05-19-2010, 12:04 AM
Posted by Brihaspati in BRF:
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brihaspati Post subject: Re: Future Strategic Scenario for the Indian Subcontinent -IPosted: 18 May 2010
BRF Oldie
Joined: 18 Nov 2008
Posts: 3485 Starting off from the Sindh-Samani-Islamist issue, we can actually grapple with some of the core strategic concerns of Bharatyia society living and developing their world-view in intimate contact with the land.
I will assume the generally academically accepted dating for the Magadhan ascendancy around Bimbisara in the 6th century BCE and him being contemporaneous with the Buddha we are concerned with. Alternatives can be explored but that perhaps belongs more to the "distorted" thread.
The first issue is that the whole process of rise of the Buddhist "deviation" from the Vaidika was an attempt to return to the Vaidika abstraction in the backdrop of a very real negative political/military experience - that of the loss of the western reaches of northern India to the Persians. The monasticism with obsessions about celibacy does not find a normal mention in the literature deriving from sources prior to the Buddhists - for all possible biological age-groups, in an organized order of monasticism.
It need not be a coincidence that such a monasticism developed exactly at this period. We note that both the Buddhists as well as Jainas show organized, monastic, celibacy character in the sixth century BCE, and are adopted by ambitious imperialist powers in the Gangetic Valley - with the philosophy being spread around by the most traveled section of society - the merchant-princes and traders. The traders were part of a network that went right across the north-west over Persian and Mesopotamian kingdoms and empires, where we know monastic orders to have risen before this period with the peculiar sexual and organized, semi-political, associate of empires - character. The traders could have brought these ideas all along the Gangetic valley. Moreover, as is pointed out, trading and merchant communities are eager to appear "harmonic" with foreign ideologies in the hope of uninterrupted prosperity. We should note that the four-fold division of society was formally adopted in the Persian empires and the Buddhists would perhaps find it convenient to revive the older philosophical Vedic categories and reshape it in analogous Persian manner, thereby starting the process that would lead to the later redefinition of "caste".
Thus the Buddhist revolution could be an exact reaction like that of the Samanis, or later Indonesian Buddhists, to the spread of Persian power in the west - by copying and remolding themselves or dusting out aspects of their pre-existing ideology that they think will help them to appear "compatible/harmomic" with the ME establishment. (This phenomenon could be hidden in the hints of "many" Buddhas before, and other issues OT here).
This trading/merchant prince leadership/character of Buddhism of this period can indicate the continued predominance of mercantilist interest in the sangha and its networks. The ideology was really a cover then to preserve trade interests and with time, it would then attract opportunists willing to use the cover for material ambitions. This shows up in the increasing reference to urban artisans and merchants and "entertainers" - all city based and all basically dependent on trade networks - as dominating Buddhism. This would point to the countryside, the real producers, those tied to the land growing gradually disillusioned and detached from the Buddhist ideology and establishment - which will be seen as exploitative and repressive.
The Buddhist networks would also develop mutually overlapping interests with foreign forces in the same way the Samanis do, and in the process deviate even from their earlier "puritanical" position. This will lead to disillusionment from idealist elite under Buddhist dominance to seek alternatives and will most likely find this in the now disempowered remnants of the Vaidik system held on to by pockets of Brahmin(scholar-ideologue)+Kshatryia(warrior-administrator-defence) resistance or orthodoxy. Further, the establishment Buddhists will be seen and suspected to be collaborators of foreign interests with perhaps a good degree of basis - as the Samani case shows. This could have led to the cases of warrior kings lashing out at the Sanghas - reported in buddhist literature.
With both the ideology, as well as the merchant class discredited, and suspected or accused of contributing to the defeat of indigenous society at the hands of foreign powers, we will see a revival of the older Brahmin+Kshatryia model where now, the vaishyas will be sought to be confined and isolated as a caste. Same would be the utility of "antajas", mlechchas and "shudras" as categories for those seen to be too much deviated in contact with the "foreign" or potentially rebellious. This would also explain the attraction for "idols/images/icons" as a challenger for Buddhist "iconoclasm".
We have extant "shuddhi" doctrines in the period immediately after contact with the Arabs, such as Devala-Smriti, give specific and detailed procedures to be followed for those "contaminated" in connection with Arabs and Islamics - participating in obvious Islamic practices like killing cows and eating beef, or cohabiting with Muslim women, even undertaking destruction of Vedic sites etc under duress - for less than a month by rites of "prajapatya". The list goes on to even describe how women abducted, or enslaved or forced to become pregnant by Muslims could reenter society after appropriate rites were performed. However, significantly, beyond 20 years - cohabiting with Muslims was seen as irredeemable. At a time of low life expectancy - probably varying from 35-60 years, such a period would be seen as too long portion of life -where the person is likely to have come to substantial compromises with the Islamics to be reliable as a re-entrant.
