Sugata (Karl Hendrick, 1911-2007)

Bodhgaya (Bihar, India) is the place where I have done a great deal of my fieldwork. It lies quite centrally in what used to be the most impoverished and socially backward state in India. It is the place where the historical Buddha attained nirvana. Today, it is one of the main centres for Buddhist Studies on the globe. And it is also the place where I first met Sugata.

It was 1998. Our scope could not have been more different. His - was a (silent) retreat in a monastery near the Mahabodhimandir, this most inspiring of places. Mine - was the roll-out of a network of community development programs for the Dalits (aka Untouchables) in the surrounding villages - and a deeper study of the life and work of Dharmanand Kosambi (1867-1947), the "scholar rebel" from Goa, a pioneer of Pali Studies, former research fellow at Harvard University (1920s), former Professor of Pali at the Leningrad School for Buddhist Studies (1930s), and the first and foremost propagator of socially engaged Buddhism - both in theory and in practice. But however different the direction of our paths may have been - our paths had crossed, and the crossing didn't go unnoticed.

Karl Hendrick was born in Berlin. Growing up in the depressing post WW1 years he swiftly settled into being ein Wandervogel, a Bird of Passage, a homeless wanderer, travelling through Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and (in the mid-thirties) overland via Istanbul to Teheran. In 1940 he was drafted by the Nazi army and sent to Voss (Norway) on account of his language skills. A reluctant soldier from the start, he transmitted details of the German V2 rocket factory in Peenemunde to the Swedish authorities, and when Peenemunde was duely bombed fled himself across the Swedish border, where he was arrested and (even if he was a deserter) spent the rest of the war in jail as a POW. After this ordeal, Karl and his wife Ingrid travelled overland to India (1953) and Nepal (1954), where, under the influence of the Swayambhunath incumbent Amritananda Thera, both joined the Buddhist Theravada monkhood - although, ordained as an Anagarika (ie One who is Homeless), Karl (hence aka Sugata, meaning Walking Happily) was technically not really a monk but rather a wandering layperson practising the lifestyle of a monk. From the fifties onward, Sugata travelled on and off, mainly between Nepal and his adoptive motherland Norway, walking, lecturing on Buddhism, and taking historic photographs - of the Macchendranath Festival, the Funeral of King Tribhuvan (1955), daily life in Kathmandu, but most of all of the Tukuche rituals in Mustang and of life and folk culture in the Kaligandaki Valley region, where he got involved with community projects and, with Lama Sashi Doij, the restoration program of Chhairo Gompa.

In October 2004 our paths crossed again - this time in Kathmandu, where our mutual friend Bharat Regmi had prepared the way for a major exhibition and sale of Sugata's original black-and-white photos, now of great historical value, at the Patan Museum (Patan Durbar Square). The event doubled as a book launch party, for in the mean time Sugata, now a nonegenarian, had prepared his memoirs, co-authored by Rachel Kellett and published by Mandala Publications, Kathmandu. Sugata was as equanimous as ever - radiating the brilliance of a stable, unbiased, peaceful and truly intercultural and cosmopolitan mind.

Sugata died peacefully in Halingskarvet, Norway, in 2007. His extraordinary life story illustrates the power of free will, showing that it is possible to literally cross beyond the borders of one's cultural context, that it is worthwhile to acquire cross- and intercultural competences, and that being in harmony with both oneself and one's surroundings is a truly powerful tool to achieve excellence in Life.  His leading example will not be forgotten.

Links:

BBC - Sugata - Rachel Kellett - Dharmanand Kosambi - Chhairo Gompa Project

- Francis Laleman -