Outcaste but Not Cast Out: Politics, Women, and Religious Ideals in Rabindranath Tagore’s Buddhist Plays

Abstract

          Rabindranath Tagore was a poet, novelist, musician, and playwright whose works are both political and spiritual and reflect the socio-political and religious upheaval of his time. The combination of Tagore’s spiritual and national beliefs is clearly seen in his collection of Buddhist plays, in which he employed female characters as the main agents of the plays’ actions. This paper discusses Rabindranath Tagore’s life as a Pirili Brahman, the outcaste who had no real place in the orthodox Brahman organization, and his personal construction of Buddhism. It explores Tagore’s use of Buddhism as a means to criticize the Brahmanical society, the Hindu belief, and the Indian caste system that is evident in his Buddhist plays. It also examines Tagore’s use of the lower-class female characters as a paragon of virtues in connection to Buddhist thoughts and the role of women in the Indian society