Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

You know the holidays are well and truly over when the first thing you hit upon searching on certain sculptures is weirdo entertainment.



More than once, have heard the modern threats of how the extremely (Hindu) Agamic depictions of Shiva+Uma at the cave complex Elephanta are "actually" Buddhist and are "in fact" (I kid you not) "depictions of the Buddha not Shiva": frequently even declaring that the 3 out of the 5 (Panchavaktra) headed Shiva was Buddha. :Baahaahahahahaha: But I'll admit that this sudden tack to announce how the Hindu Jogeshwari Caves - which contains very Hindu sculptures of very Hindu Gods - are "actually Buddhist" was a hysterical ... turn of events.

(Jealous much?)





1. On 2 April 2011 - that's today - Wackypedia states:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jogeshwari_Caves

The Jogeshwari Caves are some of the earliest Buddhist cave temples sculptures located in the Mumbai suburb of Jogeshwari, India. The caves date back to 520 to 550 CE. The caves are located off the Western Express Highway, and are surrounded by encroachments. The caves are used as a temple by the encroachers. The caves are classified as endangered as sewage and waste enter the premises. They are also infested with bats.

The caves are accessed through a long flight of stairs into the main hall of this cavernous space. It has many pillars and a Lingam at the end. Idols of Dattatreya, Hanuman and Ganesh line the walls. There are also relics of two doormen.

Clearly the "buddhist" bit is an absurdity. Figured it was an obvious insertion. And web searching proved me right:



2. Elsewhere, there seems to be a partial copy of the relevant portion in wacky. Or maybe it's where *wacky* got the original text for this bit from (wacky was very famous among netizens of yore for its plagiarism of earlier encyclopaedias like Encarta and Brittanica: at times the plagiarism was verbatim, at other times the exact same things were re-worded.)



Anyway, this largely identical text, of an earlier date, says something quite opposite (and correct) about the identity of the Caves in question:



http://www.bharatwiki.com/index.php?titl...wari_Caves

This page was last modified 10:32, 27 July 2007.

Jogeshwari Caves



The Jogeshwari Caves are some of the earliest Hindu cave temples sculptures located in the neighbourhood of Jogeshwari (East) in northern Mumbai (Bombay), India. The caves date back to 520 to 550 AD.



They are located off the Western Express Highway, and are surrounded by encroachments. The caves are used as a temple by the encroachers. The caves are classified as endangered as sewage and waste enter the premises. They are also infested with bats.



The caves are accessed through a long flight of stairs into the main hall of this cavernous space. It has many pillars and a Lingam at the end. Idols of Dattatreya, Hanuman and Ganesh line the walls. There are also relics of two doormen.

Practically the same text. But *without* the sudden "Buddhist" insert in place of the correct original "Hindu".



3. Of course checking the history of wacky would reveal a lot more about the vandal:

As became obvious by making comparisons in Wacky's own Revision History, the crucial word was changed over at some point. Eventually the vandalisms could be narrowed down to two separate events: one in 2008 and several in 2010. People even initially intervened to correct the vandalistic absurdities. (Bear with, this is where all the enjoyable hysteria comes in



- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=245824776



As can be seen on this page, the first specific instance of the presumably neo-Buddhist inanity happened in 17 October 2008: the "buddhist cave temples" graffiti suddenly appeared. This then resulted in the intervention, some hours later, of some wackypedian - presumably deluded into imagining that the world is somehow driven by truth rather than desperate ideology (it's a nice dream, certainly) - who restored the page to its state before the vandal's sneaky insertion: it was returned to the accurate "Hindu cave temples".



- But clearly the vandal struck again in Jan 2010:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Con...96.100.120

is the wacky entry for the same (or similar) vandal's more recent ... "special contributions".

•07:08, 7 January 2010 (diff | hist) Category:Caves around Mumbai ‎

•07:00, 7 January 2010 (diff | hist) Jogeshwari Caves ‎

•06:59, 7 January 2010 (diff | hist) Jogeshwari Caves ‎

•06:58, 7 January 2010 (diff | hist) Jogeshwari Caves ‎ (→Gallery)

•06:55, 7 January 2010 (diff | hist) Elephanta Caves ‎

•06:53, 7 January 2010 (diff | hist) Elephanta Caves ‎

•11:05, 4 January 2010 (diff | hist) Santacruz, Mumbai ‎ (→Vakola)

- The entry of 06:58 shows that he/she/it first struck by inserting the very grammatically...illuminating statement: "it is buddhist cave"

at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=336355902



Some vigilant wackypedian then wasted energy removing the delirious insert almost immediately (still 6:58 on the clock):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=336355902



- Then, a minute later, at 06:59, the original Sneak :gollum: returned with a vengeance to remove all references to the vigrahas of undeniably Hindu Gods from the entry, leaving the sentence memorably (though not sensibly) unterminated with:



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=336355982

The caves are accessed through a long flight of stairs into the main hall of this cavernous space. It has many pillars and a

Thereby having removed the remainder of the original statement: "[[Lingam]] at the end. Idols of [[Dattatreya]], [[Hanuman]] and [[Ganesh]] line the walls. There are also relics of two doormen."

(Shows ya the sheer determination to drive their will onto history if they can't even be bothered to finish a sentence properly, but would leave it hanging mid-sentence.)



- Then at 07:00, the by-now endearing Sneakums noticed that someone had removed its "it is buddhist cave" fiasco at wacky - I mean wacky fresco. So it determined to wrong the right by turning the opening statement into the version already seen suddenly inserted (then removed) in 2008:



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=336356093



From:

The '''Jogeshwari Caves''' are some of the earliest Hindu cave temples sculptures located in the Mumbai suburb of [[Jogeshwari]], India.

The same statement became (at 7:00 of Jan 7, 2010):

The '''Jogeshwari Caves''' are some of the earliest buddhist cave temples sculptures located in the Mumbai suburb of [[Jogeshwari]], India.

And so this statement appears to have remained ever since on this wacky page, though further changes have accumulated along with all who've visited the page oblivious to the major deception perpetrated on their ignorance.



While someone fortunately restored the reference to Hindu Vigrahas later, they did not appear to have noticed the other crucial change, so they did not return the inane insert of "buddhist" to its accurate original of "Hindu".

("Amazing" how a one word change in wacky - rather like claims on all things Hindu regularly seen all over the internet, and over time parroted by Hindus themselves - credits Buddhism/etc with what Hindus built with their hands for the purpose of their religion/Gods. It's not unlikely that, in time, this too will be parroted.)





4. Oh but of course the vandal would also have tried the same on the very Hindoo Elephanta caves (it wasn't enough that the christoPortuguese used vigrahas of Hindus' Gods as target practice - fervent neoBuddhist does a similar by using wackypedia to deface history). A couple more of its "special contributions":



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Con...96.100.120

•06:55, 7 January 2010 (diff | hist) Elephanta Caves ‎

•06:53, 7 January 2010 (diff | hist) Elephanta Caves ‎

- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=336355472

At 6:53 of Jan 2010, it got all incensed upon seeing the image of the Maheshamoorti at Elephanta captioned correctly as "The Trimurti-Sadasiva Statue" (it's 3 of the Panchavaktra heads; the remaining two would be where the extant image meets the ceiling and back wall.) So what did the vandal do upon reading such a frightful thing? It heroically removed the offending - because truthful - caption altogether.



Moreover, it further repeated its earlier-seen inimitable expression - "it is buddhist cave" - to tattoo this page on the Elephanta Hindu cave-temple complex with. What's more, the insert was plastered entirely reactively at the very top of the page, right after the heading!



- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=336355638

So thereafter, at 6:55 on the same day (Jan 7 2010) the little neo-Buddhist Vandal removed all of the following and replaced it with the 2 words "buddhist caves":

==Trimurti-Sadashiva Statue==

The most important sculpture is that of Trimurti Sadasiva, carved in relief at the end of the N-S axis. The image, {{convert|20|ft|m|abbr=on}} in height is of the three headed-Shiva, representing Panchamukha Shiva.<ref>Duffer's Guide to Elephanta, Mid-Day, Tinaz Nooshan, Feb 22, 2007, pg A14</ref> The right half-face shows him as a young person with sensuous lips, embodying life and its vitality. In his hand he holds something that resembles a rose bud—again with the promise of life and creativity. It is this face that is closest to that of [[Brahma]], the creator or [[Parvati|Uma]] or [[Vamadeva]], the feminine side of Shiva.<ref name="HT Cafe, Mumbai pg.31"/> The left half-face face on the side is that of a young man. It is moustached, and displays anger. This is Shiva as [[Aghora]] [[Bhairava]]<ref name="HT Cafe, Mumbai pg.31"/>, as the one whose anger can engulf the entire world in flames leaving only ashes behind. This is Shiva, the Destroyer. The central face, benign, meditative, as the preserver [[Vishnu]]. This is Shiva as the yogi—Yogeshwar—in deep meditation praying for the 'preservation' of humanity.

Actually, the Panchavaktra Shiva is also entirely Shiva containing all the 5 - including 3 "visible" - aspects of the Hindu Divine himself*, but the first two aspects can and indeed are identified with the first 2 Gods of the Trimoorti even when just Shiva is considered. Also, Vamadeva can for the same reason be identified with *Vishnu*: since Vishnu like Uma is on the left half of the body (both in ShankaraNarayana and Shiva being VishnuVallabha).

(* Just like a great many other Hindu Gods are similarly said to do, e.g. Saraswati who, being the very embodiment of the Parabrahman and the Vedam, herself assumes the roles of all 3 visible activities of the same that are usually equated with the Trimoorti, hence she IS the Trimoorti/Parabrahman: [color="#0000FF"][WRONG:][/color] "brahmAchyuta shankara prabhRutibhiH ....." etc).

[color="#0000FF"]CORRECTION:[/color] Didn't intend the line on how the Devas - including Trimoorti - worship Saraswati always, but the other one from the same source (the one starting "brahmaa viShNu shivaayai cha" - usw.)





- Anyway eventually things caught up and the Vandal's graffiti - on the *Elephanta* page (though not Jogeshwari Caves page) - were corrected:

The edit at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=337016130

was in order to "(revert succesive vandalisms together)".



Temporary defeat for neoBuddhist crusader.

But no doubt, a couple of years later, the same or another will return to try again to insert its claims back on the Elephanta page. After all, since trying repeatedly (2008, 2010) on the Jogeshwari Caves page, it has succeeded there for more than a year, since that page still says "buddhist" since Jan 2010, instead of its original accurate entry as Hindu. (Wacky is intended to be the Archive of the near future at least: future history. And clearly, wackypedia is not about truth, but about determined lobbying: those who are fired up sufficiently by their ideology decide on "truth"/"history". Wacky is an interesting experiment in the lobbyist - euphemised to "democratic" - determination of facts.)

Another thing that is practically certain is that Hindu vocalists in the near future will parrot that Elephanta caves and Yogeshwari caves are "actually Buddhist" or at least "possibly Buddhist" (the same way the similar story about Ayyappa predictably evolved from neoBuddhist and other such shady 'sources' to be parroted by Hindus years later).



As entertaining as all the above was (even if it was entirely predictable: it's what christoislamics do too - vandalising history with blatant inanity; the unfunny part is when it sticks), there's apparently more:





5. The Hindu Jogeshwari Caves suddenly turned up as "Buddhist" elsewhere on Wacky: in a listing of various famous cave temples in Bharatam -



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=326893607



This edit history page is the one where many of these Caves are suddenly identified by religious affiliation, inserting a "Jain" qualifier for one and "Buddhist" for many others (including the very Hindu Jogeshwari Caves).

How trustworthy are the changes, though? (Obviously *not* in the case of the Jogeshwari caves.)



Now to click on the editor's IP at this revision history page of wacky, to find out how honest they are.



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=326893607



Wow. Way too many edits. Pass. But looking at their topics of interest, it clearly reveals it's an Indian. And clearly an anti-Hindu. And clearly convinced it is a Buddhist and definitely on a mission. So my "neoBuddhist" suspicion/accusation was right.





6. Oh but this next topic in its list of intervening edits is interesting: "Religion in Japan".



Indeed, it is more than interesting, as the following is this latest neo-Buddhist's little contribution to the wacky page on this topic - straying far from his interest in Buddhist topics (or topics which he insinuates "Buddhism" into):



On 29 Jan 2010, this neoBuddhist - same or different from the one seen in items 1 to 4 - removed the entire section on Hinduism in the page "Religion in Japan". The revision history:



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=340633159



The next bit is what the vandal excised:

-

===Hinduism=== -

<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:KRINSHA jAPAN.jpg|190px|right|thumb|[[ISKCON]] Mandir in Tokyo, Japan {{deletable image-caption}}]] --> -

{{Main| Hinduism in Japan}} -

[[Hinduism]] is a small minority religion in Japan. Hinduism and other Indian related beliefs (including Buddhism) spread to Japan from [[China]] and [[Korea]] during the 6th century. In the 19th century Hindu numbers increased with immigrants seeking to participate in the [[textile]] importing and exporting industry.

<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



And owing to the vandal's heroic efforts, the current version of the page no longer contains the above bit. (Not that it says anything informative.) It must have hit him really hard that Japan knows Hindu religion for *at least* as long as it's heard of Buddhism.



Well, at least only the Hindus - sorry, the Unnameables (since they may not be allowed to exist by name) - got crushed this time (as opposed to Taoists or Shintos).

Still, someone should tell these ungrateful grabbing hands that many (or as others write: most every) ancient Indian Buddhist Temple was built due to the patronage of *Hindu* (not Buddhist) rulers*. And not just commissioned - planned and paid for - by Hindus in such cases, but often built by appointed *Hindu* artisans - Hindus who came from a long line of artists/architects - with the internal Temple imagery equally frequently constructed by Hindus also. (Moreover, these Hindus had to *invent* "Buddhist" art: and to do so, they invariably based this off Hindu specifications of how *Hindu* Gods are to be depicted, which is their area of expertise. Facial features, postures, mudras, specs on dimensions/proportions, every such established feature was transferred into the early Hindu-made "Buddhist" art. **)



* IIRC, the Ajanta caves were also famously commissioned by Hindu rule to be built for Buddhist monks to dwell in.

** In this context: You can still see lineages of *Hindu* Tamizh artists sculpting and drawing/painting Buddha as a sign of goodwill to the religion of Buddhism. Though for the most part - some 99% of their work, and definitely all their chosen work - is to paint exclusively Hindu Gods: absolutely *all* of the Hindu Gods familiar to them (Nakshatra Devatas, Swara Devatas, you name it - all of them lovingly, exquisitely depicted, true to Divine Nature). And in order to respectfully depict Buddhism's Buddha, the current crop of Hindu artists of TN too continue to rely on their traditional Hindu way of depicting Hindu divinity - since that is what they're trained in - and extrapolate from there to create images of Buddha. In this case, though the subject matter is Buddhist, it's actually Hindu - not Buddhist, and not "Indian" - art they end up producing.)





Had something public to post on Japan, will do it next time. (Don't worry, I didn't write it and it is a very diplomatically-phrased piece - it is in fact far too kind in its happy and light treatment of history - and it doesn't go into details at all. It also gets at least one thing wrong.)

[Husky]

While there was no Inanity thread for the above (hence it came here), this next does belong in this thread.



[quote name='Husky' date='02 April 2011 - 10:15 PM' timestamp='1301762232' post='111301']Had something public to post on Japan[/quote]

I've decided on the following lighter article instead. Contains apologetics, and rushes over certain things thereby skipping the crucial details. (But even those who may not know more can still read between the lines.) What's interesting is that even in the piece's arguments for "syncretism", it can't help accidentally alluding to other things entirely (one-way "syncretism", the motivations for this, and how it impacted the affected target population/their reaction).



My many interruptions are in purple.





http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/n...904i1.html

Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2007



SHINTO & BUDDHISM IN JAPAN

Japan's Shinto-Buddhist religious medley





By ERIC PRIDEAUX

Staff writer

Most in Japan may know Buddhism has something to do with controlling lust and anger, and is associated with funerals and graves, while Shinto involves venerating nature, and weddings. But many people have trouble making theological distinctions between the two or even telling a Buddhist temple from a Shinto shrine.



[Caption describing images from separate Temples:] A buddhist saint at Enmei-ji Temple in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture, and a pair of Koma-inu statues guarding Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu (Shinto) Shrine in nearby Kamakura symbolize Japan's two main religions. ERIC PRIDEAUX PHOTOS



The following is an attempt to explain why Japanese often get Buddhism and Shinto mixed up:



What is Buddhism?

The Buddha, or "the enlightened one," was born as Gautama Siddhartha in what is today Nepal in the fifth or sixth century B.C. He achieved enlightenment under the Bodh Gaya tree at age 35 and spent his life teaching across central India until his death at age 80, receiving the honorific title Sakyamuni, or "O-Shaka-sama" in Japanese.

Central to Sakyamuni's teaching was that the universe is always changing, including our psychological identities, meaning there is nothing humans can truly call "the self."

Buddhists believe a deep understanding of this is required to dispel the basic causes of suffering. Compassion for all sentient beings is another deeply held tenet.





What about Shinto?

Shinto — the backbone of Japan's cultural identity — is an ancient system of animistic beliefs and customs.



(It's not mere "culture". And it's not only animism. But certainly, animism is an obvious feature. As it is in Daoism, Hellenismos - with its Dryads, Naiads, etc - Native American religion, Hindus' own religion.)



In popular belief, Japan is the land of Yaoyorozu no Kamigami (the 8 million gods). <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> Among them are a vast pantheon of deities with well-defined personas. Perhaps most important is Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess and legendary ancestor of the Imperial family.

But in the words of author Motohiko Izawa, any entity possessing "uncommonly wondrous characteristics . . . such as a cedar that has lived a thousand years or a river that has long provided people with water" may assume divine status as well.



(Actually, many places/natural phenomena and matter are recognised as Divine either because the Spirit of such a thing is a Kami in itself, or because a Kami settled there and started presiding over the area/rock/garden/tree. E.g. River Gods - like Mountain Gods - can be either: the River itself, or a God (or another 'otherwordly' being) that presides over it, possibly inhabiting it. In this too, Shinto is quite like other heathenisms actually.)





If Buddhism and Shinto are so different, what's confusing?

Ever since Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 552 (some say 538), Japan has seemed uncertain about how to weave it into its cosmology.

The year the religion was introduced, a delegation from the king of Peakche, a territory on the western Korean Peninsula, sent the emperor an image of the Buddha in gold and copper and a collection of the holy texts known as sutras.

The internationalists in the Japanese court welcomed Buddhism. Others saw it as a threat to the status quo, with Buddha nothing more than a "jajin," or devil.

Prince Shotoku (574-622) promoted Buddhism and it took hold. Still, Japan would never see a full conversion away from its indigenous religion, as occurred to a much greater extent across pagan Europe with the introduction of Christianity. Rather, Japanese absorbed Buddhism gradually, mixing it with local folk religions.

This process played out in the divine realm, too, with certain Shinto gods coming to be seen as protectors of the Buddha.

One was Hachiman, the Shinto god of war, who legend has it aided the construction of the Great Buddha statue in Nara during the Nara Period (710-784). This act of kindness won him the name "Great Bodhisattva (Buddhist saint) Hachiman" in 781.



