Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

Back to Agastya. Don't know why I didn't think to nose through the Valmeeki Ramayanam first.

But the Ramayanam already knows of Agastya having made his mountainous abode in the southern region near the river Tamraparni:



web.archive.org/web/20140303215242/http://www.valmikiramayan.net/kishkindha/sarga41/kishkindha_41_frame.htm



(Internet Archive link from earlier in the year: archive crawled the site in October and the page was down then and is still down now)

tathaa vangaan kalingaam ca kaushikaan ca sama.ntataH |

anviikSya daNDaka araNyam sa parvata nadii guham || 4-41-11

nadiim godaavariim caiva sarvam eva anupashyata |

tathaiva aandhraan ca puNDraan ca colaan paaNDyaan keralaan || 4-41-12



11, 12. tathaa= like that; vangaan kalingaam ca=, Vanga, Kalinga [kingdoms,] also; sam antataH= verily, at its fringes; available; kaushikaan ca= Kaushika [territories,] also; you search and then; sa parvata nadii guham daNDaka araNyam = with, mountains, rivers, Dandaka, forest, caves; anviikSya= on seeing - on searching Dandaka; godaavariim nadiim caiva= Godavari, river, also, thus; tathaiva= like that; aandhraan ca= Andhra territory; puNDraan ca colaan paaNDyaan keralaan= Pundra, Chola, Paandya, Kerala [provinces]; sarvam eva= all of them; anu pashyata= closely, see - make a through search.



"Like that Vanga, Kalinga territories shall be searched along with Kaushika territories available on their fringes, then cast about the Dandaka forest all over its mountains, rivers, and its caves, then River Godavari that courses through Dandaka forest, and then the provinces of Andhra, Pundra, Chola, Paandya, Kerala are to be searched thoroughly. [4-41-11, 12]



Some other mms have Matsya desha in this verse instead of the Vanga desha. The Vanga is the present day Bengal and this territory retained its epical name, but while pronouncing it becomes banga because the Sanskrit grammar allows to pronounce or write va as ba by the rule va ba yoH abhedaH and thus it is called Baangla or Bengal as British used to call. Kaushika in some other mms is read as kaashika. Kalinga is Orissa which touches Bengal at its north, and it is the Kie-ling-kia as said by Huet Tsang.



The Andhra is the present day Andhra Pradesh and Chola is the present Tamil Nadu, especially northern area, and Pundra is roughly in between Andhra and Chola. Paandya is south-most area where in Kanyakumari district the Cape Camorin is there, and Kerala is the present Kerala state from Gokarna to Kanyakumari. Its historical name was chera raajya and in Ashoka's time, it was called kerala putra.





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ayomukhaH ca ga.ntavyaH parvato dhaatu maNDitaH |

vicitra shikharaH shriimaan citra puSpita kaananaH || 4-41-13

suca.ndana vanoddesho maargitavyo mahaagiriH |



13, 14a. dhaatu maNDitaH= with ores, crowded with; vi citra shikharaH= verily, amazing, with crests; shriimaan= prosperous [mountain]; citra puSpita kaananaH = motley, flowered, with forests; such a; ayaH mukhaH parvataH= iron, mouths, mountain - a mountain having iron-ore mines in the shape of mouths, namely Mt. Malaya]; gantavyaH= reachable - you shall go to; su candana vanaat deshaH= best, sandalwood trees, with copses, places; mahaa giriH maargitavyaH = great mountain, is to be searched.



"You shall go to the prosperous Mt. Malaya which is crowded with iron-ore mines as its vast mouths, and with amazing crests and motley flowered forests. Search shall be carried out on that great mountain in the places that are with the copses of sandalwood trees. [4-41-13, 14a]



This Mountain is also called Agastyamalai and it is in Western Ghats from which River Tamraparni emerges.



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tataH taam aapagaam divyaam prasanna salilaashayaan || 4-41-14

tatra drakSyatha kaaveriim vihR^itaam apsaro gaNaiH |



14b, 15a. tataH= from there; divyaam= divine one; prasanna salila ashayaan= limpid, waters, receptacle of; apsaraH gaNaiH vihR^itaam = by apsara, throngs, make pleasure-trips; taam kaaveriim= her, Kaveri; aapa gaam= water, flowing [river]; tatra drakSyatha = there, you shall see.



"From there you shall go and see the divine River Kaaveri there, a receptacle of limpid waters, to where throngs of apsara-s will be making pleasure-trips. [4-41-14b, 15a]



The River Kaaveri is the best river in southern peninsula of India that flows from Braham Giri Mountains in Coorg of Western India to the East draining in Bay of Bengal and irrigating a major chunk of land. Many legends are associated with this river, of which one is that when Sage Agastya was bringing waters of River Ganga, they sprinkled from his kamandulau, the handy water-vessel, and flooded like Kaaveri. The original Tamil name is kakaviri where kaakam is 'crow...' viri 'spread out...' When Agastya is bringing water it sprinkled from his handy vessel and flooded the kaa 'the garden...' in Tamil, the garden of Indra. Then it is called kaaviri, but Shilpadikkaaram records its name as Kaaveri only pulavoy vazhi kaaveri... nadanthai vazhi kaaveri...

(Kaaveri too is closely associated with Agastya. IIRC it is an embodiment of an incarnation of his beloved wife Lopamudra.)



