As a student, she was a prolific writer and a vocal campaigner in the movements for
poverty relief,
children's rights, and
women's suffrage. Before moving into Buddhist studies, Rhys Davids wrote seventeen entries for
Palgrave Dictionary of Political Economy (1894-99/1910), including "Rent of ability," "Science, Economic, as distinguished from art," "Statics, Social, and social dynamics," as well as twelve biographical entries. Her entry, "Fashion, economic influence of," was related to her 1893
Economic Journal article, "Fashion," and reflects an unusual economic interest (see Fullbrook 1998). She also translated articles for the
Economic journal from German, French and Italian, including
Carl Menger's 1892 article "On the Origin of Money". In 1896 Rhys Davids published two sets of lecture notes by her former teacher and mentor George Croom Robertson, one on psychology and one on philosophy. Rhys Davids was on the editorial board of the
Economic Journal from 1891 to 1895. T. W. Rhys Davids encouraged his then pupil Caroline to pursue Buddhist studies and do research about Buddhist psychology and the place of women in Buddhism. Among her first works were a translation of the
Dhammasaṅgaṇī, a text from the
Theravāda Abhidhamma Piṭaka, which she published under the title
A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics: Being a translation, now made for the first time, from the original Pāli, of the first book in the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, entitled: Dhamma-sangaṇi (Compendium of States or Phenomena) (1900); a second early translation was that of the
Therīgāthā, a canonical work of verses traditionally ascribed to early Buddhist nuns (under the title
Psalms of the Sisters [1909]). Rhys Davids held two academic positions, Lecturer in Indian Philosophy at
Victoria University of Manchester (today
University of Manchester) (1910–1913), and Lecturer in the History of Buddhism at the School of Oriental Studies, later renamed the
School of Oriental and African Studies (1918–1933). While teaching, she simultaneously acted as the Honorary Secretary of the
Pali Text Society which had been started by T. W. Rhys Davids to transcribe and translate
Pāli Buddhist texts in 1881. She held that position from 1907 until her husband's death in 1922; the following year, she took his place as President of the Society. Her translations of Pāli texts were at times idiosyncratic, but her contribution as editor, translator, and interpreter of Buddhist texts was considerable. She was one of the first scholars to translate
Abhidhamma texts, known for their complexity and difficult use of technical language. She also translated large portions of the
Sutta Piṭaka, and edited and supervised the translations of other PTS scholars. Beyond this, she also wrote numerous articles and popular books on Buddhism; it is in these manuals and journal articles where her controversial
volte-face towards several key points of Theravāda doctrine can first be seen. After the death of her son in 1917 and her husband in 1922, Rhys Davids turned to
Spiritualism. She became particularly involved in various forms of
psychic communication with the dead, first attempting to reach her dead son through
seances and then through
automatic writing. She later claimed to have developed
clairaudience, as well as the ability to pass into the next world when dreaming. She kept extensive notebooks of automatic writing, along with notes on the afterlife and diaries detailing her experiences. These notes form part of her archive jointly held by the
University of Cambridge and the
University of London. Earlier in her career she accepted mainstream beliefs about Buddhist teachings, but later in life she rejected the concept of
anatta as an "original" Buddhist teaching. She appears to have influenced several of her students in this direction, including
A. K. Coomaraswamy,
F. L. Woodward, and
I. B. Horner. ==Family==