Epilogue

Abstract The Epilogue brings together diverse perspectives on the Tamil Buddhist movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It demonstrates how Iyothee Thass’s philosophical, political, and historical standpoints, as presented in the monograph, were shaped by his engagement with caste-free Buddhist hermeneutics. Crucially, it summarizes the Tamil Buddhist discursive and non-discursive forms of deep resistance against brahminical hegemony, on the one hand, and the countercultural perspectives of Tamil Buddhists, on the other. Most importantly, the Epilogue demonstrates that although Buddhism was embedded in Tamil vernacular intertextual and intermedial sources and practices, Thass and other Tamil Buddhists emphasized the cosmopolitan interconnections between the local and global aspects in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America in their aspirations to establish casteless humanism in India. In addition, by drawing on the ethnographic studies of Stephen Fuchs, Force and Popkin, and Lyman Tower Sargent, this Epilogue reveals that the Tamil Buddhist movement was not a messianic, millenarian, or utopian movement, but rather stood for an ethical and rational transformation of India towards a post-caste society.