(Legend - of Buddhist, not Shinto, origins - being the operative word. They declared him a future Buddha - a title often handed out. Meanwhile, Hachiman has been a Shinto God since uralte Zeit - not only of war but of peacetimes also - since well before even a [Shinto] Emperor came to be identified as a manifestation of the God. And even that Emperor predated Buddhism's introduction into Japan by several centuries, and preceded the Great Buddha statue of Nara by several centuries more. Otherwise too: Shinto Gods - like Taoist ones etc - are not Bodhisattvas and have nothing to do with Buddhism, regardless of Buddhism inventing myths about such things. The statement is not my opinion.)



Reflecting this meeting of religions, Hachiman was sometimes depicted in sculptures as a very unwarlike Buddhist monk.



(Not surprising, as Buddhism changed the characters of various Shinto Gods all the time* (in other cases, Asian Gods' identities were masked). The above example of the Buddhist-monkish demeanor imposed by Buddhism on the Shinto war God Hachiman when declaring him a bodhisattva, can be contrasted with how elsewhere one of the Shinto Gods - a Mountain God - of a certain inter-related clan of warriors, was distorted from being a rather composed Shinto God into a very ugra Bodhisattva. In his case (and such transformations were always performed by Buddhism on a case by case basis), Buddhism opted for this particular makeover because the target population were a class of determined warriors and the Buddhists imagined this new look for the God would appeal to the Shinto clan they were aiming for. Needless to say, the targets were particularly displeased: they knew their God to be real and that his character was very well defined - i.e. they could see Buddhism was making it up.

* As is transparent, to Buddhism, the Gods are not real (they're just the means to work on target populations) <- which is *exactly* why Buddhists found nothing wrong in falsely inventing/declaring that Gods who in reality uphold their own religion - Shinto or Dao as the case is here - as "bodhisattvas upholding the Dhamma" instead, and to randomly change the real characters of the very real Gods Of Others.)





But what does the eighth century have to do with mixups over temples and shrines now?

The syncretism, or weaving together of religions, would continue over centuries as Japan went about absorbing Pure Land, Zen and other Buddhist sects from China. Over time, cross-pollination between Buddhism and Shinto would deepen in a process known as "shin-butsu shugo" (Shinto-Buddhism coalescence), or less flatteringly as the "shin-butsu konko" (Shinto-Buddhism jumble).

Much of the convergence amounted to Buddhism trying to make a mark on the host culture. Buddhist monks felt certain Shinto divinities needed salvation. So they chanted sutras in front of shrines that were the gods' sacred homes.

Meanwhile, temples started sprouting up next to Shinto shrines, to be called "jingu-ji," meaning "shrine-temples." By the 16th century, such mixing and matching had become official policy.



(Yahari. The above statement conceals a world of important detail, such as how frequently the entire area around Shinto Temples - the lands that go with the Temple - are sacred *Shinto* space: belonging to/inhabited by the God(s) and Divine entities associated with the Temple. And as for "mixing and matching": even the above admits the "convergence" was uni-directional. Like how it was *Buddhist* temples that mushroomed uninvited next to existing ancient Shinto ones, encroaching on sacred Shinto space - and not vice-versa. Buddhists could have had them built anywhere else, yet their whole objective was to get their Temples built on sacred Shinto land next to Shinto Temples frequented by Shintos. It was a policy that was *Buddhist* in origin and calculated intention. Same as was the reasoning behind monks chanting entirely irrelevant Buddhist sutras at Shinto Gods and their abodes who have nothing to do with Buddhism. And insinuating 'bodhisattva' fictions onto the very real Gods of other religions.)



Nationalist yearnings have surfaced periodically, resulting in calls to rid Shinto of its foreign influence, especially during the Meiji Era (1868-1912) push for a State Shinto purged of its foreign Buddhist influences. ***

At Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu shrine in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Buddhist artifacts were burned and otherwise removed.



(Note that in the given example too, they removed Buddhist artefacts from a Shinto shrine: built for Shinto religion by Shintos to Shinto Gods who inhabit the space and who by their presence make it sacred. The Shintoists were not "vandals" or "intolerant" for having these items removed: they have a right to protect their religion from what they experienced as subversion (which it *is*) of the proper views of their Gods/view of the divine world. But it wasn't even just subversion alone: not all the provocation has been alluded to. Anyway, comments on the above para are at end. ***)



It was impossible, though, to completely sever the link formed over so much time, and this helps explain why Buddhism and Shinto tend to blur together somewhat in the modern Japanese mind.



(- Many of "the modern Japanese mind" are no longer of a religion and have become amnesiac of it, and so, to some such, all long-standing religions in Japan blur.

- And the "impossible" thing is the statement. The concerned Shintos found they could keep their religion entirely separate from Buddhism, since their religion/Gods *are* entirely separate, despite Buddhist insinuations of Buddhism into Shinto religion. And what's more, Shintos found it important to keep their religion separate. To this day, there are Shintos (like Daoists) who take care not to mix the two.)





What evidence of syncretism do shrines display?

Guarding the average Shinto shrine are two stone statues, most often of the mythical Koma-inu, which despite the "inu" (dog) in its name actually looks like a miniature lion.

Koma-inu fend off evil for a wide range of gods. Also seen are statues of O-Inari-sama, the god of rice harvests represented as a bush-tailed fox, as well as other animals, including cows, boars, monkeys and even an occasional pair of turtles.

Koma-inu reveal cultural influences from abroad. Author Hiromi Iwai writes in the book "Nihon no Kamigami to Hotoke" ("The Gods and Buddha in Japan") that Koma-inu's lionlike design can be traced to China, while "Koma" may have been derived from "Korai," an ancient Korean dynasty.



(Lions as Dwarapalakas - or otherwise flanking a Moorty - are not only there in Taoist Temples <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> But certainly, it is very much ancient Taoist religious tradition also.)



But Koma-inu's heritage goes even further afield.

In each pairing, one creature's mouth will usually be open and the other's closed. (This is true with other animals as well.) The "A" that seems to issue from one Koma-inu's mouth, and the "M" voiced through the other's closed lips are said by Iwai to represent the ancient Indian belief that the universe began with the first sound and will conclude with the other.

In Hinduism, this is written fully as "A-U-M," with the three letters representing a long list of concepts. One is the triad of Earth, our surroundings and heaven. Another is the trinity of Hindu gods Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the god of maintenance) and Shiva (the Destroyer). In a holy word, Aum embodies the entirety of being.

Commonly known in the West as "Om," the term was adopted as a mantra by Buddhists, who in turn transmitted it to Japan via China during the Asuka Period (593-710). After that, it showed up on Shinto statues, reminding visitors to holy sites of our humble place within the greater scheme of things.



(IIRC, as I read it, Shintos themselves attributed Hindu religion as the source for their acquaintance with the Pranava mantram - i.e. a Hindu mantram.)

*** Actually, Shintos had been resisting Buddhism and the hijack of their religion and nation by Buddhism since a long time before the Meiji Era. The Chinese also spent centuries trying to get rid of Buddhism from their space, until its determination settled it as a permanent part of their landscape. (History-writing refers to this last as "persecution" of Buddhism by the Chinese, which is rather inverted, since it concerns a native population's response to a highly let's say "top-down politically-active" non-native religion.)



And crucially, while it's true that in the Meiji era nationalism did influence Japanese policy considerably in many aspects (still, even then, the traditional Shintos active in this particular matter were in it for their *religion*) the accusation of "nationalism" being a driving force in all historical Shinto resistance to Buddhism is incredibly misleading. You find among exactly such immune Shintos those that included Daoist and/or even Hindu Gods in their Shinto Pantheon, with Daoist and/or Hindu rituals for these. Indeed, one very consciously-Shinto warrior clan was not only determined to keep the Shinto Gods and religion safe from Bauddhification, but also the Hindu Gods included in their pantheon with associated practices. A peculiar "nationalism". Other accusations made against the Japanese and ancient Chinese who resisted was "xenophobia". Apparently people can conceive of nothing but a base parochial bias on the part of the Japanese and the Chinese that could induce these to resist Buddhism in favour of their own very independent traditions.





There's a post on IF - one that I am not able to locate now - where someone was quoted mentioning something along the lines of how 'only the idolatrous Hindu and Buddhist religions are capble of understanding the "paganism" of the Hellenes*' or 'understand their loss' (or some such vague statement to do with Hellenismos at any rate). I have this notion that I contested Buddhism's inclusion in such a statement - well, I should have, anyway.

But somewhere in all the above (and in some other posts here concerning Daoism) is embedded the argument for why Buddhism cannot understand: it's not the same type of religion, though some Buddhisms adopt a similar outward semblance.



Nearly forgot to paste the bit that reminded me to put the above piece up:

http://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2011...dha-rajan/

Tamil Nadu Politcs: Cancerous Church eats into Dravidian parties – Radha Rajan

* Churches and prayer houses are being built-in almost every street in Chennai and close to every Hindu temple, big and small

* Churches are coming up even in the holiest of holy Hindu temple towns and they are being allowed by Dravidian parties to come up close to temples

Oh, look, "official policy".

Invading others' sacred sites is a conversion ploy that's always aimed at the target heathen population that's happily minding its own business by visiting its own temples. There's no other way to get their attention, or have the necessary vicinity to act (missionise) on them. It's the "In Your Face" tactic, akin (=an analogy) to breaking the private-space perimeter of a person to render them anxious, and which forces the victim to take note of the aggressive ideology. The confrontation becomes First Contact/initiates "dialogue". That victims may perceive this tactic as an act of aggression - which it is - is not unheard of, that they grow to resent is is also not uncommon.

[Husky]

There's two topics I wanted to post stuff about. The other will have to wait. This is on a matter I had earlier alluded to on this thread.





Post 1/3



Post 3 contains somewhat current news (from 2010).





1. Tamizh Hindus regard Kathirgamam (SL) as one of the Subrahmanya kShetras (dedicated to Murugan - and his Wives + Brother + Parents, of course). Most certainly not just a kShetra of Tamizh Hindus in Sri Lanka, but also those in Bharatam. And those who know who Sri Arunagirinathar is, would have heard of his having visited the sacred Muruga kShetram, Kathirgamam.

(Actually, not even just a kShetram of *Tamizh* Hindus: centuries ago, a great Hindu saint from a distant part of Bharatam famously sought out Bhagavan Kartikeya in his famous abode in SL.)



2. Buddhists claim variously that this kShetra that they call Kataragama was "actually" "originally" the site of a Buddhist warrior that would coincidentally have borne the name "Mahasena" and who then "later got merged into Murugan's identity by Hindus". While that is the most popular version of events, other Buddhist 'explanations' - none consistent - exist.

Failing that, another common route now is to resort to even Mahayana Buddhist excuses: dubbing *Murugan* (not just the Buddhist warrior Mahasena anymore) a "Bodhisattva" to make all the ongoing heathenism among the SL Buddhist laity acceptable.



3. Inserting the following excerpts from wackypedia here, since I didn't know there were quite so many impossible fables Buddhism was manufacturing:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kataragama_temple

Buddhist legends



[color="#0000FF"]One of the Sinhala legends tells that when Skanda-Kumara moved to Sri Lanka, he asked for refuge from Tamils, but the Tamils refused, hence he came to live with the Sinhalese in Kataragama. As a penance for their refusal, the deity forced Tamils to indulge in body piercing and fire walking in his annual festival.[24][/color] This legend tries to explain the location of the shrine as well as the traditional patterns of worship by Tamils. Another Sinhala legends attests that Kataragamadevio was the deity worshiped by Dutthagamini in the first century BCE, prior to his war with Elara and that Duttagamini had the shrine erected to Skanda-Kumara at Kataragama after his victory.[13] This legend has no corroboration in Mahavamsa, the historic annals about Dutthagamini. [1] Another Sinhala legend makes Kataragamadevio a deification of a Tamil spy sent by Elara to live amongst the Sinhalese or a Tamil juggler who made the locals deify him after his death.[25][26] Yet another legend says that Kataragamadevio is a deification of the legendary king Mahasena, who is born as a Bodhisattva or Buddha in waiting.[27] [color="#0000FF"]Anthropologists Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere were able to identify new strands of these legends and the originators of these legends since 1970s, with the burgeoning popularity of the shrine and its deity amongst the Sinhala Buddhists.[28][/color]

About this ridiculous statement from above:

"One of the Sinhala legends tells that when Skanda-Kumara moved to Sri Lanka, he asked for refuge from Tamils, but the Tamils refused, hence he came to live with the Sinhalese in Kataragama. As a penance for their refusal, the deity forced Tamils to indulge in body piercing and fire walking in his annual festival."



Clearly those who made up the story, being Buddhists, are so totally ignorant of Hindu religion that they don't know that Tamil Hindus who worship Murugan do uh... "body-piercing" during Murugan festivals in all places where Hindus of Tamizh ancestry are settled. E.g. SE Asia and most populously in Tamizh Nadu in Bharatam, though the cryptochristo-regime of India has apparently banned the Hindus from doing any such thing.





4. About this statement from above again:

Anthropologists Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere were able to identify new strands of these legends and the originators of these legends since 1970s, with the burgeoning popularity of the shrine and its deity amongst the Sinhala Buddhists.

Reasoning becomes clear in the 2nd quoteblock to follow



http://kataragama.org/warrior.htm

Back in 1992, the following was stated by Aryadasa Ratnasinghe:

The Sinhalese fulfil vows made to the god without voluntary mortification of the flesh, unlike the Hindus who undergo various forms of subdued severities in fulfilling their vows by fire-walking, hanging by the flesh, walking upon nailed slippers, drawing carts by ropes clinched to the muscles of the back, piercing the cheeks or tongue with metal pins, rolling on the ground wearing just a loin-cloth and in such other ways befitting ordeal.

Admission in 1992 that these are Hindu rituals done by Hindus: the rituals tend to be peculiar to Murugan.



Compare with the refs to Paul Younger's observations in the following (his work is from 2001):



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kataragama_temple

Sri Lanka has had a history of conflict between its minority Hindu Tamils and majority Buddhists since its political independence from Great Britain in 1948. Paul Wirz in 1930s wrote about tensions between Hindus and Buddhists regarding the ownership and mode of ritual practice in Kataragama.[49] For the past millennia the majority of the pilgrims were Hindus from Sri Lanka and South India who undertook an arduous pilgrimage on foot.[50] By the 1940 roads were constructed and more and more Sinhala Buddhists began to take the pilgrimage.[31][51] This increased the tensions between the local Hindus and Buddhists about the ownership and type of rituals to be used.[49][52] The government interceded on behalf of the Buddhists and enabled the complete takeover of the temple complex and in effect the shrines have become an adjunct to the Buddhist Kiri Vehera.[53][29] Typical Tamil Hindu rituals at Kataragama such as fire walking, Kavadi dance and body piercing have been taken over by the Buddhists and have been spread to the rest of the island.[29][17] The Buddhist takeover of the temple and its rituals has also profoundly affected the rationale nature of austere Theravada Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka to that of the personal Bhakti veneration of deities found amongst the Hindus of Sri Lanka and South India. The loss of Hindu influence within the temple complex has negatively affected the Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu society.[54] According to Paul Younger the Buddhist takeover was precipitated by the overwhelming participation of Buddhists in what are essentially Hindu rituals that worried the Buddhist establishment. There is a strong political and religious pressure to further modify the temple rituals to conform within an orthodox Theravada Buddhist world view.[18][55]

[Husky]

Post 2/3



5. The following is from 1986, when the Hindu rituals to the Hindu Gods that the Hindus worshipped had not yet been taken over (but you can see the Buddhists were learning it - and to what end). At that point the Buddhist Sangha were still only trying to peddle their Buddhist rituals - obviously not working, since they eventually realised the Buddhist laity weren't interested in the fraud and so realised they needed Hindu rituals. Reminds one of that article 'Buddhism must acquire rituals in order to succeed in India'. (Where do people think Buddhism acquired the "rituals" etc that it exhibits in different countries of Asia - including historically in India - from?) But invented rituals - or even rituals stolen from other religions - is not what's lacking...





Purple bits in the following are my insertions.



http://kataragama.org/news/1986dec-hinduism_today.htm (Note that back in 1986, "Hinduism Today" still had Hindu contributors)

KATARAGAMA

Sri Lanka's Most Holy Hindu Site becoming a Purely Buddhist Place of Worship?



Hinduism Today of December 1986

by Kandasamy, R.



In 1966 the German scholar Paul Wirz observed in his book Kataragama, the Holiest Place in Ceylon, "One could say that all religions are represented in Kataragama and that all are getting on well with each other. All ritual differences seem to be resolved out here; all are reconciled with each other and even the feeling of caste is completely forgotten." Twenty year later, rancour has replaced reconciliation at Sri Lanka's southernmost shrine. In recent years, however, religious, social, cultural and economic changes have left this hidden Muruga sanctuary all but a Buddhist citadel. Few traces of the Hindu share to Kataragama remain.



On a July visit to attend the Muruga festival and investigate claims of a Buddhist takeover, Hinduism Today found the sanctuary almost beyond recognition from earlier times. In each of its main sections - Kataragama the Sacred Area, Sellakataragamam and Kataragamalai (the most important sacred peak) - one now sees Buddhist shrines, houses, shops and other business concerns. And not a single bo-tree, not a Hindu temple under Buddhist control is spared the ubiquitous Buddhist flag.



The Work of 35 Years

The move on Kataragama began shortly after Sri Lanka's independence in 1948, even before Mr. Wirz wrote his book. Sinhalese Buddhist politicians who dominated the country's legislative, aggressively maneuvered to transform it to a prominent place of Buddhist worship. After making the village motorable in 1950, Sinhalese were encouraged to settle there. Previously, pilgrimage was on foot through dense jungle tracks. The place covering the main Murugan Temple and the ruined Kiri Vihare was declared "Kataragama Sacred Area." Introducing the Development Scheme, the outskirts of the Murugan Temple were given a Buddhist outlook by demolishing all the 21 Hindu pilgrim abodes - like the 150-year old Chetty Madam - and shrines attached to each of them, like the Multumani Amman Temple. This included removing shops crammed with puja offerings, rudraksha malas and vegetarian food and other Hindu business establishments such as barber stalls for pilgrims taking vows.

Kiri Vihare ('Sooran Kottai') as it looked in the 1950's.



Under the same scheme, Kiri Vihare, about one third of a mile from the Murugan temple, was renovated and its environs, including lands formerly used by Hindus, were developed to facilitate Buddhist worship. In this way, the Hindus have been suppressed and their power and influence in the area reduced.



Out With the Old, In With the New

On the land were demolition was effected, four new shrines, built according to Buddhist architecture, have come up. Says the manager of one of them, Murugesapillai Rengaraj of Bandarawela, "I was permitted to build the Vinayagar shrine on the small plot allotted to me on condition that I should not alter the given building plan." The planter said further, "To preserve our cherished Hindu culture, at least in a small way, I got the beautifully carved door and door frame of our Old Arunsalam Madam fitted to the shrine."



