Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

Post 6/?



And finally, all occurrences (=4) of RiShabha in the Rig Veda Samhita

(substring *R^iShabha*)



(Will get to verse 10.166.1 at the end, which was claimed to be the reference to the Jain teerthankara Rishabha)

आ ते अग्न ऋचा हविर्हृदा तष्टं भरामसि ।

ते ते भवन्तूक्षण रषभासो वशा उत ॥ (6.16.47) [Agni]

47 Agni, we bring thee, with our hymn, oblation fashioned in the heart.

Let these be oxen unto thee, let these be bulls and kine to thee.



उपेदमुपपर्चनमासु गोषूप पृच्यताम् ।

उप ऋषभस्य रेतस्युपेन्द्र तव वीर्ये ॥ (6.28.8) [On the Gau. Also a bit on Indra]

8 Now let this close admixture be close intermigled with these Cows,

Mixt with the Steer's prolific flow, and, Indra, with thy hero might. [Steer is a certain state/type of bull.]



यस्मिन्नश्वास ऋषभास उक्षणो वशा मेषा अवसृष्टास आहुताः ।

कीलालपे सोमपृष्ठाय वेधसे हृदा मतिं जनये चारुमग्नये ॥ (10.91.14) [Agni]

14 He in whom horses, bulls, oxen, and barren cows, and rams, when duly set apart, are offered up,—

To Agni, Soma-sprinkled, drinker of sweet juice, Disposer, with my heart I bring a fair hymn forth.

However, it was the RV Mandala 10.166 that was specifically alleged as being a reference to the Jain RiShabha.

In Wacky's (teerthankara) Rishabha page history, and many other sites on the web, the assertion is that the verse 10.166.1 (containing the Vedic Skt word R^iShabha) referred to the Jain teerthankara of that name and meant the following:

Of Rishabha (1st Tirthankara Rishabha) is written:

? ::"''But Risabha went on, unperturbed by anything till he became sin-free like a conch that takes no black dot, without obstruction ... which is the epithet of the First World-teacher, may become the destroyer of enemies''" (Rig Veda X.166)

But the actual verse 10.166 in the Rig Veda is as follows - it mentions the word R^iShabha alright, but isn't referring to any Jain teerthankara:

[ऋषभं मा समानानां सपत्नानां विषासहिम् ।

हन्तारं शत्रूणां कर्धि विराजं गोपतिं गवाम ॥ (10.166.1) [sapatnanAshanam]



1. MAKE me a bull among my peers, make me my rivals, conqueror:

Make me the slayer of my foes, a sovran ruler, lord of kine

+ The suktam that this verse is from is for "sapatnanAshanam". I.e. not for praising anyone, but for the destruction of one's enemies.

+ The only God addressed in this Suktam appears to be vAchaspati: he's called on to help subdue the enemies.

+ But the word "R^iShabha" here as well as the shloka containing the word do not refer to Vachaspati (who is called upon in a later shloka), but is literally a reference to the one reciting the mantra (i.e. the first-person singular).

Yet *this* is the verse Jains have chosen to read the Jaina teerthankara into....?



Am pasting the Griffith translation for the the full 10.166, for a better glimpse at the original context. Note it's the first 2 lines that translate the verse containing the word "R^iShabha".

1. MAKE me a bull among my peers, make me my rivals, conqueror:

Make me the slayer of my foes, a sovran ruler, lord of kine

2 I am my rivals’ slayer, like Indra unwounded and unhurt,

And all these enemies of mine are vanquished and beneath my feet.

3 Here, verily, I bind you fast, as the two bow-ends with the string.

Press down these men, O Lord of Speech, that they may humbly speak to me.

4 Hither I came as conqueror with mighty all-effecting power,

And I have mastered all your thought, your synod, and your holy work.

5 May I be highest, having gained your strength in war, your skill in peace

my feet have trodden on your heads.

Speak to me from beneath my feet, as frogs from out the water croak, as frogs from out the water croak.

I think it's also worth pasting the following, as it appears to me to give an instance of where just verse 1 of 10.166 is apparently to be used by Hindus in some specific context (?), along with other mantras from other parts of the Rig:



archive.org/stream/grihyastrasrul01oldeuoft/grihyastrasrul01oldeuoft_djvu.txt

[...]

10. Or something else that belongs to the house-

hold.



11. (He then) should drive (In that chariot) to an

assembly.



12. Having murmured, while looking at the sun,

(the verse), 'Make our renown highest' (Rig-veda

IV, 31, 15), he should descend.



13. ' To the bull among my equals ' (Rig-veda X,

166, i) — (this verse he should murmur) while

approaching (that assembly ?).



14. ' May we be called to-day Indra's best friends *

(Rig-veda I, 167, 10) — when the sun is setting,



15. ' Thus I address you, O daughters of heaven,

while you arise' (Rig-veda IV, 51, 11) — when day

appears.

[...]

Only the opening of the shloka is translated above. But it looks like the file gives an overview of the set of shlokas (from different parts of the Veda) that are to be used in some particular situation.

And now, why would the Grihya Sutras' explanation be "this verse he [not sure who, the reciter?] should murmer while approaching (that assembly)" if it was actually something to do with a Jain Teerthankara? What does it have do with Jainism or say about Jainism at all - even in this 2nd context where the relevant single verse appears to be used independent of the rest of 10.166? Still nothing (remotely) Jain about it.





To repeat, the claim made was as follows (as seen in wacky's teerthankara "Rishabh" page edit history):

Of Rishabha (1st Tirthankara Rishabha) is written:

? ::"''But Risabha went on, unperturbed by anything till he became sin-free like a conch that takes no black dot, without obstruction ... which is the epithet of the First World-teacher, may become the destroyer of enemies''" (Rig Veda X.166)

Where did they even get that from? It seems like they pulled this most convenient "meaning" that they wish to assign the verse out of thin air, just to prop up Jainism's theology of a line of teerthankaras using Hindu religious texts.



No wonder the claims are now becoming more vague - but no less determined to somehow involve the Vedam as proof for Jain teerthankaras - such as:

[Jain Teerthankara RiShabha] finds some references in Veda. However, its meaning is not clear and has different interpretations."



[Jain Teerthankara Neminatha as ariShTaNemi] is mentioned in some of the hymns of the Vedas but their meaning is doubtful.

In the Yajurveda, he seems to be clearly mentioned as one of the important Rishis [citation needed].

How convenient to no longer have to bother giving references for impossible claims. If he's so "clearly" mentioned in the Yajus, then where is the "citation" that even wacky - so loose with references, or with checking up on them - demands?



But it's a copout - and a deliberate change of tack at that - for them to say that the meaning of the Vedic verses is not "clear" for Rishabha and is "doubtful" (despite simultaneously/magically also being supposedly "clear" for references to Neminatha etc) and that these verses "have different interpretations".

Nonsense, the actual Vedic lines are at least sufficiently clear to allow no readings of "Jainism" in them. And even were multiple interpretations actually possible, forcibly-reading Jaina teerthankaras into them is an invalid interpretation. Or just downright falsehood.





Anyway, Mahabharatam plus its appendix (the Harivamsha) for another day. So too the Chandogya Upanishad/ghorA~Ngirasa of the lineage of A~Ngirasas. And anything else.

[Husky]

Post 7/?





On ghorAngirasa and ChAndogya upaniShad.



On this bit of the Wackypedia entry for the Jain Teerthankara Neminatha:

It is mentioned in the Chandogya Upanishads III, that the sage Ghora Angirasa imparted certain instructions of the spiritual sacrifice to Krishna, the son of Devaki. The liberal payment of this sacrifice was austerity, liberality, simplicity, non-violence and truthfulness. These teachings of Ghora Angirasa seem to be the tenets of Jainism. Hence, Ghora Angirasa seems to be a Jain sadhu. The word Ghora Angirasa seems to be an epithet given to him because of the extreme austerities he undertook. It may be possible to suggest that Neminatha was his early name and when he had obtained Nirvana after hard austerities, he might have been given the name of Ghora Angirasa[citation needed].

The style of argumentation in the above is as follows: "We just noticed that Vedic Hindus had already said the same things that Jainism would end up saying, 'therefore' such Hindus 'must' have been Jain/else influenced by Jainism" [claimed backwards in time, of course]

(Clearly some people think no proof needs to ever be provided for fantastical claims.)





BUT:



+ Neminatha can't have been "'given' the name Ghora Angirasa". [color="#0000FF"]Angirasa is not an epithet. It is a family lineage (family of *Vedic* Rishis, btw[/color] - which puts a double damper on the wild claims made above).



+ Section 3.17 of the ChAndogyopaniShad is the one being referred to and which is hence relevant to this post. This is the section where GhorAngirasa speaks of the esoteric meaning of the PuruSha sacrifice. (This sacrifice was the subject matter of the previous section too - where it was already explained how (esoterically) "man himself was the sacrifice". The topic of the Purusha sacrifice continues on from 3.16 into 3.17.)



+ GhorAngirasa is *very clearly* a Vedic ritualist himself:



+ The shloka where the names of "ghorA~Ngirasa" and "kR^iShNa devakIputra" are mentioned together is 3.17.6. In it, ghorA~Ngirasa - speaking to kR^iShNa - refers *directly* to 2 specific Riks, i.e. two entries from the Rig Vedam (which he then quotes in the succeeding shloka). Further, 3.17.6 speaks of the Vedic PuruSha of the Sun/prANa, aka the Parabrahman - i.e. using terms that are direct backreferences to Vedic verses that the shiShya is expected to know, since they're expected to know the Vedam - i.e. by having performed the rituals). GhorAngirasa *uses* the references to the Richas from the Rig Vedam to impart this knowledge. He then ends verse 3.17.6 with "tatraite dve R^ichau bhavataH", i.e. referencing 2 Riks, which he then proceeds to quote from in the next shloka, 3.17.7.



Not to mention that the context of this shloka - i.e. preceding and succeeding verses, in fact the *entire* teaching ghorAngirasa imparts - is replete with not just references to the Vedas/Vedic ritual but direct *quotations* from the Vedam. [Actually, the entire ChAndogyopaniShad and indeed many another old upaniShad quotes from the Vedam, because the whole purpose of those old upaniShads was to delve deeper into the "esoteric" meaning of - and product/transformation-of-self proceeding from - the "exoteric" yagnyas of the Vedic rituals, with as end the realisation of the ParamapuruSha. <- BTW, this is seen in all of 3.17 too.]



+ It is 3.17.4 where ghorAngirasa enumerates what is attained from performing this yagnya - i.e. the Vedic puruSha sacrifice that's been the subject all this while - and which attainments are listed as: tapas, dAnam (i.e. act of giving, includes both ritualistic gifting and what in Hellenismos is called philanthropia), Arjavam (rectitude/sincerity/righteousness)*, ahiMsA, satyavachanam (truthfulness). In 3.17.6 - which is the end of the section's teaching but for one shloka to follow which will round 3.17 off - Ghorangirasa actually literally refers to the lessons he has imparted kRiShNa as "this well-known doctrine" (teaching/learning/knowledge), i.e. that it is established knowledge of the Vedam, nothing new at all.

So note how the Wacky page is claiming for Jainism the well-known spiritual attainments of the Vedic puruSha sacrifice. :Hysterisch:



[* "Simplicity" would already be included/implied in tapaH I think, since frugality is surely a minimum for austerity. The claimants seen on wacky appear to have left out Arjavam, so maybe that means the enumeration doesn't align as beautifully with Jainism's "5" as they might have wished?]





Actually, here's the full text of ChAndogyopaniShad's 3.17, along with the literal translations (by native Hindus).

Since it would otherwise take too long, I'm summarising or else leaving out much of the footnotes that the Hindu translators give, though these actually provide relevant information (such as the relation to the actual Vedic rites mentioned, some of the details involved - all of which is information that's simply implicit in the Upanishad's verses that speak of/proceed from these rites as their basis, since it's expected that the Hindus who get round to these Upanishads already know the rites from actual performance).



Note again that the previous section (3.16) had been about of the same subject of the Purusha yagnya and its esoteric meaning of "man himself as the sacrifice". This section continues on from there on the same topic.



(Devanagari portions are largely a copy-paste job. As in: typoes in this are not mine.)

स यदशिशिषति यत्पिपासति यन्न रमते ता अस्य दीक्षाः ॥ 3.17.1॥

"1. That he (who performs the PuruSha sacrifice) feels hunger, that he feels thirst, that he does not rejoice -- all these are the initiatory rites of this sacrifice. [1]"

(Footnote explains how this corresponds to the sufferings from the austerities that are to be performed in the exoteric case of the initiatory rites to performing yagnyas, with the case of the Soma sacrifice as example. The notes conclude with: "So this initiatory rite is full of pains, and the pains of life are also similar to the pains of initiation.")



अथ यदश्नाति यत्पिबति यद्रमते तदुपसदैरेति ॥ 3.17.2॥

"2. And, that he eats, that he drinks, that he rejoices--all these approach the Upasadas.[1]

[1] "That is, one should look upon the causes of those pains and their remedies as Upasadas. Upasat is a sacrifice belonging to the variety of iShTis..." <details follow, ending with a comparison of the exoteric yagnya with the life of the human - the esoteric/"internal to the human" case.>



अथ यद्धसति यज्जक्षति यन्मैथुनं चरति स्तुतशस्त्रैरेव तदेति ॥ 3.17.3॥

"3. And that he laughs, that he eats, that he behaves as one of a couple -- all these approach Stotra and Shastra. [1]"

("Samshana means praise or stuti. The mantra by which shamsana is done is called shastra. The Rik mantras..." Then the footnote goes on about how this is done during the actual Vedic ritual and correspondence with the life of the human again.)



अथ यत्तपो दानमार्जवमहिꣳसा सत्यवचनमिति ता अस्य दक्षिणाः ॥ 3.17.4॥

"4. And his austerity, gifts, uprightness, non-violence and truthfullness -- all these are the largesses of this sacrifice[1]"

"[1] Austerity etc. (i.e. all 5 items listed) should be looked upon as gifts for the priest, for there is similarity between the two. By giving dakShiNA in the ritualistic sacrifice, righteousness increases; austerity etc. in a worshipper's life also produce similar result. Because of these similarities, man must himself be looked upon as a sacrifice--that is the purport of these two sections [referring to sections 3.16 and 3.17 of this upaniShad]."



तस्मादाहुः सोष्यत्यसोष्टेति पुनरुत्पादनमेवास्य तन्मरणमेवावभृथः ॥ 3.17.5॥

"5. Therefore[1] people say 'soShyati' (will procreate) and 'asoShTa' (has procreated).[2] Again, that is the procreation of this,[3] and death is the AvabhR^ita bath.[4]"

"[1] Man himself is the sacrifice. Therefore regarding both man and ritualistic sacrifice people say soShyati and asoShTa."

(Then Footnote [2] and [3] are about what these phrases used in Soma yagnya mean and how it relates back to man's life.

[4] Footnote is about how the yagnya's conclusion is followed by the ritual bath and how this corresponds to death coming at the end of life. Etc.)



तद्धैतद्घोर आङ्गिरसः कृष्णाय देवकीपुत्रायोक्त्वोवाचापिपास एव स बभूव

सोऽन्तवेलायामेतत्त्रयं प्रतिपद्येताक्षितमस्यच्युतमसि प्राणसꣳशितमसीति तत्रैते द्वे ऋचौ भवतः ॥ 3.17.6॥

Note that in the section translating the individual words, the translation for घोरः says "Ghora" and that for आङ्गिरसः specifically says: "A~Ngirasa (of the a~Ngirasa family)".

Then comes the usual section that provides a flowing translation of the entire shloka altogether:

"6. Ghora Angirasa expounded this well-known doctrine to DevakI's son kRiShNa and said: Such a knower should, at the time of death, repeat this triad--Thou[1] art the imperishable, Thou art the unchangeable, Thou art the subtle essence of prANa." (On hearing the above) he [2] became thirstless. There are these two R^ik stanzas in regard to this."

"[1] That is, the Person residing in the sun and identified with prANa. The PuruSha is the divine form of the PrANas."

"[2] That is, Devaki's son kR^iShNa. <...>"



आदित्प्रत्नस्य रेतसः ।

उद्वयं तमसस्परि ज्योतिः पश्यन्त उत्तरꣳस्वः पश्यन्त उत्तरं देवं देवत्रा सूर्यमगन्म

ज्योतिरुत्तममिति ज्योतिरुत्तममिति ॥ 3.17.7॥

[Note that 3.17.6 continues on into this shloka: 3.17.6 ended with the intention of making references to 2 Riks and so 3.17.7 provides those 2 direct quotes from the Rig Vedam.]



"7. (Those knowers of Brahman who have purified their mind through the withdrawal of the senses and other means like Brahmacharya) see everywhere (the day-like supreme light) of the ancient One who is the seed of the universe, (the light that shines in the Effulgent Brahman).[1] May we, too, having perceived the highest light which dispells darkness, reach it. Having perceived the highest light in our own heart, we have reached that highest light, which is the dispeller (of water, rays of light and the PrANas), shining in all Gods--yea, we have reached that highest light.[2]"



The footnotes then show which 2 Riks from the Rig Vedam - that ghorAngirasa had already promised in 3.17.6 that he would be quoting from - he ends up quoting in 3.17.7 (i.e. seen just above):

"[1] This first Rik (Rigveda 8.6.30), of which a portion only is given in the text, is similar in ideas to Rigveda 1.22.20.

[2] This is the second Rik (Rgveda 1.50.10)."

+ As seen from all the above, ghorAngirasa is not a Jain by ancestry - Angirasa is a Vedic lineage of Rishis, not a mere title - nor by ideology: GhoraAngirasa is a *Vedic* Hindu, who is explicating the internal meaning of the Vedic rites <- a knowledge which one cannot ever attain to without having performed the rituals of the Vedam first. That means *he* has been performing them, which is why he knows to speak of them with that first-hand knowledge of the matter that's exclusive to those who live a life of Vedic ritual. So there's just no *question* that he's a Vedic Hindu - a fact which makes him mutually exclusive with being Jain/Buddhist.



+ It also goes to show how both the ChAndogyopaniShad AND the Krishna Devakiputra seen therein - who is taught by the exclusively Vedic (i.e. Hindu) ghorAngirasa - don't know of any Neminatha/any Jainism. Making this last yet another allegation that has no basis.



+ The 5 "largesses proceeding from the (both exoteric and esoteric) puruSha yagnya" - these being "austerity, act of gifting, uprightness, non-violence and truthfulness" - are clearly Vedic: resulting upon external and internal Vedic ritual. (BTW, ancient Hindu texts have always explained Yoga/Tapas and Tantra/pooja as internal forms of the external Vedic Yagnya too and have always showed the direct correspondence between them. Same with the direct correspondence between Temple worship/rituals and Vedic ritual.)





In short: ghorAngirasa - a Vedic ritualist (as he himself demonstrates in the text) - is not a Jain by any stretch of the imagination, let alone being the Jain Teerthankara Neminatha. ChAndogyopaniShad can't be invoked as "proof" for Neminatha's historicity. (Nor as proof of the upaniShad knowing of Jainism.)

[Husky]

Post 8/?





Mahabharatam ~ Harivamsha



(MBh is actually the oldest and hence only relevant "source" for kRiShNa's context. Harivamsha being an "appendix" to the MBh, I decided to search in there too.)





[color="#0000FF"]1. Mahabharatam.[/color]

Repeat from much earlier:

I did a brief search over that English translation of Mahabharata by Ganguly, for occurrences of:

- sramana/shramana *

- ajeevika/ajivika **

- jain/jaina/jina

- tirt(h)ankar(a)/teert(h)ankar(a)

- tirt(h)amkar(a)/teert(h)amkar(a)

- neminat(h)(a)



None of the above turned up.



[...]

Several mentions of the name Aris(h)t(h)anemi do occur in the MBh, BUT none of these are referred to as the cousin of Sri Krishna (and no mention at all of Jainas, see above).

- One occurrence of it is the name that Sahadeva gives when in disguise.

- In a section specifically on *Brahmanas* (i.e. a type of Hindus): another is described as the brahmana son of Kashyapa/muni Tarkshya and specifically addressed as a Brahmana (Vedic Hindu Rishis are Brahmanas. Vaidika automatically implies not a Jaina either. And Rishis are certainly NOT Jainas no matter who stands on their head with the wish to make it so.)

- In another instance too, "Arishtanemi" is addressed as a Brahmana, related to Tarkhshya.