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tasya aasiinam nagasya agre malayasya mahojasam || 4-41-15

drakSyatha aaditya sa.nkaasham agastyam R^iSi sattamam |



15b, 16a. mahaa ojasam= highly resplendent [mountain]; tasya malayasya nagasya agre = of that, Mt. Malaya, mountain, on the top of it; aasiinam= who is sitting; aaditya sankaasham= Sun, in similarity; R^iSi sattamam agastyam drakSyatha= Sage, the eminent, Agastya, you shall see.



"You shall see the eminent sage Agastya, whose resplendence is akin to that of the Sun, and who will be sitting on the top of that highly resplendent Mt. Malaya. [4-41-15b, 16a]



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tataH tena abhyanuj~naataaH prasannena mahaatmanaa || 4-41-16

taamraparNiim graaha juSTaam tariSyatha mahaanadiim |



16b, 17a. tataH= from there; prasannena mahaa aatmanaa= when he becomes complaisant, great-soul [Agastya]; tena= by him; abhi anuj~naataaH= well permitted; graaha juSTaam taamraparNiim = capturers [crocodiles,] highly cherished by, River Taamraparni; such a; mahaa nadiim= great river; tariSyatha= you shall cross over.



"And when that great-souled Agastya complaisantly permits you, then you shall leave that mountain and cross over the great [b]River Taamraparni, a highly cherished river of crocodiles. [4-41-16b, 17a][/b]



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saa candana vanaiH citraiH pracChannaa dviipa vaariNii || 4-41-17

kaantaa iva yuvatii kaantam samudram avagaahate |



17b, 18a. citraiH candana vanaiH = with amazing, sandalwood trees, copses; pracChannaa dviipa vaariNii= with overlapped, islands, water; saa= she [the river]; yuvatii= a young woman [Taamraparni]; kaantaa = one who is yearning for; kaantam iva= for whom she is yearning - her love, as with; samudram= to ocean; avagaahate = [she will be] rendezvousing.



"She whose water is overlapped with amazing copses of sandalwood trees and islands that River Taamrapani will be drifting for a rendezvous with her much yearned lover, namely the ocean, as with a young woman who will be coursing to have a rendezvous with her yearned lover. [4-41-17b, 18a]



The romantic touch is that the River Taamraparni has sandalwood trees alongshore and by constant rubbing of her waters, those trees that yield sandalwood paste to her. And her island-like breasts are smeared with that sandal paste supplied by the trees alongshore, while she is nearing her husband, namely the ocean.



The name of the river Taamraparni or Tamiravarani or Taamravarni derives from the words taamra 'coppery...' varNa 'colour...' 'a river with coppery riverbanks...' where those riverbanks have light coppery sandalwood trees. And she flows from Agastyamalai in Western Ghats of India, and courses through Papanaasham, a holy place. And covering Tirunalveli it drains into Bay of Bengal at the Gulf of Mannaar. There are hosts of vainavatiruppadigal 'Vaishnavaite temples...' throughout its riverbanks and this river is held holy. There are many legends about it, of which one says that Sage Agastya led the course of this river to the ocean for twenty-seven days from its source.



Down south of the River Taamraparni it is simhala desha or senga-kia-lo the present day Sri Lanka. 'This was first made known to the European world by the expedition of Alexander, as Taprobane. The true form however would appear to be Ta'mba panni or the 'red-leaved one...' from the Sanskrit T'amparni and Ptolemy calls it Salike, corrupt from Simhalaka Abu Rihaan gives the form of Singal-dip and then the Arabic name Tilaan came and that resulted into Cylone. After a long lost time they have renamed it as per the nomenclature given in Ramayana as Lanka, but adding a Sri before it. [After Ancient Geography of India.]





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tato hemamayam divyam muktaa maNi vibhuuSitam || 4-41-18

yuktam kavaaTam paaNDyaanaam gataa drakSyatha vaanaraaH |



18b, 19a. vaanaraaH= oh, vanara-s; tataH= from there; yuktam= joined to - braced to the wall of fortress; hemamayam divyam= full with gold, beautiful one; muktaa maNi vibhuuSitam= pearls, gemstones, decorated with; paaNDyaanaam kavaaTam= of Paandya [kingdom's,] castle-door; gataaH= having gone there; drakSyatha= you shall see; search inside that gateway.



"From there, on going to the Paandya Kingdome you shall see a fully golden castle-door bracing the compound-wall of the fortress, which is decorated with pearls and jewels, and conduct your search even in that kingdom. [4-41-18b, 19a]



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tataH samudram aasaadya sa.mpradhaarya artha nishcayam || 4-41-19

agastyena antare tatra saagare viniveshitaH |

citra saanu nagaH shriimaan mahendraH parvatottamaH || 4-41-20

jaata ruupamayaH shriimaan avagaaDho mahaarNavam |



19b, 20, 21a. tataH samudram aasaadya= then, [southern] ocean, on reaching; artha nishcayam sampradhaarya = purpose's, resolve, on resolving; agastyena= by Agastya; tatra= there; saagare antare vi niveshitaH= in ocean, inside, verily, penned up [one end of mountain]; citra saanu nagaH= one with marvellous, terraces, trees; shriimaan mahendraH = glorious, Mt. Mahendra; parvata uttamaH= among mountains, best one; jaataruupamayaH= completely golden; shriimaan mahaa arNavam= august [Mt. Mahendra,] into great, ocean; avagaaDhaH= will be steeping in.