The Ramakrishna Mission Madam was taken over in 1960 by the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government, given to be used as bhikkus' quarters. More recently it has become a Buddhist Archaeological Museum, with a statue of Buddha at its entrance. On the loss of the Mission's great services to pilgrims, V.R. Pasupati, 56, a school principal from Kottagala, lamented: "Hindus miss the Thiruvasagam relayed through the loudspeaker at Brahma-Muhurtam to awaken them to get ready to go to the Temple." Now pirith recital and bana preaching of the Buddhists fill the air everywhere. "Kavadi dance has become baila dance," observed Nagaratnam Sivakumaran, a 38-year old technical officer from Wellawatte. "In the past, it threw a bewitching spell of bhakti on on-lookers. But today the Western band music and the Sinhalese drumming provided for it gives a pep for pop music." Puja offerings kept in an 'archanai thattu' for sale are similar to those at Buddhist temples. Paper garlands are kept instead of fresh flowers. The Hindu holy ash, kumkum, sandalwood paste and lime are not to be found. "Since there are no Hindu shops in Kataragama, what is available is offered," says a housewife from Point Pedro, S. Vijayalakshmy, 32 years.



The Changing Face of Holy Festivals

Those interested in projecting Kataragama as a Buddhist centre have capitalised on the colorful festival procession by introducing Buddhist features into it. On the day before the water-cutting ceremony, Lord Murugan goes to Sooran Kottai (Kiri Vihare to the Buddhists), the fortress of the Asura, to meet the mother of Soora Padman whom He vanquished in the Sooran Por. Now, a 'relic' is taken ceremoniously from the Buddhist temple (formerly Perumal Hindu Temple) in the inner courtyard of the Murugan Temple, placed on a caparisoned elephant and made to lead the procession. On witnessing this, Theedchanamurthi Elayatamby, 70, a retired teacher from Tirunelvely commented, "Lord Murugan is God and Gautama Buddha a great Hindu saint. How can man lead God?"

(Yes of course, the relic industry.)



With Buddhist monks, banners and torchbearers in the procession (in which there is a well-organised Buddhist cultural display of Kandyan dance of various forms) and the voice of 'Sadhu, Sadhu' reverberating from the vast Buddhist crowd - any foreign tourist or television viewer would feel that a Buddhist pageant is in progress!



The shortage of both local Hindus and Hindu pilgrims has adversely affected regular features of the festivals. This July, the absence of the traditional Aum Vadivela Varuga canopy held over Lord Murugan in the procession was conspicuous. It is normally carried by 12 of the pilgrims who walk long distances from the North and the East, covering more than 300 miles. Also absent were the groups of Hindu devotees who go dancing and singing the praises of Lord Murugan. A few elders who braved dangers to be present for the festival sang bhajans. The Ananda Nama Bhajan - chanting Aum Muruga mantra at the Palani Andavar Temple - could not be continued throughout the night. "One day I had to keep the bhajan going until Swami returned from his other festival duties and wound it up in the midnight," said Tiruchelvam who works at the Temple.



Muscling In

Emboldened by the attitude of Buddhist-dominated governments towards Hindu worship at Kataragama, exploiting the turmoil of the country and sensing the utter helplessness of the few Hindus who maintain Hindu interests in the sacred village, individuals with the sole aim of making money for themselves are bent on creating mischief to erode the rights of the Hindu Theivanai Amman Trust managed by 66-year-old Swami Dattaramagiri Bawa of the Swami Kalyanagiri succession. "Some Hindus will be surprised to hear that all temples in the village of Kataragama were managed by the successors of Kalyanagiri Swami some years ago," states an authoritative source. A short run-down of the flurry of Buddhist incursions:

• An interested party forcibly took over the Kandasamy Temple at Katiramalai in June 1969. Prior to this, a Reverend Bhikku Siddhanta stayed there with the residing priest, Sankaraswamy, and learned Hindu mantras and puja practice from him. The bhikku demolished the Pillaiyar Temple at Pillaiyar Peak in 1970 and built a new shrine a few yards away from the old sacred spot. (Happened in the past too to with Hindus "sharing" their religion with other religions.)
  
  
• ­In 1971, the Theivanai Amman Devasthanam was looted and valuables taken.
  
  
• On September 26, 1979, the [color="#0000FF"]Manicka Pillaiyar Temple[/color] at Sella Kathirkamam was taken over under threat.
  
  
• As late as 5th December, 1985, unwanted elements intruded into the Theivanai Amman Devastanam and manhandled Swami Dattaramagiri Bawa, Nagalingam, a cashier in his seventies, and others who were there. When asked why he continues his stay there under dangerous circumstances, Swami replied calmly, "Why should I run away from here? Death comes once; let it come to me anywhere."
  
  

"It is a self-evident truth that Hindu shrines ought to be managed by Hindu Priests and Swamis," noted one observer. Temples under non-Hindu control have begun shedding established Hindu principles and practices. While puja goes on for Manicka Pillayar at Sella Katargama, tickets are thrust on worshippers to collect money for a building fund. Sinhalese books are sold in a shed attached to the temple. Sivasri S. Sabesa Kurukkal, 36, who officiated there in 1979 and 1980, told Hinduism Today, "When I found I could not maintain our ancient [color="#FF0000"]Saiva practice[/color], I left the place." Now two Sinhalese youths are learning Tamil and receiving training in puja practice. "What's the next step?" local Hindus wonder.

(Tomorrow, people - including influential Hindus (who'll probably write a book on it) - will pretend this was all "Buddhist" originally. Never underestimate the English-educated Hindus. I've ceased to <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> )



In the past, the victory Vel of Murugan on a rock atop Katira Malai (hill) was the only symbol of worship. Seeing young non-Hindus climbing this holy hill with their footwear on and carrying food baskets, P. Manickam, 70, a trader from Pettah, remarked, "It is not pilgrimage but hill climbing for some." But more than attitudes have changed. When a pilgrim took the old route (blocked now) before, he prayed at the Vairavar Rock at the foot of the hill and at the Pillaiyar Rock half way before reaching the summit. The new path leads through a huge Buddhist structure at the entrance where a sign says, "Kanda Kumara Yantra available for Rs. 50 Sri Siddhanta Swami," catches the visitor's eye. (Kanda Kumara refers to Lord Murugan in Sinhalese).

[color="#800080"](Actually, Kanda = one of the Tamizh ways of pronouncing Skanda - hence "Kanda Puranam" which is the Tzh retelling of Murugan's life story from Skanda Puranam; and "Kumara" is used by Tamizh Hindus for Murugan all the time - so many Tamizh Hindu songs on this. But perhaps the writer is not familiar with all the Tamizh refs to Murugan.)[/color]

[color="#0000FF"]Is this 'Sri Siddhanta Swami' the same Reverend Bhikku Siddhanta who stayed with Sankaraswamy for some years?[/color]

[color="#800080"](As in cryptochristist (buddhist equivalent thereof)? I mean... I mean...)[/color]



Shock and grief awaits the old pilgrim at the summit of Katira Malai. With tears in his eyes and voice quivering with emotion, Ponniah Karunaharan, a 71-year-old Saiva Siddhanta scholar from Keerimalai reveals, "The sacred Vel our Lord planted for His devotees to worship lies buried under a concrete Sivalingam!" And Sivasri Ananda Sarma, the officiating priest reacts to the revelation, "Hamudusee (a Buddhist monk) did it according to a divine order given in his dream." So, a new 'Sivan Temple' has come at the old sacred spot. New Buddhist structures, too, are found on the summit.

(Look it's Santa Helena!

But mixed with "St Mercurius part II" - who was previously the God of the Hellenismos, now appropriated for christianism and made to kill Hellenismos with. "Santa Mercurius" - the christian saint - ordered death of Julian, said the christian church official who 'dreamt' the miracle. Or something.)



Echoing the views of Hindus who watch helplessly the changes taking place to erase from memory Kataragama's identity with Hindu worship, Arunasalam Ramanathan, 38, a farmer from Nuwara Eliya noted wryly, "There is going to be another Buddhist centre in Sri Lanka in the name of Kataragama." Selvan Kalyanasunderam, a Colombo lawyer, warns, "So long as the Vel remains covered and Hindu shastras are violated, the country faces further destruction."



Ethnic War: A Land And People Broken Apart:

Recurrent ethnic riots between Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist majority and Hindu Tamil minority which commenced in 1956 and exploded into the July 1983 holocaust have caused the prevailing turmoil in the country. The Tamils whose homeland is the North and the East are frightened to go to the South where Kataragama is situated. "How are we to go? Where are we to stay? Are we safe there?" are questions on the lips of Hindus. There are pilgrims' rests owned by the Government and Sinhalese organizations like Colombo Young Men's Buddhist Association and hotels which rent out rooms but Hindus will not dare to go there.



The flow of Hindus from other lands has also naturally dwindled, especially after Dhanapathi, a Hindu pilgrim from India, was hacked to death at a barber salon in Kataragama in 1983. Those Tamils who lived there and in the neighborhood of the holy village have fled from their homes. "There existed a Hindu village, Tanjai, about 10 miles off Kataragama, which had 2 temples and about 130 Tamil families, when I was young", reminisces 87-year old landed proprietor, Sinnadurai Pasupati, of Tissamaharama in the South. "This village has disappeared." Of the thousands who flocked for the 15-day annual festival held this July, a handful were Hindus. Marutakali Tangamma, a laborer from Vavuniya in the North, said that when she boarded the C.T.B. bus to attend the festival, the fear of death and despair was lurking in her. "By Murugan's Grace, I arrived safe."

[color="#800080"](Is this medieval Japan? No. It's the Indian subcontinent.)[/color]



Hindu Appeal for Help at Kataragama

S. Saravanamuttu of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Sri Lanka, appealed in his Presidential message: "It is the sacred duty of all Hindus to help the Swami of the Theivanai Amman Trust in their efforts to consolidate and strengthen the position of the Hindus in Kataragama. They are struggling against many difficulties and are trying their best to overcome many obstacles. Moral support alone is not sufficient. Financial assistance and aid in other forms should be made available to them. Prominent Hindus should place at their disposal their talents and skills. Wealthy Hindus should support them liberally. Hindu societies and organizations must come forward to encourage them."

Sounds like the sort of things that happened in E Asia.

[Husky]

Post 3/3



6. http://kataragama.org/warrior.htm

(Written in 1992 by a Sinhala Buddhist, Aryadasa Ratnasinghe

It is believed by the Hindus (of Tamizh ancestry) that god Skanda is the younger son of god Iswara Siva [...] God Ganesha is the elder brother of god Skanda and it may be for this reason that the two devales (Sinhala word for Temple), dedicated to the brothers, lie adjacent to each other at Kataragama. Unlike at the Mahadevale, the kapuralas (this appears to be the Sinhala word for Temple priests) of the Ganesha kovil are [color="#0000FF"]Hindus[/color].

That is, the Ganapati Kovil associated with the Subrahmanya kShetra at Kathirgamam is still a Hindu-administered temple (obviously built by Hindus).





It's the Bauddha Sangha! They're coming for the final takeover of the Other temple: to Pillaiyar (Ganapati). Soon they will have to evolve new Buddhist myths on how this Temple was "originally Buddhist" too, and how the Pillaiyar here is a "bodhisattva" blablabla.





Do note the date. It's the other reason for this posting session.

http://kataragama.org/news/siva.sandri.case.htm

Source: The Daily Mirror (Colombo) of 20 May 2010:



Fundamental Rights Petition against handing over Kataragama Pillaiyar Temple

by S.S. Selvanayagam



The Supreme Court yesterday (19) listed for support on Monday (24) the fundamental rights petition complaining against the alleged attempt to alienate the Mannikka Pillaiyar Kovil alias Sella Kataragama Ganesha Temple of Kataragama from the control and pssession of Hindus.



The Bench comprised Chief Justice Asoka de Silva, Justices P.A.Ratnayake and Chandra Ekanayake.





The Petitioner Swami Yogi Sri Shiva Chandri



The Petitioner Swami Yogi Sri Shiva Chandri (62) cited Kataragama Divisional Secretary T.B.M. Athapattu, Prime Minister and Buddhist & Religious Affairs Minister D.M. Jayaratne, Ratmalane Sri Siddhartha Thero, Swami Upul Chandima Dissanayake, and the Attorney General as Respondents. M.A. Sumanthiran instructed by Sanjeewa Kaluarachchi appeared for the Petitioner.



The Petitioner stated he has led the Pada Yathra (Foot Pilgrimage) to Kataragama from Thondamanaru, Jaffna for the past 28 years, following tradition passed on to him by his father and the said foot pilgrimage has been carried out annually for centuries with approximately 10,000 Hindu devotees attending annually. The foot pilgrimage, which travels for about 300 km, would take 2 ½ months to reach the primary destination which is the Sella Kataragama Ganesha Temple.

Mannikka Pillaiyar Kovil at Sella Kataragama



He filed this petition as the public interest litigation secure and protects the interests and rights of the congregation of the said temple, and countless Hindu devotees who have allegedly continued to be affected by the actions and/or inactions of the State and the Respondents.



The said Temple is situated in the Kataragama division of Monaragala District and is built on a rock which stands in the middle of the ‘Manik Ganga’. It has been a place of religious worship of Hindu devotees with a history of 5,000 years. He claimed this temple is also the repository of the Shiva-Linga; an aniconic naturally formed representation of the Hindu deity Shiva and unlike the Shiva-Linga found in various other Hindu Kovils, this Shiva-Linga situated at the said temple is a naturally formed phenomenon, growing out of the rock itself and not a manmade icon. [color="#0000FF"]He stated that it is the only site in Southern Sri Lanka where Hindu customs, rites and rituals are carried out in accordance with the traditional concepts utilizing mantras in Veda, Sanskrit and Tamil, whereas traditional mantras, in all three languages, are not conducted even at the main Kataragama Kovil.[/color] (That last is 'cause the Buddhists took over the Kathirgamam Kovil. But even if the Buddhists were to conduct Hindu rituals there, it will all be a sham anyway. Which is what it is now.)



He stated that the 1st Respondent Divisional Secretary had filed action in the Tissamaharamaya Magistrate’s Court [color="#0000FF"]on behalf of the 3rd Respondent Monk Siddhartha Thera, seeking an order to hand over possession of the Kovil to[/color] Venerable Siddhartha Thera. The Petitioner sought to intervene by filing a petition and affidavit inter alia stating that there were various under hand attempts by several government officials and the Respondent Siddhartha Thera, to purportedly lease out the sacred premises of the said temple to a purported ‘Vadihitikanda Development Society’ and that the said Society did not in fact exist in as much as it had no identifiable membership, and did not conform to the requirements of the duly registered society.





Source: The Daily Mirror (Colombo) of 20 May 2010

The fact that Buddhism is now encroaching on the remaining unBauddhafied Hindu Kovil in the vicinity says something about the ... authenticity in the Buddhist "equal claim" assertion over the "Kataragama shrine" already usurped.

• Oh look, it's like the re-invention of Mahayana Buddhism from Theravada Buddhism going on before your eyes!
  
  And shows what kind of religion it was all taken from... <=> direction of travel. And why it was done: the Buddhist takeover of Hindu rituals, mantras, language of the local Hindus, Hindu pilgrimage and festivals - for the same old reasons (and after preventing/effectively banning Hindus themselves from doing these very things/from carrying out their own religion, as seen in Post 2). That's how Buddhism, incl. most obviously Mahayana, acquired all the heathen stuff belonging to other religions.
  
  
  
  
• And then there's what all the above indicates about *lay* people and their actual religious tendencies in their natural state (when left to their own devices). That is, it says something about reversion (the direction): what the ancestral religion of people of the subcontinent *actually* is. Note that the Hindus visiting Kathirgamam were not there to convert the Buddhist laity, they were on pilgrimage to see their own Gods. It was the growing power of the Gods that were attracting the Buddhist laity back to them. In contrast, it is Buddhism that has to exert energy - work hard - to keep the converted laity Bauddhafied. (Can see exactly the same continue to happen Elsewhere - to a non-Indian population of a certain non-Hindu religion.)
  
  
  
  
• And it says something about the *meaning* of Hindu Gods when these are ... "adopted" into other Indic religions. It doesn't mean the same thing in the other religions.
  
  Can see how much Buddhism actually cares about Murugan and the other Hindu Gods (or all other Gods): how real the Sangha think these Gods are. If they knew the Gods were real, they would not be ticking the Gods off by treating the genuine, devoted, loyal followers (the Hindus) in this manner. And can see how the Buddhist fraud perpetrated at the kShetra is going affect the kShetra's power. If Kathirgamam can be projected as "actually" Buddhist, the Buddhist Sangha will be pleased. But happier still if the "Buddhist" laity, currently flocking to the site and indulging in heathenism, were to finally slowly drift back into Theravada Buddhism when the kShetra loses its power and hence pull.
  
  
  
  
• I guess all the neo-Buddhists screeching against Hindu religion and pretending Hindu religion had hurt Buddhism are silent? Guess the ground-reality doesn't fit in with their "the south was originally not Hindu" theory?
  
  

[HareKrishna]

I dont know were to put this.

Is Hare Krsna Iskcon a hindu religion or was Prabhupad influenced by years spent in catholic school to form a misionary religion ,similar whit christianity?

[Husky]

Can you move posts 126-129 into your new thread? "Move" as in: cut the contents from #126-129 (don't leave them in) and paste them in your new thread. If the posts that have already been made here require some token words to remain, you could type a word like <deleted> in place.

TIA.

[Husky]

The native Japanese religion ("Shinto") was historically the religion of the Japanese until mid-6th century, when Buddhism got introduced into Japan with a regent converted to Buddhism. He made it a national religion, patronised it greatly and promoted it. It was about this time when the name "Shinto" was coined for the old native religion - from Mandarin(?) "Shen" (Chinese word for their 'Devas') + "Tao" (The Way), i.e. Shinto=The Religion of the Gods/Kamis - to delineate the native religion from the imports. Within a century, another Japanese emperor, who similarly embraced Buddhism fully, went a step further: gave Shinto the boot and replaced it with Buddhism as the official religion.



I suppose I may well be getting countries and rulers mixed up again, but *IIRC*, it was one of the two above emperors (I thought it was the first, but not sure) who made it compulsory for majority non-Buddhist Japan to become uniformly vegetarian after his adopting Buddhism upon Korean and Chinese Buddhist influence. (When certain Indian religions impose such things on even unrelated people, I've heard it actually described as being another example of their "egalitarian compassion". Meanwhile, when Hindus of various Hindu communities refuse to eat beaf of their own choice - because *they* consider it unHindu - Indian history re-writing speaks of this as "owing to brahminical fascism" and/or as being "backward/unprogressive".)



Buddhism, being in charge in Japan now, initially embarked on a process of official delineation of the newly introduced religion from the native Shinto: Shinto was specifically rejected by the converted government in favour of Buddhism. But after first attempting to replace Shinto in the nation wholesale (that's also what the naming of Shinto was for), Buddhists eventually discovered that it was impossible to do away with the native religion, since the laity remained loyally attached. So as always, the Bauddhification of the native religion started: by claiming Shinto and its Gods were "Buddhist" all along. Throughout the centuries there were many attempts by Shintoists to free their religion/Gods from Buddhist usurpation and subordination into Buddhism's worldview and hierarchy. (Shinto and its Gods were being misused to promote Buddhism among the population: to acclimatise Shinto laity to Buddhism, which was the only reason for Buddhism's compromise. The syncretism was one-way: the government, being Buddhist, had approved of the syncretism. Not the Shintoists themselves.)



