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Mabel Bode

Mabel Haynes Bode

Mabel Kate Haynes was born on 28th October 1864. She lost her mother, Emily to typhoid fever in 1870, just before her sixth birthday. Her father, Robert was a well-known law publisher and bookseller.  She had an older sister, Lily. In January 1879, Mabel’s father died, leaving her and Lily orphans. According to the 1881 census they continued living with their aunt, Janet Mary Hayes (their mother’s sister) who had moved in when their mother died.

On 15th November 1888, Mabel married William Ernest Bode, an actor professionally known as Milton Bode, at St Pancras parish church. They seem an odd couple. Mabel was well-educated, refined and gentle in manner; Milton was loud, brash, coarse even. He had run away from school to join the circus. Within four years of their marriage he was living common-law with another woman. Mabel and Milton, however, remained married until her death. The law at that time did not allow her a divorce on the grounds of adultery alone.

Mabel was well educated. The curriculum vitae that she provided to the university in Berne, said: “After attending private schools in my childhood I went through the (public school) curriculum at the Notting Hill High School for Girls (London), taking prizes for Latin and English Literature, and finishing at the age of seventeen in the top-form.” She attended Notting Hill  from autumn 1872 to July 1881. According to her obituary in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, she always showed a remarkable gift for languages.

Starting 1891 she studied the Pāli language and Buddhist literature with Professor TW Rhys Davids at University College London. In the 1894 summer semester she studied Sanskrit with Professor E. Müller-Hess at Berne University. In the spring term 1895 she attended the Sanskrit lectures of Professor Cecil Bendall at University College London.

In the spring of 1896 she attended the lectures in classical and Vedic Sanskrit of Professeur Sylvain Levi at the College de France in Paris, and Professeur Victor Henry at the Sorbonne, as well as those of Levi and Louis Finot at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes.

Mary Ridding says that “It was at Paris that she found the great intellectual influence of her life in the teaching of M. Sylvain Levi, and in the unity of spirit, under his inspiration, of a band of scholars joined in loyalty of work, love of truth, and disinterested comradeship. She always spoke of that time as the happiest of her life. French became, as one of her French friends said, ‘her other language’”.

One of the “band of scholars” was Marcel Mauss, the French sociologist. In his biography of Mauss, Marcel Fournier describes her: “Mabel Bode, an Englishwoman, held a doctorate in philosophy. Already trained in Burmese and Pāli, she returned to France on the advice of her professor to take history courses in the fourth section (“France in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries”, “The Monastic Rules of the Middle Ages”, and others) and to learn Sanskrit with Sylvain Levi. The subject of her thesis was a history of Buddhism written by a Burmese monk. Bode, a ‘lovely, kind, frail but hard-working’ woman, had great admiration for her teacher, according to Mauss, she ‘totally loved’ Levi. She was proud to take his teachings to the University of London, where she would teach Pāli. Bode corresponded regularly with Mauss beginning in the summer of 1896, and they often saw each other in Paris. When Mauss visited England, he would not neglect ‘the rite of lunching’ with his old friend, as she like to call it.”

From 1897–1898 Mabel continued to study Sanskrit at Berne with Professor E. Müller-Hess, English with the same professor and history with Professor Woker. In 1898, Mabel gained her PhD at the University of Berne.

She resided in Paris in 1902 and from1907–1908. From 1904–1906 she attended university in Pisa, studying Sanskrit with Prof. Carlo Formichi who spoke of her as “one of the cleverest and best women I ever met”.

In 1909 she became Assistant Lecturer at University College London. In July 1911 she was awarded a Civil List Pension of £50 “in consideration of the value of her contributions to the study of Pāli”

From 1911–1917 she was a Lecturer at University College London— Indian School (Pāli & Buddhist literature). She was the first lecturer in Pāli at the School of Oriental Studies. One of her pupils was Henry Sigerist, who says: “I had some excellent courses at University College, and since I was the only student attending them learned a great deal. With Mabel Bode I read the Meghaduta.” In 1912 she had among her private pupils Gustav Holst, the composer, whom she taught Sanskrit. He was to become a personal friend and her influence is shown by his setting to music of Vedic subjects. From 1914–1918, she was a valued helper to the Belgian committee and the French Red Cross.

In 1918 she resigned her teaching posts due to ill health. Probably for the same reason, she moved at this time to reside with her sister and brother-in-law, firstly in London and then to The Chantry, Shaftesbury, Dorset. Mabel died there on 20th January 1922. She is buried in the churchyard at St James, Shaftesbury. The inscription on her gravestone reads “PhD. Et prope et procul usave cor cordium dum vivam et ultra”.

 

The Works of Mabel Bode

Here are some of the works of the Pāli scholar Mabel Haynes Bode.