- Arishtanemi, as the progeny of Vinata along with Tark(s?)hya, Garuda and others, appears again when the descendants of various Suras and Asuras are being listed.

- And again, here an Arishtanemi is listed along with Tarkshya and Garuda etc.

I also searched for nirgrant(h)a in the English translation. No hits either.



* But important note: the word shramaNa has a general meaning in Vedic Skt (its original meaning), as already brought up in post 167 on the topic "ur-Shramanism" earlier in this thread. Back then, when searching in the transliterated *Skt* text of the MBh instead of its English translation, the word "shramaNa" occurred only in that original general Skt meaning, the same sense in which the word occurs in the Ramayanam too. So, also confirmed in Ganguly's MBh translation, there is certainly no remote indication of the use of the word "shramaNa" in the text having anything to do with Jainism/Buddhism/any other "Shramanism" - capital S. (Let alone the newly-concocted backward-projected ur-Shramanism.) So interested parties can't *make* it refer to them in any way, regardless of how desperate they may be.



**Note: Ajeevikas are an extinct type of Shramana - capital S - distinct from Jains and Buddhists. IIRC it was generally claimed - at least, when I last checked - that they started/existed chronologically before Jains and Buddhists. But even if Ajeevikas had been mentioned in the MBh, it is naturally no evidence for Jainism.]





Next to "shramaNa" (see note above), searched the available Skt full-text (transliterated) of the MBh for:

+ neminatha: no occurrence

+ tIrtha~Nkara: no occurrence

+ jaina: no occurrence of the relevant word. (Occurs as a mere substring of larger Skt words with distinct meanings, or as part of verb forms of visR^ijati and utsR^ijati (sp?) and the like joined with succeeding words. Searching for jina was not meaningful [while jIna bears little or no relation, apparently]: -jina- occurs as mere substring of actual Skt words all over the place. Plus apparently "jina" as a proper word in its own right also happens to be a reference to Vishnu, since its basic/literal meaning is listed as "victorious". But there was no need to look through all occurrences of the (sub)string anyway, as the search results from Ganguly's English translation of the MBh didn't show up a ref to Jaina or Jina anywhere.)

+ ajIvika: no occurrence of the relevant word (the substring occurred, but again as part of larger words that have distinct meanings in Skt.)

+ nirgrantha: no occurrence





[color="#0000FF"]2. MBh's "appendix", the Harivamsha[/color]

Searched an online version of (the original, hence implicitly Hindu) Harivamsha, itrans-transliterated version. Various recensions appear to be included, so it seemed like a ~relatively thorough place to perform the necessary searches.



First of all,

+ No results for case insensitive searches on: jain*, jina, shramaNa (even zramana), nirgrantha (I don't think nigantha - without the r - is Skt. It seems Prakrit, so I may have not have searched for it in the HV), also searched teerthan/~N/kara and tIrthan/~Nkara, neminAtha.



Note once more: even if shramaNa had occurred, it need not remotely imply Jainism, since it could be a reference once more to the word's original, plain Skt meaning.



And turns out, even if the word nirgrantha *had* occurred, it too has a more general Skt meaning apparently - being a Skt word and all - (and apparently has been used by Hindus in some Hindu texts in that plain meaning) and thus need not necessarily imply Jainism/Buddhism:

nirgrantha mfn. free from all ties or hindrances BhP. ; without possessions , poor L. ; a saint who has withdrawn from the world and lives either as a hermit or a religious mendicant wandering about naked Var. Buddh. ; a fool , idiot L. ; a gam. bler L. ; murder , manslaughter Gal. ; %{-thaka} mfn. unattended , deserted , alone L. ; fruitless L. ; clever , expert L. ; m. a naked Jaina or Buddhist mendicant L. ; n. (?) Jainism or Buddhism MW. ; %{-thana} n. killing , slaughter L. ; %{-tha-zAstra} n. N. of wk. ; %{-thi} mfn. free from knots , knotless L. ; without blemish , perfect (%{-thi-ramaNIyatA} , Can2d2ak.) ; %{-thika} mfn. clever , conversant L. ; = %{hIna} L. ; m. = %{-thaka} m.

Next,

[color="#0000FF"]All[/color] the Harivamsha shlokas that mention an [color="#0000FF"]ariShTanemi[/color] are covered in this post and the next (the next post being the relevant one):



+ HV Bhavishyaparva, where both 3.36.43 and 3.70.28 speak of the Vedic ariShTanemi who, along with his brothers the famous Vedic tArkShya, *Da* GaruDa, AruNi and AruNa, are the sons of Vinata. Clearly not the same as the family tree of the Jain Neminatha.

+ HV (Harivamsha-parva) 1.3.29-1.3.30 speaks of how the Vedic Rishi ariShTanemi prajApati married 4 of (Vedic God) Daksha's many many daughters. (DakSha gave some of his other daughters to further Vedic Rishis of founding lineages like Bhrigu, Angirasa and Kashyapa. And another 27 of Daksha's daughters - the constellations - were given to Vedic God Chandra.) Clearly this ariShTanemi can't be confused with Jainism's Neminatha who never married, forget having multiple wives.

+ HV 1.15.2-1.15.3: mentions the daughter of one ariShTanemi. Once more: can't mistake this one with Jainism's Neminatha who never married and remained celibate, I understand, and so didn't have children.



[color="#0000FF"]+ But it is HV chapters 1.34 and 1.38 that are relevant to the topic.[/color]

continued in the next post





[color="#FF0000"](Post edited to add search result summary of searching itrans of the *Skt* text of MBh.)[/color]

[Husky]

Post 9/?



([color="#FF0000"]Continued from previous:[/color] occurrences of AriShTanemi in the Harivamsha)



+ But it is HV chapters 1.34 and 1.38 that are relevant to the topic.



In this context, need to recall that the Jain narrative concerning their teerthankara Neminatha's lineage is (as stated in the Wackypedia entry):

[color="#0000FF"]Neminatha, the 22nd Tirthankara of the Jains, was the son of Samudra Vijaya and grandson of Andhakavrishni.[/color]

[color="#0000FF"]Both Harivamsha chapters 1.34 and 1.38 explicate (along the same lines, as far as I can tell by scanning through the translated text) the Yadava lineage to which kRiShNa/Balarama belong. In doing so, mention is made of one Chitraka in their family tree. The very many children of this Chitraka are enumerated briefly by name in both 1.34 and 1.38, one of whom is an ariShTanemi. While this ariShTanemi is indeed a cousin of KriShNa, he is an nth degree cousin (i.e. same generation in the family tree but they're not children born of siblings).[/color]



But:



1. [color="#0000FF"]this ariShTanemi is merely named, as being the son of Chitraka (in both 1.34 and 1.38) after which no more is said about him in the Harivamsha text.[/color] I.e. nothing at all from the Hindu side here to corroborate anything about the life-story of the Jain teerthankara Neminatha, let alone in the specific relative of kRiShNa in question. Instead, this particular Harivamsha ariShTanemi's life is left as is - other than stating his lineage down from Yadu and his many siblings' names. Harivamsha knows nothing more remarkable about him than it knows about his siblings, who (like many others in the family tree) are merely named in the text. No interaction of this ariShTanemi with kRiShNa is mentioned at all, let alone the Harivamsha corroborating any Jain story involving him.

The status quo is therefore that, the Yadava dynasty being a very *Vedic* dynasty of kShatriyas, ariShTanemi lived the average life of a kShatriya doing nothing to particularly distinguish himself from the rest (i.e. as heroic as the average Yadava).



(Can compare with - though also a point of interest in its own right - Ekalavya's mention in the Harivamsha 1.34.33 as "rumoured" to be of the same family tree as kRiShNa, indeed a direct cousin of kRiShNa: being born of his direct uncle. That would make Ekalavya a Yadava by birth, though the HV records this hearsay as him having been abandoned by his dad for unknown reason and having been instead brought up by the Nishada clan whose king he became under the name Ekalavya.

So when the HV knows to mention even a rumour about Ekalavya, why no mention of the alleged remarkable infamously anti-Vedic life of AriShTanemi who supposedly grew up right under the Yadavas' noses? There's an obvious answer to this question.)





[color="#0000FF"]2. The father of this HV AriShTanemi is not called Samudravijaya anywhere in the Harivamsha text.[/color] (The Jain Neminatha's father is called Samudravijaya.)





[color="#0000FF"]3. Indeed the term "samudravijaya" (also tried searching "samudra vijaya") does not occur anywhere in the Harivamsha text.[/color]





4. [color="#0000FF"]While Jain texts do refer to Neminatha as also being called AriShTanemi, it appears that even the Jains never historically claimed that Neminatha's father Samudravijaya was ever "also called Chitraka".[/color]

[For someone so prominently (and exclusively) known as Samudravijaya by Jains to not be known at all as Chitraka by them - and vice versa: for someone to be known exclusively as Chitraka in HV but not as Samudravijaya at all - says something. If both names were equally popular, surely that would have been documented. C.f. many a son and daughter born in the Yadava lineage - and other lineages - is mentioned in the HV by the multiple names they were known under, even when thereafter no more is said of them either.]



The fact that older Jain writings don't seem to have known to conflate the two names is further underlined when comparing the MW dictionary entries for both the names Samudravijaya and Chitraka. Again: doing so is useful *because* MW gives you an index into all major occurrences/sources of words and names:

1 samudravijaya m. N. of the father of the 22nd Arhat of the present Avasarpin2i1 L.

1 citraka m. a painter L. ; = %{-tra-kAya} MBh. vii , 1320 (%{cillaka} , C) Pan5cat. ; a kind of snake Sus3r. v , 4 , 33 ; (in alg.) ; the 8th unknown quantity ; Plumbago zeylanica , i , 38 ; iv ; Ricinus communis L. ; N. of a son (of Vr2ishn2i or Pr2is3ni Hariv. ; of Dhr2ita-ra1sht2ra MBh. i , 2740) ; of a Na1ga L. Sch. ; (pl.) of a people , ii , 1804 ; n. a mark (only ifc. `" marked or characterised by "' TBr. i , 1 , 9 , 5 Sch..) ; a sectarial mark on the forehead L. ; a painting Hariv. 7074 ; a particular manner of fighting (cf. %{-tra-hasta}) , 15979 (v.l. %{cakraka}) [397,3] ; N. of a wood near the mountain Raivataka , 8952.

Can see that the MW entry for Chitraka above does not know of any established Jain claims made to equate that name with Samudravijaya. I.e. it doesn't say anything along the lines of "Citraka N. of Samudravijaya father of 22nd Jain Arhat" in its list of meanings/sources/occurrences of the word, and definitely not to equate it with the Chitraka of HV.





5. And it appears [color="#0000FF"]Jains have now also -lately/at last- noticed the gaping hole, confirming that there is indeed no established/historical Jain literature forcing the connection between the two names (or 2 persons, rather):[/color]

In all of the web indexed by your famous search engine, there are only 2 relevant (i.e. Jain) search results mentioning both the names Samudravijaya and C(h)itraka together. The 2nd one doesn't appear to know/try to connect the two names at all, and seems to just list a Chitraka separate from a Samudravijaya. The first search result is what's interesting though, in that finally someone - the only person in all of the searchable internet - has decided it's time to force-fit the two names together using a "possibly" since otherwise the gaping hole (which exists only on their side of the story, since Hindus see no need - and have no actual evidence - to make the connection and have no need - and no evidence - to prove Neminatha's historicity) is too wide for all to see:

[PDF]Volume 1 - International School for Jain Studieswww.isjs.in/sites/all/themes/school/images/book1.pdf

Possibly, Citraka (Citraratha) was. Samudravijaya's other name. But in both traditions there are no two views about Kŗşņa and Arişţanemi being paternal cousins.



[PDF]22-Neminath Charitra.pdf - Jain24.orgwww.jain24.org/Tirthankaras/.../22-Neminath%20Charitra.pdf

Tejahsena, Jaya, Megha, Citraka, Gautama, Svaphalka, Sivananda, and Visvaksena, great warriors. Samudravijaya's younger brother, Aksobhya, who was not ...

So even after all these centuries, having now finally realised it, they only got as far as "Possibly" - thus admitting they have no actual literary "proof" even from their own end for actually equating the two names.

And this despite their writers having made apparently more than one Jain clone of the (original, Hindu) Harivamsha for Jainism, all for the purpose of inserting Neminatha/Jainism in there. Bad job. That it was indeed a poor job is further underscored by that other error they made:





6. The Jain narrative concerning their Neminatha's ancestry has one "andhakavrishni" as the name of Neminatha's grandfather.



[color="#0000FF"]But "Andhakavrishni" in Harivamsha~MBh period/context refers to the 2 houses/dynasties called Andhaka and Vrishni, which are lineages descended from the 2 brothers called Andhaka and Vrishni/Prishni. Chitraka is the son of Vrishni (also written Prishni) not of Andhaka. (I.e. there is no ariShTanemi known to the Harivamsha - and related to kRiShNa, or even not - who has a grandfather called Andhakavrishni.)[/color]

This last point is important because it reveals how Jain writers - writing their story much later to retrofit Neminatha into the earlier Mahabharata/kRishNa context - confounded Andhaka and Vrishni. They made this mistake because it is not really their 'history': as in, it's apparent they didn't know what they were talking about when they tried to involve themselves in other people's ancient 'history'-writing (as in: they weren't actually around then).



They just borrowed the MBh context for background/context and establishing their character (Neminatha), for giving it external authority and establishing their teerthankaras in history (and earlier history). The error comes from retrofitting, and a poor job at that.

I have no problem with people following their respective theologies. But they have no right to attempt to "prove" the historicity thereof by mangling (in order to piggyback on) other people's religio-history and religious texts. Actually, no illegal piggybacking full-stop.



[color="#0000FF"]In any case, the (implicitly Hindu) Harivamsha does not confirm either any ariShTanemi with a parent called Samudravijaya or one with a grandparent called Andhakavrishni, and it hardly need be added that the Harivamsha doesn't know of the Jain teerthankara or Jainism.[/color]



[color="#FF0000"]ADDED:[/color] On this again:

[PDF]Volume 1 - International School for Jain Studieswww.isjs.in/sites/all/themes/school/images/book1.pdf

Possibly, Citraka (Citraratha) was. Samudravijaya's other name. But in both traditions there are no two views about Kŗşņa and Arişţanemi being paternal cousins.

About the final line in the above: No. Let's be clear: an ariShTanemi is indeed cousin to kRiShNa as per HV. But nowhere in the HV - forget the MBh proper - is there any evidence about this cousin ariShTanemi being anything to do with Jainism let alone being the Jain teerthankara Neminatha. So there are indeed two views about kRiShNa concerning ariShTanemi: the original epic's Hindu view is no more than that kRiShNa had an nth degree cousin called ariShTanemi - with nothing more remarkable or memorable to be said about the matter. The Jain view is to forcibly conflate this Vedic epic ariShTanemi with the Jain teerthankara Neminatha in order to establish the latter's historicity in other people's religious-history, one that doesn't even know of any Jainism at that early point (of the MBh context).



Also, don't know wherefrom they got "Citraratha" as an alias for Chitraka. There are certainly Citraratha-s in Hindus' religion - e.g. the King of the Gandharvas whose name is Chitraratha (he appears in MBh IIRC) and viewed as an incarnation of Virinchi (brahmA) in Hindu temples. Persons Chitraratha by name are consequently also mentioned in the HV and MBh (or addressed with the descriptive in the Vedam) but none of these appear to be identified with Chitraka , see MW entry for the name:

1 citraratha (%{-tra4-}) mfn. having a bright chariot (Agni) RV. x , 1 , 5 ; m. the sun L. ; the polar star (Dhruva). BhP. iv , 10 , 22 ; N. of a man RV. iv , 30 , 18 ; the king of the Gandharvas AV. viii , 10 , 27 MBh. Hariv. Vikr. Ka1d. BhP. ; N. of a king Ta1n2d2yaBr. xx , 12 Pan5cat. ; of a king of the An3gas MBh. xiii , 2351 ; of a descendant of An3ga and son of Dharma-ratha Hariv. 1695 ff. BhP. ix , 23 , 6 ; of a snake-demon Kaus3. 74 ; of a son (of Gada or Kr2ishn2a Hariv. 9193 ; of Ushadgu or Rus3eku MBh. xiii , 6834 Hariv. 1971 BhP. ix , 23 , 30 ; of Vr2ishn2i , 24 , 14 and 17 ; of Gaja , v , 15 , 2 ; of Supa1rs3vaka , ix , 13 , 23 ; of Ukta or Ushn2a , 22 39) ; of a prince of Mr2ittika1vati MBh. iii , 11076 (cf. BhP. ix , 16 , 3) ; of a Su1ta R. ii , 32 , 17 ; of an officer Ra1jat. viii , 1438 ; of a Vidya1-dhara L. ; (%{a}) f. N. of a river MBh. vi , 341 ; (%{I}) f. a form of Durga1 Hariv. ii , 109 , 48 ; cf. %{caitraratha} ; %{-bAhlika} n. sg. g. %{rAjadantA7di}.

MW entry for andhakavrishni confirms:

1 andhakavRSNi %{ayas} m. pl. descendants of Andhaka and Vr2ishn2i.

[Husky]

Post 10/?





[color="#0000FF"](This post is a mere addendum to the previous one.)[/color]



One more post dedicated to covering the wackypedia paragraph concerning andhakavrishni. Because it is a case of logic so terrible that it provokes one into saying something about it. And hence it deserves its own post.



Wacky's Neminath page makes the following leaps of logic that make you question the sanity of whoever wrote it (my inserts are in purple and are actually relevant for once, and I did the numbering to show where the pretence at a logical argument/structure just collapses):

1. The Andhakavrishnis of Dwaraka in Kathiawar Region of present Gujrat state of India, as a republic is referred to in the Mahabharata, Arthashastra and Ashtadhyayi of Pāṇini. [verifiable predicate.]



2. The name of the Vrishni corporation is also found on a coin which on paleographical grounds dates to the 1st or 2nd century BCE. [Verifiable predicate.]



3. It seems that the republic was named after Andhakavrishni, the grandfather of Neminatha. [Mere speculation/leaping to conclusions. 2 baseless assumptions: that a person by name Andhakavrishni is "therefore" verified AND that it must be he who lent his name to the region/dynasty that 3 Hindu sources confirmed as being a republic called Andhakavrishni. I think the reference is to the Andhakavrishni dynasty rather than any geography by that name, because the ~first word in point 1 is "Andhakvrishnis" - which implies the reference is to a people.]



4. If Andhakavrishni is a real person, there seems to be little doubt that his grandson Neminatha was real. [Bad logic that doesn't even follow from the assumptions made in 3, forget 1 and 2.]

As stated before, the Harivamsha references to andhakavR^iShNi are to two distinct houses/lineages. Not just according to the traditional translations of Harivamsha, but even as per MW (as seen at the end of the previous post), the word "andhakavR^iShNi" refers to 2 houses:

1 andhakavRSNi %{ayas} m. pl. descendants of Andhaka and Vr2ishn2i.

- The Houses (dynasties...) of Andhakas and Vrishnis are mentioned together regularly in the MBh context (including MBh's appendix Harivamsha and IIRC Gita too).

- The House of vRiShni is certainly connected to kRiShNa - famously so - in the very texts that mention andhakavrishni. But that doesn't prove that the vRiShNi dynasty is connected to the Jain Tirthankara Neminatha. Let's be clear: no one is claiming that Andhakas and vRiShNis are not mentioned in the MBh or connected in some manner with Krishna. Simply that the historicity of the dynasty and historicity of any "Andhakavrishni" republic does not prove the existence of Neminatha (or even his grandfather Andhakavrishni).



"It seems the republic was named after" => they admit it has not been proven - let alone conclusively - that Andhakavrishni is named after a person and not simply named after the joint ancient clans of Andhaka and Vrishni, which is their original and established meaning. The Mahabharata context only knows of 2 brothers by name of Andhaka and Vrishni, from whom the Andhakas and Vrishnis descended, jointly called "andhakavrishni".

So all that the above statements can *conclusively* tell us is that an ancient republic by name AndhakavRiShNi was confirmed in 3 separate historical Hindu sources (and its name bears some relation to the Vedic andhaka and vRiShNi dynasties). As also seen in the MW dictionary entry above, at least in the MBh/HV - which is one of the 3 sources cited as "evidence" for attesting to the ancient "Andhakavrishni republic" - the references to "andhakavrishni" particularly means the *two* houses derived from Andhaka and Vrishni. Not anything derived from a single person called "Andhakavrishni". So the claimants can't invoke MBh/HV as proof for the name deriving from a single person called "Andhakavrishni" nor can they even invoke it as proof for the existence of a person by that name.)