Until the 12th century, Buddhism promoted the Kamis of Shinto (even the ancestral Shinto Matriarch of the Japanese, their famous Sun Goddess) as "bodhisattvas", as the many "Buddhas" (of Mahayana obviously) and - equally impossibly - as variants of Shakyamuni Buddha himself.



But then Shinto regained ascendancy in the ruling houses of Japan for a century or two thereafter, at which stage the Shintoists were at last able to pry their Gods loose from Buddhist usurpation again. Though at this stage, some Shintoists were so tired of their Gods having been forced into the lower rungs of the Buddhist hierarchy (Shinto Gods as "upholders of Buddhism", who could "look forward" to a future incarnation as a Buddha as their ... uh prize) instead of their religion having been left alone as the entirely independent Shinto religion, that there was even some reactionary tit-for-tat, with some Shintos claiming that it must be the other way around: Buddha must be a Shinto God - of Shinto religion - not Shinto Gods being Buddhists. (Some other Asian populations also went through the same reactionary process, while others by-passed it and avoided mis-identifying their Gods with the Buddha in reaction.)



But Buddhism returned to its one-way "syncretism" attempts in Japan (also what happened in Chinese regions, because it's a method of proselytisation). And traditional Shinto society continued wanting to free their religion (Gods and temples) from Buddhist imposition on their religion.



So the 19th century Meiji Era's "nationalism" (when Samurai took charge of the government and Shinto was *officially* delineated from Buddhism by the now-Shinto government itself, even if non-syncretist Shinto society had been keeping the 2 religions separate for longer) was only the much later instance of an officially-sanctioned attempt at separating Buddhism and Shinto. And while this government certainly had political motives ("nationalism"), Shinto society's traditional leadership had genuine reasons/interests as did the laity in having religious separation restored. Because, while the government of Japan had been Buddhist for significant periods of time, not all of the Japanese population was ever converted even to the syncretist Buddhist religion. But, since they weren't in charge when many successive Buddhist governments had been pursuing a policy of deliberate enforced syncretism on Shinto religion, adherents of Shinto had had little say in the matter for a long time.



Next time some neo-"Buddhist" tries to claim that all of the rest of Asia wanted to be Buddhist ("Ra-Ra"): nah, they didn't.

If the *government* hadn't been repeatedly converted to Buddhism, the latter wouldn't have had the power to convert many people at all. And even so, Buddhism had to use Shinto (one-way "syncretism") to get at the laity at all: underlining that Shinto is what they were still attracted in.

[HareKrishna]

Its sad that shinto wasn't surpassed totally by buddhism.Buddhism is so superior comparative whit primitive shinto.In a way is understandable.Shinto is for uneducated majority that couldn't grasp superior concepts so they remain whit superstition.While buddhism is for the educated smart people.

[Husky]

^ That's exactly the Buddhist mentality vis-a-vis Shinto (and Daoism and Bon etc).

And the christian mentality vis-a-vis NW heathens etc and even Hellenismos. (In the end, the laity was all that was left. That's where the word heathen comes from: a reference to the unreached masses of remote corners of the land.)



Says nothing about the accuracy of such mentality.

What looks like superstition to those with a monotheistic tendency, the targeted people *know* to be anything but. So when the aliens tell the heathens thus-and-so about their Gods, the heathens remain silent because they know their Gods are real; that however silly the aliens think their religion is, it is founded on truth: the reason that Shintos - like Daoists - were adamant in not wanting Buddhism to invent bodhisattva and buddha-ising fictions about their Gods was because Shintos find their Gods to be real. But Buddhism wouldn't know that.

(And just for general information for any Hindus who may read this: there are of course "educated" "smart" Japanese people who are still stubborn Shintos.)





Something relevant.

SL adopted most of its various "guardian deities of SL Buddhism" from ... "elsewhere" (other religion). Vibheeshana's popularity caught on among even SL Buddhists temporarily (despite SL Buddhism's inverted spin on the Ramayanam) so that he was on the list at some point, but eventually got edged off - to SL Buddhism's relief. He got replaced in the list of "SL guardian deities" by a popular Goddess among southern Hindus, including the Hindus of SL: Kannagi (whose other names in the Hindu epic Cilappadikaaram include Pattini - for being a virtuous Patni - and Mangala). SL was not unfamiliar to her, but her rise to popularity among SL Buddhists in recent centuries is what made SL Buddhism put Pattini in the shortlist.





The comments at the following link shows where Sri Lankans - including especially SL Buddhists - find the Pattini Amman worship among SL Buddhist laity derives from. And how actual, conscious Theravada Buddhists view the matter.



http://groundviews.org/2011/01/11/female...d-pattini/

The main article says:

in Sri Lanka: she is worshipped by the Hindus of the east and north as Kannaki Amman, but by far the larger numbers of devotees are among the Sinhala Buddhists, from all parts of the island, for whom she is Pattini Amma.

Two things on this statement:

- "the larger number of devotees are among the Sinhala Buddhists" -> maybe that's 'cause there *are* more Sinhala Buddhists in SL than Hindus...

- "[Sinhala Buddhists] for whom she is Pattini Amma" -> Southern Hindus too are familiar with her name of "Pattini", since I *think* that is one of the refs to Kannagi in Cilappadikaaram itself.



Anyway, some of the "35 Comments" at the above link (my own inserts in purple):

yapa

January 11, 2011 • 7:23 am



(Female) “deities” of “Theravada Buddhism”???



Kannagi and Pattini????



Any body who has a slightest idea about Buddhism knows that Buddhism is a philosophy/way of life that that advocates people to rely on their own will and effort to reach at its goal. It never advocate their followers to pray for favours to anybody, deities or whatever it is.



These deities mentioned above really are Hindu deities who got some respect of some of the Buddhists through Hindu influence felt in Sri Lanka. It is natural for any social group to absorb some elements from those come to in touch with it. However, this does not say all the Buddhists believe or follow these deities or these deities belong to Buddhism, and has no any reason to specifically attribute to “Theravada Buddhism”.



I don’t think the writer does not know that Theravada Buddhism is not rituals practiced by average Sri Lankans of Sri Lanka. Buddhism found in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia are also known as Theravada Buddhism. Is the writer saying that Kannagi and Pattini are deities of the people of these Theraravada Buddhist countries as well, if these deities are Theravada Buddhist deities?



Is your notion “everything believed by any of the Buddhist in Sri Lanks is Theravada Buddhism” or “Theravada Buddhism is what any Sri Lankan Buddhist believe”? Can you really identify Theravada Buddhism in this line and is this the correct line for it? Is it what you say is Theravada Buddhism or it is a completely different one? Don’t you think that your definition is one of your own that has no any relationship to acceptance by any school of scholars? Can you show me any accepted definition of Theravada Buddhism found in in any accredited definition at least going close to your notion?



“Aththahi aththano natho, Kohinatho parosiya” Buddhism says.



This learned writer or the panel of editors who chose this to publish in the forum, I cannot think not to know these simple facts. In the light of this I don’t think I am wrong if I am inclined to think that this is a calculated attack having a special target, which I indicated a few days before referring to the recent trend.



Thanks!





sudesh

January 11, 2011 • 7:52 am



This article is misleading people.The God Saman(Sumana saman dewiyo)

is the only Buddhist God in Buddhist literature.There are other gods but not exact names and information.But God saman plays a major role and he is considered as the protector of Theravada Buddhism in sri lanka.And God Paththini clearly is a Hindu concept which merged with Buddhist culture in Kandy era.

You may see both Buddhist Tamil and Hindu people worship God Paththini but not God Saman.Because God Saman is only related to budhist culture and literature.

BTW “Pattini is considered the goddess of fertility and health” this concept came from Egyptian myth Taweret.Do a little research before you post online articles. (Lots of religions all over the world have Goddesses of fertility and health, not just Egypt.)

thanks

sudesh





Amarnath

January 11, 2011 • 10:16 am



Yapa and Sudesh,

don’t get so upset about that article. The writer is very clear in what she has written. She is not writing about Buddhist philosophy as preached by Gauthama Buddha, that has no relevance in society and even to Buddhist monks, any more. The writer has focused on the type of Buddhism that is commonly practised by every citizen who claims he/she is a Buddhist, goes to temple and worships the Bo tree, the Buddha statues and all the Hindu Gods in the temple. Its the practising Buddhism that is being written about, not what is wholly restricted to academia for library value.

Amarnath



Reply

(The gradual reversion of all "laity" acquired by Buddhism. Happens in the rest of Asia all the time.)





chandula kumbukage

January 11, 2011 • 11:45 am



Dear Sharni,



Beautiful photography. Let me give a small suggestion to your title. Instead of “Female Deities of Theravada Buddhism” I suggest you title it as “Female Deities of Theravada Buddhism”. Because, although Sri Lanka follows Theravada Buddhism, in practice it follows “Sinhala Buddhism” as mentioned by prof.Gananatha Obeysekara.



It is true that with the arrival of Arahath Mahinda, Theravada Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka and remained the dominant Buddhist tradition in Sri Lanka. However we cannot rule out the influence of Mahayana and Hindu traditions into Buddhism of Sri Lanka. For instance, worshiping the tooth relic is a practice influenced by Mahayana tradition. Similarly deities such as Katharagama, Vishnu, Natha and Pattini were worshiped by Buddhists under the influence of Hindu traditions. Therefore it is correct to mention that what is practiced in Sri Lanka is “Sinhala Buddhism” combined with Theravada, Mahayana and Hindu traditions.



Godess “Pattini” is popular among Sinhala Buddhists. Therefore it is more correct to title this article as “Female Deities of Sinhala Buddhism”



Reply





Sam

January 11, 2011 • 2:12 pm



“worshiping the tooth relic is a practice influenced by Mahayana tradition”

This is wrong. Lord Gautama Buddha clearly admired worshiping relics (Dhathu wandanawa). He asked the followers to make stupas in commemoration of Buddhas, Arahaths and Chakkawatti Kings.





Sharni Jayawardena

January 11, 2011 • 12:30 pm



The point I am making here is that the Theravada Buddhist tradition, unlike the Mahayana or Vajrayana traditions, is inclined not to venerate female deities. I have not tried to examine the nature of Buddhism here, and do not dispute the fact that Buddhism does not advocate prayers for favours from “deities or whatever it is”. I am focusing here on an aspect of Buddhist practice, rather than Buddhist philosophy, in the context of Sri Lanka.



It is a fact that Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka, almost without exception, have designated places of worship for a range of deities. The Goddess Pattini is one of them. That she is considered the goddess of ‘fertility and health’ can be validated by talking to any of her devotees; where the concept originated would certainly be a point of interest but not relevant to the brief introduction I have provided to contextualize my photographs.



Reply





Sri Lankan

January 11, 2011 • 2:01 pm



Kannagi/Pattini is NOT venerated by other Theravada Buddhists such as those in Myanmar/Thailand/Cambodia. This is particular to Sri Lankan Buddhism, and that too it is a minority among the Sri Lankan Buddhists who worship/venerate the deity. It is no doubt the influence of Tamil Hinduism. A more appropriate title would be “Female deities of Sri Lankan and/or Sinhala Buddhism: Kannagi and Pattini”



Reply





yapa

January 11, 2011 • 7:10 pm



“I have not tried to examine the nature of Buddhism here, and do not dispute the fact that Buddhism does not advocate prayers for favours from “deities or whatever it is”.”



Then what was your purpose of naming it “Theravada Buddhism”? Don’t you think you have made a sweeping generalization, to the whole population using a small sample? Don’t you think you have done a massive harm to Buddhism by your negligence or by your calculated attack or what ever you would like to call it? I think you should apologize.



Thanks!



Reply





yapa

January 11, 2011 • 8:45 pm Dear All;



“Can there be anything wrong if She so happens to be a Tamil Woman?”



Not at all, it is the right thing and the truth, they are not Theravada Buddhist deities or Sinhala deities.



However, there is one female deity who is only known to Sinhalese culture, but should not be identified as a “Theravada Buddhist deity” or a “Sinhala deity” with a pre-assumed objective or in haste ” . This is just a female deity mentioned in Sinhala literature, but no prayed for favours, just like the deities mentioned in Buddhist Suttas. Please read the story.



When king Dutu Gamunu was seeking a place to build the “Maha Stupa” he found a place he thought would be proper for the purpose, however, he found an obstacle, a gigantic “Thelambu tree” in the place. Then he also found that there was a female deity living in the tree and requested her to find another dwelling so that he could build the Stupa. However, the deity asked for a favour in return, that the Stupa should be given her name when it is built. The king accepted it and that is how the Maha Stupa became “Swarnamali”.



Wsarnamali Seya or Ruwanmali Seya is still shining in the ancient kingdom of Anuradhapura, attracting the all respects from the Buddhists and reminding us the name of that deity unique to Sinhalese culture.



But our hasty or what ever writers have no any sense of such deities unique to Sinhalese, but bring forward Hindu deities to discredit an unblemished philosophy that cannot be challenged.



This is how they discuss Theravada Buddhism. When they have no capacity to dive into deep philosophies, and has no good faith in their minds, they insult them with superficial and irrelevant jabberings. Kusal Perera is not an exception.



Ignorants are the bravest! Ignorance is bliss!!



Thanks!



Reply

Concerning the lines made bold just above (as well as some others bits in the quoteblock above):

That post 132 summarised "exactly the Buddhist mentality vis-a-vis Shinto (and Daoism and Bon etc)" also holds here on the Buddhist view of Hindu religion/Gods among the laity, and the Buddhist view on the reversion to Hindu religion of the 'Buddhist' laity.

[HareKrishna]

To say that buddhism has christian/monotheistic tendencies is funny.The only similarity between christianity/monotheism and buddhism is that they are both soul-saving religions.

Shinto,tao and bon are not soul-saving religions.They are not interested to save souls.

[Husky]

Am sure I could never have said that Buddhism had christian tendencies. Nor that Buddhism was a monotheism.

Different from what is meant with "monotheistic tendency".



I have often used "monotheistic tendency" (I imagine I may have coined that inept phrase - if it pre-existed, then it was independently derived), and use it precisely for the salvation business. Have used it before for feminism - since feminists very much exhibit the monotheistic tendency: they want to save women in their nation and the rest of the world, by transferring on to others their way of viewing things, their way of changing things and their 'ideal outcome' of things.

I find the phrase applicable to communism too, etc.



- Monotheism is of course the one "true" gawdism, and the related need to foist the one "true" invisible gawd on others.

- In contrast, monotheistic tendency is far more general: the belief that people have found the one true/complete solution (even in terms of religion/ideology) and their need/determination to shove this onto others. It's because they imagine that others are lacking somehow, that others' (pre-existing) views or religions or lives are incorrect or somehow incomplete without introduction of the solution. That other people "want" - even if they don't yet know they "want" - the nouveau solution.



Though the choice of words - 'soul saving' - is not what I was literally alluding to, the distinction the post above was getting at noticed the dividing line:

The only similarity between christianity/monotheism and buddhism is that they are both soul-saving religions.

Shinto,tao and bon are not soul-saving religions.They are not interested to save souls.

Christianism and Buddhism consider themselves universal religions. They're certainly not the only ones.

The latter religions are ethnic (ancestral, original) religions. (Traditional Shintos - and Daoists certainly - don't missionise. Eastern Buddhist movements that call themselves "Daoist" do. Don't know about modern Bon.)





The religions/ideologies of the world are organised in a pecking order. (And BTW, Buddhism is not at the *bottom* of the order.)





One more time. Because the Hellenes have an excellent way with words:

http://ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq#17

Does Ethnic Hellenic religion engage in proselytizing?



[color="#0000FF"]Certainly not, we are dealing here with a clearly ethnic polytheistic (natural) religion, that is to say one that concerns a very specific Ethnos.[/color] If a non-Hellenic origin wants to honor our Gods, then he is always welcome to decide this for himself, as we will never try to convince him.



[color="#0000FF"]The phenomenon of proselytism belongs exclusively to the anti-ethnic and 'ecumenical'[/color] monotheistic religions. Their aim is to foster [color="#0000FF"]a denial of previously held correct views and replace them with novel alien ones. Proselytism involves crude attempts to misguide naive and spiritually weak people.[/color] To us it is wholly detestable, both as a means to an end and as a way of making a point.



[color="#0000FF"]We are enemies of all forms of proselytism, because it nullifies autonomy and free will.[/color] In our country, all foreign religions engage in proselytism, including the ruling one that practices it with especial audacity, calling it 'catechism' (and even emphases the 'importance of catechism' in the state education system). The outrageous laws of the Metaxas dictatorship grant 'Orthodoxy' the sole right to proselytize, making it unlawful for its competition. All forms of proselytism are raw violent attacks against human liberty.

1. The primary meaning of Ecumenical is universal. Same as catholic. I suspect "ecumenical" has Greek derivation while "catholic" derives from IIRC Latin. (And ecumenical religions by nature are against ethnic religion/"anti-ethnic".)

But it is not only monotheisms - nor even only religions - that seek to convert the world to their way of thinking and being. E.g. communism. There are even militant atheists who declare their need to 'evangelise' the world into atheism.



2. The Hellenes above explain "We are enemies of all forms of proselytism, because it nullifies autonomy and free will."

While true, it is more than that. Proselytising is intrusive and destroys the naturally evolving state of things.

And it is rooted in arrogance: the thought that 1. there is but one very specific universal truth ("The Truth") binding on all, and 2. that you have it and 3. that the rest of the world needs it.



I don't believe, but I am certain - and have ever been certain - that many an old religion knows what they are doing. That they *don't* need replacement or "enhancement". And that if they ever find room, they will choose to adopt things of their *own* volition, rather than that uninvited others creating unwanted syncretisms or otherwise insinuating themselves onto the natural religions.



3. "All forms of proselytism are raw violent attacks against human liberty."

Moreover, all forms of proselytism are based on the assumption that the world is filled with fools and that you (and your chosen few) are the only exceptions. That the rest of the world can't work things out for themselves.

In reality: the ancient natural world is filled with generally-sane people, who would know what they're doing when it comes to religion and views on their afterlife/whatever.

(Though the possessed world of the modern age - last two millennia - has a growing number of zombies.)





http://ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq#13

In the healthy pre-Christian human state, the Earth's surface teemed with a polymorphic Ethnosphere. By this we mean a beautiful variety of indigenous civilizations, traditions and religions that were distributed in every part of the world. Each unique Nation understood the Divine differently and appealed to the Gods using a variety of names. Hence, the various Native Religions became unique in themselves and every Nation, and its spiritual descendants, 'brought down' elements of the Godly realm to their altars, as appropriate to their particular needs. Our understanding of the Divine is the same as that of our ancestors, and is expressed by our Religion, whose origins are lost in remote antiquity.

I like how they say this. I have heard others (other "heathens") say it too. Where some people and ideologies see "superstitions to be replaced" ("they deserve/require it" mentality), heathens see/recognise what the Hellenes of YSEE.gr just stated.