"Then on reaching the southern ocean, and on taking a resolve with regard to the purpose of your task, viz., importance of the mission undertaken vis-à-vis your individual capacities to leap the ocean, you reach the glorious Mt. Mahendra. Sage Agastya once penned its one end in the ocean, and the other end is now visible. That august and best one among all mountains will be completely golden with marvellous terraces and trees, and it will be steeping into ocean on the other side of land, and this mountain becomes the jumping-off point for you vanara-s. [4-41-19b, 20, 21a]



There are three mountains in Kanyakumari district, the southern promontories of India, at the end of Western Ghats, namely Thadaka malai, Mahendra giri, Marunthuva malai, where the word malai, giri is 'mountain...' in Tamil. The Thadakamalai is held as the forest of Tataka, the demoness, and Rama is believed to have come up to this south most part of India to eliminate Tataka in his boyhood. The Mahendragiri is the mountain from which Hanuma leaps to Lanka and the river that emerges from this mountain is named after Hanuma. The Marunthuvamalai is believed to be a mound fallen from the main Himalayan mountain which Hanuma brought while bringing sanjiivini herb, to bring Lakshmana to conscious. Even now, the local people benefit from the herbs that grow on this mountain and even the bitter leaves when cooked on this mountain will turn to sweet taste. This is being the story of this end of the ocean for Herbal Mountain, on the other end in Sri Lanka also there is a similar herbal mountain called Rhumassala Kanda, in Singhalese.



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naanaa vidhaiH nagaiH phullaiH lataabhiH ca upashobhitam || 4-41-21

deva R^iSi yakSa pravaraiH apsarobhiH ca sevitam |

siddha caaraNa sa.nghaiH ca prakiirNam sumanoharam || 4-41-22

tam upaiti sahasraakSaH sadaa parvasu parvasu |



21b, 22, 23a. naanaa vidhaiH= numerous, sorts of; phullaiH nagaiH= with flowered, trees; lataabhiH ca upashobhitam= with climbers, also, glorified; deva R^iSi yakSa pravaraiH= by gods, sages, yaksha-s, important ones; apsarobhiH ca= by apsara-s, even; sevitam= adored; siddha caaraNa sanghaiH ca = by siddha-s, caarana, groups of, also; pra kiirNam= well, overspread; su manaH haram= truly, heart-stealing [for a look]; tam= it - to that mountain; sahasraakSaH= Thousand-eyed Indra; parvasu parvasu= on auspicious day, on auspicious day - on every auspicious day; sadaa = always - regularly; upaiti= he comes.



"Mt. Mahendra is glorified with numerous kinds of flowered trees and climbers. Important gods, sages, yaksha-s and even apsara-s will adore it, and it is overspread with the groups of siddha-s and caarana-s, and thus it will be heart-stealing for a look. And the Thousand-eyed Indra will always be visiting that Mt. Mahendra on every auspicious day. [4-41-21b, 22, 23a]

(The Vedic=Hindoo Gods inhabit the various regions of the Hindoo homeland since ur-times.)



The auspicious day for Tamil almanac is no moon day amavaashya because of its neutrality from the wax and wane affects of lunar phases. So, it is believed that Indra will come to this mountain on every no-moon-day in the Indian month.

[Husky]

Post 1/2

a. tamilandvedas.com/2013/07/24/who-was-tiruvalluvar/

b. jayasreesaranathan.blogspot.co.in/2012/01/thiruvalluvar-wore-sacred-thread.html



No endorsement of the blogs themselves - have just skimmed the articles at the above pages - but the images and some statements caught the eye.



Both images are taken from the first link, though the first image is also there in the 2nd link, which latter sources the image as:

Source:- Iravatham Mahadevan's article in www.varalaaru.com/Default.asp?articleid=539

1. 14th century statue of Tiruvalluvar (who wrote Tirukkural) shows him wearing the yagnyopaveetam.

Valluvar Staue with Brahmin's sacred thread;14th century, Chennai

caption reads: mayilAppUril akazhndeTikkappaTTa tiruvalLLuvar silai [Sorry for any typoes, I'm not good at this whole "transliteration" gig.]

(TN Mylapore temple's Tiruvalluvar moorti)



Note especially also his mudra - and how different it is from the modern depictions that seem to have come out of nowhere.

The mudra matters, right?



2. In the British era, printed books showing traditional Tamil depictions of him still show him wearing the thread.

From the book The Sacred Kural by H.A.Popley, year 1931

Note the caption describing this colonial era depiction of Tiruvalluvar: "Traditional figure of the poet".



Again, the mudra - same as that in the 14th century moorti, but different from the modern presentation - is noteworthy.



