DOUGLAS, Gordon (Bhikkhu Asoka). 18?? — April 1900 (Payer) or 1905. British Bauddha. He was claimed to be the very first British who was ever (known to be) ordained as a Buddhist monk (W. Laurence Carroll as U Dhammaloka is earlier, see W. on him). The ordination took place in Colombo in 1899, then he moved to Burma and died six years later in Burma. Some claim: ordained in 1899 or 1900 in Thailand, but died six months later of cholera. Or possibly moved now to Sri Lanka and died there in 1905 (W. finds this more probable).
Publications: Apparently published nothing.
Sources: Wikipedia; briefly in A. Payer, Materialien zum Neobuddhismus 2 (www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud0203.htm); *A. Turner, L. Cox & Br. Bocking, The Irish Buddhist. The Forgotten Monk Who Faced Down the British Empire. O.U.P. 2020, 136ff. (the book is mainly about William Colvin alias Dhammaloka).
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