Repeat: So all that the above wacky statements can *conclusively* tell us is that an ancient republic by name AndhakavRiShNi was confirmed in 3 separate historical Hindu sources (and its name bears some relation to the Vedic andhaka and vRiShNi dynasties).

=> Clearly the claimants haven't been able to confirm either a person called "Andhakavrishna" from those sources, else they wouldn't have used the word "seems" in the peculiar way they did ("it seems the republic was named after [their Andhakavrishna]" - they only *assumed* that the republic must be named after him), nor could they confirm teerthankara Neminatha from those same sources (and there's certainly no confirmation for him in the MBh among the listed sources), otherwise they wouldn't have had to resort to special pleading like "If Andhakavrishni is a real person, there seems to be little doubt that his grandson Neminatha was real".



Finally - because this type of bad argumentation grates:

(when trying to prove the historicity of a person B) -

proving a person A existed (assume for the moment a person called andhakavrishni existed in the necessary timeframe/geography) does not prove that a proposed character B is indeed his grandson unless B can be proven to have existed, firstly, and to indeed be the grandson of that particular person A (and not someone else by that name, say). That's why you can't make idiotic "conclusions" like "If Andhakavrishni is a real person, there seems to be little doubt that his grandson Neminatha was real." Let alone make the conclusion by pulling in the MBh/Panini/Arthashastra's "witness" for (nothing more than) Andhakavrishnis existing as a republic/dynasty. They don't remotely follow.



(BTW The Jain claims to the Vedic AndhakaVrishni/Vrishni dynasty are rather reminiscent of how they elsewhere claimed that Jainism gave rise to the ikShvaku dynasty too, despite this dynasty too being Vedic in origin and not Jain. Whether the matter concerns merely characters or actually historical persons is beside the point here. The point is that either way: originally Vedic, and not Jain, which only claimed it after the fact. Sort of like both Buddhism* and Jainism claim - mutually exclusively - to having instantiated/innovated/instituted the 4 varnas. The fact is, the 4 Varnas' origins are in the pre-existing Vedic religion, while the Buddhist/Jain claims were never launched until later. Indeed, not until much after Jainism/Buddhism appeared on the scene.

*Apparently, [late] Buddhism came up with a theology of Buddhist kings - stretching all the way back to 'The Beginning' whenever that is supposed to have been - one of whom was to have instituted the 4 varnas.)

[Husky]

Post 11/?



I can't even begin to guess how I missed this beauty - when it's *so* obvious anyone else would have spotted it first...



Wacky Neminath page declared:

Neminatha, the 22nd Tirthankara of the Jains, was the son of Samudra Vijaya and grandson of Andhakavrishni. Jains and some Hindus consider Neminath to be the cousin of Krishna..[3][4]

Krishna was son of Vasudev who was brother of Samudra Vijaya i.e. father of Neminath

That just clinches the issue, right?



As stated before: The only AriShTanemi mentioned as relative to kRiShNa-vAsudeva in the Harivamsha is not the son of any brother of vasudeva (kriShNa's father). (No ariShTanemi as relative of kRiShNa is mentioned in the MBh proper. Though I'm thinking that in this matter the HV would be considered more relevant than the rest of the MBh, assuming the title of Harivamsha really does mean what I imagine it means. In any case, HV certainly has at least a whole chapter devoted to the Balarama-kRiShNa duo's ancestry, so it comes in handy.)



Moreover, no samudravijaya is mentioned in the HV at all, so that means none by this name is mentioned as brother to vasudeva (father of Bala and kRiShNa) either. The enumeration of vasudeva's 9 brothers and 5 sisters is instead (mostly copy-and-paste):

- 9 brothers: "deva-bhAga, deva-shrava, anAdhR^iShTi, kanavaka, vatsavAn (translation says he's also known as vatsa-bhAnu), gR^i~njima, shyAma, shamIka, and gaNDUSha"

- 5 sisters: "pR^ithu-kIrti, pR^itha, shruta-deva, shruta-shrava and rAjAdhi-devi".



From what I can make of the family tree as explicated in HarivaMsha 1.34: The great-grandad of kRiSNa (devamIDhuSha) is brother of the great-grandfather of the only ariShTanemi named in HV who is related to kRiShNa. (ariShTanemi's great-grandad is named as yudhAjit.) The root paternal ancestor shared by kRiShNa and this HV-AriShTanemi is kroShTu, their great-great-grandfather.



So the score is:

- contrary to Jain claims, the only relative of kRiShNa called ariShTanemi that the HV knows about is NOT the son of vasudeva's brother. I.e. samudravijaya (or whatever his alias Jains want Neminatha's dad to have) is not ever mentioned as the brother of kRiShNa's dad vasudeva.

- All the male offspring of vasudeva's brothers are named and accounted for, even by rumour (i.e. Ekalavya). None of which are called ariShTanemi. Again, contrary to Jain claims.

- contrary to the Jain version, HV's ariShTanemi is not the son of anyone named samudravijaya but the son of chitraka. HV doesn't know any samudravijaya/samudra-vijaya/samudra vijaya.

- contrary to the Jain verison, HV's ariShTanemi's grandfather is not called "andhakavRiShNi" but vRiShNi/pRiShNi who is brother to andhaka.





Actually, can compare for oneself. [color="#0000FF"]Here's the relevant part of the Yadu family tree, as described in the translation of Harivamsha Chapter 1.34.[/color] (I don't *think* I've made any mistakes... <- But never trust other people's calculations: always work out the answer for yourself, to confirm/double-check.)





(Oh great. A blur "special effect" on the image. Courtesy of photobucket's 'resize' feature no doubt...)



Can compare the above with the Jain account which, to quote Wacky, is: "Krishna was son of Vasudev who was brother of Samudra Vijaya i.e. father of Neminath"

=> Clearly, not talking about the same thing at all.

[Husky]

Post 12/12



1. [color="#FF0000"]Important correction to post 200:[/color]

Not 3 but 4 occurrences of the word ariShTanemi (substring *riShTanem*) in the RV Samhita.

(Sorry, I had somehow saved the following under the occurrences in the Yajurveda [TS] instead.)

Still, it doesn't work out to refer to anything more than "uninjured felly" translation (Griffith) again:

स्थिरौ गावौ भवतां वीडुर् अक्षो मेषा वि वर्हि मा युगं वि शारि ।

इन्द्रः पातल्ये ददतां शरीतोर् अरिष्टनेमे अभि नः सचस्व ॥ (3.53.17) [To several named Gods, starting with Indran]



17 Strong be the pair of oxen, firm the axles, let not the pole slip nor the yoke be broken.

May Indra, keep the yoke-pins from decaying: attend us, thou whose fellies are uninjured.

Intend to include the above in post 200.





[color="#0000FF"]2. May as well list the search results for "ariShTanemi" (substring *riShTanem*) in the YV then, since the number of occurrences of this substring in the Yajurveda Taittireeya Samhita is now reduced to just one anyway. (Also searched the digitised Taittireeya Braahmana but found 0 occurrences there.)[/color]



Have typed it out along with some publicly available British-Raj-era translation of the line (translation by one AB Keith):

ayam uparyarvAgvasus tasya tArkShyash-cha-ariShTanemish-cha senAnigrAmaNyAv urvashI cha pUrvachittishchApsarasau vidyuddhetir avasphUrjan prahetistebhyo namaste no mR^iDayantu te yaM || (4.4.3.2)



"This above, bringing riches; the leaders of his host and bands Tarksya and Aristamemi, and Urvaçi and Parvacitti his Apsarases, his missile the lightning, his weapon the thunder."

Personally, I don't even think the line needed the translation for the purpose, since ariShTanemi is just listed alongside TaarkShya (followed by 2 apsaras and Ayudhas). And with nothing more descriptive said about either TaarkShya or AriShTanemi in the entire 4-4-3, can just conclude straightforwardly that the shloka is speaking of the 2 oft-mentioned brothers of the GaruDa-Vainateya known as TaarkShya and ariShTanemi, since these tend to be listed together in various old Hindu texts anyway (like MBh and HV, see post #203 above).

[Husky]

Another stream of posts.

[color="#0000FF"](The only relevant thing to read is the linked article in 1/6 - or the excerpts posted in 1/6 to 6/6 - and then can draw conclusions for oneself.)[/color]





Post 1/6



A lot of the assertions seen on the wacky pages for Neminath/Rishabha discussed above were apparently seen earlier - as early as 2001*, as per when internet archives stored it - in the following article.

*From memory, 2001 is before wackypedia got started or, at least, before it would have become popular enough for niche opportunists to descend.





[color="#0000FF"]fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm/affiliates/jainism/article/antiquity.htm[/color]



The article is a long list of assertions and suppositions by one by "Kailasha Chandra Jain, M. A. Jaipur" about the "antiquity of Jainism". The suppositions contained in it (e.g. "probably", "possible", a peculiar use of "it seems" etc) form further assumptions which are treated as fact by the time additional claims are launched based on them.



No comment on the URL structure, but there are several things noteworthy even on a cursory glance over the piece:



1. This article already contained entire paragraphs - practically verbatim - that are now in the wacky pages. E.g. the entire Ghora Angirasa section, the whole section which supposes that "Andhakavrishni, granddad of Neminatha" gave rise to a republic or dynasty by that name etc, and the whole bit on "Neminatha is mentioned in the Vedas, but the meaning is doubtful" stuff followed by some unreferenced aka alleged quote from the Yajurveda (though the digitised YV TaittirIya Samhita mentions only the AriShTanemi associated with Tarkshya and then only once, and I even looked in the TaittirIya BrAhmaNa which doesn't mention the word at all).

BTW, as I have only eyeballed the article, there may be further sections that wacky lifted from it. <- And all this without crediting the article in wacky's references section, I note. (Can we say plagiarism?)





2. The article claims most things also claimed by the looney fringe Jain Minority Forum. The difference is that it sounds less angry, but is no less fantastical or antagonistic.



Ur-Shramanism is therefore not peddled as such, since - unlike Buddhism - Jainism tends to declare that ur-Shramanism *is* Jainism. And so almost every other usual major claim seen peddled by the JMF is accounted for too: that Jainism is pre-Vedic, that it is the 'ancient, native religion of the native inhabitants of the subcontinent' - tentatively equated with dravoodians in one subsection at the link - who were then 'oppressed and marginalised and persecuted/converted by the invading Vedic oryans'. <= [color="#0000FF"]It's important to bear in mind that this spiel is a *very new, very recent* and very consciously-manufactured Jain self-perception that is becoming popular/being popularised among adherents: it is clearly predicated on the AIT and hence can not be older than AIT[/color] - and is in fact far younger. (And every little while they keep developing the fiction to even greater heights of melodrama.)



It can't fail to become evident that they have most opportunistically latched on to the AIT in their own favour: to expel the majority religion as "alien" and project their own as the "original native religion" and themselves/their religion as the subsequent victims of the "Vedic Oryan invaders" (by which only Brahmanas are always identified - for exactly the same reason that Buddhism historically targeted the same group in Buddhist propaganda literature: because everyone else is meant for conversion).



It is certainly a very calculated move on their part: the AIT is actually an eviction notice that targets Jains and Buddhists in equal measure (theirs is an inevitable ethnic inclusion), but by pretending that Jainism else ur-Shramanism/Shramanas (capital S) are the "indigenous religion of the IVC", they seek to direct the threat of eviction exclusively at Vedic religion and set the matter up so they themselves even come out as *winners* in the sordid deal: i.e. as the supposedly legitimate inheritors of not only the landscape but with a supposed and more legitimate claim on the majority population.





3. Imperative to note is also that this article is by what appears to be a mainstream Jain. (The article is further hosted under Jainism pages at harvard that are/were maintained by more mainstream Jains.)



Wacky's page on the Jaina Teerthankara "Rishabh" contains among its references the following:

Jain, Kailash Chand (1991). Lord Mahavira and his times. Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 9788120808058.

I suspect the two names - the author of the article under discussion and the author of the book published by Motilala Banarsidass - refer to the same person. If correct, that means the matter becomes even more mainstream: the Jain publishers Motilal Banarsidass IIRC were presented as "nationalist" or something by Hindus. Not the looney fringe.





4. If any *correctly* reads the various assertions made these days by Buddhists and Jains concerning Hindus' ancient religion - many of these assertions are outright hostile (e.g. claims on demonstrably Hindu temples, and pretences at this group and that group of Hindus having "originally" been Buddhist else Jain else anything else non-Hindu, or that thus-and-so Hindu religious scripture/section must instead be read as allegory for Vedic oppression of the poor put-upon Jains - or Buddhists too, via ur-Shramanism - backwards in time of course)

- again: if any correctly reads these various Buddhist/Jain assertions made against Vedic religion, it becomes clear that the propaganda is meant for missionising the population. But Hindus either don't notice it, or choose to ignore it or pretend that it's only a danger when anyone else does the same (e.g. christianism or dravoodianism=cryptochristianism).





There are two paragraphs and some other bits here and there that caught my eye in the article as I gave it a once-over, and which I therefore think is worth bringing up (next posts). I'm sure the entire piece would contain even more of the same, but then, it's not hard for Hindus to look up for themselves the actual Hindu texts and contexts on which Jains (and elsewhere Buddhists) stake their claims. And one can certainly come to definite conclusions about whether the claimants are telling the truth or sucking it all out of their thumb - as the NL phrase for spinning fictions AKA lying goes.

And Hindus clearly don't even need to know Skt in order to run searches in already-digitised and publicly available Hindu texts, nor to type out/copy and paste stuff. <- Note that I'm not saying that it is somehow okay for Hindus to be illiterate in Skt. I'm saying that even those utterly ignorant in Skt like myself have enough resources at hand and enough common-sense to look up stuff *sufficiently* to make reasoned decisions on the veracity of practically all the claims made. (And it would be that much more handy for refuting allegations if people were knowledgeable in the necessary languages and texts/materials.)

[Husky]

Post 2/6



This post concerns the following excerpt from the article mentioned above (my own comment in purple):

Jainism in the Rig Vedic Age

In the Vedic period, there were two kinds of saints-Yati, the enemy of Indra, the Vedic God and Muni-the friend of Indra.2 It seems that the saints of the Aryans who honored them were called the Munis while persons corresponding to the saints among non-Vedic people were probably called the Yatis. In the Tai. S. VI. 2. 75, we read ‘Indra threw Yatis to the Salavrikas (wolves)3 , they devoured them to the south of the Uttaravedi. The same words and story occur in the Kathaka Samhita VIII 5, the Ait. Br. 35. 3 and the Kausitaki Up. III, 1; in the last, Indra said to Pratardana, " do know me only. I regard this as the most beneficial thing to man that he should know me. I killed the three headed Tvashtra, I gave to the Salavrikas, the arunmukh yatis" In the Kathaka Samhita 10 and the Tai. S. II 4, 9, 2, it is stated that the heads of the Yatis when they were being devoured, fell aside and they (the heads) became the Kharjuras (date palms). Atharvaveda II, 53 says ‘Indra who is quick in his attack, who is Mitra and who killed Vritra as he did the yatis. In the Tandya Mahabrahmana VIII 1, 4, Brihadgiri is said to be one of the three Yatis who escaped from slaughter and who were then taken under his protection by Indra. All these passages taken together suggest that the Yatis were the people who had incurred the hostility of Indra, the patron of the Aryas and their bodies were therefore thrown to the wolves. A few of them who escaped slaughter were subsequently won over and became the worshippers of Indra. They therefore, in Rg. VIII, 6, 18; are described as praising Indra. These Yatis may probably represent the Jain Saints. Some of the saints are described as naked which indicates that they were Jain saints.

(When in reality, several kinds of Hindu ascetics are digambara - like the Hindus' God Shiva whose name is Digambara because it's accurate. Jains assume that just because a class of Jains took the word digambara as a self-reference, that this constitutes "proof" that the only digambara ascetics - and even the original digambara ascetics- "must" be Jain and that this must "therefore" be copied into Hinduism rather than preexisting in Hindus' religion.)



It seems that at the coming of the Aryans in India, the austerity was practiced by the natives. This idea of renunciation did not appeal to the society of the Aryans who had the optimistic outlook on life which is clearly reflected in hymns. The Rig-Veda is full of prayers for long life, freedom from disease, heroic progeny, wealth, power, abundance of food, drink, the defeat of the rivals etc. The people who liked renunciation were few in society. It seems that the invasion of the Aryans brought the destruction of the native culture and religion. The natives were forced to give up their own religion and to accept the culture of the invaders.



The Aryan invasion which overwhelmed the North Western and North Central provinces of the Sub-continent in the second millennium B. c. did not extend beyond the middle of the Ganges valley. The possession of the Aryans at the Rig-Vedic time was probably confined to Sapta Sindhu. The pre-Aryan nobility of the north eastern states were therefore not all annihilated. Many of the old families survived. Probably, the people of Kasi, Magadha and other neighboring countries were the followers of a different culture on whom curses used to be showered and troubles used to be invoked. Jainism was probable popular in the east where the Tirthankaras were born. Even when the eastern part of India was aryanised, it preserved considerable differences from the midlands in the points of language, ethnic elements and culture. Probably, the Vratyas mentioned in Atharva Veda1 and Panchavimsa Brahmana of Samaveda lived there.2 The Panchavimsa Brahmana describes peculiarities of the Vratyas. They did not study the Vedas. They did not observe the rules regulating the Brahamanical order of life. They called an expression difficult to pronounce when it was no difficult to pronounce (?) and spoke the tongue of the consecrated through un-consecrated3 . This proves :hysteria: that they had some Prakritic form of speech.4 The Prakrit language is specially the language of the canonical works of the Jains. Jayaswal states that they had traditions of the Jinas and Buddhas amongst them even before the sixth century B.C. It seems that they were the followers of the Jainism which is known to have come into existence even before the sixth century B. C.

Can count how often the writer uses "probably" to peddle the notion that the vedas must have known Jains under the term "Yati" (and "Vratya" etc) and that the Vedic Hindus persecuted these (allegedly the Jains) and replaced their religion and more typically back-projected sobstories. The pattern of their pseudo-logical structure is to first propose a theory using "probably/it seems", and then to usually follow it by one or two definite-sounding pseudo-"conclusions" that are based on that theory, before proceeding to the next "probably/it seems" to advance their story-telling further. (My favourite bit however is where they introduced the phrase "this proves" without it actually following on from anything verifiable.) A whole stream of claims and no actual proof.





But the real focus of this post is that all their claims in the above is actually based on their starting, foundational assumption that the Yati references in the Vedam are to Jains. It is from this assumption (and they admit it is an assumption with the very first "probably" they throw around in this section) that they build all their subsequent web of inane claims.



The fundamental problem exhibited above is one common to both Jains and Buddhists: after they eventually appeared, they in time latched onto ancient pre-existing Vedic Skt words and began using it as self-references, so that such words *gained* an *additional* meaning of something Jain and Buddhist. However, it was never the word's original meaning and certainly not its sole meaning. And it was not in that sense that it was used in the Vedas.

Yet, that has not stopped Buddhists or Jains from backprojecting such additional, later-acquired meaning of such words into earlier texts, in order to thereby *force-read* themselves into such texts as "proof" of external (in particular Hindu) validation of their own earlier existence.



While Buddhists tend to peddle that Muni (like Shaastaa etc) "must" refer to Buddhism, Jains apparently want to corner Yati. However, this particular word (Yati) turns out to be an interesting exception.

In the context of the additional meanings that Skt words acquired since Jainism/Buddhism: "Jina" can refer to both Buddists or Jains. "Shramana" can refer to any of Ajeevikas, Buddhists and Jains. "Arhats" (and similar) can also be a reference to Buddhists and Jains, etc. Though these are of course not the only (let alone original or plain) meanings of these older Skt words.

[Even one or more names are considered names of both Buddhas and Jain Teerthankaras and other personages. But historical plagiarism owing to competition between them - and among other such Indic religions that arose and existed at the time - worked in both directions.]



However, while Jina/Shramana/Arhat/Muni/etc were in time used as self-references by Buddhism/Jainism for Buddhist and Jain personages - though this still being only one of their meanings - it does not appear that Yati ever acquired an additional particularly-Buddhist/particularly-Jain meaning.

