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Barack Obama:

American Dhammaraja?

Damien Keown*

The stated purpose of this congress is ‘to analyze and compare
the concept of Dhammaraja in the Eastern context with comparable
Western ideas.’ This is an interesting topic in the context of today’s
globalized world, but it presents a preliminary question we must
address before we can pursue the matter further. This is that while
there have been many Dhammarajas in the East there has never been
a Dhammaraja in the West. How, then, can we talk about ‘comparable
Western ideas’?

Buddhism and The West

The term ‘Dhammaraja’ literally means a ‘Dhamma king,’ or a king
who rules according to Dhamma or Buddhist teachings, and history
tells us that while Buddhism spread widely in Asia, it was almost
totally unknown in the West until modern times. In the ancient world,
Buddhism’s Westward expansion proceeded no further than Iran, with
perhaps a limited presence in cosmopolitan trading cities like
Alexandria in Egypt or Antioch in Syria. While there was also trade
between south India and Rome during the early centuries of the
Common Era, the ascendancy of Christianity provided a barrier to
Buddhist proselytization. After the fall of Rome came barbarian
invasions and the rise of Islam which effectively put an end to the
1
Westward spread of Buddhism from the seventh century onwards.
Only from the end of the fifteenth century did the kings of Europe
come into diplomatic contact with their Asian counterparts, allowing
the possibility of meaningful comparison. The European sovereigns,
however, were Christian, not Buddhist, and in any event their time was
coming to an end: within a few centuries the Age of Revolution would
replace the monarchies with new political institutions in which the will
of the people, as opposed to heredity, determined the exercise of

* Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Ethics History Department University of
London, Goldsmiths
1 Seldeslachts, Erik. “Greece, The Final Frontier? The Westward Spread of
Buddhism.” In The Spread of Buddhism, by Heirman, Ann and Stephan Peter
Bumbacher, 131–166. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007:131f.