Note also the other Hindu markings still visible on Tiruvalluvar in the colonial era depiction. No surprise, when long-standing Tamil Hindu traditions still invoke Tirukkural as a repository of Hindoo-dom, and all can show the proof in the detail. (E.g. Hindu traditionalists still lecture on how Krishna's Gitopadesham was essentially parroted by Tiruvalluvar in his Tirukkural and how the Gita-via-Tirukkural was then parroted by Kambar in his - still very Hindu/Vedic - retelling of Ramayanam. Note that Kambar is firmly in Hindu tradition. That is, his Ramayanam - like that of all traditionalist Hindus - is authentic following authentic tradition as it does, unlike the Buddhist/Jain/Bahai spins on the Ramayanam and MBh. <- The difference should matter to heathens.)





tamilandvedas.com/2013/07/24/who-was-tiruvalluvar/

[...] He (Tiruvalluvar) mentioned only Hindu Gods such as Lakshmi, Indra, Vamana avatar (adi Alanthan), Thamarai Kannan (Vishnu), Brahma etc.



In his very first chapter on Prayer to God, he mentioned Pada Namaskaram in 7 out of 10 couplets. This is typical Hindu. He used lot of Puranic, epic and Pancha tantra stories in his couplets. Tamil Nadu Government's Date for Valluvar: 31 BC



Singaravelu Mudaliyar's Abhidana Chintamani (Tamil Encyclopaedia, page 849) gives the following details:



Father of Valluvar: Bhagavan



Mother's name: Adhi



Patron and Friend: Elela Singhan, a business man





Another name of Valluvar's father :Yali Dutta, a Brahmin (according to Gnanamirtham)



Valuuvar's Wife: Vasuki who did several miracles because of her chastity



Valluvar clashed with Madurai Sangam Tamil poets who refused to accept his Tirukkural ( a book of moral ethics with 1330 couplets). At last they accepted his book.

BTW, I think all 4 Hindoo varnas or at the very least 3 of them - the vaishyas, kShatriyas and brAhmaNas - traditionally wear the yagnyopaveetam. Including in ancient TN. (My father knows Gujarati merchants who still wear them. I assume they are of Vaishya varna: their gotras sounded unfamiliar to my father, but they definitely had gotras as many Hindoos do, whether they tend to remember or not.) I think I came across something about shUdras having worn the yagnyopaveetam also, but can't swear by the memory. In any case, the yagnyopaveetam is not by itself an indication that the matter concerns a brAhmaNa, but it is a *yagnyopaveetam* i.e. indicating the person is of Hindu=Vedic religion (despite eventual occasional Buddhist and Jain meaningless copying of the thread*). And then there's also the mudra which is specifically Vedic and related to Upanishadic knowledge.



* In time, Buddhists and a few Jains copied the wearing of a yagnyopaveetam (e.g. seen in Buddhist imagery, at least of Bauddhified devas - perhaps because Buddhists were copying the authentic Hindu devas; even so, there is a difference in the yagnyopaveetam and the Buddhist copy of the thread). Will try to find examples of Jain cases too. It's like how Buddhism/Jainism copied a thousand other things from Vedic religion, before suddenly pretending to be originals. But the practise of wearing the thread has no meaning in Buddhism or Jainism (for obvious reasons - actually obvious even in the *name* yagnyopaveetam), despite them inventing mirror-meanings/re-interpreting the reasoning for the Hindoo practice in Jain terms. And the practice does NOT have its origins in the later Indic religions, having meaning and origins only in the ancestral Hindu=Vedic religion. Same as how Jain Minority Forum types accidentally admitted that Jain temples derived from the concept of "yajaneeya devata" - another giveaway of the Vedic origins of temples. And seen in how the historical founder of Jainism (Mahaveera) spoke of homas and tried to parrot the esoteric conclusions of the Upanishads but left out the Vedic rituals that are the necessary precursor/pre-requisite. (Selective copying.)



Though, having said that, ur-Shramanism will tomorrow no doubt start peddling that "wearing a yagnyopaveetam must have originally been a Shramanist tradition, blablabla" to hide their embarrassment for yet another instance of blatant mangled copying from Vedic religion. Except there's the problem of how the ancient Iranians used to wear a sacred thread too, echoes of which are seen in how even the later Zoroastrians wear a thread. After all, the Ur-Shramanists did claim that Vedic religion was an alien/oryan invader to India, and that jainism/buddhism were the native dravoodianism. I'm merely noting that if Vedic religion was an oryan invader, then ancient Iranians and Iranian religion - being more northwest than northwest India - are surely more oryan, even if less invasive? Which would again prove that the Shramanisms are good at copying and then absurdly claiming originality (an act which ultimately reduces to lying/asat, and which word has started to define the Shramanisms.)





Anyway, to get back. The only real important point in all this is that Tiruvalluvar - and Tirukkural - was=is Hindoo onlee.

Not just from tradition, but as also seen in the unearthed 14th century moorti.



And all the Jains who imagine Tiruvalluvar was quoting Jain ideas don't seem to realise that their claimed semblances are also (and originally) Vedic ideas. That is, statements in Tirukkural that are allegedly "Jain" as per Jains are *entirely* owing to Jainism having 'adopted' Hindu ideas and which ideas aren't really "Jain" at all but simply Hindu, but which Jains had selectively 'borrowed' from Hindu religion. <= You know, the way the historical Jain teerthankara Mahaveer made explicit references to homas (and brahmanas etc), and his ideas simply parroted the pre-existing Hindu Upanishads, but without Mahaveer bothering with the pre-requisites=exoteric Vedic rituals (which act of bypassing them actually makes no sense).