That is, even in post-Jain/Buddhist centuries, the Vedic Skt word Yati appears to be less a specific term for Buddhists or even Jains than even Muni is. Also, to pretend that the Vedas or the Vedic traditions like the Mahabharatam saw Yati as a negative is another typical deception, as even seen in the MW dictionary/lexicon entries for Yati and Muni:

1 yati 1 m. (for 2. and 3. see col. 2 and p. 845) a disposer RV. vii , 13 , 1 (Sa1y. `" a giver "') ; `" a striver "' , an ascetic , devotee , one who has restrained his passions and abandoned the world Up. Mn. MBh. &c. (cf. IW. 131) ; N. of a mythical race of ascetics (connected with the Bhr2igus and said to have taken part in the creation of the world) RV. &c. &c. ; N. of a son of Brahma1 BhP. ; of a son of Nahusha MBh. Hariv. Pur. ; of a son of Vis3va1mitra MBh. ; N. of S3iva MBh. ; = %{nikAra} or %{kAra} L.

2 yati 2 (fr. 3. %{ya} correlative of %{ta4ti} ; declined only in pl. nom. acc. %{ya4ti}) , as many as (= Lat. {quot}) , as often , how many or often RV. (for 1. and 3. %{yati} see col. 1 and p. 845).

3 yati 3 f. (for 1. and 2. see p. 841 , cols. 1 and 2) restraint , control , guidance TS. Br. ; stopping , ceasing , a pause (in music) Sam2gi1t. ; a caesura (in prosody) Pin3g. ; (also %{I}) f. a widow L.

4 yAti see %{ahaM-yAti}.



1 muni m. (accord. to Un2. iv , 122 fr. %{man}) impulse , eagerness (?) RV. vii , 56 , 8 ; (prob.) any one who is moved by inward impulse , an inspired or ecstatic person , enthusiast RV. AV. Br. ; a saint , sage , seer , ascetic , monk , devotee , hermit (esp. one who has taken the vow of silence) S3Br. &c. &c. (with %{hRdayeSu@sthitaH} , the internal monitor or conscience Mn. viii , 91) ; a Bra1hman of the highest (eighth) order , Hcst. ; N. of a son of Kuru MBh. ; of a son of Dyuti-mat Ma1rkP. ; of Vya1sa Kir. ; of Bharata Sa1h. ; of Agastya L. ; of a Buddha or Arhat Lalit. ; of Pa1n2ini &c. (cf. %{-traya}) ; of other nien VP. ; of various authors Cat. ; of various plants (Agati Grandiflora , Buchanania Latifolia , Butea Frondosa , Terminalia Catappa , the mango-tree and Attemisia Indica) L. ; pl. `" the celestial Munis "'N. of the seven stars of Ursa Major (and there fore a symbolical N. for the number `" seven "') Var. Su1ryas. S3rutab. ; (%{i}) f. a female Muni (also %{I}) Un2. iv , 122 Sch. ; N. of a daughter of Daksha (and wife of Kas3yapa) , mother of a class of Gandharvas and Apsaras (cf. %{mauneya}) MBh. Hariv. Pur. ; n. N. of a Varshs (called after a royal Muni) VP.

In the above, can note how Yati has a basic meaning, with which it appears with in Vedic and Itihasa texts, and how it is therefore used as proper names of Vedic persons and Gods (e.g. MW entry above lists Yati as the name of Rishi Vishvamitra's son, as directly associated with the Brighus Rishis, and as Shiva's personal name too etc), all while "Yati" is not in any of its assigned meanings a peculiar synonym for Jain/Buddhist <- can then compare *that* with how one of the later and additional meanings of Muni is a reference to a Buddha/Arhat. (Though the original pre-Buddhist/pre-Jaina meaning of the Vedic Skt term Muni of course referred to Hindu persons alone.)



Can also look up the meanings that MW gives for shramaNa and see how in only an additional sense does "shramaNa" (later) acquire the meaning of something Buddhist/Jain, whereas the Hindu/plain meaning is the unambiguous sense in which it was used in the pre-Shramanic Hindu contexts such as Ramayanam and MBh:

1 zramaNa mf(%{A} or %{I}) n. making effort or exertion , toiling , labouring, (esp.) following a toilsome or menial business W. ; base , vile , bad ib. ; naked L. ; m. one who performs acts of mortification or austerity , an ascetic , monk , devotee , religious mendicant S3Br. &c. &c. ; a Buddhist monk or mendicant (also applied to Buddha himself cf. MWB. 23 &c. ; also applied to a Jain ascetic now commonly called Yati) MBh. R. &c. ; N. of a serpent-demon Buddh. ; (%{A} or %{I}) , a female mendicant or nun L. ; a hard-working woman L. ; (%{A}) f. a handsome woman L. ; = %{zabarI-bhid} , %{mAMsI} , %{muNDIrI} L. ; n. toil , labour , exertion S3a1n3khS3r.

2 zrAmaNa n. (fr. %{zramaNa}) g. %{yuvA7di} ; (%{I}) f. N. of a plant L.

Note that the first meaning of the word that's made blue follows the meaning of the last blue bit, which is described above as the sense it has in the Vedic [color="#0000FF"]shaa~Nkhaayana-shrauta-suutra ("S3a1n3khS3r").[/color]

And the 2nd meaning emphasised in blue references the way the word is used in the Vedic [color="#0000FF"]shatapatha-braahmaNa ("S3Br").[/color]

(Neither implying it's used as a reference to Jainism/Buddhism.)



Certainly, such pre-Buddhist/pre-Jain (and pre-Ajeevika) meanings is what the Skt word shramaNa ever had in the Ramayanam (and Mahabharatam and all earlier texts). It's a later-devised *additional* meaning that the word shramaNa can also stand as a synonym for (particular kinds of) Buddhists or Jains.



And the above MW entry further states about the word shramaNa that it's "also applied to a Jain ascetic now commonly called Yati". The use of the word "now" in MW concerning Yati seems to imply that, while Yati can be used as a descriptive (i.e. in the plain vanilla meaning it has) for Hindu and eventually non-Hindu ascetics, it appears not to actually have become a synonym for Jains [or Buddhists] until more recently (i.e. "recent" being relative to the time of the Monier-Williams lexicon). [color]<- If so, then that just put an even greater damper on the legions of claims that pivoted around the assumption that Yati is an equivalent for ancient Jains.[/color]



[color="#0000FF"]The subsequent claims the author had thereafter launched - *based* on their Mere Assumption that the "Yati" referred to in the Vedas was magically a reference to ancient Jains - now falls through:[/color] the whole sobstory of their theorised victimisation by the Hindus (mass slaughter of their kind and other stuff they read there), of the hypothesised replacement of their religion by the Vedic Hindus, and even the pretence (I mean assumption) of Jains having existed in the Vedic era by claiming that their alleged existence was acknowledged by the Vedas - all of it just falls down flat. <- But that's what happens when a base assumption - on which a massive web of further assumptions/insinuations are built around - turns out to be hollow: sort of like when you take the foundation layer away from a house of cards and it all comes crashing down.



When Yati has many meanings - and none of which originally referred to Jains or Buddhists - and when the Vedas uses the words in their *original* meanings in the Vedic context, what gives others the right to mangle the Vedas by force-reading themselves into it and then to further invent a whole edifice of slanderous fictions (propagandic lies) aka pseudo-history based on self-favouring conjecture, all in order to set themselves up as the beknighted victims and the Hindus as invading oppressors. (In reality, the Hindus are the victims - of presumptuous and calculated insinuations. Anyone can look over the pasted article excerpt again to see the extent of the motivated speculations/insinuations.)



Continued in next.

[Husky]

Post 3/6



(Connected with the excerpt pasted in the previous post.)



Some other things:



- With the statement "the Prakrit language is specially the language of the canonical works of the Jains" the author seemed to imply Pkt is one language. Meanwhile, the Jain canon is said to be written in Ardha MagadhI, which is just one of the Pkts. Not even the earliest one. Even its name indicates it's a spin-off of MagadhI, which I'm just going to assume is an earlier Pkt. But hopefully that was an error on the writer's part. (Still, with their whole encroachment/pouncing on Pkt, it makes one wonder whether they're next going to pretend that Pkt is native and independent from "alien" Skt, and that Pkts are the native ur-Shramanic/Jain tongues? Actually I wouldn't put it past them: they certainly sound deluded enough to try. And it would not be *more* absurd than several of their other claims. And would in fact make their absurdity internally-consistent.)



- And oh yeah, even if the Sapta Sindhu is where the Vedam had its geographic wellspring - this was Talageri et al, right? (note it ain't just the AIT-ers that were listening and using absolutely anything that comes out of all the 'analyses' as ammo/incorporating it all for use against Hindus) -

Again: even if the Sapta Sindhu were the originating locus, by the time of the Vedic epic MBh - whose context is further east and which recollects a long history of Vedic society there stretching back - the MBh *still* hasn't heard of Jainism. Yet the same MBh does however know of long lineages of Vedic Hindus in this more eastern (eastern w.r.t. Sapta Sindhu) part of the subcontinent. <= And that just undermines the entire Mere Assertion of "the east was probably Jain when the Sapta Sindhu was conquered/settled by the invading Vedic Oryans". These guys have absolutely nothing to back up their assertions - their probablies and possiblies don't count - but that doesn't stop them from spinning fictions in every possible direction. Which just goes to show they *know* they're making it up as they go along (i.e. fibbing, lying). They're not innocent. They know *exactly* what they're doing. And why they do it. (The Why is in the credo - affirmation of Jain theology of sanatana-ness - at the end of the linked article.)



But Yuck.



Over and over (and over) again, these nouveau religions - which have no actual internal evidence for their own alleged ancientry - resort to *using* [by mangling] pre-existing Hindu sacred literature (and pre-existing Hindu contexts) to "prove their ancientry" by falsely force-reading themselves into said literature, even as they then proceed to paint Hindus/Hindu religion as the villain by inventing morbid fictions (i.e. lies) against these. That is, they both:



1. need Hindus' religion to prop themselves up - thereby implicitly acknowledging that Hindu texts are of verifiably-older traditions than their own (else their own traditions would also be universally recognised as quite so ancient just based on their own testimony, nah?) - and



2. want Hindus/Hindu religion to get denounced as oppressor and evicted as alien, in order to claim for their own late religions both superiority and uniqueness (i.e. nativeness as well as being influential toward Vedic religion, instead of the reality of the direction of travel of influence).



* The language used in the Vedam is externally dated - even were it not accurately - to a time that relatively predates Jainism/Buddhism. Whatever the date assigned (and re-assigned), the *relative* difference is going to be unavoidable (as also the direction of language derivation being Skt to Pkt). I.e. the chronological ordering is always going to be there. And elaborate theologies can't do anything about that. Which is why there's all this frequent desperate backward-projection onto the Vedam and itihAsas by the non-Hindus (the later Indic religions).

[Husky]

Post 4/6



Concerning this next section in the article:

Jainism in the Period of Ramayana

The period of Ramayana is earlier than Mahabharata. The majority of the scholars believe most of the events and persons connected with the story of Ramayana to be real and historical. The oldest available Jain version of Rama epic is Paumachariya in Prakrit which was composed in 530 years after the Mahavira-nirvana according to the statements of the author named3 Vimala Suri. It belongs to about the same period as the oldest Brahaminic version, the Ramayana of Valmiki i.e. to the first century B. C. No doubt Vimal seems to be acquainted with the other works on the life of Rama but he criticizes them as giving false and fantastic statements. On the other hand, he himself claims to give a real and true account of the life of Rama, based on the words of Tirthankara Mahavira. The story of Ramayana as stated in the Jain Puranas is substantially similar to the account of Valmiki1 But the way in which the Jain version differs from the Brahaminic Ramayana throws a very significant light on the position of Jainism. According to the Jain version, Ravana and Raksas were highly cultured people belonging to the race of the Vidyadharas and were great devotees of Jina.2 But the Hindu tradition depicted them as evil natured and irreligious demons because they were antagonistic to the sacrificial cult of the Vedic sages. At the same time, they were defeated, therefore, they become the demons in the hands of the poets. Considering these two accounts together, it seems that the Vedic people denounced the Rakshas because they were the followers of Jainism. F. E. Pargiter also asserts the Jains were treated as Asuras and Daityas by the3 Hindus. Rama, his brother Laksamana and their enemy Ravana were 63 prominent personages (the trisastisalaka purushas) of the Jain traditions where in the Raksas and Vanaras of the Ramayana have been described not as semihuman or demons but as highly civilized and cultured human beings of the Vidyadhara race who were mostly devotees of the Jina.



Even in the Yoga Vasistha Ramayana in the Chapter of Vairagya, Rama expresses to be of a peaceful nature like4 Jinendra. There is also mention in the Ramayana of Valmiki that the king Dasaratha, the father of Rama entertained the sramanas as the5 guests. The word sramana indicates the Jain saints and not saints of Buddhism which is of late origin.



Thus, it seems that Jainism was in existence in the period of Ramayana according to the Jain traditions. Lord Munisuvarta, the 20th Tirthankara is said to be the contemporary of Rama.1 Munisuvratanatha seems to be as real person as Rama himself.

1. The above is in error as regards dating: the very same western chronology that now dates Valmeeki Ramayana to a few centuries BCE - between half a millennia BCE to 100 BCE - dates the "Paumacariya" as I think it's called (which is the earliest of many Jain plagiarisms of the Vedic itihAsa Ramayana) to somewhere between 2nd to 4th centuries CE as its exact composition date within this period is unknown.



Meaning: Jains can't have it both ways.

- Either the Valmeeki Ramayanam's composition gets dated to even earlier than its present dating of 500 BCE to 100 BCE (c.f. in the British era, Kalidaasa - of Raghuvamsha etc fame - was dated 1st century BCE), in which case the Jain Paumacariya can then be put back to 1st century BCE (i.e. still no overlap)

- OR the Valmeeki Ramayanam is - though still dated BCE - some centuries closer at 500-100 BCE, making the Paumachariya 2nd century CE at its earliest/for its earliest parts.

(Fortunately for Jains, Hindus are more charitable and date the Paumachariya to 1st century CE.)



Either way though, Valmeeki's Ramayanam still works out older. And always will, since there's a relative chronology that puts a gap between the two since there most definitely is a gap. A significant one actually.

So, no matter how close the west brings Indic chronology to the present, there is always going to be a *relative* time gap between Valmiki Ramayanam and the first Jain spin off it, and never an overlap of the two periods of composition.

Paumacariya - Vimalasūri, Hemasāgarasūrī - Google Books

Poem in Āryā metre, Uddesa and Pavva, based on the Rāmāyaṇa and adapted to the Jaina point of view; composition date unknown, 2nd-4th centuries A.D.

Anyway, not even the west pretends the oldest Jain spin off of the Hindu Ramayana is the original view.





The contextually-Vedic Ramayana and Mahabharata are actually extremely ancient at their core content. Besides, even looking past the (issue of the dating of the) Valmeeki composition, the 2 itihasas were "ancient" narratives among even ancient Hindus. And the context of both original itihAsas is exclusively Vedic - i.e. a Vedic-era setting, hence neither of them knowing of Jainism or anything so late.



As stated, there are numerous Jain clones of the Vedic Ramayanam, apparently not even quite consistent with each other on certain important points. But may come back to this later.





2. Like Gandharvas, Kinnaras, Apsaras, Yakshas/Yakshinis etc, the Vidyadharas are Divine *Vedic* beings (e.g. MBh and HV already mentioned them, same with Kinnaras). They're not Jain/Buddhist/what-have-you, or "devoted to Jain Jinas" as is being claimed. The latter making any pretences at Vidyadhara-s (or Kinnara-s and Yaksha-s etc), would just indicate another instance where they plagiarised these beings from Vedic cosmology into their own cosmologies, as they did much else - all while they've badmouthed the Vedic religion. (Same as how they plagiarised the Vedic epic Ramayanam and badmouthed the Vedic religion of both Rama and Ravana.)





3. On the totally irrelevant reference to Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana in the article:

Even in the Yoga Vasistha Ramayana in the Chapter of Vairagya, Rama expresses to be of a peaceful nature like4 Jinendra.

How is bringing this up even relevant to an argument for Jain historicity/existence in the Vedic era?



- The Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana (a work on Yoga + Advaitam, I understand [?]) is currently dated 10th or even 11th century CE. Whatever the date, the relative chronology with the pre-existing Hindu itihasa is what is pertinent here. Now, that's not to detract from anything meaningful the text might have to say, but one does note:

- *Even* if the text did know the existence of Jainism - it certainly would not be surprising if it did at this late stage in Indian history - this can't remotely constitute "proof" that the original RAmAyaNa context, being Vedic and pre-Jain/pre-Buddhist etc, "therefore" knew of Jainism.

- But as it so happens, I still can't find a mention of "jinendra" in the digitised text of the YVR at all: I searched through the transliterated text (note: this too is available for public scrutiny, so people can check for themselves) and can't find "jinendra" or "jina indra" in the entirety of it. (And I even threw in a search for jīnendra, just in case this turned out to be relevant somehow). The available transliterated text certainly looks complete, as it froze my browser for a huge time while it loaded. But then the YVR text is supposed to be huge.

- The searches even ran over some famous commentary on the original work. Turns out even the commentary didn't use "jinendra"/"jina indra". (BTW: there's no "jaina" in the entire text or its commentary either.)



So: where did the claimant pull this assertion of "jinendra" in the YVR from? Don't know.

And more importantly, *again*: even if the YVR did mention it, how would that prove anything about the original (Vedic) Ramayanam?





4. More importantly, on this next claim advanced:

"There is also mention in the Ramayana of Valmiki that the king Dasaratha, the father of Rama entertained the sramanas as the5 guests. The word sramana indicates the Jain saints and not saints of Buddhism which is of late origin."

They wish.

How hysterical: Buddhists choose to read it as a reference to themselves (and as proof of their existence at the time the epic was set in), whereas the Jains insist the reference must be exclusively to themselves, in exclusion of Buddhism (which Jains graciously admit is of late origin). Laughable. Especially when the word shramaNa - plain meaning, i.e. lowercase s - indicated Hindu Yati long before the Jains and Buddhists appeared, and yet even more time had to still pass before people started to pretend that shramaNa referred to the latter groups (let alone exclusively).



BTW, what the Jain article is conveniently omitting is that the [clearly Vedic] shramaNas invited as guests by Dasharatha were....invited specifically for the occasion of a very major Vedic Yagnya. [I *think* this was moreover an ashvamedha (?)]



So it sounds like yet another case of Jains merely looking through ancient Hindu texts for a word they think/hope/dream refers to them exclusively, but where they forgot to bother to read the circumstances in which the word occurred and which circumstances just underline how it really can't refer to Jains (or Buddhists etc). And not only because Jains didn't even exist in the Ramayana context, but because the circumstances of the very instance they point to are as damning [to their intention/pretensions] as a Vedic yagnya.



Actually, at this point, it's useful to repeat that quote from the VR site posted earlier in this thread, where it argued that people can refrain from jumping to the desperate conclusion that the Ramayana "must" have been written when Buddhism had already appeared in the world, merely because people noticed the pre-existing Skt word shramaNa occurring in the Valmiki Ramayanam. Here, this bit:



valmikiramayan.net/bala/sarga14/bala_14_prose.htm

Some scholars tend to conclude that Ramayana might have been written in post Buddhist period by finding the words like shramaNa etc., the famous wandering Buddhist monk sect. The word shramaNa in Sanskrit means only a pilgrim, and pilgrimage is an ordained aspect of salvation as per Indra is the friend of traveller. Therefore wander - aitareya brahmaNa [VII.33.3] The Buddhist shramaNa -s are the wandering monks in search of converts whereas Hindu shramana-s are pure sanyasi-s wandering for their own salvation.

(BTW, this last link seems to me to confirm that the occasion of the shramaNa guests at the Vedic Yagnya is indeed one that involved an ashwamedha.)