"Our understanding of the Divine is the same as that of our ancestors" <- definition of unsubverted heathen. No breaks, no inserts (incl. no externally-influenced changes of meaning).

[Husky]

Post 1/2



[quote name='Husky' date='10 September 2011 - 08:43 PM' timestamp='1315667119' post='112814']the Hindu epic Cilappadikaaram[/quote]The partially-historic work ends with Kannagi going off to her divine abode and then I think the Hindu Raja Cenguttuvan (sp?, brother of Cilappadikaaram's author Ilango Adigal, the Royal Yati) built a temple to her and she is worshipped.

There are bits in Cilappadikaaram on Devi, IIRC Shiva and Murugan, as well as Vishnu (e.g. MSS famously sang the epic's verses on Vishnu's avataaras).



Cilappadikaaram's author and even his work are these days often referred to as Buddhist or Jain or even "Buddhist or Jain". I've never seen evidence accompanying such supposition. And in the case of the "Jain OR Buddhist" supposition, it is obvious that even the ones making the suggestion have insufficient indicators to enable them to work out which of the two it would be.

Cenguttuvan's brother renounced his royal chance and became an ascetic, but that is obviously not an uncommon path in Hindus' own religion either and does not imply he converted to Jainism or Buddhism to be one. (Adigal/Adigar is no less applicable for Hindu ascetics than it is for Buddhist monks and Jain ascetics. It is simply the Tamizh equivalent of Yati.)

People tend to state matter-of-factly that the author was a convert, yet never produce evidence for the author's Buddhism or Jainism (or conversion to either/or) from the work itself, although they find it easy enough to identify all the copious and extremely Hindu elements in the work - only to thereafter dismiss these as denoting no more than the "secularism" of the Buddhist or Jain (or "Buddhist or Jain") writer, and that such Hindu elements as exist in the work are "despite" their Buddhism or Jainism.



Yet, in contrast, "Manimeghalai" is not secular, nor indistinct as to which of the two religions (Buddhist or Jain) authored it: this Buddhist work, with the form of a sequel to the Cilappadikaaram, reused the backdrop and the surviving characters of the Hindu work as a framing story for advancing the primacy of the Buddhist viewpoint: in Manimeghalai, both Jain and Hindu religious viewpoints are covered and contrasted with Buddhism, before Buddhism is shown superior to them. This is apparently nested within characters comparing religions, finding Buddhism superior and converting to it - like the eponymous heroine joining Buddhist monasticism. As I understand, next to Manimeghalai, her mother Madhavi (Kannagi's rival and Kovalan's other wife), as well as either Kannagi's or Kovalan's father and some other older male relatives all convert to Buddhism in "Manimeghalai". Within the strong limitation of my having only heard the Cilappadikaaram narrated when I was a kid, I am not aware of Cilappadikaaram speaking of these characters' conversion to Buddhism (even if it may know of the existence of Buddhism and Jainism). These characters' conversions to Buddhism therefore seem to me to be a particular contribution to character development made in the sequel Manimeghalai by its Buddhist authorship. (Kannagi of course had already disappeared in Cilappadikaaram and did not ...enjoy the same transformation: her character remained Hindu until the end.)







[On a separate matter. Cilappadikaaram poses a particular problem for *christianism*:

It may be a Tamizh-language work, but its geography is of Kerala (written by Hindus in Kerala). And regardless of what religion its author is donated to, the fact remains that Cilappadikaaram knows of Vedic religion including brahmanas, and that Hindu religion is the religion of the local laity (as is evidenced from how characters in the work sing elements from the Hindus' Puranas with religious purpose). Christianism has worked *hard* to peddle its favoured notion that until the 7th or was it 8th century CE, Kerala (and this miracle is intended to soon be repeated in TN - with neo-buddhist help) knows no brahmanas and no Vedic religion - "and hence no Hindu religion".

(And this date is now no longer just an upper limit that christianism sets on the Namboodiri brahmanas' presence in Kerala either. In the case of the Namboodiris, the 7th/8th century is when these last are ushered into the geography, at which point christianism would have the Adi Shankaracharya born almost immediately and changing what's known as the long-standing cremation rite of Namboodiris - all within the space of a century. And now they want Cilappadikaaram to be contemporaneous with that. Of course a mid-first century St Thomas in India is still peddled. For christianism to succeed in this particular goal, either Cilappadikaaram's date has to be changed, or it has to presented as "not actually Hindu and not speaking of Hindu religion after all".)]







The following is from a site on the "History of Digambara Jains". The dates for the works as mentioned are different from what was previously held about them (and different again from other dates being claimed for them now), but I'm pasting the excerpt for a different reason. Bits in purple are my own insertion:



http://indianjainism.blogspot.com/

Tamil Nadu: It has been surmised from the various references in the Tamil literature that Jainism was quite important in Tamil Nadu in the period 5th to 11th century. Jainism is not mentioned in the Sangam literature (4th century AD), but mention of the people professing Jainism is found in the two Tamil epics Silappadikaram and Manimekhalai. Both these epics belong to the 6th or 7th century AD. Manimekhalai is a Buddhist work and refers to the Jains as Ni ® granthas. It gives a reasonably good exposition of the Jain religious philosophy. But naturally, being a Buddhist work refutes it. Silappadikaaram is the story of a wife's devotion to her husband. It mentions Uraiyur a Chola capital, as a center of Jainism. Both the classics relate that the Ni ® granths lived outside the town in their cool cloisters. The walls of which were surrounded by small flower gardens. They also had monasteries for nuns. This description of Jain monasteries leads one to doubt its authenticity, for the Jains unlike the Buddhists do not favor living in monasteries. Also since the Jains of south India were Digambaras, there should not have been nuns among them, to say nothing of there being monasteries for them.



Another Tamil work, the Pattinapalai, speaks of the Jain and Buddhist temples being in one quarter of the city of Pugar, while in another quarter the Brahmans with plaited hair performed sacrifices and raised volumes of smoke. These references show that the number of Jains in Tamil Nadu was sufficiently large to be noticed in the popular literature of the period. One cannot avoid the suspicion, however, that there was a tendency on the part of these writers to mix up the Jains and the Buddhists. But Hiuen Tsang who was in Kanchi in the middle of the 7th century also reported that he saw numerous Nirgranthas at this place: and since he is not likely to have confused between the Buddhists and the Nirgranthas, is certain, that the Jain population of Tamil Nadu at that time was quite large.



(In the above para, "tendency of these writers (of mentioned and possibly unmentioned Tamizh works) to mix up the Jains and Buddhists" is being contrasted with how the Buddhist Hiuen Tsang is *not* likely to have mixed up Buddhists and Jains. Logical implication: Apparently some people thought Jain and Buddhist shramanas were all alike - enough to mix them up. And those Some People wrote the works alluded to with the phrase "these writers" <- back reference appears to be to Pattinapalai and Silapadhikaaram but not to Manimekhalai, since Manimekhalai is specifically described above as "giving a reasonably good exposition of the Jain religious philosophy" before it then Buddhistically refutes it. I.e. as per the owner of that blog, Manimekhalai - but not Silapadhikaaram - is able to tell Jains from Buddhists.)



The Jain population of Tamil Nadu was apparently larger in the 8th and 9th century than in the 7th century, for in the latter period there are very few Jain inscriptions. Most of the inscriptions in Tamil (about 80 or so), belong to the 8th and the 9th centuries, and these have been found mainly in the Madurai Tirunelveli area.

[...]

I'm obviously not linking to the above site for its veracity on any other matter, only on what can be adduced from the above quoteblock regarding Cilappadikaaram - and certain other Tamizh-language works - w.r.t. Buddhism and Jainism.

[Husky]

Post 2/2





Actually, that Silappadikaaram is a Hindu epic by a Hindu author was properly discussed - by those who have read it (makes all the difference) - in various links found off this older post at IF (also: that Tirukkural + Tiruvalluvar etc are Hindu not otherwise) -

[quote name='Pandyan' date='23 August 2008 - 06:26 AM' timestamp='1219452487' post='86908']

GS, I don't think Thiruvallulvar was a Jain. Dravidianists label all great tamils as jains or something else in their drive to strip tamils of any Hindu identity. They also claim Ilango Adigal was a Jain, but there are references in tamil texts that prove otherwise. As for non-veg, entire tamil pop (save brahmins and few upper caste) has always been non-veg, there is no use dissuading the practice.



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agathiyar/message/27434

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hinducivil...sage/11417

1. Tiruvalluvar also sings of those who nilamisai neetu vazhvar -

another concept alient to Jainism.

2. Tiruvalluvar holds the Brahmin as the gold standard the society

should emulate, and the possibility that a Brahmin might forget to recite

the Veda as the ultimate digression from dharma - something that does not

fit with Jainism.

3. Tiruvalluvar translates and paraphrases directly from the

Manusmriti and The Bhagavad Gita - neither Jaina texts. He does not cite

verses from any Jaina text.

[/quote]



The stuff the above links to and led to (reposted here, since it doesn't seem to be the sort that gets archived):

1.1. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agathiyar/message/27434

Re: Valluvar





Dear Members,



þõÁ¼¨Ä ¾Á¢Æ¢ø þÂüÈ¡¨ÁìÌ ÁýÉ¢ì¸ §Åñθ¢§Èý. §¿ÃÁ¢ý¨Á§Â ¸¡Ã½õ. À¢È¢¦¾¡Õ

ºÁÂõ «í¹Éõ þÂüÚ§Åý ±ýÀÐ ¾¢ñ½õ.



Dear N Ganesan,



Ref. msg # 27384.



<<<Looking at the mileau, literature and epigraphy, great Tamil

scholars like S. Vaiyapuri Pillai,

I. Mahadevan, K. Zvelebil, K. N. Subrahmanyam ..... have suggested

the background of Valluvar as Jaina.>>>



S Vaiyapuri Pillai was indeed a great Tamil scholar, and one of the

precious gems of India. Other 3 just don't belong to the same league

as Pillai. It is a travesty to group I Mahadevan along with the other

3 scholars, or with any scholar. Mahadevan's popularity is entirely

due to his being a coconut that never fails to please the

Eurocentrists; not due to his scholarship. Just like Parpola,

Mahadevan's attempts at deciphering have been madness without

methods. Enough said on that. Just as Sir Syed Ahmad was popular in

the British times, the likes of Mahadevan would always be popular :-)



Yes, Vaiyapuri Pillai *suggested* that Tiruvalluvar *could've* been a

Jaina. He didn't establish so. He was an outstanding scholar and

intellectual, but he has been, like any great scholar, wrong about

arriving at some concllusions. For example, he opined that

Tolkappiyar could've been a Jaina on unconvincing grounds. I've

discussed that in detail in IC and argued otherwise:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivi...sage/34062



In fact, the above post was a response to your suggestion, but you

never came back on that.



Are you aware that Vaiyapuri Pillai also argued that Tirukkural was

in many instances a translation of Manusmriti? Yes, the same

Manusmriti that all Dravidianists hate without reading, just as they

love Tirukkural or Tolkappiyam without reading them. Please see

Vaiyapuri Pillai's ¬Ã¡öò ¦¾¡Ì¾¢ - part 7, pp. 65 - 68. Here is a

paraphrase & translation of what Pillai has said in those pages:



"There are many couplets of the Kural that are either translations or

adaptations of Manusmriti. (No, not the other way round.) Some of his

citations would be:



- Kural 57 and Manusmriti IX:12



- Kural 41 and Manusmriti III:78. This verse of smriti, Pillai

argues, has been reiterated by Tiruvalluvar more than once.



- Kural 396 and Manusmriti II:218



Of course, there are many more arguments from Vaiyapuri Pillai that

also state that Tirukkural is inspired by or is a translation of the

Hindu dharmashastras. Now it is easy to see why Pillai was so much

detested by the Dravidianists, no? Anyway, if you're just going to

invoke Pillai's name as if it is pranava mantra and then claim that

Tiruvalluvar was a Jaina, then here are the words of the same man

that Tirukkural is Manusmriti inspired. What does it make

Tiruvalluvar then? A Manuvadi? Will you accept this? What is

essential is to list one's arguments and evaluate them critically. We

should remember Tiruvalluvar's word that mere authority isn't

everything, and the truth alone is worth pursuing. Just flashing the

names of a few authorities wouldn't suffice.



<<<It's important to note that these scholars have nothing to do with

Dravidian movement.>>>



I don't know about Mahadevan. You're right that the others had

nothing to do with the Dravidianist movement. In fact, Vaiyapuri

Pillai often deflated their nonsensical myths, and was most hated by

the Dravidianists, who lacked, and still continue to lack,

scholarship of any kind. They attacked him on every possible occasion

just as they attacked P S Subrahmanya Sastri; both committed the

same "crime": genuine scholarship, which was, and continues to be, a

taboo among the Dravidianists :-)



<<<By Valluvar's times, sangam society was changing>>>



Please tell me what was Tiruvalluvar's time. And your reasons for

arriving at that date.



<<<and a temple/tank/sabhai village society under imperial dynasties

were being formed. Brahmins and the land grants to them were on the

increase.>>>



For this to follow, you must first establish the date of

Tiruvalluvar :-)



<<<Valluvar possibly a Jaina - Tamil scholars write:

http://www.services.cnrs.fr/wws/arc/ctam...00068.html>>>



I can't open this url. I shall try again.



<<<Valluvar clearly was against the varnasrama system that placed one

section against another by birth...>>>



If so, why does he write Kural 543 and 259? Is it possible to have

the brahmin without varnasrama? Is it not an irony that the same

Valluvar that you claim opposed varnasrama measures the king's

righteousness through his ability to preserve the chanting of the

vedas and the brahmins who chant them?



<<<Clearly the Jaina (eg., as we find in Valluvar) advocacy of

avoiding meat had an effect among Tamils.>>>



Can you please show me any Sangam Tamil text that depicts the

brahmins as consuming meat? Aside: Please tell me how Kural 550

agrees with the Jaina advocacies of ahimsa?



<<<Puujaa and worship of trees, religious artefacts are from Buddhism

and Jainism from early ancient India. In fact, the Madurai Kaanchi

elaborately describes a pujaa ceremony at a Jain basti in Sangam

Tamil. That's taken by scholars of Indic religions as an early

precursor what we see as Puujaa in modern Hinduism. Early vedas

neither have puujaa nor veggie lovers' yajnas.>>>



(The assertions are becoming increasingly more absurd.

Gods-based/Gods-centred religions are the very religions that originate poojaa. Including, of course, worship of trees (and waters, mountains etc). There's a wide range of ancient and interrelated Hindu texts on poojaa and the meaning thereof. "How to worship the Cow. How to worship the Sun, Surya Bhagavan. How to worship the Shivalingam. How to worship ..."

In heathen religions, poojaa derives - rather linearly - from attachment (bhakti) to Gods. Actually holds literally: the Gods themselves reveal how to worship them - as only they can. Which is why, for example, *Hindu* rituals to Murugan *work*. And which in turn would be why SL Buddhist monks at Kataragama have now shifted from plan A - their invented pseudo-rituals - to plan B: usurping the Hindu rituals after first preventing Hindus from continuing to perform these. <- A ground-level example right there for where plagiarism began and poojaa didn't.

Anyway, Buddhists venerating the Bodhi tree in memory of its association with the Buddha's enlightenment is different from heathens like Shintos worshipping Tree and River Gods or Hindus worshipping Ganga or Tulasi Devi or any Tree. Actually, each and every tree - from leaf to root - is moreover identified by Hindus with the tridasha (koTi).)



There is no puja or bhakti in the Early vedas? Have you read Jeanine

Miller's "Does Bhakti Appear in the Rig Veda"? Or Jan Gonda's "Vision

of the Vedic Poets"? I recommend the first followed by the latter.

Please note that I've quoted only European authors :-)



Thanks.



[color="#800080"](Wish Hindus would dispense with referring to irrelevant people writing their irrelevant opinions on materials that forever don't concern them.

The Vedas are easy proof of origin of Hindus' bhakti. Hindus should go ahead and just cite it as such. E.g. IIRC even Shiva's personal names that are the Skt equivalents of "Papa" and "Mama" derive from the Vedam. When Hindus translate their Surya mantras as "adorations to Surya", they really do mean *adorations*. You can see it in Hindoos' greedy faces when they look to the Sun while worshipping Him. I fancy that's the sort of expression Julian wore when gazing at his Father, Helios, also.

Besides, invoking and feeding the Gods and singing to them IS poojaa: that's what many Vedic rituals involve. And the Hindus performing them feel quite free to ask for all kinds of good things - for all of Hindu society and even the world - from their Divine Parents, because that's what children do. And their Divine Parents shower it on them, because that's what loving parents do.)[/color]





1.2. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agathiyar/message/27451

Bhairava paper



Re: Local Deities worship-Jainism





Dear Banukumar Rajendran,



Ref. msg # 27447.



<<<ilango Adigal uses the terms (used by Devar in his Kadavul Vazhthu)

to praise Lord Arugan (...) Does the word siva (for Lord Shiva)occurs

in any of the earliest literatures in tamil?>>>



There is little in Silappadikaram to show as evidence that Ilango was

a Jaina. Au contraire, there is a lot to show that he was an orthodox

Hindu saint. I would paraphrase the arguments of many scholars here.



The argument that Ilango was a Jaina saint was suggested for the

first time by the eminent commentator Adiyarkkunallar. He interpreted

the term ̽š¢ü §¸¡ð¼õ (Silappadikaram canto 30:165 +) as

Aruhankoil, and this was interpreted by V Kanakasabhai Pillai who

suggested that Ilango could've been a Nirgrantha Jaina monk. V R R

Dikshitar correctly points out that the term ̽š¢ø just

meant 'eastern gate' and the term §¸¡ð¼õ is undoubtedly the

Tamilization of Sanskrit 'Koshta' meaning a hall, temple,

congregation etc. So, this term doesn't confirm a reference to a

Jaina temple. As Dikshitar points out, Ilango enters the yagasala,

where a vedic yajna is performed, along with Senguttuvan in that

canto. This would certainly be a strong argument that Ilango was a

Hindu saint.



A term that may've stood for Nirgrantha is also found in

Silappadikaram - ¿¢îºó¾ì §¸¡ð¼õ (9:10 +). Malati, vists this temple

after visiting other Hindu deities such as Balarama, Siva and

Murugan. So, while this verse confirms that Jainism also existed in

the Tamil country then, it doesn't suggest that the epic reflected

Jaina ethos. I can't think of any direct reference to Arukan in the

epic. In case others do, I shall be obliged to learn the same.