A Burmese Historian of Buddhism — Unwin Brothers 1898, 67 pages

In this, her doctoral thesis, presented to the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Berne for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy”, Mabel Haynes Bode proves her mettle as a readable scholar.

Working from a manuscript in the British Museum, she analyses the Sāsanavaṃsa, a Paḷi work of recent time. The Burmese author of this work was Paññasāmi, tutor to King Mindon of Mandalay. Although it is a chronicle, the Sāsanavaṃsa is a history of the religion of Burma. It traces all the great moments in the lives of monks but only mentions the kings in their relationship to the propagation of Buddhism.

Briefly looking at ancient times, it then quickly focuses in on the Pagan period, where the literary efforts of Burmese monks really take off. It mentions all the great monk-scribes of the land up to modern times and follows the sectarian rivalry between two schools within the Sangha.

Bode dedicated it: “With the author’s lasting gratitude to Prof. E. Müller-Hess of Berne”.

Sāsanavaṃsa — Pali Text Society. Publications. v41, 1897.

Here is the text which Bode analyses in the previously mentioned A Burmese Historian of Buddhism. It was published in London for the Pali Text Society by H. Frowede.

Women Leaders of the Buddhist Reformation — JRAS 1893, pp 517–566 & 763–798

Bode translates a Pāli work called Manoratha Pūraṇī (Wish-Fulfiller) the commentary on the Aṅguttara Nikāya written by the great Buddhist commentator, Buddhagosha. Here we find a list of thirteen women-disciples, who, after entering the Order of Bhikkhunis, exercised great influence, either by their teaching or the holiness of their lives. This paper was originally prepared for the Ninth Congress of Orientalists held in London in 1892, and was the first contribution accepted from a woman by this journal.

The Pāli Literature of Burma — Royal Asiatic Society,1909

In this full length book, Bode surveys the entire field of Pāli Literature in Burma, both sacred and profane. See below her report on an up and coming Burmese scholar-monk who would become known as the Venerable Ledi Sayadaw. In an appendix she lists almost 300 titles of Pāli books which made up a donation given at Pagan and recorded on stone.

An excerpt from chapter 6

Scholarship in the twentieth century followed the lines first traced as long ago as the twelfth century in Burma. Let us take as an example a learned monk of the most recent times, the venerable Ledi Hsaya-daw, and observe the subjects treated by him in various works published in Rangoon in 1905 and 1906. The list of the Ledi Hsaya-daw’s works is long: Niruttidīpanī (a Paḷi grammar, and afterwards a Burmese nissaya on the same work), Nibbānadīpanī (a discourse on nirvāṇa), Rūpadīpanī (a treatise on Form), Bodhipakkhiyadīpanī, Anāpānadīpanī, and Ovāda (the Way to Arahatship, treatise on Meditation, and Book of Instruction), Pāramidīpanī (on Virtue), Saddasaṅkhepa (a manual of Paḷi grammar), Pabbājaniyakammavācā (Paḷi stanzas for recitation as charms), Dhammadīpanī (exposition of the Law), Maggaṅgadīpanī (the Eightfold Path explained), Paṭiccasamuppādadīpanī (reflections on the causes of transmigration), Paramatthasaṅkhepa (manual of Abhidhamma), Saccatthadīpanī (the Four Sublime Truths explained), Vijjāmaggadīpanī, Lakkhaṇadīpanī (the Way to Enlightenment, the Three Characteristics), Rāiradīpanī, Sīlavinicchaya (on Food and the Precepts of Morality), Anattadīpanī (on Mutability), Dānadīpanī (on Charity), and Dhammadesanā (religious teaching).

Other Publications

This list is by no means complete:

  1. Article in the Journal of the Pali Text Society vol IV: “Index to the Gandhavaṃsa”.
  2. “The transformation of Sanskrit studies in the course of the 19th century” by Sylvain Levi, translated by Mabel Haynes Bode. Published for the Congress of Arts & Science universal exposition.
  3. “On German Universities : a review of Prof. Paulsen’s work on the German university system”, a pamphlet published in London by P.S. King & Son.
  4. “The Kharostra country & the Kharostin writing” by Sylvain Levi, translated by Mabel Haynes Bode. Published by the Royal Geographic Society.
  5. Article in the Journal of the Pali Text Society vol VI : “Early Pāli Grammarians in Burma”.
  6. “The Pāli literature of Burma”, published in London by the Royal Asiatic Society.
  7. “The legend at Ratthapal in the Pāli Avadāna & Buddhaghosa’s commentary”.
  8. “The Mahāvaṃsa; or The great chronicle of Ceylon” published in London for the Pali Text Society by H. Frowde (translated into German by Wilhelm Geiger and from German into English by Mabel Haynes Bode).

She also wrote articles in collaboration with Mr T.W. Rolleston for the Times Literary Supplement.

 

The preceding biographical sketch contains material from a website on Milton Bode: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hoz/milton/mabel.html

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