The other link has more interesting things to remark on, as to when the idea arose to make it popular to peddle Tiruvalluvar as a Jain instead:



jayasreesaranathan.blogspot.co.in/2012/01/thiruvalluvar-wore-sacred-thread.html

[About the 14th century img of Tiruvalluvar linked in point 1 above:]

The truth is that Thiruvalluvar wore the sacred thread. This is known from the statue of Thiruvalluvar that was unearthed from the temple of Thiruvalluvar in Mylapore, Chennai. This statue dated at 14th /15th century AD, shows Thiruvalluvar like a Rishi wearing a sacred thread.



Source:- Iravatham Mahadevan's article in www.varalaaru.com/Default.asp?articleid=539



(The above varalaaru link also) has the pics of gold coins with the image of Thiruvalluvar made by the Madras collector, Francis Whyte Ellis (1777'1819).

[Img of 18th/early 19th century British-govt minted coin]

Thikruvalluvar is shown as a Jain in this coin!



Before someone goes to praise Ellis for minting the coin on Thiruvalluvar, I wish to point out that any Christian who praises Tamil and Thiruvalluvar would have an agenda. Ellis was no different man. He towed the line of Caldwell by meddling with Tamil with an agenda to help evangelists. Portrayal of Thiruvalluvar as a Jain also could have been his handiwork. But fortunately his further attempts to project Thiruvalluvar as a Jain through the gold coin did not materialise as a new rule by the British government barred the minting of gold coins.



It takes decades and even a life time to understand and grasp Vedic wisdom and the best of wisdom from Tamil sangam texts and Thirukkural. But people just go by a few concepts that they know and claim that they have mastered them. Particularly I just can't understand how people like Ellis and Caldwell could have learnt the languages which were foreign to them and claimed to trace the history of Tamils and personalities such as Thiruvalluvar. While Thirukkural is entirely a Hindu concept, these 'scholars' , with some Jain words here and there matching with some words of Thirukkural claimed that he was a Jain . Even today this trend is continuing but the difference is that this rishi who was portrayed as a Jain by the British period Christians is now being 'converted' in to a Christian by empty scholars having the sole agenda of conversion.



(The Jainism peddlers - which are Jains, Buddhists and even some Hindus - still peddle Tiruvalluvar as a Jain. As do many Tamil crypto-Buddhists and crypto-Jains by the way. To christianism's chagrin: christianism never intended for the subvertibles among Tamils to convert to Jainism or Buddhism. Christianism only intended that Jainism/Buddhism be a waystation for ex-Hindu Tamils before their conversion to christianism.

Christianism is merely being impatient: the crypto-Jains and -Buddhists will soon convert to christianism. Or their next generations will.)



In this background, the surfacing of this statue of Thiruvalluvar is a significant one. But unfortunately those in the know of it are turning away from the fact of Thiruvalluvar's Hindu identity and instead are speaking on trivial matters.

So the colonial era started the trend of turning Tiruvalluvar into a Jain for the entire Tamil public.



BTW: It is actually entirely irrelevant were Jains ever to have claimed amongst themselves that Tiruvalluvar was a Jain - the way it is irrelevant that Jains and Buddhists have both claimed (using backprojection) that Ramayanam had anything to do with Buddhism/Jainism, or that the Vedic Rishi Agastya had (as per 11th century Tamil Buddhist back-projected fictions) suddenly learnt Tamil from Buddhism's invented Avalokiteshwara, instead of the earlier and original Hindu tradition of Agastya having learnt Tamil from Shiva. Buddhist and Jain claims are no different from christianism's equally (in)valid - though merely more recent - spin that Tiruvalluvar and hence Tirukkural were christian. Or christianism's other inculturations (many of which curiously follow in the footsteps of the Indic missionary religions. Is it just a feature of all missionary religions, or is christianism consciously copying them?)



Again: what matters is not what Jains/Buddhists/christians teach among themselves to keep their converts happy. What matters is what the Tamil public at large holds to, as the native masses of TN (and all India) were always Hindu (as many have remained). And so it seems that the colonials were the first to try to re-invent and impose Tiruvalluvar as a Jain on all the Hindoo masses of Tamil Nadu.





Another set of interesting paras (with self-explanatory images at link):



jayasreesaranathan.blogspot.co.in/2012/01/thiruvalluvar-wore-sacred-thread.html

In this post, I want to point out that Karunanidhi promoted Thiruvalluvar who has sported a sacred thread!!



(referring to the 14th century moorti of Tiruvalluvar

Take a look at the right hand of Thiruvalluvar that shows Chinmudra ' which is a popular mudra shown by Yogis and teachers.



(=Same mudra as Krishna when teaching the Gita, and of Dakshinaamoorti=Shiva when teaching the 4 Rishis. I.e. the mudra of all teachers of Vedantam and which indicates the realisation that leads to moksham and which shows the relation between paramaatman and atman, which is exclusively a Vedic notion.



Of course Buddhism later copied the mudra etc etc. But then Buddhism copied lots Hindu mudras and then gave new names and Bauddhified meanings to them.

But the forefinger touching the thumb has its origin and original=proper meaning in Hindoo religion onlee.)



Compare this with what Karunanidhi did in the Thiruvalluvar statue that he erected at Kanyakumari.

(Karunanidhi's reinvention of Tiruvalluvar has the 3 longer digits pointing up and pinky and thumb touching each other.

