Brooklyn Bhikkhu: How Salvatore Cioffi Became The Venerable Lokanatha

Abstract

This article provides a biographical overview of the life of the Venerable Lokanatha (1897–1966), who was born in Italy as Salvatore Cioffi and raised in Brooklyn, New York. After converting to Buddhism in his late-twenties, Lokanatha travelled to Burma, took ordination as a monk, and began a remarkable 40 year career as a writer, lecturer, organizer, and Buddhist missionary throughout South Asia and the world. Beyond biography, Lokanatha and the various responses to him are contextualized within the different cultural spheres in which he operated, from the anti-colonial Buddhist revival in Burma to the mocking indifference Lokanatha found in the United States. Scholarship on modern Buddhism, particularly recent work on U Dhammaloka, is used to situate Lokanatha's life and its facets of conservative reformer and transnational actor. Finally, an account of the source material used to reconstruct the life of Lokanatha is employed to offer practical methodological explanations for his absence from conventional narratives of modern Buddhism and what his inclusion along with other figures might mean in the future.

Acknowledgements

An earlier draft of this paper was given in September 2012 at the conference: Southeast Asia as a Crossroads for Buddhist Exchange: Pioneer European Buddhists and Asian Buddhist Networks 1860–1960 at University College Cork, Ireland. The author would like to thank the hosts and sponsors of the conference for providing such a platform for exchange, and especially the conference participants for their helpful and ongoing suggestions and support. The Reverend Monsignor Ronald T. Marino, Angelo Marchese, and the Archives at the Cooper Union Library, are also appreciated for their help and efforts.

Notes

 1. Passenger manifest of alien immigrants arriving from Naples on the S.S. Trave, dated 2 September 1902. Many of the basic facts of Lokanatha's life vary between different accounts, and there is several periods in his life where there currently seems to be no information. The confusion seems even greater in recent online mentions of him and in the conflict between historical records and sources that want to create a hagiography of Lokanatha. This article relies on primary documents and direct interviews with Lokanatha when possible, and memoirs of Lokanatha's associates when those were not available, particularly Dr R. L. Soni and Karuna Kusalasaya.

 2. His ability to speak French is noted in a passenger manifest for the S.S. Matsonia that departed Honolulu on 24 January 1948. A recital by Cioffi on the violin was broadcast on the radio in the summer of 1922, when Cioffi would have been 24, and his classmates mentioned his playing in the Cooper Union yearbook of 1922.

 3. Cooper Union Yearbook for 1922, 51.

 4. Lokanatha, The New Yorker, March 5, 1949.

 5. Orient ‘Atomic Bomb of Love’ Offered U.S. As Cure for Ills, The Dothan Eagle (Alabama), October 16, 1947.

 6. Lokanatha, The New Yorker, March, 5, 1949.

 7. Lokanatha, The New Yorker, March 5, 1949.

 8. Lion Hearted, Middletown Times Herald, April 16, 1934.

 9. Lokanatha writes about this encounter in the introduction to Dr Soni's pamphlet ‘A Glimpse of Buddhism.’

10. Climatic Conditions and Buddhist Monks, Times of India, July 7, 1933.

11. Religion: Bhikkhu & Chao Rung, Time, April 23, 1934.

12. Fasting Buddhist Monk Here to Aid Fund-Raising Drive, Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1948.

13. ‘Atomic Bomb of Love’ From Orient Offered to US as Cure for Ills, Logansport Pharos Tribune, October 20, 1947.

14. Buddhist Principles Will Be Explained, Fresno Bee Republican, March 23, 1948.

15. Fasting Buddhist Monk Here to Aid Fund-Raising Drive, Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1948.

16. Listener's Choice Special Events, Chicago Tribune, May 16, 1949.

17. Lokanatha, The New Yorker, March 5, 1949.

18. Sects Abound in Sunshine of California, Stars and Stripes (Europe, Mediterranean, and North Africa edition). September 6, 1949.

19. Buddhist Principles Will Be Explained, Fresno Bee Republican, March 23, 1948.

20. Lokanatha, The New Yorker, March, 5, 1949, 24.

21. Aline Mosby (1948) The Screwballs Are Generous With Notions for Television. The Washington Post, September 19, TV10.

22. Americans Get Away From It All, Emporia Daily Gazette (Kansas), September 5, 1940.

23. Beauty and Buddhist, Chicago Daily Tribune, September 18, 1949.

24. Bob White (1936) Weird Things, Los Angeles Times, March 1.

25. Buddha from Brooklyn, Indiana Evening Gazette (Indiana, Pennsylvania), July 28, 1948.

26. Sects Abound in Sunshine of California, Stars and Stripes (Europe, Mediterranean, and North Africa edition), September 6, 1949.

27. Lokanatha, The New Yorker, March 5, 1949, 23; Religion: Bikkhu & Chao Rung, Time, April 23, 1934.

28. The ‘Venerable Lokanatha’, Bar Harbor Times, September 1, 1949.