To repeat the MW lexicon entry for shramaNa again:

1 zramaNa mf(%{A} or %{I}) n. making effort or exertion , toiling , labouring, (esp.) following a toilsome or menial business W. ; base , vile , bad ib. ; naked L. ; m. one who performs acts of mortification or austerity , an ascetic , monk , devotee , religious mendicant S3Br.=shatapatha-braahmaNa &c. &c. ; a Buddhist monk or mendicant (also applied to Buddha himself cf. MWB. 23 &c. ; also applied to a Jain ascetic now commonly called Yati) MBh. R. &c. ; N. of a serpent-demon Buddh. ; (%{A} or %{I}) , a female mendicant or nun L. ; a hard-working woman L. ; (%{A}) f. a handsome woman L. ; = %{zabarI-bhid} , %{mAMsI} , %{muNDIrI} L. ; n. toil , labour , exertion S3a1n3khS3r=shaa~Nkhaayana-shrauta-suutra.

2 zrAmaNa n. (fr. %{zramaNa}) g. %{yuvA7di} ; (%{I}) f. N. of a plant L.

Continued in next.

[Husky]

Post 5/6



(Still on the article's Ramayanam section pasted in the previous post.)





5. Interesting pretence that the earliest Jain plagiarism I mean clone of the Vedic Hindu Ramayana is at least "as authoritative" as the (original, Hindu) Ramayanam. And a quaint plea that people should recognise that the Ramayana narrative/tradition must "therefore" be originally Jain. Except that Jains - like the Buddhists - are famous for being unable to keep even their version of the story quite straight throughout their many spins on it:



At an online site geared toward a Hindu target audience (the Bharatabharati blog I think it was), a Jain commenter declared: "Sita, Lord Rama’s wife was also Jain according to Jain scriptures" [a literal quote]. Note the declaration is for missionary purposes: only Jains could attach theological value to their late texts - late even by Jain standards - and refer to it for authority in the face of a Hindu audience; an audience with an older Hindu tradition on the subject, one where where Sita was never a Jain but a Vedic Hindu. But who the commenter expected to convince - other than their own kind - of this quaint credo is beyond my ability to fathom.



But the fact that they specifically didn't make the same claim about Rama or Ravana that they made concerning Sita, implies that the Jain "scripture" the commenter was quoting for authority *here*, differs from both a. Vimala Suri's earlier Jain clone of the Vedic Ramayanam (where Ravana and his kind were all magically turned into "originally Jains", misrepresented/marginalised by Vedic religion) and b. the Jain clone by one Ravisenacharya below, where, Rama Lakshmana and Hanuman are all Jains and moreover have 1000s of wives each. I'm not sure how many wives the Bauddhified clones of Ravana and Rama were meant to have, but no doubt Jain claimants will dismiss equally-valid (or rather, equally invalid) Buddhist claimants as "unauthoritative"...





vedamsbooks.com/no57443/jain-rama-katha-or-padma-purana-padmacarita-composed-sanskrit-by-ravisenacarya-seventh-century-ad-vols-i-ii-shantilal-nagar.htm

Jain Rama Katha or Padma Purana : Padmacarita: Composed in Sanskrit by Ravisenacarya (In the Seventh Century A.D), Vols. I and II



<snipped chapter listing>



"The story of Ramayana has been dominating the Indian religious scene from the time immemorial. After the composition of the story by the great sage Valmiki in the form of Ramayana, there had been a great boost in its popularity, which very much impressed the masses in general. Soon the story was patronized in regional languages by the local authors but there was no death of the literature in Prakrt as well. In due course of time the story was patronized in Jainism. The first creation of the story in Jainism was in Prakrt by Vimala Suiri under the title of Paumacarya by about the first century A.D., followed by Vasudevahindi by Sanghadasa in the start of the seventh century A.D. While Ravisenacarya composed Padma Purana also known as Padmacarita in Sanskrit by about the close of there seventh century A.D. Thereafter several works on the Ramayana were created in Jainism. The present Padma Purana of Ravisenacarya is the unique work of its kind and comes under the category of the Mahakavyas. It has the style of its own and is beyond comparison, though there are several deviations in the story as compared to the story of Valmiki. In this work Rama, Laksmana and Sita besides other characters have been projected as the followers of Jina dharma, who perform Vratas prescribed in Jainism, adore the Jina ascetics, Jina images, Jina temples and even build the Jina temples and finally achieve Jina-diksa. More than the story of Rama, the work lays emphasis on following the Jina dharma and highlights the merits one earns by doing so. Though Rama and Laksmana are claimed to have all the virtues, but they are not devoted to one wife. Both Rama and Laksmana are said to have thousands of wives and so is the case with Hanuman. [...]"

Apparently, next to declaring that one Indra achieved Jain nirvANa - a character who, charitably put, must be a Jain clone of the Vedic Indra (comparable to the Buddhist clone(s) of the same, who are however mutually exclusive to the Jain versions again. My, so many Indra-s among people seeking to evict Vedic religion as alien and as oppressors....) -

But next to that, the chapter overview of the above work shows that the composition provides a convenient listing/hagiography of the Jain teerthankaras. The pre-existing Ramayana of Hindus' religion is used as backdrop not only to Jainise the context of it - backwards in time - but to insert the later Jain teerthankara listing into it, to provide these persons with some historicity and in an earlier era/earlier setting. Just as the (late) Jain clones of the Vedic Harivamsha were used as a backdrop for the Jain Neminatha in order to backdate him and serve as "proof" that he existed in the era/context the Harivamsha/MBh's Vedic society was set. [I'm going to guess that's what the late Jain clone of the Vedic Mahabharata does too.]





And an 8th century CE Jain Ramayana has a summary at the same site too. The summary further describes Vimala Suri's earlier version, and appears to notice what the real reason for that earliest Jain take on the [earlier, original, Hindu] Ramayanam was: "reactionary" -



www.vedamsbooks.com/no28051/jain-ramayanapaumacaryu-rendering-into-english-apabhramsa-shantilal-nagar

Jain Ramayana-Paumacaryu : Rendering into English from Apabhramsa



Contents: Preface. 1. Vidyadharakanda. 2. Ayodhya kanda. 3. Sundarakanda. 4. Yuddhakanda. 5. Uttarakanda. Hymn of glory. Index.



"The Ramayana has been popular with the masses of the country from the time immemorial. Initially it was known in fragments or in the form of folk tales but after the composition of the Ramayana by the sage Valmiki, there had been a boost in its popularity. The importance of the story of Rama became quite wide-spread and it influenced the hearts of the poets irrespective of the religious barriers. After the composition of the text by the sage Valmiki, the text influenced the poets of the other faiths like the Buddhism and Jainism. Though the adoption of the story was not quite impressive with the Buddhist but with the Jainas, however, it became quite popular and it was Vimala Suri who for the first time composed Paumacaryu (Padmacarita) by about the beginning of the Christian era. It was a sort of reaction to various mythological statements of Valmiki or the critical appreciation of his work. Vimala Suri was indeed the forerunner of the Ramayana of the later Jaina poets. Thereafter there had been a continuous flow of Jaina Ramayana works right from the Gupta period to the late medieval times and over a dozen works on Rama were composed by these Jaina poets, and each one of them his own importance. The present work Jain Ramayana-Paumacaryu has been composed by Svayambhu by about the 8 century A.D. which has been rendered from Apabhramsa language into English for the convenience of the readers."

Sure it wasn't initially popular among the Buddhist monkhood (nor even among the Jain non-laity at first, that much seems apparent from the statement that Suri composed his version as "a sort of reaction to various mythological statements of Valmiki or the critical appreciation of his work"). But inculturation fixes all that. All people need to do is Bauddhify or Jainise etc pre-existing [heathen] traditions popular among the masses et voila: it *becomes* acceptable. [And even "mythological" aspects of Hindu religion become acceptable once they're cloned into others' cosmologies. Like Vidyadharas, Indra, Kubera, the Tridasha, and Meru etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.]



The fact that the (original, implicitly Hindu) Ramayanam doesn't really know of these new religions at all is also the reason why Buddhists/Jains have long felt the need to pencil themselves in "somehow": by declaring that all references to RAvaNa/rAkShasas etc "must" be to Jains/Buddhists themselves. Elsewhere, more recently, the dravoodianists claim this is instead a reference to the Ur-dravoodians, which is another instance of back-projection of an identity.

And indeed, why *should* people be bothered about "little" details like how in the original [i.e. only authoritative] context, rAvaNa and his whole family was a VedabrAhmaNa-rAkShasa and his country was obviously Hindu, i.e. a vedic society? (But that's hardly surprisingly since rAkShasas are part of Vedic cosmology, both by origin and definition).



Repeat: Buddhists/Jains (and more recently, the dravoodianists invented in the modern era, also back-projected) *need* Hindu religion to *mangle* it into "proof" for their early existence and of their historical oppression by Hindus. [And reading references to rAkShasas in Hindu literature/cosmology etc as being references to oppressed Jains/Buddhists/dravoodianists/etc instead IS mangling.]



Still, never did quite understand why Rajeev Srinivasan declared that the Trivikrama-Bali account was allegory for a Hindu-Buddhist struggle, when he could (or really should) have gone the whole stretch and declared the same about the Ramayanam: since there are old-ish Buddhist and Jain accounts concerning the Ramayanam which has the RakShasas as being the "actually poor unfortunate Buddhists/Jains, misrepresented by the Vedic narrators of the Vedic Ramayanam". Indeed, one of the chapters in that aforementioned 7th century CE Jain clone of Ramayanam (the one by Ravisenacarya) is titled as the Nirvana of one Bali, which may well be the late Jain clone of the Hindu Bali of the Hindu Vamana/Trivikrama account. Although that can't help Rajeev I suppose, since he claimed Bali and his people were allegory for southern Buddhists as opposed to Jains. Nevertheless, that needn't stop him/any other Hindu vocalist from equally peddling about that the *Ramayanam* is likewise allegory for the Hindu oppression of Buddhists/Jains (or dravoodianists - pick one, or in fact, why not pick all 3 and throw in muslims, christians and aliens for good measure) "painted as rAkShasas/Vanaras/etc" by the "intolerant Vedic Hindus". Never mind that Vidyadharas and Vanaras and Rakshasas etc are originally Hindu cosmology. And never mind that it is the latecomers who have opportunistically encroached on pre-existing *Hindu cosmology* and have seen fit to twist this to benefit themselves and to evict Hindus.





Anyway, if Jains/anyone else *are* going to invoke late plagiarisms of the Vedic itihAsas by non- and anti-Vedic ideologies, then why not invoke the medieval, mughal, summarised copy of the Mahabharatam (in late Persian) as "equally valid/authoritative too"? All else being equal, after all. If enough time passes, this last too will become "ancient" and may come to be deemed as being "therefore" "established".

Not having read it (life being too short and all), I still somehow think the mughals who did the summarising wouldn't have pretended that even their late copy concerned islam - nor may Akbar who (from memory) commissioned the translated summary. <- Which I suppose could be the difference between theirs and the Jain/Buddhist spins on the Hindu itihaasas. So I suppose Hindus should be grateful that unlike Buddhism/Jainism - which booed and hissed at Vedic religion even as they ripped off Vedic religious works and cosmology (and now seek to paint Vedic religion as the invader and themselves as the oppressed natives) and pretend their late bauddhified/jainised plagiarisms of the Vedic itihasas were "Buddhist/Jain" all along - at least islam today may be less likely to try the same with the mughal copy of the MBh. That's something. (Or just something to look forward to?)

[Husky]

Post 6/6



And some further things that caught me eye in the article.



In the section on the Jain-Teerthankara Rishabha:

The name Vrishabha is mentioned in the Vedas,7 but the meaning is not certain.

(Despite the "7" etc, no references are presented at the end of the article, BTW.)



But vRiShabha? :hysterical: Wow are they desperate -



The *word* vRiShabha certainly occurs about a gazillion times even in the RV (saw it often enough when searching for the *RiShabh* substring). But it would occur in its original Vedic meanings - starting from I think the plain bull and as [embodiment of] Vedic dharma - which legitimately includes its use as references to/descriptives of and even epithets of Vedic Gods etc. (vRiShabha is the proper name of Shiva, viShNu, Indra too IIRC and probably a whole host of other Hindoo Gods - long before Buddhism/Jainism appeared and before Jainism eventually made claims on this terribly Vedic Skt word.)



Now, if any Jain wishes to argue that their Teerthankara(s) were "indeed, actually" referenced in the Vedas, then they may present an actual traceable number for the alleged shloka/shlokas. Having seen enough of their claims in this direction turn out to be nothing more than falsehoods, I have no reason to take their word at face value (ever again. Indeed, never again.)



Repeating from a few posts ago:

'Yet, that has not stopped Buddhists or Jains from backprojecting such additional, later-acquired meaning of the word into earlier texts, in order to thereby *force-read* themselves into such texts as "proof" of external (in particular Hindu) validation of their own earlier existence.'



vRiShabha was a descriptive/name/epithet (even vahana) later used by Jainism and associated with the Jain teerthankara RiShabha. Yet they go looking in the Vedas for occurrences of the word - as they did with ariShTanemi and ajita (see below) etc - and declare that whenever they do find these words/names occurring, that it "must" therefore refer to their teerthankaras - "backwards in time" of course.



I'm not surprised that the history for the wacky RiShabha page shows that this page had earlier claimed that 22 of the Jain teerthankaras are mentioned in the Vedas. It wouldn't be unlikely that a selection of 22 -note- Vedic Skt words (descriptives/names/epithets) do occur in the Vedas and which Jainism later ended up using for its theology of teerthankaras stretching backwards in time. But that doesn't mean the Veda references are to Jain teerthankaras of course (the way Rishabha and ariShTanemi in the RV Samhita weren't references to any teerthankara at all, as seen in some posts above somewhere). Again: if any Jain wants to claim otherwise, they're required to prove it. (Which they appear not to have been able to do, since the current/recent state of the Rishabha wacky page doesn't assert that '22 Jain teerthankaras' were attested in the Vedas anymore.)



And similarly, the article declares:

The Yajurveda mentions the name of Ajitanatha3 but the meaning is not clear.

That's supposed to be the 2nd Jain teerthankara, right?

Uh, how to put it. The YV-TaittirIya Samhita does contain the word "ajita" a number of times (well, suffixed to other words - and that's not counting aparAjita type words that I can recognise as distinct). In one section it was repeated lots of times with differing prefixes. So looked up the online British-Raj translation and it wasn't even a name at that point. So I got bored and gave up going through the occurrences - may perhaps do so some other time. But there's actuall no need as here's the MW entry instead:

1 ajita mfn. not conquered , unsubdued , unsurpassed , invincible , irresistible ; m. a particular antidote ; a kind of venomous rat ; N. of Vishn2u ; S3iva ; one of the Saptarshis of the fourteenth Manvantara ; Maitreya or a future Buddha ; the second of the Arhats or saints of the present (Jaina) Avasarpin2i , a descendant of Ikshva1ku ; the attendant of Suvidhi (who is the ninth of those Arhats) ; (%{As}) m. pl. a class of deified beings in the first Manvantara.

2 ajIta mfn. ( %{jyA} , usually %{jina}) , not faded , not faint AV. TS. , &c.

So, next to its plain meaning (which I'm going to assume is how its used in the YV TS until/if I ever bother checking each instance against some translation, if claimants choose to ever call upon numbered shlokas), it also happens to be the name of Vishnu, of Shiva and of a saptarShi etc etc.

And, more interestingly, both Buddhism and Jainism also stake a claim on the word as a name: as a Buddha and a Jain Arhat. <- So which one of the two do Hindus need to pretend is being referenced in the Vedam, again? The expected future Buddha or the past teerthankara?



Again: Jains just seemed to have looked for words (words they ignorantly claim uniquely for themselves) in the Vedam and got all excited when the (Vedic Skt words) turned up. "But gee, what are the chances that Vedic Skt words are going to turn up in the Vedic Skt texts known as the Vedas?"

And about the whole "The meaning is not clear" or "The meaning is not certain" thing seen again in *both* the Ajita and Vrishabha claims above: <- Not that poor excuse again for people not doing their homework, but just blindly claiming away.





This larger context of the article's section on Ajitanatha:

The second Tirthankara is Ajitanatha, born in Ayodhya. The Yajurveda mentions the name of Ajitanatha3 but the meaning is not clear. His younger brother according to Jain traditions was Sagara who became the second Chakravarti. He (=Sagara, not Ajitanatha) is known from the traditions of both Hinduism and Jainism as found in their respective Purans. From the Hindu source, he is known to have many sons. One of them was Bhagiratha who brought the Ganges. From the Jain account, it is clear that Sagara in his last days adopted the life of asceticism from Ajitanatha and retired from the worldly life.4 Ajitanatha seems to be as real a person as Sagara.

Sounds rather like yet another case of Jains weaving their backprojected teerthankaras into famous very ancient Vedic families (mythical or historical is irrelevant at this point) - which don't know of any Jains - all in order to insert them into an established (pre-existing Hindu) backdrop/setting. As also happened with Jains conflating Neminatha into Krishna's family, whereas the MBh/HV naturally doesn't even know of him.

Sagara is not "known to both traditions". Sagara is Hindu religion, who merely got cloned into Jainism later. Matches the Jainising of the ikShvaku dynasty. And the Jain tack-on to Sagara's setting in their works even Jainises an important Vedic Hindu (i.e. Sagara) by declaring that he converted to Jainism later in life/adopted an implied Jain ascetism, rather than that he could simply go for the typically pre-existing Hindu kind of asceticism that several Vedic kings tended to proceed to in their old age/retirement (as seen in MBh etc).

Wasn't even Bhagiratha (and Sagara of course) already ancient Vedic ancestors/persons/memory even by the time of the MBh? But naturally they'd need to be that ancient in order for Jainism to place Ajita as 2nd teerthankara - that is, at a time well before Neminatha, which latter the Jains placed in the MBh context.



Actually, here is MW again:

1 bhagIratha m. (prob. fr. %{bhagin} + %{ratha} , `" having a glorious chariot "')N. of an ancient king (son of Dili1pa and great-grandfather of Sagara , king of Ayodhya1 [744,2] ; he brought down the sacred Gan3ga1 from heaven to earth and then conducted this river to the ocean in order to purify the ashes of his ancestoes , the 60 ,000 sons of Sagara ; cf. IW. 322) MBh. R. Pur. &c. ; N. of sev. authors (also with %{Thakkura} and %{megha} ; cf. %{bhagin}) Cat. ; of an architect of recent date Inscr. ; of a mountain S3atr.

But I especially like the article's plea for the Jain teerthankara Ajitanatha to be accepted "as real as" (tentatively assuming) Sagara was. <= And that is the whole reason that Jainism tied all these people into Hindu religio-history in the first place: to plead to Hindus to accept the historicity* of Jain characters that Jains had woven into Hindu religio-history. (I.e. Jain works using the pre-existing Hindu religio-history as backdrop for their theology, thus backprojecting their theology.) Elsewhere in the same article they evict Vedic Hindus as alien oppressors, but now they need the very same to plead for the historicity of their Jain characters. Good grief.

It just underlines that they have no - and clearly never had - proof of historicity (or a greater ancientry) without latching onto a pre-existing religion outside their own.



(* As the appeal is actually to Hindus even now in that section of the article. I mean, they can hardly be appealing to the west to accept Ajitanatha "as real as Sagara", when I doubt the west would bother entertaining the historicity of Sagara in the first place - complete with "60,000 sons" and all. It is only Hindus who might consider Sagara historical/ancestral/whatever. And so this plea by the Jain author can't be directed anywhere else but at Hindus. The gall.)

All of these requests to "Accept Ajitanatha as Sagara's brother", "Accept Neminatha as Krishna's cousin" or "Rishabha-Adinatha is to be equated with Shiva-Adinatha"* etc etc are for the benefit of Jainism alone, i.e. they're requests for external acknowledgement.

* The JMF claims that last with reference to some alleged shlokas in the Shiva Purana. These shlokas supposedly conveniently summarise the major events of Rishabha's life, starting from his birth to his parents. While I've not confirmed whether the shlokas are actually there in the text, it does seem to be in direct and absurd conflict with the rest of the Shiva PuraNa, since IIRC Hindus refer to this very text as one of the authoritative sources for how Shiva is specifically never born (he just appears). Clearly, if the alleged convenient shlokas on the Jain teerthankara can indeed be found in the text in its current state, whoever forged it into there in the first place didn't seem to know this little bit of info about Shiva, before trying to conflate the two... <= Which looks very much to imply that it can't be a Shaiva (or actually any other kind of Hindu) that put those shlokas in there...