Ironically, weather and wear seems to have made an almost naamam-like marking on even Karunanidhi's Tiruvalluvar statue. How appropriate.)



This is something which no gyani or teacher of our land of Bharath had ever shown!! This carries no meaning. But this is Karunanidhi's idea and that is why found like this. People may say that this symbol represents the 3 chapters of Thirukkural. Then also they are wrong, for, the 3 chapters of Thirukkural are infact part of 4 Purusharthas, of which the 4th one is Moksha. He did not write on Moksha, nor did anyone who speak about these 4, because that is something which one could not and would not narrate.



The Moksha mudra will be seen in deities with right hand showing the feet of the lord as a message to surrender in His feet. Thiruvalluvar said that in words in his last verse in Kadavul vaazththu. The Chin mudra in his hand (in the statue recovered in Mylapore) is a mark of wisdom (of Moksha).



[...]

More at link. And a whole bunch of comments too that I'll just have to read some other day.

[Husky]

Post 2/2

(Beware: this post ends angrily.)



Both the following were found through a simple web search and admit to Jain copying of the yagnyopaveetam and that it's limited only to some Jains.



The few Jains that copied the Hindoo practice apparently kept the outward form of the triple thread - though that's where the similarity ends, as Jainised meanings replaced the real purpose and meaning.



1. From Googlebooks. Interruptions in purple are mine, as usual.



The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society

edited by Michael Carrithers, Caroline Humphrey

p.9 and onwards

Thus, though Hindu terms, ideas and practices have exerted a tremendous influence upon Jainism, Jains have usually interpreted and applied such offerings from Hindusim according to the peculiar genius of Jain culture.



[This 'genius' is called inculturation: stealing other people's religious traditions and giving novel meanings within the new religion. Christianism calls this last "re-interpretation", which a HK commenter explained is the next stage of the missionary project that starts with inculturation. Though IMO, the real genius of Indic missionary religions is backprojection. It is DA greatest invention ever.]



It is true, for example that some Jains have adopted the sacred thread, but their use of it is quite contrary to its use among Hindus. Jains, like Hindus, take vows and fast, but their way of doing so is unmistakably Jain. The Jain religious calendar, though sharing many dates and festival periods with Hindus, has its own peculiar observances and logic.



[And similarly, Jainism - like Buddhism - plagiarised the Ramayanam etc multiple times (and inconsistently) to give Jain spins on it. Also unoriginal, and also obvious copying, but uh yet all this copying too may be magically dubbed "Jain" and "Buddhist" 'genius'. The way 'christunatyam' may be credited to christianism's genius. Inculturation on Hindoos' heathenism is inculturation. And all used it for missionary purposes: to convert Hindus and retain converts by offering the shell of their ancestral religion, and to compete with the ancestral religion. HK has articles showing jeebus poojas: like Buddhists and Jains had earlier plagiarised the practise of pooja from Hindus, now christians have plagiarised it too. Equally legit. In a couple of thousand years, christiansim too will claim it invented pooja and that Hindus had copied pooja from *christianism*. Can't wait for christo-nutters to start wearing a thread and to give it a christian meaning the way Jains copied the Hindu practice and gave it a Jain meaning. And christianism has also encroached on Hindu festivals - e.g. Onam and Pongal - and is giving them christian flavours. All it takes is time. All everything takes is time.]



Similarly, while it is true that much Jain literature, particularly in the early medieval and medieval periods, has taken over Hindu terms and ideas, these are set in a doctrinal context which is peculiar to Jains. In fact it seems most appropriate to regard Jain literate as a quite distinct sphere of discourse in which Jains address other Jains, and argue against Hindu writers. [<- *Because* Jainism like Buddhism started as a missionary religion - and still has the tendencies in it - and hence has to negate the ancestral heathenism, i.e. Hindoo heathenism.] And to do so they have developed their own original philosophical methids.



Moreover, Jain literature and its associated practices subsit upon a base of peculiarly Jain institutions. The order of Jain munis, whether Digambar or Svetambar, observe rules which clearly distinguish them from Hindu ascetics. The organisation of Jain temples, even in the south where Hindu influence has arguably been greatest [<- see, no one else is so deluded that they would claim Hindus copied temple building from Jains or from Buddhists], is quite different from the organisation of Hindu temples. [Exactly. Which is why all the Jain/Buddhist histrionics and hysterics that all (major) Hindu temples were "originally" Buddhist/Jain is only the delusion of Indian ignoramuses of Buddhist/Jain/dravoodian/psecularist/Bauddhised variety.] And even those most Hindu figures, the bhaTTAraks, 'caste gurus', participate in a distinctly Jain way in the life of the community. Indeed, if we take the Jain laity into account, there are grounds for arguing that the Jains are not just distinct in their religious organisations, but are actually better at being a community, better at organising themselves and bringing different sections of the community together for common religious and cultural purposes.

At least that last para is a qualitative assessment - where no quantifying data is given, "better" becomes a relative term that even descends into mere subjectivity - so one need not argue it. Though I do observe that after denying claims to originality in the matters mentioned in the quoteblock, claiming the community is simply "better" than Hindus at doing stuff sounds like some last ditch effort to prove superiority that way. Whatever. As long as Hindoo stuffs are not stolen for Jainism/Buddhism/christianism/bla, and due credit is given to Hindoo religion as the originator and the inculturationists as the copy-cat, I shouldn't complain I guess.