Lord Siva is not mentioned by name anywhere in Silappadikaram or in

the Sangam literature, though there are countless references to Him

through epithets and also references to His legends in the epic:



"¬ÄÁ÷ ¦ºøÅý - The Son of the Lord seated under the banyan tree" (24:

Á½Å½¢ §ÅñΧšõ 10 +), ÌÆÅ¢ò ¾¢í¸û þÁÂÅ÷ ²ò¾ - The One who bears the

astamichandra on his tuft of hair" (2: 40 +), "À¢ÈÅ¡ ¡쨸ô ¦Àâ§Â¡ý

§¸¡Â¢ø - The temple of the Lord that was never born" (5: 168

+), "À¡ö¸¨Äô À¡¨Å - Durga or Siva Sakthi" (12:65 +), 12: ¯¨ÃÀ¡ðÎ Á¨¼

refers to the dispatch of Vibhavari to the Vindhya hills after Siva;s

marriage to Uma, "þ¨ÈÅý ¬¼ø ¸ñ¼ÕǢ «½íÌ - the damsel who made the

Lord (Siva) dance" (20: 35 +), þÇõÀ¢¨È ÝÊ þ¨ÈÅý - The Lord wearing a

yound crescent in His coiffure" (22:85 +), 26:50 - 60 refers to Siva

receiving the honours of veda yajna, ¦ºïº¨¼ Å¡ÉÅý - The Lord with the

matted hair (26: 90 +), ¯¨ÁÂÅû ´Õ ¾¢Ãý ¬¸ þÁÂÅý ¬Ê ¦¸¡ðÊî §º¾õ - The

dance of the Lord who had Uma as His part" (28:67 +), "¯¨Á¦Â¡Õ À¡¸òÐ

´ÕÅ¨É - The One with Uma as His half" (28:100 +), ¯¨ÁÂÅû ´Õ ¾¢Ãý ¬¸

µí¸¢Â þÁÂÅý ¬Ê ¦¸¡Î¦¸¡ðÊ ¬¼Öõ - The Kodukotti dance of the Lord

(Siva) for whom Uma kept time" (6:35 +), 6: 40 + refers to the

Pandaranga dance of Siva, 5:200 + alludes to Siva burning the Cupid

with His Third Eye, ѾøŢƢ ¿¡ð¼òÐ þ¨È§Â¡ý §¸¡Â¢Öõ - the temple of

the Lord with the Third Eye on His forehead (14:5 +).



Also, there are numerous references to Vishnu, and the epic is packed

with Puranic themes, especially from the Bhagavata Purana. In fact, I

would categorically state - this is my ongoing project - that the

Sangam Tamil society was drenched in the Puranic lore that formed its

nucleus.



The great U V Swaminatha Aiyar considered Silappadikaram a Saivite

work, though V R R Dikshitar points out to the fact that the epic is

replete with both Saiva and Vaishnava concepts and argues that Ilango

was more of an orthodox Hindu saint.

(Not just bits on Shiva and Vishnu but also Murugan and Devi etc. Typical Hindu religion as still exists in the same region.)



Thanks,

Kalavai Venkat



1.3. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agathiyar/message/27509



Bhairava paper



Re: Local Deities worship-Jainism





Dear Banukumar Rajendran,



Ref. msg # 27455.



<<<You pl go throu' the Ilango's ARavurai,(183-202)in Varantharu

Kaathai. The each and every lines in that is undoubtfully doctrines

of Jainism.Your valuable comments is requested in this regard.It is

wonder, though he's an orthodox Hindu(according to you),he seems to

advocate a jaina aRam(dharma)!!!.>>>



This set of verses you've quoted must be read along with the verses

that precede it: 165 - 182. Many eminent scholars, such as V R R

Dikshitar and P S S Sastri have discussed these in detail. Those

concluding lines are reproduction of Taittiriya Aranyaka 8:4:1 and

8:9:1 and Taittiriya Upanishad 2:4:1 and 2:9:1. (<- "Reproducing" aka parroting the Vedas.)

Seen in this light, the verses you've quoted advocate dharma, ahimsa etc, and also show

unmistakeable influence of Tirukkural. These virtues advocated are

very much common to every Indic sect be it Hinduism, Jainism or

Buddhism. So, what you've quoted alone doesn't confirm Jaina

influence. These can very well be interpreted as Hindu advocacies

too. Au contraire, the verses preceding these and the fact that

Ilango attends a veda yajna in the very same context lend more

credence to the assertion that Ilango was an orthodox Hindu.

[color="#800080"](Not only parroted the Vedas but attended a yagnya. Enough evidence to convict Adigal.)[/color]



<<<What do you mean by that.You never came across any direct

reference to the arugan in the epic? Again to you.Does the word siva

(which stood to Rudran) occurs in any of the oldest literatures in

Tamil?.>>>



Yes, I can't recall any direct mention of the name Arugan in

Silappadikaram. Is there any?



Here is what I wrote in msg # 27451: "Lord Siva is not mentioned by

name anywhere in Silappadikaram or in the Sangam literature, though

there are countless references to Him

through epithets and also references to His legends in the epic...."



Thanks

Kalavai Venkat





1.4. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agathiyar/message/27532



Re: Local Deities worship-Jainism (attn: N Ganesan)





Dear N Ganesan,



Ref. msg # 27507.



<<<ÅûÙŨà «Á½ ÓÉ¢Åá¸ì ¸¡ðÎõ ¦À¡ü¸¡Í ¾ü§À¡Ð ¸ø¸ò¾¡ þó¾¢Â «Õí¸¨Ä¸ò¾¢ø

¯ûÇÐ: Author: Mukherjee, Bratindra Nath, 1932- Title: The Indian

gold : an introduction to the cabinet of gold coins in the Indian

Museum / by B.N. Mukherjee with the assistance of T.N.Raychaudhuri.

Publisher: Calcutta : Indian Museum, 1990. 100 p., [21] p. of

plates : col. ill. ; 29 cm.



...



¾¢ÉÁ½¢ ¿¡Ç¢¾Æ¢ø ÁðÎÁøÄ¡Ð ¬í¸¢Äò¾¢Öõ ÅûÙÅ÷ ¦À¡ü¸¡¨ºì ÌÈ¢òÐ ³Ã¡Å¾õ Ţâ

Å¡¸ ±Ø¾¢ÔûÇ¡÷. A unique gold coin with Tiruvalluvar's portrait,

Iravatham Mahadevan. Studies in South Indian Coins, Volume V/A.V.

Narasimha Murthy. 1995, 150 p., 52 plates, þó¾ô Òò¾¸ò¾¢ø ¯ûÇ þÚ¾¢ì

¸ðΨÃ. ÀÊòÐôÀ¡÷ì¸ §Åñθ¢§Èý. þó¾ ¬ö×áø ÀüÈ¢ ±ÉìÌ ³Ã¡Å¾õ¾¡ý

¦º¡ýÉ¡÷¸û.>>>



I haven't seen the second of the books you've cited (I've volumes 1-3

not 4-5), but I do have the first. I don't understand which coin in

the publication can ever be associated with Tiruvalluvar. I would be

thankful if you could draw my attention to the coin # and to

Mahadevan's reasons for perceiving it as Tiruvalluvar's depiction. Do

you have coin # 195 in mind? I've uploaded the picture of the coin,

and it can be viewed at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agathiyar/files/ (See the file

titled "Is this a Tiruvalluvar Coin?)



In any case, here are my observations:



Source: The Indian Gold An Introduction to the Cabinet of Gold Coins

in the Indian Museum by B.N.Mukherjee with the assistance of

T.N.Raychaudhari, Indian Museum, Calcutta, 1990



Notes: Please see the 3 photographs in the above uploaded file.

Photograph 1 is that of exhibit 'n' of coin # 195 from Plate X.

Photograph 2 is that of Plate IXA of one side of coins # 194 and 195.

Photograph 3 is that of Plate IXB of the other side of coins # 194

and 195.



The East India Company issued both these coins. So, their date must

be posterior to 1600 AD. Neither has any legend, so we are not in a

position to know whom they depict.



Part B: A Catalogue of Select Gold Coins, p. 84 tells us that coin #

194 depicts Vishnu. It says that coin # 195 depicts a saint or deity

seated cross-legged with an umbrella over his head.



There is no mention in either to connect the same with Tiruvalluvar.

On the strength of coin # 194, which depicts Vishnu (per the book),

one may conclude, on the basis of striking similarity in iconographic

depiction that coin # 195 also depicts either Vishnu or a Vaishnava

saint.



I would be curious to hear Mahadevan's argument, though given his

track record, I would be really surprised if he has any logical

argument to offer. In any event, this coin is from the era of the

rule of the East India Company in India. In other words, it is of a

very late origin. Even if we pretend that it depicts Tiruvalluvar -

an unsubstantiated assumption - how does it establish that he was a

Jaina?



<<<³Ã¡Å¾õ Á¸¡§¾Åý À¨Æ ¾Á¢úì ¸ø¦ÅðÎ츨Çô ÀÊò¾È¢Ôõ ӨȨÂì ¸ñÎÀ¢

Êò¾ «È¢»÷.>>



Factually incorrect.



<<<³Ã¡Å¾õ Ó¾ýӾġ¸ º¢óÐ Óò¾¢¨Ã¸¨Ç ¬öó¾Å÷>>>



Again factually incorrect.



<<<«ó¾ ¿¡¸Ã¢¸ò¾¢ø ¾¢Ã¡Å¢¼÷ ÀíÌ ¸½¢ºÁ¡ÉÐ ±ýÚ ÀÄ ¬ö×ì ¸ðΨøû

¾óÐûÇ¡÷.>>>



He has claimed so. He hasn't substantiated that. His methodology,

like Parpola's, is illogical. One can say, as I have critiqued

Mahadevan's deciphering of select exhibits in IC, that Mahadevan

starts with pre conceived notions, and follows loose methodologies to

arrive at his cherished inferences. Anyone can make any claim, but

that doesn't make it the proof.



Thanks.

2.1. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INDOLOGY/message/4090



Re: [Y-Indology] Re: Book-Burning in India



Re: Book-Burning in India





Dear N. Ganesan,



Ref. msg # 4077.



<<<Tiruvalluvar is considered a Jaina by Tamil scholars like Mayilai

Ciini VEGkaTacaami, A. Chakravarti Nayinaar, I. Mahadevan, S.

Vaiyapuri, K. Zvelebil ...>>>



Earlier, I corrected you on this in Agathiyar. Perhaps, it is time to

repeat :-)



That Tiruvaluvar was a Jaina, is at best a proposition, not a fact.

Many scholars have presented more convincing arguments that he should

only have been a Hindu saint. S Vaiyapuri Pillai presented both sides

of the argument. It is unfair to quote him selectively -- especially,

when I've earlier informed you of Pillai's other set of arguments,

reproduced below:



Source: Vaiyapuri Pillai's Araicchit Tokuti - part 7, pp. 65 - 68.

Here is a paraphrase & translation of what Pillai has said:



"There are many couplets of the Kural that are either translations or

adaptations of Manusmriti, such as:



- Kural 57 and Manusmriti IX:12



- Kural 41 and Manusmriti III:78. This verse of smriti, Pillai points

out, has been reiterated by Tiruvalluvar more than once.



- Kural 396 and Manusmriti II:218 "



Of course, there are many more arguments from Vaiyapuri Pillai that

also state that Tirukkural is inspired by or is a translation of the

Hindu dharmashastras. Anyway, if you're just going to invoke Pillai's

name as if it is a pramana and then claim that Tiruvalluvar was a

Jaina, then here are the words of the same man that Tirukkural is

Manusmriti inspired. Do you think a Jaina monk will translate

Manusmriti? Will a Jaina monk measure a king's efficay by his ability

to protect the vedic chanting of the brahmins, as Tiruvalluvar has

done? What is essential is to list an author's arguments and evaluate

them critically. We should remember Tiruvalluvar's word that mere

authority isn't everything, and the truth alone is worth pursuing.



Thanks.





2.2 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INDOLOGY/message/4098



Re: [Y-Indology] Re: Book-Burning in India



Re: Book-Burning in India





Dear Nanda Chandran,



There is *no* mention of beef anywhere in that couplet. Apparently, N

Ganesan is chasing beef and Jainism all over Tirukkural like a deer

chases the chimera :-)



Tiruvalluvar makes no direct mention of yajnas in that couplet. That

inference, though reasonably, has been made by the commentators. All

the 3 traditional commentators -- Parimelazhagar, Parithiyar and

Kalingar -- say that the benefit that ensues killing a life is not

befitting the renunciate, though they point out that grahasthas are

advised that sacrificing to the devas in the yajnas ensures their

well-being.



Only one of the traditional commentators -- Mankkudavar -- says that

even sacrificing a life in yajna is to be avoided.



Thanks.



--- In INDOLOGY@yahoogroups.com, "vpcnk" <vpcnk@H...> wrote:

> but where's specific mention of beef here?

>

> > The beef and other meats used vedic yajnas

> > is refered in Tirukkural 328,

> > "nan2Ru Akum Akkam peritu en2in2um cAn2ROrkkuk

> > kon2rU Akum Akkam kaTai".

> >

> > Even though people say that one can gain wealth

> > and welfare with animal sacrifices in yajnams,

> > great men scorn such odious gains. See ParimElazakar

> > commentary, "tEvar poruTTu vELvikkaN kon2Raal in2pam mikum,

> > celvam peritAm ..." Ie., if killing in vedic sacrifices

> > for the sake of Devas will increase wealth, happiness".

> >

> > Tiruvalluvar is considered a Jaina by Tamil scholars

> > like Mayilai Ciini VEGkaTacaami, A. Chakravarti Nayinaar,

> > I. Mahadevan, S. Vaiyapuri, K. Zvelebil ...





2.3 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INDOLOGY/message/4121



Re: [Y-Indology] Re: Book-Burning in India



Re: Book-Burning in India





Dear vishal,



Ref. msg # 4108.



<<<In any case, condemnation/rejection of Yajnas is not a Jain

monopoly. The Samkhyas also had the same attitude.>>>



Correct. Also, Tiruvalluvar doesn't oppose veda or veda yajna

anywhere. While expounding the greatness of a certain virtue, he

often emphasises on its relative greatness vis-a-vis everything else.

For example, in Kural 297, he says:



"Should one always speak the truth

Where is the need to practise any other virtue?"



It will be ridiculous if one were to take this verse out of context

and declare that Tiruvalluvar rejected all virtues other than

speaking the truth :-)



In Kural 55, he says,



"Gods she worships not, but raises from her bed worshipping her

husband

Should she say, "Rain!", so it shall."



Will it not be ridiculous if one (mis)interprets this verse and

infers that Tiruvalluvar proscribed the worship of Gods for women? If

any, Tiruvalluvar considered the chanting of veda and performance of

yajna the most essential service to the society. Consider the

following:



"The cows shall cease to yield milk, the brahmins shall forget their

6 fold duties,

Should the king fail to rule justly." -- Kural 560



"To the perpetuity of the vedas of the brahmins

It is the sceptre of the king that serves as the cause." -- Kural 543



So, it is natural for Tiruvalluvar to say that ahimsa is even more

preferable to veda yajna, when he discusses the merit of ahimsa.

Since he glorifies veda yajna elsewhere, one can be certain that he

is not discounting the veda.



One must be careful and not interpret a verse selectively.



Thanks.

The following is on the recurring nouveaux accusations of "Book Burning" by Hindus.

3.1 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INDOLOGY/message/4068



Re: [Y-Indology] Re: Book-Burning in India





Dear Dr. V V Raman,

[...]

Vel Murugan had grandly alleged that the brahmins burnt Tamil

manuscripts in veda yajnas during the bhakti era. I am awaiting his

evidences eagerly. If a text is lost over time, it has become

fashionable among a few politically motivated to blame it on the

brahmins. It will be admirable if people weaving such conspiracy

stories care to read some critical texts, instead of drawing

inspiration from the Dravidianist rumour mill. A good resource for

Vel Murugan will be Zvelebil's account [2] on lost texts. He lists a

number of Tamil texts that have been lost over the last 2,000 years

or so. The list includes 44 texts on grammar, 30 texts on the akam

genre, 8 on puram genre, 9 on kavya, 12 musical treatises, 23 drama

texts and 56 assorted texts (a total of 182) and this list is not

complete per Zvelebil.



Ironically, the list incluldes translations of Ramayana, Mahabharata

[3], Puranas, eulogies on rishis, adaptations of Sanskrit texts and

bhakti treatises. Hardly a case of brahmin conspiracy to banish Tamil

texts! In addition, one can easily list a number of commentaries on

bhakti treatises that've been lost over the last 1,000 years.



Unfortunately, many have been generating such careless and uninformed

myths for decades. It will be sad if such myths are not countered

with facts atleast occasionally. Hence my detailed response. It

wasn't directed at you. I hope you understand.



Btw, if someone is really looking for well documented instances of

burning texts then he needs to look upto the Dravidianist regimes. C

N Annadurai called for a campaign to burn Kamba Ramayanam in the

assembly. Thousands of copies and commentaries were burnt by the DMK

cadre. Annadurai was quite peeved at Kamban's (a non-brahmin poet)

positive presentation of Manusmriti and was alarmed (precursors of

the Taliban?) at the sensual depictions in the text. Apparently,

Annadurai alternated between fear and fascination of sex, and this

led him to turn his ire on a classic that was honest and sublime in

its portrayal of sensuality. Not content with writing a crude

pamphlet [4] denigrating Kambar's classic, he advocated burning the

original itself.

(DMK is anti-Romance and so finds even more reasons to hate Hindu religion. <snip> Don't know why the christian taliban - known as DMK - doesn't follow through with their aversion completely: stop reproducing altogether. That will also stop the number of anti-Hindu cryptos carrying Hindoo names like "Vel Murugan".

"Annadurai alternated between fear and fascination of sex" <- that's a peculiarly christo mentality.)



Interestingly, people tend to remember/assimilate facts shorter than

they remember/assimilate myths. :-)



Thanks.



Footnotes:



[1] Namakkal Kavijnar Ramalingam Pillai, Aryaravathu Dravidaravathu

(What is this myth of Aryans Dravidians?), 1947



[2] Kamil V Zvelebil, Companion Studies to the History of Tamil

Literature, 1989



[3] Atleast 3 of versions of Mahabharata



[4] Kamba Rasam

In TN at least, this accusation of "Book burning by Hindus" is becoming very common, courtesy christianism and its new best friend the neo-'Buddhists': the accusation that brahmins - the token symbol of 'Hinduism' (Hindus' religion is the real target) - burnt Buddhist and Jain books. Through the process of repetition, it is made into 'evidence' for 'persecution'.

[Husky]

Post 1/3



Actually related to the "book burning" spiel touched upon above.





I saw the first item below somewhere else and thought it sounded off. Turns out it was just lifted from Wackypedia (explains everything)



1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarasimha

Amara Sinha (c. AD 375) was a Sanskrit grammarian and poet, of whose personal history hardly anything is known. He is said to have been "one of the nine gems that adorned the throne of Vikramaditya," and according to the evidence of Hsuan Tsang,[1] this cis the Chandragupta Vikramaditya (Chandragupta II) that flourished about AD 375.



Amara seems to have been a Buddhist; and an early tradition asserts that his works, with one exception, were destroyed during the persecution carried on by the orthodox Brahmins in the 5th century[citation needed]. The exception is the celebrated Amara-Kosha (Treasury of Amara), a vocabulary of Sanskrit roots, in three books, and hence sometimes called Trikanda or the "Tripartite". It is also known as "Namalinganushasana".