There are many cases of absurdities and inconsistencies and anachronisms forged into various old Hindu texts, especially those Hindu texts that still got expanded in later times. The forgeries by non-Hindus (as opposed to later expansions/inclusions by Hindus) can usually be easily identified by their presence being convenient only to Buddhism and/or Jainism. Both the later Hindu (valid) contributions and the non-Hindu (invalid) "insertions" in Hindu texts are deemed "interpolations" by outsiders.



There are countless examples, but this topic doesn't really have an ending. Will conclude that people are very mistaken if they think they can peddle more than one Indic theology at a time. A lot of it is mutually exclusive. Particularly because the others represent replacement theologies and cosmologies for Hindu's own. It is only their initial plea that you accept the "historicity" of their theology and the equal validity of their (cloned, Bauddified/Jainised) cosmologies. Next, Hindus will be asked to acknowledge that theirs are "equally ancient" as Vedic religion, and from there to recognise that Vedic religion borrowed its own Vedic principles and elements from these later others, before finally declaring that these others actually are the original, more ancient, native religion etc.

So I don't see why Hindu sites should be parroting inane and false Jain (and elsewhere Buddhist) statements mangling Hindu religio-history - which statements are even lifted from articles that are for the rest anti-Vedic, i.e. anti-Hindu, and are moreover past being mere Jain/Buddhist theology and even well into the realm of AIT-derived post-AIT speculation. I don't understand how today's Hindus - well, the angelsk-speaking/reading kind - got to be so...gullible and ignorant of their own religion, compounded by an inability/unwillingness to verify others' claims on their religion. They are ready to believe anything (anything *else* that is).



I'm so tired of all the incessant lies being peddled. Who are they kidding? And then the ridiculous pretence that "Satya" was supposedly a principle that Jainism innovated and had to transmit to the Vedic religion (or "compassion" and "logic" etc by Buddhism). Yeah. *Right*.

But the real moral perhaps is why it's important (past and present) for Hindus to keep the Vedas away from non-Hindus. All the latter do is mangle it in their own favour, even to stab Hindus with. And - as befits opportunism - in more 'benign' moments they pretend to have an equal claim on the religion of the Vedic Rishis, for being "fellow Indic traditions". Bad deal. No thanks.





[color="#0000FF"](The only relevant thing to read is the linked article in 1/6 - or the excerpts posted in 1/6 to 6/6 - and then can draw conclusions for oneself.)[/color]

[Husky]

When searching the Rig, there were a few things one couldn't help noticing:



+ A line from somewhere in the sukta to Cows in RV 6.28 has been translated even by Griffith as "I long for Indra with my heart and spirit." :zo lief:

"(इन्द्र) इच्छामीद्धृदामनसा चिदिन्द्रम्" seems to me to be the part that it matches.



+ In that same sookta, but before the above mentioned line I think, the Griffith translation that's provided for another statement is "To me the Cows seem Bhaga, they seem Indra, they seem a portion of the first-poured Soma."

Well, not knowing the deep Vedic meaning and all (and not being deep myself), I'll agree in the only sense I can - i.e. the superficial sense of going by the translation at face value: I can see how Hindoos would know to recognise their Gods embodied in cows [and elephants etc].

(But I daresay all animals seem inexplicably - one might say divinely - beautiful to my eye. But there's something about animals, isn't there. The 'je ne sais quoi'.)



+ And in RV 10.158: "सुसंदृशं त्वा वयं प्रति पश्येम सूर्य । वि पश्येम नृचक्षसः ॥" or thereabouts is translated as "Thus, Sūrya, may we look on thee, on thee most lovely to behold, See clearly with the eyes of men."



+ And the first line of RV 2.3.3 again: ईळितो अग्ने मनसा नो अर्हन्देवान्यक्षि मानुषात्पूर्वो अद्य ।

That bit is translated by Griffith as "Adored in heart ... O Agni"



And those are just the examples I found in shlokas from already-posted sooktas. That is: I wasn't even looking.



But it all certainly puts a sock in the absurd claim that there's no "bhakti" in the Vedas". Really?



But Piety - the Roman word used in its original, i.e. Hellenistic=heathen sense - naturally goes hand-in-hand with Gods-based (=Gods-centred) religions. I.e. heathen religions. And piety/bhakti to the Gods is the source of all pooja among heathens.



Then again, delusional [alien] people keep asserting that Daoism has no Gods :mad: or else that "at least Daoism has no bhakti/piety". Shima? The Daoists are profoundly attached to their Gods - i.e. with deep and abiding affection (of a kind that's peculiar to heathens who still know their ancestral Gods). Quite as much as the Hindus have had for theirs. Daoists call their Gods "Divine Parents" - which is their English translation for their Chinese phrase. And that phrase is an immediate encapsulation of all the Daoist Gods and Goddesses (i.e. all Daoist Heaven): they're actually all included in that reference "Divine Parents".

I have consciously copied and been parroting this very phrase for the Hindu case, because it literally applies:* Hindus have always called their Gods Mata and Pita (and Pitamaha) etc. Indeed, IIRC a Surya stotram in the MBh (the Dhaumya one I think) lists among Surya Bhagavan's names all three: "pitA mAtA pitAmahaH". :lief: And IIRC MBh again tells us that Vayu, being Praana itself, is similarly naturally the Divine Father of all that lives and breathes (and the All really). That sort of deep and intimate knowledge of the character/nature of their ancestral Hindoo Gods is whence native Hindoos' attachment for their Gods derives. The Hindoos who know/would know their ancestral Gods have a natural and profound attachment to and piety for them.**



Can look westward for an example and see quite the same thing: Seneca and Julian weren't the only Hellenes going about knowingly calling their ancestral Gods and Goddesses their Fathers and Mothers. There are a number of ancient Hellenistic hymns that even I have come across in translation mentioning this.





* Rather like SE Asian Daoists have used "jaya bhakti" (in Roman script) as the deliberate translation for a Daoist Temple's Chinese name.



** I like the word that was used to translate into English Julian's own statements about what he feels towards his Gods - I recall this word as being "affection". (I'd hate to admit to having memorised it. "IIRC" therefore.) In any case, it certainly fits Hindus' (and Daoists' etc) feelings too. Indeed, in Shinto (and Hindu religion etc), even animals are described [and attested] as feeling the same piety for the Kamis. Shintoists naturally regard native animals as being Shinto too, since the Kamis appear in person to native Japanese and interact with these - be these human or other animal kind. Again, it's very similar to the Hindu ("etc") case.

[ramana]

From a blog esamskriti.org



Why did Buddhism decline in India?

Why Did Buddhism Vanish From India



By Sanjeev Nayyar, July 2003 [esamskriti@suryaconsulting.net]

1Chapter :I have listed down six reasons why Buddhism vanished from India. It is followed by the words of Swami Vivekananda & Dr B R Ambedkar.



1. The main cause was the neglect by the monks of this life and its values. While the Buddhist monks realized that everyone was not fit or could not become a monk or nun, they paid attention only to the life of a monk and not to the life of a householder. Which meant that they focused on the life of a monk, which is a life of inwardness as compared to that of a householder, which is one of outwardness. Now, both these aspects need examination, study, guidance and control. It is not enough to tell a householder that this existing life is only a stepping-stone to the life of a monk. Why and how is it so and what relation it bears to realities has to be explained. Instead Buddhist philosophers began to teach that this life was nothing but a value of tears and misery. While some forms of Vedanta taught the same philosophy, the attitude of Mimamsa (philosophy of action) and the Epics saved Hinduism from the fate that overtook Buddhism in India. Many great Indians were impacted by spiritual teachings but “unless there were some codes extolling the values of the world, they tended to become one-sidedly inwardly”.



2. Another reason was the admission of women into monasteries and the more or less indiscriminate conversion of men, women into monks and nuns. While true renunciation and celibacy were appreciated, people wanted to see them well practiced. When people supported these monasteries with their hard-earned money, they did not want its residents to live in luxury and enjoyment, virtues, which were condemned. If monks and nuns had lived by the rules that they were taught, people would have supported them inspite of any hardship that they had to face.



3. The next reason was the deterioration in the political and economic life of the country. Monasteries were supported by the people and the Kings e.g. Ashoka. Now, when a dynasty fell or a king died, the next in line might not give the same degree of support. The king’s thinkers realized that their defeat was due to the loss of their best fighters, leaders, who had become monks. This made the country an easy prey to the foreign invader. Coincidence or otherwise, India’s first foreign invasion by the Greeks took place in 327 B.C. a couple of centuries after Emperor Asoka’s peace movement. {He means Gautama Buddha and not Emperor Ashoka for he was latter than Alexander. Or he means the Indo-Greeks who invaded North India much later.}





4. Buddhism existed in the monasteries and unlike the dharmaasutras (ethical codes) lacked a moral code. So when monasteries disappeared, Buddhism disappeared. The invasion of the Muslims and the ruthless destruction of Buddhist monasteries extinguished the lamp of Buddhism in North India. The wanton destruction of the great monastery of Uddandapura (Bihar) and the wholesale massacre of its monks might make us visualize how the great monasteries of Nalanda, Vikramasila and others met with a tragic end.



5. The extreme asceticism practiced and popularized by both Buddhism and Jainism disturbed the social life of India. Magadha, the seat of many imperial dynasties, became Bihar, the land of monasteries (viharas). There was nothing in these religions to emphasize the importance of life in this world and its values. These causes led to a bloodless revolt by the orthodox in the eight-century a.d. The revolt was staged from two sides, the Brahmanic and the Upanisadic. Kumarila was the leader of the former and Sankara of the latter. Kumarila succeeded in reviving a strong positive attitude towards the world and its values and all that could be called human and activistic. On the other hand, Sankara said that everything that was good in Buddhism already existed in the Upanishads. In fact, Gaudapada, the grand teacher of Sankara, unified the current spanda (vibration) doctrine of Saivism, the vijnana (mind) doctrine of the Buddhists and the Atman doctrine of the Upanishads in his Mandukyakarikas and made the way easy for Sankara to assimilate and absorb Buddhism. Thus, there remained no justification for its separate existence in India; it had no social ethics and consequently, no hold over society. It could not stand alone as a spiritual discipline as it was shown to be part of the Upanishads.



6. Quoting Swami Vivekananda “ Thus, inspite of preaching mercy to animals, inspite of the sublime ethical religion, inspite of the discussions about the existence or non-existence of a permanent soul, the whole building of Buddhism tumbled down piece-meal and the ruin was simply hideous. The most hideous ceremonies, the most obscene books that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, have all been the creation of the degraded Buddhism. The Tartars and the Baluchis and all the hideous races of mankind that came to India, became Buddhists and assimilated with us, brought their national customs and the whole of our national life became a huge page of the most horrible, bestial customs. Sankara came and showed that the real essence of Buddhism and that of Vedanta are not very different but that the disciples did not understand the master and have degraded themselves, denied the existence of soul and one God and have become atheists. That was what Sankara showed and all the Buddhists began to come back to their old religion”.



7. Buddhism adopted various thoughts and beliefs between the first century B.C. and the sixth century a.d. Some Buddhists adopted the tantric sadhanas and distorted them for the sake of enjoyment and comfort. The highly advanced philosophy of tantric sadhana is difficult to understand without the guidance of a proper teacher. This undigested knowledge of tantra, including the use of wine, meat, fish, gestures and physical union led these Buddhist followers to their downfall. Also, the distortions of Buddhism produced a variety of schools, which were not pure Buddhist schools but contained a variety of practices. To give you an idea of the syntheses between Vedanta and Buddhism, the concept of Maya in Vedanta in borrowed from Buddhism. Sankara accepted the logical connotation of Maya just as it was given by the Buddhists. Jainism was saved by tacitly allowing its members to become part of the Hindu fold by adopting rules of conduct of the third caste, namely Vaisyas or traders.



8. Quoted from ‘Dr Ambedkar Life & Mission by Dhananjay Keer’. Dr B R Ambedkar addressed delegates of Young Men’s Buddhist Association in May 1950 at Colombo on ‘Rise & fall of Buddhism in India’ - ‘Buddhism in its material force had disappeared. But as a spiritual force it still exists’. As regards Hinduism he said it went through three phases, Vedic religion, Brahmanism and Hinduism. It was during the Brahmanism period that Buddhism was born. It was not true that after the days of Shankaracharya Buddhism was dead in India. It was going on for years together. In fact Shankaracharya and his teacher were both Buddhists he added. While he was digging material on the subject for the decline/vanish of Buddhism from India the reasons were – adoption of some rituals & practices from Buddhism by the Vaishnava & Shaiva cults, which were vociferous in their propaganda against Buddhism. During the invasion by Allauddin Khilji thousands of priests in Bihar were massacred and consequently some of them fled for their lives to Tibet, China & Nepal. In the meanwhile, the majority of Buddhists went over to Hinduism. The third cause was that Buddhism was difficult to practice while Hinduism was not. Reason four was that the political atmosphere in India had been unfavorable to the advancement of Buddhism he concluded.



But according to Hindu scholars the fall of Buddhism was due to many reasons. Owing to universalistic ambition its spread was everywhere but it had geographical center nowhere. It discarded all national gods & godmen & proclaimed Buddha the greatest of all gods. As long as it reacted as a reformative flank in India, Buddhism gained ground but when it began to act against the Vedic religion, which was the national religion of the majority, Buddhism lost sympathy in India. The Vedic Hindus fought the Muslims bravely and did not flee to any other country. But the Buddhists when attacked, having a center nowhere, fled to different countries and even it is said acclaimed the invasion of India by non-Hindus with the ringing of bells. Besides its godlessness, its over-emphasis on redemption, its sad tone, its unconcern with the world & neglect of family checked rather than fostered enterprise. Quote ends.



Books referred to 1. Introduction to Comparative Philosophy by P T Raju. 2. History & Culture of Indian People by Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan.

The Christian Reformation and transformation discarded the spirtual world (unlike Buddhism) for the benefits of this world and launched Colonialism and expanded.

[Husky]

About a few things that caught my eye in the stuff Ramana pasted in the previous post.



Post 1/2



1. First on this:

6. Quoting Swami Vivekananda: "[...] Sankara came and showed that the real essence of Buddhism and that of Vedanta are not very different but that the disciples did not understand the master and have degraded themselves, denied the existence of soul and one God and have become atheists. That was what Sankara showed and all the Buddhists began to come back to their old religion”.

Vivekaananda may have said that, but the following is what Adi Shankara himself said (and all translations I've seen make the same point). People can make up their own mind how correct or representative is Vivekananda's opinion that Shankara showed that Buddhism and Vedanta are essentially the same/not different.



Note that Shankara is particularly critiquing the teachings of the Buddha* - "the master" - on this VERY topic (i.e. the Vedanta), not merely critiquing the opinions of non-comprehending "disciples". While it's true Buddha's teachings are merely things that are attributed to the Buddha, but the particular attributions are his primary teachings that were and remain generally accepted by Buddhists as being of the [Shakyamuni] Buddha.



I'm copying and pasting from post 182 of this thread, where the matter of Shankara [and genuine, pre-Buddhist Vedanta in general] vis-a-vis Buddha was already brought up:

In his [color="#800080"][Adi Shankara's][/color] BrahmasUtra BhAShya, after giving the position of the four systems of Buddhist philosophy, inculcating realism, idealism, and nihilism, and after refuting them, he concludes that the TathAgata [color="#800080"][Buddha][/color] who indulged in such mutually contradictory teachings must have been either a fool or a knave -- a fool in case he unknowingly preached contradictions or a knave if he preached these purposely to confuse people and send them to their doom.

Another translation of the same is pasted in post 184, in an article - rather relevant to this very topic - on how similar (or rather, not) Shankara's Advaitam is to Buddhism, and more generally: on how dissimilar the original, untampered, pre-Buddhist Advaitam and Vedanta is to Buddhism.



I.e. Shankara - in his own words - says that the Buddha was simple wrong, even though Shankara can't determine whether Buddha was wrong with malice-aforethought or merely self-deluded in his error. But Shankara ends with (as in the 2nd translation provided) "Buddha's doctrine has to be disregarded by all those who have a regard for their own happiness."



In fact, in the second column of the screengrab of the article pasted in post 184, Shankara in the bhAShya to the mANDukyopaniShat even takes on the assumption that Buddhism was similar to Shankara' guru's explication of Advaita:

"[This] knowledge regarding the Ultimate Reality, non-dual and characterised by the absence of the difference of knowledge, object of knowledge, and knower, <<is not the same as that declared by the Buddha>>. [The view of the Buddha,] which rejects the extistence of external objects and asserts the existence of consciousness alone, is said to be similar to or very near the truth of non-dual Aatman. But this knowledge of the non-dual which is the Ultimate Reality can be attained through Vedaanta alone."

(For now disregarding the awkward English wording for Hindu concepts that are more familiar to us in our own tongues.) The difference may seem subtle, but it is all-important to Hindus (and Buddhists too), although new-agey Hindus are unable to differentiate, see the example pasted in post 155, containing also a summary relaying Shankara's view in blue.



Shankara merely reverted the state of Vedanta - the perception thereof - to the original pre-Buddhist (to be more specific, pre-Bauddhific tampering) kind.



In fact, the entire article pasted in 183-185 - with provisos and warnings - is useful for Hindus and Buddhists, to rebut the current assumption that Buddhism is similar in essence to Vedanta or its Advaitic kind, and the silly accusation that Adi Shankara was a Buddhist or was Bauddhifiying Vedanta (actually, as Hindus explain and non-native scholars are forced to admit, Shankara de-bauddhified Vedanta by removing the gradual Buddhist interference/bauddhification in it that had deliberately been crept in/insinuated into it).

Yes, Buddhism did their darn best to try to Bauddhify Vedanta, but No, Hindus did not roll over and at least the Adi Shankaracharya was successful in rolling back the Bauddhification (aka subversion) of Hindus' Vedanta. Let's make this clear: learned Hindus both ancient and modern regard Buddhism (etc) as a subversion* of Hindus' pre-existing religion and views, and Buddhism's attempts to Bauddhify the Vedanta is seen quite in that same light, although this happened at a more "subtle" level than the clearer forms of inculturation that Buddhism et al perpetrated. (* This appears to be why Buddhists, Jains et al were denoted as Pashandas and other such terms by Hindus. <- Which moreover shows that Hindus clearly recognised these nouveau religions were historical spin-off religions from Hindus' own religion, once more underlining the chronological order of "Hinduism" vis-a-vis the later Indian religions.)

[Husky]

Post 2/2



Still on some stuff pasted in Ramana's #215:



2. As for the general assumption that Shankara's formulation of Maya was borrowed from Buddhism's take on the pre-existing Hindu conceptualisation of Maya, this too does not seem correct. Again, from what I "understand":



The meaning of the pre-Shankaran Hindu (which is moreover pre-Buddhist) perception of Maya is not wholly the same as that of Shankara, but his addition/extension to its meaning is generally described by (learned) Hindus as Shankara's own novelty, i.e. his own unique contribution, and they explain how he logically came by it. I keep forgetting exactly what this difference was: the details IIRC concerned whether ignorance [of the nature of self] itself is maya, or something, my memory could be wrong.



As for the pre-existing Hindu conception of Maya, this was already there long before Buddhism (and Jainism etc) and got transmitted quite unaffected among Hindus - unaffected by Buddhism/bauddhification etc over the ages. That perception of Maya - on which Shankara's own is founded - is based on the older SaaMkhya (the theistic, pre-classical Sankhya) seen in several Upanishads and the Gita and which consequently continues its existence in Shaivam/Shaktam without even Shankara's influence (as it did since before Shankara's influence).



It is that Maya is Prakriti and it ... - bad terminology perhaps, but I need some analogy - it "projects a reality" around the puruSha. The seemingly individual puruShas tend to identify with the apparent "reality" of their "identities" (their notions of who they are in terms of identification with body, mind and aha~Nkara etc) and of their surroundings, all of which is created by Prakriti. That Prakriti - as known to traditional, untampered Vedanta - is identified with Hindu Maya. That Prakriti/Maya is the "Devaatma Shakti", the Shakti of the ParamapuruSha - it is known to be in itself the Parabrahman because it is in fact the Devi, seen in the Shaktis of all the Devas.