But the point was: the above admits that some (not all!) Jains copied the yagnyopaveetam from the Hindoos and not the other way around.

In Bali, Buddhism having lost, Buddhists had pushed to have favourable recognition as teachers of dharma by getting themselves called "Buddhist brahmins". Oxymoron. Then again, some catholic christians in Goa, Mangalore and Konkan also call themselves "christian brahmins", so it's all the *equally* (in)valid.





2. Jainism: The World of Conquerors

books.google.com/books?isbn=8120819381

Natubhai Shah - 2004 - ?Jainism



p.202



Pages are headed with "Popular Jainism". Presumably the section or chapter title.

After listing Jain plagiarisms of the Vedic ceremonies for naming, annaprashnam, the commencement of school, they come to the yagnyopaveetam - and the copycats didn't even bother calling it anything else (because it was originally an obvious spin-off religion from the Vedic religion, yet which now pretends it is indigenous and that Vedic religion is to be booted out of the country as alien):

The sacred thread ceremony (yajnopavit) consists of giving to a child a three stranded cotton thread, representing the three Jewels of Right Faith, Right Knowledge and Right Conduct, and this sacred thread is worn over the shoulder like a sash for the rest of their life as a constant reminder to follow the sacred path. Only few Jains observe this ceremony.

Note in the above: 1. "only a few Jains observe the ceremony". (Mostly ex-brahmin converts to Jainism? Indicating inclusion of the pracice inside Jainism at the time of conversion of these families. It is known that the practice was adopted into Jainism from Hindu religion after all.) 2. Re-interpretation: Jainised meanings given to the practice ("3 Jewels" etc). And 3. Full outward copy of Hindoos' practice otherwise: 3 threads, wearing it for life as vows to observe. C.f. how some female Kerala ex-brahmin converts to christianism rigorously observe wearing the 9 yard saree for meaningless reasons, imagining it is cultural or even that it has something to do with christianism. Same thing.



Next are mentioned the ceremony for giving dhaanam to kanyaas as part of worship of Amman. Which is the only ceremony that the page admits is "very much an influence of Hindu society". They forgot the annaprashnam, yagnyopaveetam etc all being totally and exclusively Hindoo and which were obviously copied into Jainism before Jainism was marketed as its own religion and as "original" and that Vedic religion was the copy and alien.



Similarly, ceremony to complete studies and rakshaa bandhan (complete with Jain re-interpretation) and Diwali as a "social ceremony" in Jainism.



More interesting is what seems to be the Jain ceremony on p.206. After a 1000 instances of obvious Jain plagiarism from Hindu religion (all the stuff that the Jain Minority Forum wouldn't dare to speak of, not only because it mentions the Jain clone of the Vedic God Indra and Jain mirroring of invocation of the Hindu Gods of the Hindoo countryside) comes this brilliant para:

The priest puts an offering in the sacred fire after each mantra of ghee, betelnut, grains of jav (a kind of cereal) and tal (a kind of oil seeds), and each begins with the words aum arham and ends with swaahaa.

Aka wholesale copying of the Vedic yagnya, from OM to Swaha. Tadaa.



And apparently, in Jainism they copied the circling of the fire during the wedding too, but - as usual - they change the numbering a little, to be distinct (tomorrow they will pretend to be the originals in this too and make Vedic religion out to be the plagiarising invader again):

In the key caar pheraa ceremony, the couple circles the sacred fire four times in a clockwise direction, the bride leading the first three rounds. The bride's brother presents rice grain to the bride and groom who, in turn, after each round, offer them to the priest, who makes offerings to the sacred fire, after reciting the mantras for each circumabulation.

Copying the Vedic fire. Check. Copying forms of Vedic mantras. Check. Wholesale bad imitation check. Meaningless changes to make it all meaningless. Check.



Bad Copying is that practice of missionary religions whereby they steal I mean plagiarise from the ancestral native heathenism and then make changes to important rites, rendering it all ultimately meaningless (mangling; e.g. broken homas have no meaning) and making you wonder what the point of their copying was in the first place.



Just like they plagiarised and mangled the itihaasas and other Hindu stuffs, the so-called "Shramanisms" plagiarised and mangled yagnyas too. Even as they booed at all these things when in Hindoos' hands and used for Hindoo religion: after all, to missionary religions (christianism included), Hindu practices are only objectionable in Hindu religion, but not objectionable when inculturated upon by the missionary religions.



Anyway, again: goes to show who copied whom. Everything from the sacred fire and throwing the ghee in there.

Can't wait for Ur-shramanism peddlers to next declare that all fire-sacrifice/yagnya was "originally" an ur-Shramanistic tradition copied into the Vedic religion by the invading "Oryans".'

I mean, their arguments were moronic before, and like I said: they'll have to resort to claiming all the Vedam in the end. More fool them really. Then again, missionary religions are like that onlee.





Moral: Jainism and Buddhism really should have shut up and not pretended they were original instead of the (bad/meaningless) spin-offs that they are, let alone their gal in declaring that Hindu religion was alien and that the ur-Shramanisms were indigenous and the "ancestral" religion.