It contains 10,000 words, and is arranged, like other works of its class, in metre, to aid the memory. The first chapter of the Kosha was printed at Rome in Tamil character in 1798. An edition of the entire work, with English notes and an index by HT Colebrooke, appeared at Serampore in 1808. The Sanskrit text was printed at Calcutta in 1831. A French translation by ALA Loiseleur-Deslongchamps as published at Paris in 1839. Louie Rice compiled the Kannada version of it and its available 4th edition was printed in 1927 which contains three khandas and 25 sargas.[2]

2. Compare the above "information" with what the same wackypedia says on Amarasimha's Amarakosha page.

Also contrast the blue bit above with the blue bit below



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarakosha

AmarakoshaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

The Amarakosha (Sanskrit: अमरकोश, IAST: Amarakośa) from amara "immortal" and kosha "treasure, casket, pail, collection, dictionary", also Namalinganushasana (Sanskrit: नामलिङ्गानुशासनम्, IAST: Nāmaliṅgānuśāsanam) from nama-linga-anu-shasana "instruction concerning nouns and gender") is a thesaurus of Sanskrit written by the Jain or Buddhist scholar Amarasimha. Amarasimha was one of the Navaratnas ("nine gems") at the court of Chandragupta II, a Gupta king who reigned around AD 400. Some sources indicate that he belonged to the period of Vikramaditya of 7th century.

[...]



When Jagadguru Shri Shankaracharya was traveling throughout India for propagating his Advaitic philosophy, he wanted to meet Amarasimha for a debate. When Amarasimha found out about this, he was scared by the possibility of a debate with Shri Shankaracharya and burned all of his collections. Upon learning about this Shri Shankara rushed to Amarasimhan's house. By that time all of his collections had turned into ashes except 'Amarakosha'. And Shri Shankaracharya saved Amarakosha from fire. This story can be seen in "Shankara dig Vijayam".

Things one can note from just the two quoteblocks above:



- Amarasimha is either "Buddhist OR Jain". That again. Nothing to distinguish him as either? And no evidence given for either/or...



- On the blue bits:

So the narrative - as presented in the *Amarakosha* wacky entry - of Amarasimha burning almost all of his own works before Shankaracharya even got anywhere near him, is converted into "brahminical persecution" of Amarasimha in the *Amarasimha* wacky entry. Again we see accusations of "brahminical" book burning (but not in TN this time).

Except that one notes that even as per the very narrative which is used as evidence of there having been books burned, Amarasimha burnt his own books and that it was Shankara who saved the last one.



Since no other evidence is provided for Amarasimha's Jainism or Buddhism in the 2 wacky entries, is the so-called "persecution by Shankara" (that Shankara came to debate Amarasimha) the instance on which the assumption that Amarasimha was a "Jain or Buddhist" rests?

But I can't recall Shankara debating any Buddhists or Jains. (Kumarila Bhatt - sp? - debated Buddhists but that was long before he met Shankara. Shankara met Kumarila at the latter's pyre I think, and as I recall, Kumarila had been pushed off a high structure by Buddhists ("persecution!")) Shankara did debate Mandana Mishra (sp? Hindu, vedabrahmana) and either debated or wrote refutations of certain cosmological views and/or religious practices of Bhairavas, Shaktas and Pashupatas (all Hindus). Etc. [I obviously shouldn't be quoted on any of this.]

- One more interesting item can be gleaned from the above:

I may be wrong, but isn't Kalidasa listed as one of the Navaratnas of Vikramaditya's court? (Well, one of the famous Navaratnas. Usually/popularly, the court is mentioned as that of Bhoja Raja - I don't know what the relation if any is to the Vikramaditya in question. Not considering the material in Bhavan's Simhasana Dvatrimsika here.)

In any case, if Amarasimha of Amarakosha is of the same period as Kalidasa (under colonialism, Kalidasa was still dated by the christobrits to 1st century BCE) AND Amarasimha of Amarakosha is likewise of the same period as Adi Shankara*, that makes Kalidasa contemporaneous with Shankara too and - here comes the christoconclusion - Kalidasa is now of the 8th century CE "same as Adi Shankaracharya" <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />. Q.E.D. And the same transformation will be automatically extended to all the famous contemporaries of Kalidasa.



* Especially to be concluded, since christos and/or neo-buddhists need Shankara's visit to Amarasimha to be historical in order to yelp "persecution".





Indian history rewrites are getting more entertaining all the time.

Eventually though, they will cease to be entertaining and pose an actual threat to Hindus (and only Hindus: their religion is the target).





There's more insane stuff in wacky to post. Because it matters.





[EDIT: Corrected glaring typos]

[Husky]

Post 2/3:



Can see history rewriting go on before your eyes. You can even see Hindu characters being rewritten first as Buddhist then Jain (or vice-versa) and back to Jain/Buddhist. And this is intended to become received wisdom (the 'History Archive' of the future, as Wackypedia is intended to be).





"Senguttuvan" page of Wacky. (Ilango Adigal - who authored Cilappadikaaram - is Cenguttuvan's brother).





1. Wacky history Diff between 23 Nov 2010 and 17 Feb 2011:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=398443092

'''King Senguttuvan''' was a [[Chera dynasty|Chera]] king who ruled in Ancient India during the early centuries of the Common Era. He is famous for the legends surrounding [[Kannagi]], the heroine of the [[Tamil language|Tamil]] epic ''[[Silapathikaram]]''. According to legends, [[Ilango Adigal]], a Hindu, pontiff and the author of ''Silapathikaram'' was king Senguttuvan's younger brother, but renounced the throne to become saint.

He [color="#800080"](reference is back to Cenguttuvan)[/color] ruled for 55 years dated to c. 110 - 165 CE (according to the ''Pathirruppaththu'' ). He [color="#800080"](Cenguttuvan)[/color] was believed to be a Hindu.

<=>

'''King Senguttuvan''' was a [[Chera dynasty|Chera]] king who ruled in Ancient India during the early centuries of the Common Era. He is famous for the legends surrounding [[Kannagi]], the heroine of the [[Tamil language|Tamil]] epic ''[[Silapathikaram]]''. According to legends, [[Ilango Adigal]], a [[Jain]] monk and the author of ''Silapathikaram'' was king Senguttuvan's younger brother, but renounced the throne to become saint.

From the same wacky history Diff as above (btw 23 Nov 2010 and 17 Feb 2011):

Senguttuvan's interest must have been in promoting trade with China. The Chera kingdom was already having trade with Syria, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Senguttuvan was a devout Shaiva (his brother, the author of the classic, was also a Hindu). Ayyavole inscriptions bear this out, as does the famous Polonnaruva inscription of Sri Lanka in the time of Vijayabahu (ca.1120) in which the Tamil idangai velaikkarar are referred to in association with the trade organization of the valanjiyar.

<=>

Senguttuvan's interest must have been in promoting trade with China. The Chera kingdom was already having trade with Syria, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Senguttuvan was a devout Shaiva . Ayyavole inscriptions bear this out, as does the famous Polonnaruva inscription of Sri Lanka in the time of Vijayabahu (ca. 1120) in which the Tamil idangai velaikkarar are referred to in association with the trade organization of the valanjiyar.

In particular, it is a more recent Diff - one between 24 January 2011 and 17 February 2011 - that turns the ref to Ilango from Hindu to Jain - courtesy one "Nijgoykar":



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=409737218

[[Ilango Adigal]], a Hindu, pontiff and the author of ''Silapathikaram'' was king Senguttuvan's younger brother, but renounced the throne to become saint.

<=>

[[Ilango Adigal]], a [[Jain]] monk and the author of ''Silapathikaram'' was king Senguttuvan's younger brother, but renounced the throne to become saint.

But the above may just be a transfer from the Ilango Adigal wacky page, so one need not observe that "Nijgoykar" who made the change doesn't even have a Tamizh name (<- may therefore not know Cilappadikaaram - relevant in the context of the significant change made).





2. [color="#0000FF"]Far more exciting however[/color], is a change to the same wacky page that took place between 17 Feb 2011 and 7 March 2011. This is the *good* bit <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



Ilango - who was changed to a Jain monk by Nijgoykar above - was turned into just "a monk", presumably so that his brother (the Hindu Raja Cenguttuvan) could now be introduced as a Buddhist:

'''King Senguttuvan''' was a [[Chera dynasty|Chera]] king who ruled in Ancient India during the early centuries of the Common Era. He is famous for the legends surrounding [[Kannagi]], the heroine of the [[Tamil language|Tamil]] epic ''[[Silapathikaram]]''. According to legends, [[Ilango Adigal]], a [[Jain]] monk and the author of ''Silapathikaram'' was king Senguttuvan's younger brother, but renounced the throne to become saint.

<=>

'''King Senguttuvan''' was a [[Chera dynasty|Chera]] king who ruled in Ancient south India during the early centuries of the Common Era. He is famous for the legends surrounding [[Kannagi]], the heroine of the legendary [[Tamil language|Tamil]] epic ''[[Silapathikaram]]''. According to legends, [[Ilango Adigal]], a monk and the author of ''Silapathikaram'' was king Senguttuvan's younger brother, but renounced the throne to become saint. [color="#0000FF"]Senguttuvan was a Buddhist[/color], and holds an important position in the expansion and consolidation of the ancient Chera kingdom. Senguttuvan moved his capital from present day Karur to Thiruvanchikkulam on the Malabar coast. Pliny, the Roman historian, writes that his seaport, [color="#0000FF"]Muziris (Cranganore),[/color] ‘abounds in ships’. The name of the place [[Kuttanad]] (''the land of Kuttuvan'') derives from King Senguttuvan. Senguttuvan ruled for 55 years dated to c. 110-165 CE (according to the ''Pathirruppaththu'' ) or c. 241-296 CE.

(In the next post, I'll try get back to the "Muziris (Cranganore)" bit that's highlighted in blue above.)





3. Of course, Ilango Adigal was himself also donated to Buddhism at one point. This could be seen in the Cilappadikaaram wacky page, it was something that was still in effect sometime in 2008. (When exactly it got changed to "Jain" in place of "Buddhist" I don't know.) -



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=220099643

(It's not a change made in the diff, but is part of the main text of this period. So can find the following text in the main body of the link)

Silappatikaram (Tamil: சிலப்பதிகாரம் ; Template:IPA2),[1] is one of the five great epics of ancient Tamil Literature. The poet prince Ilango Adigal, a Buddhist monk, is credited with this work

Curious, the dilly-dallying between Buddhism and Jainism, with no one ever being sure which of the two religions these historical personages actually are supposed to be. Those stating it as par for the course clearly don't possess any evidence themselves that allows them to distinguish between the two - seeing as how people would have you believe these historical personages are to be claimed for both religions.

And it's also noticeable that the one religion that is absolutely NOT allowed to claim Adigal and Cenguttuvan is Hindu religion (despite both attending a yagnya as per Cilappadikaaram itself - see an earlier post): for reasons related to what IF member Pandyan briefly alluded to in his statement x-posted in post 137 above.

[Husky]

Post 3/3



4. Going back to the Senguttuvan wacky page:

The Senguttuvan wacky page as at today has put the Raaja Cengottuvan back to Hindu, but has kept his brother Ilango Adigal as a "Jain" and has moreover introduced the famous christianism: the rewrite of Muziris from Kodungalloor (Cranganore) to Pattanam. (Neo-buddhists - christianism's new friends - are also working towards this, BTW. "Curious." As is their support for the St Thomas myth.)



Sometime [color="#0000FF"]between 24 May 2011 and 2 August 2011 (the date may be significant)[/color], the following change was made in Cenguttuvan's wacky page:



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=430732202

Muziris (Cranganore)

<=>

[[Muziris]] ([[Pattanam]])

[color="#0000FF"]The above is a forgery of history by chistianism[/color], since it is for the purposes of christianism: it has identified that equating Muziris with Pattanam will be a useful prop for the St Thomas myth and therefore to claim the region and then entire country for the non-existent christ.

Parroting an earlier-posted article:



http://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2011...ia-report/

Muziris: Dr. Nagaswamy nails false propaganda on St. Thomas – Media Reports

Thiruvananthapuram: The effort made by some interested quarters to link the Muziris excavations with the visit of St. Thomas Apostle has been criticised by eminent archaeologist and former director of the Tamil Nadu Archaeological Survey of India, R. Nagaswamy.



“When looking at the literature on the life of St. Thomas, it is not mentioned anywhere that he came to India. It is only a myth, which has now been connected with the excavations at Pattanam, near Kodungalloor,” the former visiting professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University told Express.



In fact, the ancient Muzirs port must have been located in Kodungalloor and not in Pattanam because all major ports in ancient times were situated at river mouths. And so it is safe to assume that Muziris was at Kodungalloor, where the river joins the sea.



He felt there was a hidden agenda by certain sections to propagate the idea that Muziris was connected to Pattanam, where St. Thomas is believed to have landed, and not with Kodungalloor.



Myth cannot be called history. Connecting myth with history could only create confusion and distort history, he said. “There is no substantial evidence to say that Pattanam is connected with Muziris. How was this conclusion reached? Those who claim to have found materials to connect Pattanam with Muziris have forgotten that these materials were also found in the eastern and the western costs of the country,” said Nagaswamy.

– Express Buzz & IBNLive, Thiruvananthapuram, [color="#0000FF"]August 7, 2011[/color]



ExpressBuzz , Paravoor, April 21, 2011:

Include St. Thomas Church in Muziris says Bishop Dr. Joseph Karikkassery



Paravoor: St Thomas Church in Maliankara which was constructed as a historical monument of the visit of St Thomas Apostle, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ, who landed in Maliankara in AD 52, should be included in the Muzaris Heritage Project, urged Kottapuram Bishop Dr. Joseph Karikkassery.

[...]

There may be a relation between the date of the bishop's declaration above (April 21, 2011) and the change of Muziris from Cranganore to Pattanam in wacky since.



That this change from Muziris being Kodungalloor ("Cranganore") to Pattanam is being made by christianism is also retreaded in:

http://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2011...pei6d-4yh/

St. Thomas: The making of an “Indian” apostle – Sandhya Jain



Well, since everything in Hindu history is up for grabs by everyone else, why not Muziris too: why can't christianism stake an *equal* claim? (No?)





5. But perhaps the most entertaining/telling insertion into wackypedia in relation to the Senguttuvan page is the following (the insertion is of course made without any supporting evidence, as is the case for all claims of this nature: it's part of the "miracle" of it) -



Wacky history diff between 7 Oct 2008 and 7 Nov 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=250227841

'''Senguttuvan''' was a [[Chera dynasty|Chera]] king who ruled Ancient India during the early centuries of the Common Era. He is famous for the legends surrounding [[Kannagi]], the heroine of the [[Tamil language|Tamil]] epic ''[[Silapathikaram]]'' (Manimekalai, another epic about Kovalan's Buddhist daughter). According to legends, [[Ilango Adigal]], the author of ''Cilpatikaram'' was Senguttuvan's brother, but denounced the throne to become saint.

Chera king Senkuttuvan, was an Tamil emperor who ruled for 55 years dated to c. 110 - 165 CE ( Pathirruppaththu ). He was believed to be a Hindu.

<=>

'''Senguttuvan''' was a [[Chera dynasty|Chera]] king who ruled Ancient India during the early centuries of the Common Era. He is famous for the legends surrounding [[Kannagi]], the heroine of the [[Tamil language|Tamil]] epic ''[[Silapathikaram]]'' (Manimekalai, another epic about Kovalan's Buddhist daughter). According to legends, [[Ilango Adigal]], the author of ''Cilpatikaram'' was Senguttuvan's brother, but denounced the throne to become saint. (which is obviously untrue since Ilango Adigal lived in 8th Century CE)

Chera king Senkuttuvan, was an Tamil emperor who ruled for 55 years dated to c. 110 - 165 CE ( Pathirruppaththu ). He was believed to be a Hindu.

a ) The blue bits give the previous Tamizh dating of Cenguttuvan (and hence Ilango Adigal and Cilappadikaaram): 2nd century CE. Whereas Tiruvalluvar - and hence Tirukkural - was IIRC dated 2nd century BCE by the Tamizh Nadu govt. More recently they're all being shifted down. Tiruvalluvar needed to be brought into the christian era: else he can't be made a disciple of Santa Thomas, so he can't have been christian and so can't be claimed for christianism now. Which is why Tiruvallvar has more recently been edged down into CE.

b ) Cilappadikaaram and its author + brother have been shifted to the 5th century CE or thereabouts because of the imperative to identify one character mentioned therein with a SL king of the 5th century (Kayavaagu in Silappadikaaram is identified with one Gajabaahu of SL. SL Buddhist text Mahavamsa mentions a Gajabahu in the 5th century. Yet that SL work apparently says their Gajavahu never left SL, whereas Cilappadikaaram's Kayavaagu is I think specifically mentioned as visiting TN in Bharatam.)

c ) And as can be seen in red above: "certain interests" require Cilappadikaaram to be pushed into the 8th century. Else what to do about the distinctly Hindu religion described in the work - including even brahmanas and yagnyas? How can they be allowed to have existed in Kerala at a time christianism doesn't want them to have been there?





As "funny" as all the above may appear, it is actually something that should concern Hindus. The ancient presence of Hindu religion in Kerala and now even TN is being written out of the area. (And Ayyappa is a part of that project, BTW.) Christianism considers it a necessary step in the christianisation project of the region.

All the above history-rewriting on Cenguttuvan, Ilango Adigal and Cilappadikaaram is relevant because, mentored by christianism which wrote the script, neo-Buddhism - which is now hard at work in TN - can be seen alleging far more than "book burning".

Christians know full well that Hindus will dispute christian claims to Hindu religious works - such as the christolie that Tirukkural's Tiruvalluvar was a christian disciple of St Thomas or even that Tiruvachagam on Shiva is a "secular devotional" hence "equally christian" hence (eventually) "christian" work. Yet christians also know - the way the dummy Hindus never know themselves - that Hindus will silently, even readily, donate all Hindu things away if these are first claimed for Buddhism and Jainism. Hence christianism finds neo-buddhisms to be of great use in laying the groundwork for their latest attempts to claim TN by claiming its history. The two groups (or are they actually one group, the way maoists and christians are one in Orissa, with one just being a cover for the other) are working together to launch their claims - soon to be turned into "history" like other things have been - that:



- "Shramanas" (which reference neo-buddhists appear to use exclusively for Buddhists and Jains) were the original inhabitants of the south of Bharatam, starting with TN - TN being the focal point of current neo-buddhist activities. (In fact, neo-buddhists claim that christians too qualify as original inhabitants of the south of Bharatam. "Surprise!" <- and that reveals the puppeteer behind neo-buddhism, even if not all neo-buddhists are aware of being puppeted.) And the claim that Hindu religion is specifically not an original religion of the southern parts of the subcontinent, let alone the earlier religion.



- that the 2 "Shramana" groups were unified / got along swell and were persecuted by brahmanas (no recognition of the existence of Hindu religion and Hindu laity, of course: that would be admission that it was very much native religion).





Ironically, this is a particularly bad move by neo-Buddhists and their christian puppeteers. Their silly arguments have been dismissed since decades by *actual* Buddhists.