Actually, this is the real reason why Vishnu is called Mohini, though this is understandably also the proper name of his sister Uma, as well as being listed among names that include his wife (Lakshmi's) names. Devi's name as Mohini is often used in a sense that implies the same as Maya, a sort of illusory reality created, that appears to confound/confuse the individual jeevas but which actually (=its purpose) benignly helps them towards liberation from its state of being bound as individual puruShas in projected reality. It is the reason why Hindus' Amman/Devi is known to be herself the very means to liberate the individual puruShas, by lifting the veil/haze she creates around them, and thereby reunite each of these with/help the individual puruSha realise its oneness with the ParamapuruSha, of which nature the Devi herself partakes, being the Paramatman herself too. (In the Upanishads and later in the Gita, the Devi is identical to - else for explicatory purposes described as a "theoretical" part of - the ParamapuruSha. E.g. Krishna explains how he is both the Father - seed of all - and Mother, the Prakriti. This view traces back to older Upanishadic texts, and Krishna repeating his nature as the Paramapurusha merely reinforces this learning and reminds the Hindu of what s/he has learnt elsewhere in earlier Hindu texts.)



And the theistic, pre-classical Saankhya in the MBh appears to me to match all this too, since it further contributes as the seed-origin for Maya in Shaivam (and consequently) Shaktam, as there is a full identity relation between Maya and Uma.



In any case, Buddhism copied the conception of Maya from pre-existing Hindu religion and Bauddhified it. Down to Nagarjuna etc referring to Maya as female and mother. [On the other hand, Nagarjuna etc may have got this from Indian Buddhists influenced by Daoists too - I haven't confirmed - since it's a pre-Buddhist Daoist view/teaching and concerns the nature of the Divine Mother aspect of the Divine Parents. And while we're at it, you can see something akin to the Hindu view of Shiva-Shakti/PuruSha-Prakriti among the Hellenes since ancient times also: Zeus himself is the seed of all things, and eager to bring life - impregnate the material world - with his Spirit as its Father and Materia (the Magna Mater) as its mother. And in Shinto, a Shinto website actually quoted Shinto texts using Shiva-Shakti to explain some matters concerning their Gods that they have always had in their own religion. Though Hellenismos, Daoism, Shinto etc all have these similar views innately, Buddhism's is demonstrably derived and copied from Hindu religion - down to the words and descriptives used - and then Bauddhified and losing its truthful, heathen core.]



(Actually, it's not just that. Much of Hindus' pre-existing Saankhyam was copied/cloned and Bauddhified into Buddhism and Jainised into Jainism. Not just the late "classical" kind of Sankhyam.) I may give examples later and perhaps with it repeat some other stuff I had earlier posted.



So to repeat: Shankara's explication of Maya is the pre-existing Hindu one, but with some additional contributions from his own insights on the matter. That's not to say all Hindus of today follow Shankara's take on Maya - many still keep to the Hindu pre-Shankaran view of Maya - but Hindus are not so ignorant as to imagine that even Shankara's explication of Maya is "actually Buddhist" in influence let alone derivation. As I said, the Hindu scholars who treat of Shankara's specific take on Maya explain/show how his additions are his own, and further show how he *logically derived* his additional views from his tradition's view on Vedanta.



3. And on this:

The Christian Reformation and transformation discarded the spirtual world (unlike Buddhism) for the benefits of this world and launched Colonialism and expanded.

Actually, christianism is as much obsessed about its conception of the hereafter* as Buddhism/other religions that are purely focused on saving people.



* And this is is the reason why christianism feels compelled to "save" people and - where it meets resistance - feels it is morally consistent to destroy those who won't convert ("they'll go to hell anyway, might as well send them there now, their life is a thorn in the sight of God") and logically leads to the famous christist argument/threat by St Thomas Aquinas in favour of destroying "heretics" in this world just as they would be in the next.



Hindus ought for their own sakes to stop pretending that imperialism is what christianism/islam is truly after and is truly about. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both islam and christianism deeply believe in their non-existent threat ("gawd") and the pedesterian vision of an afterlife it promises/threatens. That's what instigates them into "converting" this world for their gawd, so they may favour his non-existence and win its favour for themselves in the next.

[Husky]

A Tamizh-origin Buddhist on-fire for Buddhism and peddling it about as hard as he can, and who I see never wastes an opportunity to kick at Hindus (and with blatant falsehoods too), is yet hosting the following 3 pages (no, I'm not linking to him):

- the bauddhified Shiva aka the fictional Buddhist clone of Shiva

- the bauddhified Vishnu aka the fictional Buddhist clone of Vishnu

- and a page on Kamadeva with Hindu mantras to him and Tamizh Hindu materials at links on Kama, despite that Buddhism hisses at Kamadeva as a great evil. But clearly the blogger wants his blog to be popular so he gives access to Hindu mantras of Hindu Gods to the new agey alien clique that no doubt invades his otherwise dull "Buddhism Ra Ra" pages.



Essentially the dude is using Hindu Gods to peddle Buddhism (nothing new I suppose), even while he engages in that hobby of knocking at Hindu religion.



In the comments section of the Bauddified-Shiva page, someone brought up some tantra where a Buddha kills "Shiva" and revives him and then that "Rudra" converts to Buddhism. All magically, of course.



Obviously this is the usual and typical Buddhist fiction invented by Buddhism, and does not concern the real Hindu Gods (just as the fine print for fiction movies say about "no resemblance to real characters intended", though in Buddhism's case, it did *intend* the resemblance for missionary purposes.) And it's very comparable to the fictional Buddhist story of a bad Buddhist clone of a Taoist God getting turned into a pig for a crime the real Taoist God never committed, and then the clone magically and predictably converted to Buddhism - which the Taoist God never did of course. Etc etc. Same essential story, different geography.



The blog owner, the Indian Buddhist, responded Ueber Lamely to the comment mentioning the Buddhist 'tantra' that, as it concerned a "tantra" text, it therefore "must have" an esoteric meaning that needed "deep" study, and ended it there. Clearly he was not comfortable, and even less comfortable with such shady dealings of Buddhism vis-a-vis Hindu Gods coming to light, especially as these comments were on an article about how lovey-dovey Buddhism supposedly feels about Shiva and how (therefore) Shiva will [at least eventually] be declared as belonging "equally" to Buddhism.* No. Buddhists etc have clones of Hindu, Daoist, ([color="#0000FF"]correction:[/color]) Shinto and Greek Gods. And that's *all* they have.

[*Ok, to be honest, I really didn't read his article on 'The Buddhist fiction named after Shiva' in full, but I've seen the same encroachment pattern elsewhere.]



But the exact same Buddhist tactic used on the Taoists in the example mentioned above (and covered in just slightly more depth in an earlier post) was a mere Buddhist "story" not a tantra, so that had someone brought *that* up, then the blog host surely wouldn't have been able to hide behind the Mere Excuse that "it's a tantra, it needs deep study". Instead, he'd probably have dismissed it with "it's a mere classic, Buddhism didn't mean it (aka we need to look for the deeper moral)." Oh it *meant* it alright.



Anyway, it's only missionary religions that would elevate these petty things to "tantras" and "classics/morals" (insinuating other people's Gods of course).





When I googled on the long name of that tantra I found the following stuff which I have stolen/copied to paste here. Makes for uncomfortable reading, but it's Oh So Typical.



manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/the-anti-shaiva-rants-of-the-nastika-s/

The anti-shaiva rants of the nAstika-s

The below may offend Hindus; Hence viewer discretion is advised.



Both the bauddha and jaina nAstika-s saw shaiva-s of all hues as major competitors. It is interesting to note that despite the popularity of pA~ncharAtra tantra-s much of bauddha hate is particularly directed at the shaiva-s rather than vaiShNava-s. While shuddhodana-putra (=Buddha, Shakyamuni) was a subversionist**, he cannot be described as having special hate for his Astika rivals. But his successors definitely had a considerable hate for Astika-s in general and shaiva-s in particular. In contrast, we do not see this level of directed spite and hate on the Astika side. The unidirectionality of it suggests that the nAstika-s indeed had an inferiority complex and were vigorously competing with Astika-s and did everything to absorb key elements of their new innovations. So it not at all surprising when we hear of tales of nAstika-s oppressing Astika-s. The lurid and obscene details of the nAstIka hate for Astika-s has often been concealed from audiences due their sheer repulsiveness. However, we felt that some of this may be made public for the sake of information. It must be mentioned that some of the promulgators of these nAstika shAstra-s were brAhmaNa-s with a new convert’s zeal. But in practical terms I was reminded of R1’s father’s special experience in Nepal in the form of the mantra-battle he had fought in his youth, which I described earlier.



[color="#800080"](** Oh duh, I finally get it - or so I imagine: the word subversionist is used to translate Pashanda. Makes sense. I would have gone with the general meaning "impiety" a la how impiety and atheismos had a meaning in Roman religion even before christianism, and then naturally got tagged onto christianism when the aberration appeared. But subversion is a good choice from another angle. Though I never used Buddhism/etc as a "subversion" in that sense. With that last word I just meant the twisting of pre-existing stuff - i.e. plainly - and did not have Pashanda in mind for it. Hmmm. Deep.

Tsss, as if I will ever be using these words with any frequency anywhere anyway. Besides, I probably misunderstood the whole thing.)[/color]



1) sarva-tathAgata-tattva-saMgraha; 6th paTala

The buddha vairochana seated on the top of meru asked the bodhisattva vajrapANi to enter his maNDala. He said he would not enter until he had subjugated all the Astika devatA-s. So vairochana started uttering incantations to bind and drag all devatA-s before his abode on meru. He also dragged the terrible maheshvara and his gaNa-s there, whom the other tathAgata-s had till then failed to conquer. The devatA-s were commanded by vajrapANi to accept the nAstika-vrata-s and convert to the bauddha-mata. mahAdeva was enraged and declared that he is the supreme deity and source and end of the universe, who will not take orders from a mere yakSha like vajrapANi. vajrapANi retorted that he who eats corpses and whose clothes, bed and food are funeral ashes should surrender. But maheshvara refuses and displayed his terrifying mahArudra and mahAbhairava forms. Upon seeing those awful forms of rudra, vairochana uttered the mantra “OM nisumbha vajra huM phaT” and vajrapANi utters a loud “hUM”. rudra is killed by this mantra and the other devatA-s beg the buddha and bodhisattva to spare them. They declared that they did not understand the bauddha-dharma and it would be un-bauddha of a merciful bodhisattva to kill them. So vajrapAni restored them and made them his attendants. He then uttered “vajrAyuH” and brought mahAdeva back to life but he refused to convert and declared that he would die rather than convert to the bauddha-mata, and again showed his terrifying mahArudra form. There upon vajrapAni bound him and his shakti umA with his mantra-s and tramples them under his left and right foot respectively uttering the formula “OM vajrAvisha hanaya traM traT. He then laughed loudly, even as the three worlds declared vajrapANi the victor. By the touch of the feet of vajrapANi and the power of vairochana’s mantra “OM buddhamaitri vajrarakSha hUM” acting on mahAdeva he became a new buddha known as bhasmeshvara-nirghoSha. He became the presiding buddha of the realm known as bhasmAchChanna in a distant universe from this triloka. Then vajrapANi trampled successively nArAyaNa, kumAra, brahmA and indra and they too were transformed into tutelary deities of the maNDala after being given *new names*.

(New names? Oh but of course. "Calling all clones.")



2) guhyagarbha, 15th paTala

maheshvara starts propagating tantra-s that negate the concepts of shUNyata and anAtman. He was sent to different naraka-s for this by the tathAgata but he escapes and emerges as rudra who terrorizes the world with diseases. In order to “rescue” rudra from the ocean of saMsAra the tathAgata spawns a kulA~nganA named krodheshvarI. As a result of their coitus a host of devatA-s is born to conquer rudra and his gaNa-s. Then the tathAgata himself assumes the form of heruka with 3 heads, six hands and four legs and tramples rudra and umA under his feet. But rudra and chaNdikA escape and return to take control of the triloka. So he becomes an even more dreadful heruka with 9 heads, 18 hands and 8 legs and with his host seizes rudra and his gaNas and disembowels them. Then he cuts their limbs to pieces and eats their flesh and drinks their blood. Then he uses their skulls as ritual bowls and bones as ornaments. He digests rudra and his host but discards their hearts and sense organs and finally excretes them into a giant ocean of crap that is then drunk up by his attendant uchChuShma-krodha. Then maheshvara and his gaNa-s are revived and seated as attendant deities in heruka’s yantra. The wives, daughters and mothers of rudra and his gaNa-s are given to heruka, uchChuShma-krodha and others as sexual partners for their kula rites.



3) A rant of the old school Tibetan Lama Bu ston from around 1300 CE

maheshvara at the head of asuras, nAgas, yakShas and rakShas takes control of 24 holy pITha-s of bhAratavarSha. As mahAdeva was in maithuna with his shakti kAlarAtri he asks his hordes to set up and worship 24 li~Nga-s. The bodhisattva vajradhara assumes the form of heruka on meru and emanates 24 DAkinI-s and vIra-s with whom he subjugates the devatA-s and crushes the li~Nga-s at the 24 pITha-s. In their place he introduces the practice of the bauddha-kaula doctrines.

Conclusion w.r.t the Tamizh Buddhist's excuse: Oh yes, #1 (and the rest) is a really "deep" esoteric tantra text. Requiring "deep" study to get at its "real" meaning. arcasm: Sort of like the "real" and "deep" hidden meaning behind the uh eminent Buddhist what's-his-name in Tibet hissing plainly at Bon religion (round about the period the latter got persecuted into extinction by Buddhism, by some great ...coincidence).





But yeah, of course Shiva etc belong "equally" to Buddhism. arcasm-again: And if anyone "Hindu" believes that, then please convert to Buddhism already.





Found another. Wish I found this one earlier too, would have been additional supporting evidence. But certainly remains a Very Handy Summary.



manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/some-anti-astika-stories-of-the-jaina-s/

Some anti-Astika stories of the jaina-s

The nAstika-s, smarting from their poor performance relative to the sanAtana-dharma, resorted to several distinct tactics: imitation, appropriation and distortion. But one of the problems they faced was that their hard-won converts tended to lapse back into the Astika ground state – this was especially so when the nAstika-s started imitating and appropriating the Astika traditions. Thus, even the virulent anti-Astika polemicist, the jaina yogin haribhadra sUri, concedes that the jaina-s might worship Astika deities, or even the tathAgata, in addition to the nagna. But still they needed mechanisms to keep their flock from dropping the ford-makers or the tathAgata-s from their respective pantheons because that was the most likely outcome. In particular, the itihAsa-s being the most important vehicle of the sanAtana-dharma across all socio-genetic strata they focused their attack on them. Thus, we hear buddhaghoSha proscribing the saugata-s from listening to the mahAbhArata and the rAmAyaNa. The jaina-s in contrast also created their own distorted versions of these texts in which the original heroes are down-graded and made to give way to promulgators of jina doctrines. Another approach was to insert tales into traditional collections of stories or invent new story collections to show the original deities and traditions of the sanAtana-dharma in poor light or as being ineffective. We review below some such creations of the jaina-s, which also throw some light on the sociology of the era. One such is from the jaina bR^ihatkathA of hariSheNa – massive work from the first half of the 900s of CE that was printed in the 1940s (kathA 54):



...

The rest is at link. (Didn't read the remainder myself - feeling a bit queasy, so saving it for another day, I mean, what if it contains more Yuck? But in theory I don't need to read it: have read enough Bauddhising fictions on Daoism and Shinto - and even Hindu religion - and also know enough on Jain rewrites and inserts into Hindu religion too to guess it will be Yet More Of The Same.)





On these two lines from the quoteblock above:

(manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/some-anti-astika-stories-of-the-jaina-s/ again)

The nAstika-s, smarting from their poor performance relative to the sanAtana-dharma, resorted to several distinct tactics: imitation, appropriation and distortion. But one of the problems they faced was that their hard-won converts tended to lapse back into the Astika ground state – this was especially so when the nAstika-s started imitating and appropriating the Astika traditions. (i.e. inculturating)

This is *exactly* true of the stunt Buddhism pulled on Shinto and Daoism etc. (And it's beyond amazing how many Daoist, Shinto, Bon etc religious stuff Buddhism magically gets credited with. "Oh look how great Buddhist culture/civilisation is." "Except uh, that was lifted/plagiarised/hijacked straight from Daoism and that was stolen from Shinto" etc, etc.)

Missionary religions. Bah.



Even today, many lay "converts" to Buddhism in the east tend to revert to their ethnic, ancestral Gods/religion. (Who can resist the Shen or the Kami, after all.) The Bauddha Sangha is quite active against this though.





Hindus are pretty easy going about the kind of tripe they had to put up with (leastways I am/was, maybe because we eventually had the upper hand; and to survive against missionary ideologies and develop immunity is to win, after all). But if Hindus only knew the details of what went down further to the east, and Buddhism's modus operandi there, I'll bet Hindus would never look at Buddhism the same way ever again. I can't. (The only difference I can see is that - fortunately for E/SE Asia - Jainism didn't really make it out of the backyard.)

[Husky]

[quote name='Husky' date='20 October 2013 - 01:23 PM' timestamp='1382255108' post='116871']

A Tamizh-origin Buddhist on-fire for Buddhism and peddling it about as hard as he can, and who I see never wastes an opportunity to kick at Hindus (and with blatant falsehoods too), is yet hosting the following 3 pages (no, I'm not linking to him):

...

- and a page on Kamadeva with Hindu mantras to him and Tamizh Hindu materials at links on Kama, despite that Buddhism hisses at Kamadeva as a great evil. But clearly the blogger wants his blog to be popular so he gives access to Hindu mantras of Hindu Gods to the new agey alien clique that no doubt invades his otherwise dull "Buddhism Ra Ra" pages.



Essentially the dude is using Hindu Gods to peddle Buddhism (nothing new I suppose), even while he engages in that hobby of knocking at Hindu religion.[/quote]

Still on the above:



As stated above, the Kamadeva page hosted by the Buddhist dude is full of *Hindu* mantras to the very Vedic God Kamadeva (Manmatha) - not to be confused with Buddhist mantras to the Bauddhified versions of a Hindu God (i.e. not Buddhist mantras to the clones).

I have read the mantras he's hosting before: they're all on a *Hindu* album of Hindu stotras by UM. The Buddhist site claims he sourced his mantras from the *Hindu* text mantra mahodadhi (which he admits is a collection of mantras to "Hindu deities"), but I think he copied at least some part from of the aforementioned album, since he's included the maalamantram to Manmatha verbatim all while declaring that he doesn't know where this is from.* How convenient for the Buddhist to pounce on the "ashta kamamoorti pooja" section and the maalamantram (the one which memorably names the pancha baanas) - which I think are used in Homas to kaamadeva, i.e. in Vedic rituals - and declare that the source is not known to him, just so he can pass it off as "Indian" "culture".



[* What I am saying is that he's included practically all the Kamadeva mantras from the UM track, and chooses to trace most of them to the Hindu collating text mantramahodadhi, but he can't find a source for those Kamadeva mantras from the track that he's not found in the mantramahodadhi. I am almost sure he therefore first came upon all these Kamadeva mantras on UM's album.]



He further hosts a pic of a *Hindu* temple moorty of Kaamadeva, all while still taking every chance to kick at Hindus' Vedic religion (as seen on many other pages of his site).



He did a typically bad translation of a line too: he translates kameshvarI-priya as rati-priya, but kameshvarI here refers to Lalitha. I.e. the line says that Kameshvari (wife of Shiva the Kameshvara) is fond of Kamadeva, not that Kamadeva is Rati's (and Preeti's) beloved husband. C.f. how in a famous Navagraha stotram Shani Bhagavan is described as "shiva priya".

The Uma reference with respect to Kamadeva is common in Hindu stotras to Uma as well as those to Kama. E.g. as seen Kalidaasa's Shyamala daNDakam where Uma is described not only as being worshipped by Indra (ref Upanishads) and Vishnu/Krishna (ref MBh) but also with "pa~nchabANena ratyA cha sambhAvite": worshipped by the panchabANa (=Kamadeva) and his wife Rati. And Kalidaasa himself is a great source of quite a few (exclusively Hindu) stotras on Kamadeva.

Other famous Lalitha texts refer to Uma as being fond of Kamadeva (and his wife Rati). The reason is obvious: he - and his wife - tried/helped to win Shiva for her, despite momentary 'danger' to Kamadeva. Not to mention that Lalitha is "pa~nchabANAtmike" herself (kaalidasa ref again, but seen in every text on Lalitha/Parvati/Uma).