I would see that the ancient philosophical categories would now come in handy and adaptable as categories to slot people in. The derogatory and suspicious, "under surveillance" categories of "vaishyas" and "shudras" and "antajas" will develop from the experience of the Samani like Buddhist and similar orders, and the Muslims themselves. The mistrust of Islamics would be natural, given that even Islamics granted asylum and protection from their own regimes turned in favour of invading Muslim armies. This was the case of Alafi, who was a fugitive from the Ummayad Caliphate, and fought alongside Dahir's forces against neighbouring Indian kings but refused to fight against Qasim - and was actually forgiven later because of this treachery - by the Caliph. So people who had been in long contact with the Islamics, even if they were not fanatical Islamists - would not be trusted and would be kept under pressure.
This would be the final transformation of the reinvention of varna as "caste" where intermingling will be seen suspicious and dangerous, especially from those sections suspected to have been (and like the merchants still trading with the Islamics - continuing to) in touch with and ideologically contaminated by the foreigners.
This should be characterized as an attempted homogenization that remained incomplete as long as the Islamics themselves could not be divested of their identification with cultural centres and societies outside of India. It was an attempted homogenization, because the "Indian" component gone into the foreign sphere was sought to be reabsorbed entirely shedding their Islamist aspects, but had to be necessarily left incomplete, because the military erasure of the continued sources of contamination could not be carried out. What resulted was an incomplete homogenization as well as an incomplete harmonization of the "foreign/suspected/untrusted" with that of "indigenous/core" - and has been gifted to us as modern caste.
The homogenization was incomplete and the resulting harmonization simply pasted over fractures that would remain weaknesses for subsequent and progressive expansion of "foreigners", and hence the periodic attempts to correct that, [like the Bhakti movements from both Shaivas and Vaishnavas] which however had to take into account pre-existing ideological burden and wandered around not always with success, and sometimes creating more problems. The problems started with employing practical tools of mobilization which were however themselves subject to errors and overshadowing the real Vedic understanding and leading to further errors.
Lessons :
Ideological shortcuts and compromises out of practical political and military considerations should be firmly recorded and understood as compromises and should not be made part of the ideology itself. Their temporary and transient nature should be highlighted, and at least the core should maintain a careful, rigorous and detached understanding of the very process of compromise and clearly recognize the dangers it implies of being used in the future as core ideology itself.
If we see such practical compromises as compromises, and temporary ones, there will be less psychological difficulty later on to mobilize the "leaders" themselves - which itself needs more effort than to "mobilize" the masses. A lot of time and effort is wasted in bringing consensus on subjects which would not have confused the "leaders" themselves - if the authors of "compromises" clearly indicated them as such in their statements for posterity - even if for secret, "your eyes only" and "classified" texts.
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ramana
Joined: 01 Jan 1970
Posts: 11685 Also wasn't the centuries old Janapada system (16 janapadas) breaking down with Bimbisara's consolidation of the janapadas around Magadha? What was the impact of this on the rise of Buddhism? Was it a reaction to Bimbisara's imperial quest? Maybe to temper it? We see that three centrueis later we have the Mauryan empire merging all the janapadas.
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Top
brihaspati
Posts: 3485 The traders would find a single empire protecting their interests along the Gangetic Plains to the Persian inteface in western India, beneficial. In turn, Bimbisara would find it helpful to appear a "Buddhist" and sponsor them because of this west-Indian taxation source. So Buddhists would quickly become part of the imperial establishment. The reaction and resistance to Buddhism following Bimbisara has been represented negatively by the Buddhists, but in my model they would appear as an indigenous reaction which however lost out.
We see the effects in obviously greater information of military significance possibly leaking out through this international traders (just as scholars like Al Beruni, and traders before him provided details of North India useful to Ghori) - in the Persian expansion in the Indus Valley, and Alexanders adventure that apparently produced a plethora of Indo-Greek, Indo-Bactrian potentates in the west. Even the Mauryan empire is suspected of having a strong Persian influence or component [the archaeological level corresponding to this period of Patraliputra] and possibly the reason that there are severe criticisms of the Mauryas from certain quarters in India as "foreigners". The continued influence of monastic orders on this dynasty is significant, and may explain why the succeeding regime will be violent against the "Buddhists". Buddhism was naturally seen as "foreign" and its influence could be seen as "foreign" influence which acted against indigenous interests and culture.
