled the Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary, published in stages from 1921-1925.

  In 1907, G. P. Putnam's Sons in New York published a second edition of his book Buddhism, Its History and Literature.

  With Hermann Oldenberg, Rhys Davids also translated Vinaya Texts for that same series, across three volumes numbered 13, 17, and 20, published from 1881-1885.

  In 1891, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society published his article The Sects of the Buddhists, spanning pages 409-422. In 1901, the same journal carried his piece Asoka and the Buddha-Relics, on pages 397-410. Some volumes of the dictionary would not reach print until after his death, finished by colleagues within the Pali Text Society itself.