No Hindu would have translated it this way, and it's an obviously *Hindu* mantra the Buddhist is mangling. Even I don't make such mistakes: I translated the same mantras from the UM album some years back (initially to get descriptives of Kamadeva for paw-printing purposes). I think the Buddhist was mangling it *deliberately* by translating Kameshwari with Rati: because all things Lalitha is admitted by Buddhism to be "brahminical" texts onlee [which is Buddhist code for Hindu material]. But all things Kamadeva are exclusively Hindu material as well: he's supposed to be a God of the Rig Vedam whom the Hindus have loved all through the Vedam and Itihasas and Puranas and in Hindu temples.



Buddhism spewed at Kamadeva. Now the Tamizh Buddhist at the site pretends that just because Kamadeva doesn't come across quite as popular among the Hindus as he was some centuries ago [but not with Buddhists even back then, note], that that therefore/somehow makes Kamadeva "open" to being claimed for Buddhism/Jainism/dravoodianism/christianism/who-knows-what-else. Nonsense. Even if Hindus had stopped worshipping him (though that's not at all the case), Kamadeva will never belong to others. However, while it's true Kamadeva was more popular among the (Hindu) natives some centuries back than today, he is still worshipped to this day, in TN at any rate. There are not merely sannidhis to him in Hindu kovils, there still remain at least small shrines to him and Hindus still worship him. Even in some temples of the one called "Kaamaari" he has a position of honour where his garlanded utsava moorti is produced yearly for worship during the marriage celebrations of Shiva and his wife (the one who is fond of Kamadeva), when the birth of Kumara is re-enacted.



The Buddhist site then has a further page on the Kamadeva *Rewrite* in Buddhism, completely ignoring the Buddhist booing and hissing about Maara (Kamadeva under his own name). Instead, the Buddhist jumped straight past Maara in Buddhism to discussing "Manjushri" instead (IIRF he's that fictional Buddha declared to be the patron Santa - I mean Buddha - of China). Note: Manjushri is the replacement for Kamadeva the way VajrapaNi is the replacement for Indra, and Avalokiteshwara is the Buddhist replacement for Shiva [and the way countless 'Buddhas' etc in the east are replacement for Daoist Gods etc].

That is, Buddhisms' cloning process is actually a two step process. The first step is where Buddhism reduces others' named and well-described Gods to evil or converted-and-subordinated characters, and places them somewhere under the Buddhas in the concocted Buddhist cosmology. This is the stage where the Hindu/Vedic Gods' names and descriptives are copied verbatim and reduced to minor bit actors working by Buddhas' leave. The second step is where Buddhism (re)invents a *new* Buddha (or major Bodhisattva) with a new Buddhist name and significant position in the Buddhist hierarchy having all the features of and importance of - and being a clear replacement for - the Hindu original. And Indra's Vajraayudha isn't all that was transferred to the concocted Buddhist VajrapaNi, just like the -ishwara suffix isn't all of Maheshwara that Buddhism wrote onto their concocted Avalokiteshwara. Likewise, while Buddhism trampled Maara the PushpabaaNa underfoot under that name, they invented Manjushri and transferred the importance and features of Kamadeva onto him.

(It's clear that the Tamizh Buddhist site hosts the Manjushri page purely in order to use Manjushri to claim the *Hindu* Kamadeva and his mantras as well as the history of Tamizh Hindu worship of Kamadeva for Buddhism instead, under the garb that it is "Indian" [culture] and his worship was part of historical "Tamizh" worship/"culture", whereas it was exclusively Hindu. If the site had intended anything else, it would have mentioned how the Buddhism treated its Maara clone, which would clearly have indicated to readers that Buddhism has no claim whatsoever on Kamadeva, certainly not under Kama's [Maara's] names, and that Hindu mantras on Kaama - which are never even about the Buddhist clone Manjushri - are clearly exclusively Hindu and out of bounds for Buddhism.)



This is a Buddhist replacement theology practice. The idea behind it is to control what converts to Buddhism think when they hear of Maara (Kamadeva) and Indra and Rudra-Shiva [i.e. the autoresponse is that these are 'evil' or subordinated to the Buddha's dharma] versus what converts to Buddhism think of when they hear of Vajrapani, Avalokiteshwara and Manjushri where the autoresponse is "venerable Buddhas", even though this are just non-existent Bauddhified clones of very real Hindu Gods. The subtle difference in this two-fold approach to Hindu Gods is the treatment that got meted out to for instance the ShreShTha ShreShTha Jade Emperor of the Daoists.



Clearly, the fact that Buddhism etc feels it can rewrite Hindus' Vedic Gods so easily means that Buddhism never entertained the notion that the Hindu Gods are real at all. It doesn't *care* about them, it only cares to *use* them: it clones them precisely to undermine Hindu religion and simultaneously promote Buddhism in its place as a replacement. (Same as Buddhism did - and more obviously - in Daoism and Shintoism's case, but I'd already stated the same for them long ago on this thread.) The point is to replace the Hindu perception of the Hindu Gods with the Buddhist perception of the Bauddified Gods. Which is replacement theology. It is the Hindu *perception* of Hindu Gods/rituals/etc that is objectionable to Buddhism, since Buddhism doesn't care about the Gods themselves (and didn't pretend they're real, though some converts to Buddhism today do.)





Anyway. How come Buddhists think they have a right to pounce on Hindu mantras to Hindu Gods? It's one thing for them to clone Hindu Gods (sometimes in two ways) thus Bauddhifying them and then pen some Buddhist 'mantras' (i.e. structural copies of Hindu mantras but with Buddhist purpose) and peddle these Buddhist 'mantras' about. But why are they encroaching on *Hindu* mantras, which are exclusively concerned with Hindu Gods? Although this Buddhist encroachment does not happen exclusively against Hindu religion but to others also (Daoism is similarly affected), I am here restricting the conversation to the Hindu case.

The phenomenon is becoming all too common.



I recall a site of alien "converts" (dabblers) to *Japanese* Buddhism. One forum member - IIRC with a gravatar image of a Bauddhified Shinto Kami (of all things) associated with their username - was seen spouting *Hindu* beeja mantras to the *Hindu* Goddess Durga. First of all, since when does an alien convert to Japanese Buddhism have any right to the Hindu Goddess Durga, let alone the Hindu beeja mantra to her? In a post soon after, the same alien dabbler or other alien dabblers then posted entire lines (i.e. mantras) from Devi AtharvasheerSham! I mean, that's the Atharva Vedam. Since when does that belong "equally" (or at all) to Buddhism (Jainism, etc)? I don't know what sense of entitlement was behind those aliens' reasoning to encroach on the Vedam too with their dabbling in *Buddhism*, but their excerpt from the AtharvasheerSham included the line on Shoonya. Let me guess, dopey alien "converts" to Buddhism imagine that any use of Shunya in any Sanskrit text - even when used in a Hindu text, and even when it's part of the Vedam itself - magically refers to Buddhism/hence belongs to Buddhism. Since when?



Next to that, there was a googlebook declaring itself to be about "Goddesses" in Indian Buddhism (nevermind that originally Buddhism didn't have Goddesses - even the earliest ones were copied and cloned from Hindu religion down to Buddhism copying from Bon later on - while Theravada Buddhists insist that Buddhism *still* doesn't have Goddesses):

the book purporting to be about Goddesses in Indian Buddhism wasn't just speaking on the Bauddhified clones of the Hindu Vedic Goddesses (or Bauddhified clones of Daoist, Shinto or Bon Goddesses either). Because you know, that's not what alien dabblers want. They want a breadth of choice, and a breadth of ritual material to dabble in. AKA they want to pounce on *Hindu* religion (and elsewhere, on Daoist and Shinto religion) using Buddhism as a cat's paw. And so, predictably, the chapters on stotras and mantras to the alleged Goddesses in Buddhism contained - you guessed it - Vedic Suktas to the Vedic Hindu Goddesses! Everything from Sarasvati Suktas and the Shri Sukta. Who died that Buddhism inherited the Vedam? How do alien dabblers claiming to dabble in Buddhism (but clearly they want to dabble in *Vedic* religion and then mangle this into their new-age fantasies on what Buddhism is about) have any right to the Vedam? Aliens have no right to the Vedam even if they threatened to "convert" (i.e. dabble) in *Hindu* religion. A lot of alien dabblers in "eastern" religion just use Buddhism to encroach on Hindu, Daoist and Shinto materials. Except they still try to pass this off as "Buddhist". (Perhaps because they know the religions to which these matters authentically belong would never allow their dabbling or their threats to "convert". Alternatively, some aliens just want to dabble in a range of "Eastern" religions. And the fact that Buddhism had inculturated on all those that survived it means that it has "absorbed" - illegally of course - the "features" of all those religions they want to dabble in.)



I think I'm starting to respect Theravada Buddhism more in that they don't allow aliens' misuse of Buddhism just to dabble in Hindu religion, though in Mahayana Buddhism's favour will say I've not seen eastern Mahayana Buddhists pretend that the Vedam belongs to Buddhism either, let alone their using the Vedam to acquire converts to Buddhism, alien or otherwise. I used to think this penchant to encroach on the Vedam using Buddhism as a ruse was purely an alien dabbling tendency, right until the case of the Tamizh Buddhist dude and his site's pages peddling not only the Bauddhified clones of the Hindu Gods Shiva and Vishnu (and mentions of the Bauddhified clones of Indra, Brahma etc), but also his page on Kamadeva using *Hindu* mantras to the very Hindu Kamadeva, and his referring to (Hindu) Tamizh literature documenting the longstanding worship of Kamadeva by *Hindus* of TN and hosting even a typically Hindu kovil moorty of Kamadeva. From other "mantra" pages on the Buddhist site (including one to the Buddhist Tara, IIRC) - it's clear he's using the mantra pages to sell these as Buddhist practices to readers. (Don't know that he has mantra deekSham in Buddhism but I am certain he doesn't have it in Hindu religion, so since when can he play Guru for *Hindu* Kamadeva mantras? Let alone pass them off to readers on the site as casual material to be dabbled in?)



This is a very deceptive form of peddling of Buddhism. He can't claim innocence as it's made all the more suspect by the fact that he knows full wel that these mantras and materials were Hindu - and he certainly has no love for Hindu (Vedic) religion. He even lied blatantly (as only the peddlers can) about the Nazhanmars, in order to peddle Nastikas as superior and to accuse Hindus as plagiarists of the latter:

One of the Tamizh NRI Buddhist's pages mentioned that the 63 Nazhanmars 'must have' been copied off the 63 Sakala puruShas of Jainism. (Note: the Buddhist peddler is clearly a very modern 'Buddhist'*, the kind that imagines dreamily that Shramanas - capital S - get along. They certainly didn't historically, which is why even today, the Jain Minority Forum has nothing but contempt for Buddhism - second only to their hatred for Hindus' religion. *He just projects himself as an expert Buddhist to his readership by collating information from other sources on his site, in reality he probably has no Buddhist ancestry and hence no ancestral tradition in Buddhism/no traditional Buddhist peceptions either. Buddhism may be a nouveau religion w.r.t. Hindus' Vedic religion, but that doesn't mean it does not have established traditions and traditional views. In contrast, his are very new-agey pseudo-Buddhist.)



But back to his false claim that the 63 Nazhanmars of Tamizh Shaivam 'must have' been copied off the 63 Sakala puruShas of Jainism:





[color="#0000FF"]To Repeat where the "63" in the 63 Nazhanmars of Tamizh Shaivam comes from. The following is something all Tamizh Hindus and certainly all Shaivas among them know (but Buddhism peddlers wouldn't know or will certainly pretend not to know, as the implications are not flattering for their argument) -



The Nazhanmars as exemplary devotees of Shiva were limited to 63 + 1 for a specific reason, to do with the importance of that number in Hindus' religion:



* SaMkhya's 25 is reflected in the larger set of 24 Vishnu incarnations and the specific subset of 25 Shiva moorties. Another famous subset of Shiva moorties (forms) is 64 in number, others include sets sized 100, 108, etc.



* the 18/28 Shaiva Agamas - with Rudra-s or Sadaashiva-s presiding over each (the texts' origin is ascribed to a line of Rudras and a line of Sadaashivas either as the Rishis of the texts themselves or as transmitting the texts via earthly Rishis) - are reflected in the 18/27 Siddhars of Shaivam (27 Siddhars is off by one from 28 Shaiva Agamas, just like "63 Nayanmars" is off by one from 64 Shiva Tantras when Manickavachagar isn't mentioned alongside. I think Shiva is posited as the implicit first - before Agastya - to make the lineage of Siddhars 28 anyway).



* the 64 Shiva Tantras - with one Shivamoorty of the subset of 64 Shiva moorties presiding over each of these Tantras - are reflected in the 63 Nayanmars + Manikkavachagar.

(Also 64 kalas of Hindu religion that the Hindu Gods originate and preside over. In Shaivam, Shiva and his wife originate and preside over the 64 kalaas)



* the 8 Yamalas (e.g. Rudra Yamala) which IIRC are to be associated with or presided over by one of the AshtaBhairavas each. Or something



And similar sets of important numbers including 32 Ganapatis, 108 Shiva moorties, shata rudrIyam and the rest. These are all numbers significant to Hindu religion, and they were significant to Hindus long before either Buddhism or Jainism made claims to them. In exhalting a limited set of specifically 63 + 1 devotees in Shaiva tradition, the Hindus of the Tamizh regions were naturally acting on ancient Hindu tradition in doing so.[/color]





So either the Buddhist making allegations about Tamizh Hindus plagiarising the 63 from the Jains is simply ignorant, OR he's feigning ignorance with intent to mislead. Certainly the thing that he's conveniently silent about is where Buddhism got its magic number of multiple Buddhas from, or - more famously/tellingly/obviously - where Jainism got its magic number of Teerthankaras from. The number of teerthankaras is 24 or 25 or 26 (forgot the exact number as this is not my religion): it's owing to the influence of the very *Hindu* Sankhyan view. (Even the later classical Sankhya is classed Astika.) It makes sense that Hindus had 24/25 Vishnu and Shiva moorties, relating these back to the original, theistic Sankhya. But what's the excuse the Buddhist wants to give for the Jain plagiarism from Hindu religion here? Probably "ur-shramanism", since that's the only way to claim that Sankhya belongs equally if not more to Jainism/Buddhism than to Hindu religion. [As a sidenote, I think even the "Sakala Purushas" - going by the name - is a throwback to Sankhyan views, though the more classical variant.]





Why does the Tamizh Buddhist guy even have an audience?

Why did he not correct some (obviously) neo-Buddhist looney-toon claiming - IIRC in the comments section of the Bauddhified Shiva page - that Krishna in the Gita told Arjuna to seek shelter in the Buddha? :delirium: [Must be yet another instance of neo-Buddhist swindling: inventing lines not in the Gita.]

Why are there *Hindus* applauding at his site?

Why are Hindus falling over themselves to affirm the new-agey adage that Yes, Shiva/Vishnu/etc must be Buddhist (too/equally), let alone the pretence that Hindus are talking about the *same* entities called Shiva etc as the Buddhists etc are.

I'm sure these are just the sort of dangerous 'Hindu' people that if they were ever to learn about the existence of Daoism and Shinto [oh please the Shen, no], they will declare that Daoist and Shinto Gods are "equally Buddhist" using the same logic by which they fell for the Buddhist inculturation on the Hindu Gods. (Tomorrow they should fall for christian inculturation too, anything less would be discrimination, after all.) But someone should tell such stupid Hindus not to mess with (the religion upheld by his supreme pre-eminence) the Jade Emperor. After all, even Buddhists were sorry when they tried to encroach on Him...



There's a moral to all this. It's that wonderful Japanese (?) phrase I once heard: "Only death cures stupidity".

("Not education?"

Apparently not. Well, not where stupidity has become innate and is chronic.)

I'm not surprised Hindus are falling for christian inculturation anymore.

I *am* surprised that all this still bothers me.

[Husky]

Post 1/2



All the Hindu temples and Hindu temple moorties that Buddhists have since a recent decade suddenly started to claim as having been "originally Buddhist"* (which is purely an attempt to missionise on the Hindus attached to those Hindu temples) are the exact same Hindu temples and Hindu moorties that Jains of the Jain Minority Forum (JMF) are claiming were "originally Jain" instead.



[* A list of these Hindu temples etc can be seen in an earlier post in this thread wherein Rhytha pasted the allegations made by some Buddhism peddlers. Note: the peddlers had merely plagiarised their claims from anti-Hindu pamphlets compiled by some Sri Lankan Buddhist monks who clearly did not know what they were talking about but didn't let their ignorance stop them.]



Note that the *same* Hindu temples and moorties are claimed by both Buddhism AND Jainism: everything from Tirupati and Puri Jagannatha, various named Hindu Kovils in TN, down to the same general claim of "thousands of Hindu temples in TN" were "originally Buddhist" (as per the Buddhist claimants) and magically also "originally Jain" (as per the Jain claimants).



By simple logic then, even someone who didn't know any more about the case can already conclude that at least one of the two - Buddhism or Jainism - is lying here, and compulsively. And people who know a bit more about the Hindu temples in question can further disqualify both claimants as compulsive liars: they don't know what they're talking about. Perhaps their ignorance is understandable: SL Buddhists from around the 1970s are not likely to know much if anything about Hindu temples in TN India and just wanted to sound convincing to their SL readership, just as the relevant JMF members were situated in a state far away from TN which is not their ancestral state either. The latter's aim was merely to claim that dravoodianism=TN=Jain "originally" and that "therefore" all Tamizh Hindu Kovils were supposedly Jain too.



But these are all (actually, demonstrably) Hindu Kovils. And just as in the past - when Hindu lineages of temple constructors and moorti sculptors built Hindu kovils to the Hindu Gods - it is still Hindus who continue to build similar temples in SE Asia (Malaysia, SL etc) today. Not Jains or Buddhists.



However, the JMF made another typical assertion to prop up their claims: that pooja and temples "idol worship" have nothing to do with Vedic religion, declaring that clearly pooja/"idol worship" was copied from Jainism, down to the use of flowers and moorties. The JMF even said that pooja was a "dravidian" word where 'dravidian' pu meant flowers, even after in brackets they knew to relate pu back to Skt puShpa (flowers).



Yet, what all Hindoos know (and Jains etc wouldn't):



+ Bhagavad Gita already knew of the established Hindu mode of worship where Hindu Gods are offered flowers, fruit and liquid (coming right after a verse mentioning the PuruShottama as the bhokta of the yagnya). Meanwhile, the Gita of course does not know of Buddhisms or Jainisms, for obvious reasons.

The JMF could not pretend that the famous verse in the Gita didn't exist and so resorted to twisting the entry to mean that by the Gita's time, Hindus had essentially copied pooja from Jains and so it was recognised as a mode of worship. Indeed, they hold up the entry in the Gita as "proof" for their extreme speculation. :blinks:



+ Pooja in Hindu religion is directly related to a Vedic homam. With the fire, the Hindu Gods are invoked. Oblations (food and liquid) and mantras are offered the Gods via Agni, and hymns and songs (from the saamaveda) are used to worship them. A homam is essentially the act of feeding and worshipping the Hindu Gods, just what Hindus do in temples with moorties.



And this is exactly what the Hindoos do during their home poojas too: offering food and literal puShpas to the Hindu Gods and adoring the Hindu Gods by reciting stotras and singing to them. The literal pushpas are equivalent to mantra puShpas (which is also the name of a veda sukta which some Hindus use during their daily pooja). So every Hindu - absolutely *every* Hindu - doing pooja at home to their images of the Hindu Gods is performing a homam as it were, it's just on a smaller scale, that's all. (Also when Hindoos meditate as they do in one kind of internal yoga: IIRC this is literally described as an internal yagnya in Hindu tantra texts; again: the agni in the hRidayam is offered worship and likened to the Moorty or Shivalingam.) Every Hindu attending the worship of the moorties of the Gods in Hindu temples is partaking in a yagnya but in another form. The Gods are invoked in the moorties, just as they are invoked during a yagnya and become present, then the Gods are offered the usual worship of mantras or stotras, inundated in mantras with flowers/coins/milk etc. The usual established list of Offerings, including any special ones that might be prescribed for that Temple and Moorty. I think regular Hindus (people like me) substitute traditional Hindu songs about the Gods - not just carnatic ones, as traditional "folk" songs about the Gods count the same - for the Sama portion. Not all of us can say mantras willy-nilly, but we may all toss flowers during pooja [and say the names of the Gods (=itself mantras) along with this] and this act is apparently regarded the equivalent in pooja context as reciting Veda mantras to the Gods during a homam.



(cont.)