-----------------------
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brihaspati Post subject: Re: Future Strategic Scenario for the Indian Subcontinent -IPosted: 18 May 2010
BRF Oldie
Joined: 18 Nov 2008
Posts: 3485 Starting off from the Sindh-Samani-Islamist issue, we can actually grapple with some of the core strategic concerns of Bharatyia society living and developing their world-view in intimate contact with the land.
I will assume the generally academically accepted dating for the Magadhan ascendancy around Bimbisara in the 6th century BCE and him being contemporaneous with the Buddha we are concerned with. Alternatives can be explored but that perhaps belongs more to the "distorted" thread.
The first issue is that the whole process of rise of the Buddhist "deviation" from the Vaidika was an attempt to return to the Vaidika abstraction in the backdrop of a very real negative political/military experience - that of the loss of the western reaches of northern India to the Persians. The monasticism with obsessions about celibacy does not find a normal mention in the literature deriving from sources prior to the Buddhists - for all possible biological age-groups, in an organized order of monasticism.
It need not be a coincidence that such a monasticism developed exactly at this period. We note that both the Buddhists as well as Jainas show organized, monastic, celibacy character in the sixth century BCE, and are adopted by ambitious imperialist powers in the Gangetic Valley - with the philosophy being spread around by the most traveled section of society - the merchant-princes and traders. The traders were part of a network that went right across the north-west over Persian and Mesopotamian kingdoms and empires, where we know monastic orders to have risen before this period with the peculiar sexual and organized, semi-political, associate of empires - character. The traders could have brought these ideas all along the Gangetic valley. Moreover, as is pointed out, trading and merchant communities are eager to appear "harmonic" with foreign ideologies in the hope of uninterrupted prosperity. We should note that the four-fold division of society was formally adopted in the Persian empires and the Buddhists would perhaps find it convenient to revive the older philosophical Vedic categories and reshape it in analogous Persian manner, thereby starting the process that would lead to the later redefinition of "caste".
Thus the Buddhist revolution could be an exact reaction like that of the Samanis, or later Indonesian Buddhists, to the spread of Persian power in the west - by copying and remolding themselves or dusting out aspects of their pre-existing ideology that they think will help them to appear "compatible/harmomic" with the ME establishment. (This phenomenon could be hidden in the hints of "many" Buddhas before, and other issues OT here).
This trading/merchant prince leadership/character of Buddhism of this period can indicate the continued predominance of mercantilist interest in the sangha and its networks. The ideology was really a cover then to preserve trade interests and with time, it would then attract opportunists willing to use the cover for material ambitions. This shows up in the increasing reference to urban artisans and merchants and "entertainers" - all city based and all basically dependent on trade networks - as dominating Buddhism. This would point to the countryside, the real producers, those tied to the land growing gradually disillusioned and detached from the Buddhist ideology and establishment - which will be seen as exploitative and repressive.
The Buddhist networks would also develop mutually overlapping interests with foreign forces in the same way the Samanis do, and in the process deviate even from their earlier "puritanical" position. This will lead to disillusionment from idealist elite under Buddhist dominance to seek alternatives and will most likely find this in the now disempowered remnants of the Vaidik system held on to by pockets of Brahmin(scholar-ideologue)+Kshatryia(warrior-administrator-defence) resistance or orthodoxy. Further, the establishment Buddhists will be seen and suspected to be collaborators of foreign interests with perhaps a good degree of basis - as the Samani case shows. This could have led to the cases of warrior kings lashing out at the Sanghas - reported in buddhist literature.
With both the ideology, as well as the merchant class discredited, and suspected or accused of contributing to the defeat of indigenous society at the hands of foreign powers, we will see a revival of the older Brahmin+Kshatryia model where now, the vaishyas will be sought to be confined and isolated as a caste. Same would be the utility of "antajas", mlechchas and "shudras" as categories for those seen to be too much deviated in contact with the "foreign" or potentially rebellious. This would also explain the attraction for "idols/images/icons" as a challenger for Buddhist "iconoclasm".
We have extant "shuddhi" doctrines in the period immediately after contact with the Arabs, such as Devala-Smriti, give specific and detailed procedures to be followed for those "contaminated" in connection with Arabs and Islamics - participating in obvious Islamic practices like killing cows and eating beef, or cohabiting with Muslim women, even undertaking destruction of Vedic sites etc under duress - for less than a month by rites of "prajapatya". The list goes on to even describe how women abducted, or enslaved or forced to become pregnant by Muslims could reenter society after appropriate rites were performed. However, significantly, beyond 20 years - cohabiting with Muslims was seen as irredeemable. At a time of low life expectancy - probably varying from 35-60 years, such a period would be seen as too long portion of life -where the person is likely to have come to substantial compromises with the Islamics to be reliable as a re-entrant.