[color="#0000FF"]It really is too bad for neo-'buddhists' that *actual* Buddhists of SL (titled Buddhist monks, no less), briefly covering the history of Buddhism in the south including esp. TN, refer to documented evidence:[/color]



- that Buddhism came *last* to the south: Buddhism arrived at a point when Hindus (of whom only Brahmanas are identified, but Hindu works of the region show that the laity was Hindu), Ajeevikas (earlier class of Shramanas*) and Jains were already there.

- that the other religions had it in for Buddhism, but that Buddhists in southern regions ran off to SL after being badly defeated in debate by *Jainism*, and that thereafter, the other Indic religions in TN had only the weak and already-disappearing remnants of Buddhism to compete with. To get to the point: the SL Buddhist claim is that Jainism dealt Buddhism in TN the fatal blow. (Not that Buddhism hadn't been trying the same in reverse: Buddhists had been constantly trying to "refute" Jainism too.)





* The term Shramanas is here used in specific (non-generic) sense.

[Husky]

1. This bit is still related to previous posts:



The twist -



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattini

[color="#0000FF"]According to Sinhala mythology, the Bodhisatva Pattini was incarnated as Kannagi in order to rid the Pandya kingdom of its evil three-eyed king.[/color] She was said to have been born of a mango fruit, which was cut down by the god Sakra with an arrow.

(Shakra doesn't (always) appear to refer to the same in Buddhism.)





Also from the same page:

Madhu - From the time King Gaja Bahu I (114-136 CE) allegedly introduced the Pattini worship to Sri Lanka ,Pattini temple was there in Madhu Church premises (Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu) for 1850 years.Hindus called it the Amman Temple. The nearby reservoir is still called Kovil Kulam (Reservoir of the Temple).According to the "Manual of the North Central Province", by R. W. Levers, 1889, ,present Madhu Church site had a "Pattini temple" till the 1850. The Catholic Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu was established in 1876 on the same temple premises.At present , no ruins of Pattini temple can not be found there.

The catholic church loves to build "mary mother of non-existent jeebus" churches on the sacred sites belonging to heathen Goddesses and even .... female 'fairies'. There were pages on the Catharans giving some exposition on the church's modus operandi in Europe: sites of female deities were regularly taken over for mary horror centres (churches), in order to steal the power and frequent apparitions of the Goddesses at such sites for christianism.

[Husky]

2. Indologicals were previously (elsewhere) seen divorcing Patanjali from Adishesha and even from Shaivam ["these were traditions Hindus concocted later", "Adishesha was demoted to Patanjali by Tamizh Hindus who influenced the Kashmiri Hindus" etc] in order to donate Patanjali or at least the background to his Yoga to an "All Indian Yoga" club.

The same Indologicals have been hard at work on Panini too. Not content with donating Tolkappiyar (and hence his Tolkappiyam, early work on Tamizh Grammar) to Jainism with a mere "probably" as all the evidence they will supply, they are after Samskritam Grammar too.



a. Divorce from Hindu religion - "Panini didn't get inspired by Shiva, this was a later tradition"

b. Gift to Buddhism - "Buddhism has equal claims to inspiring Panini (never mind for now that Panini predated Buddha)" and "possibly Buddhist claims are older"



You see, to make Panini a secular Indian - as opposed to Hindu - must remove him from Hindu religion, make him just part of some generic culture (as it existed at that time) and then declare him as belonging to all Indian religions equally/to none in particular.



An Indological of the Indian sepoy variety - Madhav Deshpande - does the honours in the following article almost 1.5 decades old by now (but I only noticed some sort of indological trend forming around Patanjali, never what was going on with Panini which slipped me by completely):





findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2081/is_n3_v117/ai_n28696610/?tag=content;col1

Reference / Journal of the American Oriental Society, The / July-Sept, 1997



Who inspired Panini? Reconstructing the Hindu and Buddhist counter-claims

by Madhav M. Deshpande



The tradition of Paninian Grammar as it has reached us clearly believes that Panini was inspired by Mahesvara/Siva to write his grammar, and that he received at least the first fourteen sutras, which are traditionally called Sivasutrani or Mahesvarasutrani, from Mahesvara/Siva. While for the tradition as it has survived into the present time, this belief is axiomatic, and hardly ever questioned, the history of this belief has not been fully explored in modern scholarship.(1) In this paper, I propose to bring together material that allows us to envisage the vicissitudes of this belief, which are almost entirely unknown to the Paninian tradition itself.

[color="#800080"](AKA: "The later Hindus Hinduised Panini.")[/color]



[color="#FF0000"]Panini's grammar itself gives us no indication of any particular religious belief attached to this grammar[/color], except that the grammar was situated firmly within the [color="#0000FF"]Vedic culture.[/color] The grammar as it is incorporated in the Astadhyayi is integrally connected to the lists of sounds as formulated in the so-called Sivasutras. This relationship is so strong that George Cardona (1969: 3), who has "omitted any discussion connected with the question of the authorship of the sivasutras," makes it clear that "the sivasutras and the corpus of rules in which they are used definitely were composed in one school." Going a step beyond Cardona, Kiparsky (1991: 257) asserts: "It is said that god Siva revealed these fourteen classes of sounds to Panini to get him started on the Astadhyayi. We might now want to see a deeper point in this legend.

[...]

On p.9 comes the argument for why it is all "[at least] equally Buddhist" (depending on if the Buddhist claims can be made to look older):

- considering that the claim about Shiva is submitted above as "almost entirely unknown to the Paninian tradition itself"

- AND that Buddhists made counter-claims that also "are essentially unknown to, or at least unrecorded by, the Paninian grammatical tradition"

Ergo: "Buddhists have equal claim to Panini as today's Hindus do". *

Otherwise ("in reality") Panini is just a product of some generic "Vedic culture" (and "Vedic" only by virtue of him having been a product of the end of that era, no other reason allowed.)



* Note in particular that the genius in this indological argument lies in the indologist not having to prove Panini came after Buddhism at all, since it has nothing to do with linear history as much as it has to do with who first made claims to having inspired Panini (since the indologist Deshpande has kept Panini himself hence the origins of his grammatical tradition itself divorced from/immune to the effects of either). I.e. it is the "the two sides have equally false claims; either has As Much Validity As The Other" argument, in particular if Buddhists can be projected as having a possibly older claim (using the excuse of the blurried haze of Buddhism's one-way syncretism - called inculturation, at least if christianism did it - on Shiva), then that makes Buddhism have a more antique (but still false) claim to Panini. And that means another strike against Hindu religion.



findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2081/is_n3_v117/ai_n28696610/pg_9/?tag=content;col1

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2081/is_n3_v117/ai_n28696610/pg_10/?tag=content;col1

Was this Saivite claim the only religious claim in relation to Panini, [color="#0000FF"]or was this even the oldest claim?[/color] In this connection, we now need to explore the materials provided by the Buddhist tradition. The Buddhist claims are essentially unknown to, or at least unrecorded by, the Paninian grammatical tradition, since none of the commentators, including the Buddhist writers, make any reference to it.(11) However, within the Buddhist tradition, there is considerable material relating to Panini and the Buddhist interaction with the Saivites and their claims.



We shall begin our consideration of the Buddhist materials with the reports from the History of Buddhism in India written by the Tibetan Lama Taranatha, who completed this work in A.D. 1608. Taranatha is aware of the Saivite claims that Panini was inspired by Siva and that Patanjali is viewed as Sesanaga (Taranatha, 203). However, he clearly opposes the first of these claims. Here is Taranatha (p. 83):



The brahmana Panini was a friend of king Nanda. He was born in the Bhirukavana in the west. He asked the palmist whether he was going to be an expert in grammar. The prediction was in the negative. With a sharp knife, he changed the lines of his own palm, studied grammar under all the grammarians of the world, worked hard and acquired great proficiency. Yet he remained dissatisfied. By intense propitiation, he received the vision of the tutelary deity. The deity appeared before him and uttered a, i, u, and he acquired knowledge of all words in the three worlds.



The "outsiders" [bahyas or tirthikas] consider him as the isvara. But the "outsiders" have no basis for this. The "insiders" [= Buddhists] consider him as Avalokitesvara. This is based on the prophecy of the Manjusri-mulatantra: "Panini, the son of a brahmana, will certainly attain the sravaka-bodhi. I have predicted that he would be the great lokesvara (Avalokitesvara) by his own words."

The same passage of the Mahjusrimulakalpa is referred to by the Tibetan historian Bu-ston, and Obermiller (vol. II, p. 167) translates the passage as:



Panini, the brahmana's son, Has been prophesied by me To attain the enlightenment of the sravakas And he shall likewise secure the charm For propitiating the High Lord of the Universe.

[color="#800080"](Avalokiteshwara - invented after Mahayana Buddhism (itself developed after early Buddhism) - projected Backwards in time and inspired Panini.... Where have I heard this before. Oh yeah, E Asia.)[/color]



Here is the Sanskrit text as given by P. L. Vaidya in his edition of the Manjusrimulakalpa (Mahayanasutrasamgraha, cb. 53, vv. 404-5; II: 478):



tasyapy anyatamah sakhyah paninir nama manavah niyatam sravakatvena vyakrto me bhavisyati so 'pi siddhamantras tu lokisaya mahatmanah



Lama Chimpa and Alaka Chattopadhyaya, the translators of Taranatha's work, note (p. 83, note 10)' "Interestingly, Panini's grammar, as preserved in Tg (mDo cxxxv.1) is mentioned as being revealed by Arya Avalokitesvara to Panini." It is important to note that the Hybrid Sanskrit of the Manjusrimulakalpa uses the word lokisa[[less than] loka isa] as the name of the inspiring deity, which is interpreted by the Buddhist tradition as referring to Avalokitesvara. As one can begin to see, the common element of isa or isvara in the names Avalokitesvara and Mahesvara provides for a possibility of interpreting some older beliefs in two alternative ways. [color="#800080"](That's what Buddhist inculturation was for and is being used for today. A LOT related to Shiva is being claimed for Buddhism now - using precisely the Avalokiteshwara blur as the foot in the door.)[/color] We shall explore this relationship between Avalokitesvara and Mahesvara later in greater detail. But first, it is important to review Hiuen Tsang's account of his travels in the northwestern part of the subcontinent, written around A.D. 629.



Hiuen Tsang provides us some invaluable information, both regarding the religious practices and beliefs relating to Avalokitesvara and Mahesvara in this region, as well as to the disputes over who inspired Panini. [color="#800080"](Buddhism has this habit of turning established tradition into "disputes" *all* over. In E Asia this happened all the time. Not just the rest of Asia though. However, to simplify the choice: one notes that Buddhism invented Avalokiteshwara quite late (and Buddha is himself dated after Panini IIRC), while Rudra Pashupati and his worship pre-existed Panini. In any case Buddhism - specifically the fictitious Avalokiteshwara - could NEVER have inspired Panini. Full Stop.)[/color] Referring to the region of Kapisa (in modern Afghanistan), Hiuen Tsang says (Beal 1884: 60): "At 2 or 3 li to the west of the stone chambers, above a great mountain pass, there is a figure of Kwan-tsz'-tsai Bodhisattva (= Avalokitesvara); those who with sincere faith desire to see him, to them the Bodhisattva appears coming forth from the image, his body of marvelous beauty, and he gives rest and reassurance to the travellers." In his footnote (n. 210, p. 60), Beal points out: "He is generally described as 'the god of mercy,' because he hears the cries of men. Probably a relic or revival of the old worship of hill-gods. Hence his figure placed on this mountaintop." Referring to a close-by region of Po-lu-sha (near Puskalavati), Hiuen Tsang says:



To the north-east of the city of Po-lu-sha 50 li or so, we come to a high mountain, on which is a figure of the wife of Isvara Deva carved out of green stone. This is Bhima Devi (= Durga). . . . It has the reputation of working numerous miracles, and therefore is venerated by all, so that from every part of India men come to pay their vows and seek prosperity thereby. . . . Below the mountain is the temple of Mahesvara Deva; the heretics who cover themselves with ashes come here to offer sacrifice. (Beal 1884: 113-14)

[color="#800080"](Buddhists calling Hindus heretics. Fresh.

Love how the worshippers of "Maheshwara Deva who cover themselves with ashes" are "heretics", yet - elsewhere - the Buddhist imposition of Avalokiteshwara onto Shiva etc is to be read as ... "syncretic" religion.)[/color]



It is clear that Hiuen Tsang is referring to a prominent cult of Siva in the general vicinity of the region of Salatura, Panini's home, which he visits next. Hiuen Tsang narrates the stories he heard about Panini in the town of Salatura:



Referring to the most ancient times, letters were very numerous; but when, in the process of ages, the word was destroyed and remained as a void, the Devas of long life descended spiritually to guide the people. Such was the origin of the ancient letters and composition. From this time and after it the source (of language) spread and passed its (former) bounds. Brahma Deva and Sakra (Devendra) (as in Hindu usage) established rules according to the requirements. Rsis belonging to different schools each drew up forms of letters. Men in their successive generations put into use what had been delivered to them; but nevertheless students without ability were unable to make use. And now men's lives were reduced to the length of a hundred years, when the Rsi Panini was born; he was from his birth extensively informed about things. The times being dull and careless, he wished to reform the vague and false rules - to fix the rules and correct improprieties. As he wandered about asking for right ways, he encountered Igvara Deva, and recounted to him the plan of his undertaking. Isvara Deva said, "Wonderful! I will assist you in this." The Rsi, having received instruction, retired. He then laboured incessantly and put forth all his power of mind. He collected a multitude of words, and made a book on letters which contained a thousand slokas. . . . It contained everything known from the first till then, without exception, respecting letters and words. . . . And so from that time masters have received it and handed it down in its completeness for the good of the world. Hence the Brahmanas of this town are well grounded in their literary work, and are of high renown for their talents, well informed as to things, and of a vigorous understanding. (Beal 1884:114-16)



This report informs us of a belief, around A.D. 600 in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, that it was Siva who inspired Panini. It also has echoes of Patanjali's Mahabhasya (I: 5) about the age of men having become one hundred years and the consequent necessity of an abbreviated formulation of grammar. It further indicates continuity of the study of Panini's grammar in the region of Salatura. Then comes a Buddhist response to Panini:



In the town of So-lo-tu-lo [= Salatura] is a stupa. This is the spot where an Arhat converted a disciple of Panini. Tathagata had left the world some five hundred years, when there was a great Arhat who came to the country of Kashmir, and went about converting men. Coming to this place, he saw a Brahmacarin occupied in chastising a boy whom he was instructing in letters. Then the Arhat spoke to the Brahmana thus: "Why do you cause pain to this child?" The Brahmana replied, "I am teaching him the Sabdavidya, but he makes no proper progress." The Arhat smiled significantly, . . . (and said ". . . No doubt you have heard of the Rsi Panini, who compiled the Sabdavidya Sastra, which he has left for the instruction of the world." The Brahmana replied, "The children of this town, who are his disciples, revere his eminent qualities, and a statue erected to his memory still exists." The Athat continued: "This little boy whom you are instructing was that very [color="#0000FF"](Panini)[/color] Rsi. As he devoted his vigorous mind to investigate worldly literature, he only produced [color="#0000FF"]heretical[/color] treatises without any power of true reason in them. His spirit and his wisdom were dispersed, and he has run through the cycles of continued birth from then till now. Thanks to some remnant of true virtue, he has been now born as your attached child; but the literature of the world and these treatises are only cause of useless efforts to him, and are as nothing compared to the holy teaching of Tathagata, which, by its mysterious influences, procures both happiness and wisdom. . . . But now, O virtuous one! permit your pupil to leave him home. Becoming a disciple of Buddha, the merits we secure are not to be told." . . . The Brahmana was deeply affected . . . and permitted the child to become a disciple of Buddha and acquire wisdom. Moreover, he himself changed his belief, and mightily reverenced the three precious ones. The people of the village, following his example, became disciples, and till now they have remained earnest in their profession. (Beal 1884: 117-18)

[color="#800080"](Typical: "evil brahmana - abusive to boot" compared to "peaceloving Buddhist, converts all to True Religion. Happy End." It's like several stories in the Jatakas all over again, except that those had given up on converting brahmanas - maybe they appeared late? - and focused instead on divorcing the Hindu laity from adherence to the "brahmanical religion", such as by presenting brahmanas out to be charlatans duping the Hindu laity. Using *stories* and no more. It's factually worse than dawaganda: it's fiction that doesn't even purport to be fact, yet still works as brainwashing against ancestral religion.)[/color]



[color="#FF0000"]This account is most interesting in indicating a localized Buddhist response to Panini. On the one hand, the Buddhists had great admiration for his accomplishments in grammar, and yet they wished he were not associated with the "heretical" Vedic/Brahmanical tradition.[/color] [color="#800080"](Yes, like christianism: admiration for all things heathen, but needs to divorce them from heathen religion and claim them for itself. Appropriation aspect of inculturation.)[/color] Here, by a belated conversion of Panini reborn as a boy, the Buddhists tried to accomplish both tasks: acceptance of Panini within Buddhism, and rejection of his Brahmanical connection. [color="#800080"](=Replacement Theology using Inculturation to take what they want. Well, when christianism does the same, that's what it's called.)[/color] While the tradition recorded in the Manjusrimulakalpa directly attributes Panini's inspiration to Avalokitesvara (viz, Lokisa) and awards a lower form of enlightenment (= sravakabodhi) to him, it still hints at Panini's incorporation into the Buddhist tradition. A prophecy about Panini becoming a leading grammarian (paninim sabdanetaram) is also found in the Sagathaka section of the Saddharmalankavatarasutra (10.813; p. 160). While some portions of this Buddhist sutra predate A.D. 443, and perhaps even go to the "beginning of the Christian era or probably before it" (P. L. Vaidya, Lahkavatarasutra, xv), the Sagathaka section along with the Mamsabhaksana section are believed to be relatively later additions.(12)

[...]

Why Hindus should be worried:

Actually, do I need to say it.



But then, when people can gift Ayyappa to Buddhism/Avalokiteshwara, why not Panini too? Right? I mean, the old Buddhist claims to Panini should carry *equal* authority to the current Buddhist claims to Ayyappa, all else being equal. Let's see people wriggle out of that one: most especially as indology has chosen to throw its weight against the Panini matter [and Patanjali too, by the way, but it will take too long to point that one out] (compared to mainly neo-Buddhists and Sinhalese Buddhists/monks antagonising on the Hindu identity of Ayyappa).

The indologicals of course won't let go of Panini (nor of their aims behind divorcing Patanjali from [Tamizh] Shaivam - or as they have projected/legitimised this process: "demythicising" the Shaiva claims to Patanjali), since the indological purpose is much greater (the indological eye is on his Yoga work; the Mahabhashya was already divorced).



Well, the Avalokiteshwara fiction is never-ending. It was (and continues to be) back-projected, was deliberately merged into local Gods by Buddhism (and Buddha keeps being identified in Hindu Gods to this day with "it must have been Buddhist"), and is deliberately reintroduced into many current discourses on the history of Hindu religion in order to blur identification on where native religion ended and subversive syncretic Buddhism began, etc.

[Meluhhan]

Husky,



Buddha gave most of his teachings in popular languages like Pali and Prakrit because he thought they would be more accessible to the common man. There was absolutely no need for Buddhists to come up with complicated Sanskrit grammars, since they didn't use that language in the first place.