I would see that the ancient philosophical categories would now come in handy and adaptable as categories to slot people in. The derogatory and suspicious, "under surveillance" categories of "vaishyas" and "shudras" and "antajas" will develop from the experience of the Samani like Buddhist and similar orders, and the Muslims themselves. The mistrust of Islamics would be natural, given that even Islamics granted asylum and protection from their own regimes turned in favour of invading Muslim armies. This was the case of Alafi, who was a fugitive from the Ummayad Caliphate, and fought alongside Dahir's forces against neighbouring Indian kings but refused to fight against Qasim - and was actually forgiven later because of this treachery - by the Caliph. So people who had been in long contact with the Islamics, even if they were not fanatical Islamists - would not be trusted and would be kept under pressure.
This would be the final transformation of the reinvention of varna as "caste" where intermingling will be seen suspicious and dangerous, especially from those sections suspected to have been (and like the merchants still trading with the Islamics - continuing to) in touch with and ideologically contaminated by the foreigners.
This should be characterized as an attempted homogenization that remained incomplete as long as the Islamics themselves could not be divested of their identification with cultural centres and societies outside of India. It was an attempted homogenization, because the "Indian" component gone into the foreign sphere was sought to be reabsorbed entirely shedding their Islamist aspects, but had to be necessarily left incomplete, because the military erasure of the continued sources of contamination could not be carried out. What resulted was an incomplete homogenization as well as an incomplete harmonization of the "foreign/suspected/untrusted" with that of "indigenous/core" - and has been gifted to us as modern caste.
The homogenization was incomplete and the resulting harmonization simply pasted over fractures that would remain weaknesses for subsequent and progressive expansion of "foreigners", and hence the periodic attempts to correct that, [like the Bhakti movements from both Shaivas and Vaishnavas] which however had to take into account pre-existing ideological burden and wandered around not always with success, and sometimes creating more problems. The problems started with employing practical tools of mobilization which were however themselves subject to errors and overshadowing the real Vedic understanding and leading to further errors.
Lessons :
Ideological shortcuts and compromises out of practical political and military considerations should be firmly recorded and understood as compromises and should not be made part of the ideology itself. Their temporary and transient nature should be highlighted, and at least the core should maintain a careful, rigorous and detached understanding of the very process of compromise and clearly recognize the dangers it implies of being used in the future as core ideology itself.
If we see such practical compromises as compromises, and temporary ones, there will be less psychological difficulty later on to mobilize the "leaders" themselves - which itself needs more effort than to "mobilize" the masses. A lot of time and effort is wasted in bringing consensus on subjects which would not have confused the "leaders" themselves - if the authors of "compromises" clearly indicated them as such in their statements for posterity - even if for secret, "your eyes only" and "classified" texts.
----------------
ramana
Joined: 01 Jan 1970
Posts: 11685 Also wasn't the centuries old Janapada system (16 janapadas) breaking down with Bimbisara's consolidation of the janapadas around Magadha? What was the impact of this on the rise of Buddhism? Was it a reaction to Bimbisara's imperial quest? Maybe to temper it? We see that three centrueis later we have the Mauryan empire merging all the janapadas.
--------------------
Top
brihaspati
Posts: 3485 The traders would find a single empire protecting their interests along the Gangetic Plains to the Persian inteface in western India, beneficial. In turn, Bimbisara would find it helpful to appear a "Buddhist" and sponsor them because of this west-Indian taxation source. So Buddhists would quickly become part of the imperial establishment. The reaction and resistance to Buddhism following Bimbisara has been represented negatively by the Buddhists, but in my model they would appear as an indigenous reaction which however lost out.
We see the effects in obviously greater information of military significance possibly leaking out through this international traders (just as scholars like Al Beruni, and traders before him provided details of North India useful to Ghori) - in the Persian expansion in the Indus Valley, and Alexanders adventure that apparently produced a plethora of Indo-Greek, Indo-Bactrian potentates in the west. Even the Mauryan empire is suspected of having a strong Persian influence or component [the archaeological level corresponding to this period of Patraliputra] and possibly the reason that there are severe criticisms of the Mauryas from certain quarters in India as "foreigners". The continued influence of monastic orders on this dynasty is significant, and may explain why the succeeding regime will be violent against the "Buddhists". Buddhism was naturally seen as "foreign" and its influence could be seen as "foreign" influence which acted against indigenous interests and culture.
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