Because the direction of copying is obvious. The source of originality is obvious. And the identity of the original ancestral religion of all ethnic Indians is obvious too: Hindoo=Vedic religion onlee.

So to return the favour of the missionary Indic religions who are always seen making desperate overtures to Hindus (to convert): All those of Indian ancestry anywhere in the Hindoo subcontinent are always free to *REVERT* to their ancestral Vedic religion and foreswear the swindling plagiarist religions. ("Swindle" was the word Buddhists/Jains used for Vedic religion. And yet the copycats copied Vedic religion. Making them hypocritical swindlers.)



Tomorrow stupid "Hindus" [nationalists] will pretend that because Jainism/Buddhism copied (specifically plagiarism + mangling) 1001 things in form - but not substance - from Hindu religion, that "therefore Jainism/Buddhism/Sikhism are the same as Hindu religion". Well, then by that argument, so is inculturating christianism, no? I mean, all it takes is time. Convergent or divergent evolution - does it really matter, when in the end it *looks* the same and when the appearance of similarity (form) is all that is taken into account to draw the conclusion of sameness?

They mangled Hindu religion. Like Buddhism also mangled Taoism etc. Buddhism in regions of Chinese presence can look quite Taoist - copying Taoist mantras and rites - but it isn't Taoism. It's just a meaningless copy.

And - as documented at ysee.gr - christians engraved crosses onto Aphrodite vigrahas and declared her thereby part of christian cosmology. Doesn't make it so. It is still a perversion of heathenism and of the Correct, Heathen views.

Same thing.



And so: all ethnic-Indians are welcome to dump the missionary religions and revert to Hindoo heathenism, their sole ancestral religion. Either that, or the copycat religions should relinquish all plagiarisms=inculturation (which would actually self-destruct them, because: take away Hindoo religion from the other Indic religions and practically nothing remains; nothing worthwhile at any rate. And take Taoism/Bon/Shinto/etc away too from more eastern Buddhisms and again nothing will remain of that.) Or if that is undesirable, then - although it is really too late, as the Shramanisms have repeatedly shown their true colours (to swindle) - all the nouveau Indic religions should admit to being unoriginal copycats who merely backprojected themselves and made pretences to originality and antiquity, and who shamefully dared to try to evict the native ancestral heathenism as alien, all for their pathetic petty purpose of missionising. I've had it with their bloody interminable lying. How dare all these missionary vultures parasitically copy from Hindoo religion while attempting to compete with it and denying it and trying to evict or kill it. All of which proves that the inculturation was just a ploy - that the outward similarity is a sham - and merely originated as a Means to their End of missionising on the adherents of the native religion. (Same as what Buddhist inculturation in E Asia has been for.)





The images and links in the previous post are the actual point of this spam session.

(Beware: this post ends angrily.)

[Husky]

About this from the previous page:

[quote name='Husky' date='08 November 2014 - 06:17 PM' timestamp='1415450376' post='117441']

+ Is the waterfall mentioned above the Papanasham falls? Because wikipedia's Podigai entry, pasted at the top of this post, said that Agastya's Samadhi Kovil at Podiyil is "close to the Papanasam Falls on the banks of the Thamirabarani River". Papanasham falls may have been named so not only since waters are divine to Hindus, and this particular fall probably does as its name says (since even the wind from Potiyil has since ancient times been said to have beneficial properties), but perhaps also because the activity is associated with Shiva, who makes Harohara out of all paapam (and so this is featured in many stotras to him, e.g. ShivaaShTakam: "mahApApanAsham").

[/quote]

My original suspicion - edited out because I wasn't certain - was right: the falls are factually named after Shiva manifest as "Papanasham-Shiva" at his temple in the area. [After whom the Hindoo composer was also named.]



nativeplanet.com/ambasamudram/attractions/agasthiyar-falls/

Agasthiyar falls, Ambasamudram



The Agasthiyar Falls is located close to the Papanasam Shiva Temple at a distance of about 4km uphill. It is one of the most popular tourist spots in the region. The height of the waterfall is around 100 meters, and it can be reached by trekking from the Papanasam Temple.



[photo hover text:] Ambasamudram photos, Agasthiyar falls - A Picturesque View



This waterfall is believed to have not just the power to wash all sins but is also enriched by medicinal herbs and has the power to heal. One can also trek uphill to its source, the Kalyan Theertham, where the origin of the falls is hidden behind a huge wall like structure.



(Photo of the Papanasham/Agasthiyar Falls even showing it looking very sacred and Hindoo.)



Legends say that Saint Agasthiar balanced the earth and saved it from the havoc which was created by the crowd of people who thronged to the marriage ceremony of Lord Shiva.

[Husky]

Crossposting 1/2 as it's relevant to subsequent posts.





Two posts in the Natural Religions thread referred to the Buddhist stories of a hare donating itself as sacrifice and ending up immortal on the moon as reward.



There were two Buddhist variants (detailed colonial rendering at sacred-texts.com/astro/ml/ml08.htm "Moon Lore, by Timothy Harley, [1885]", Chapter "IV. THE HARE IN THE MOON"):

- The earlier one appears to have been the Buddhist Jataka where Indra comes disguised as a pilgrim to test the 3 animals including the hare's intention. The Jataka had it that the hare was the Buddha in an earlier birth.

- A later version changes the story to the Buddha (a.o.t. Indra) testing the animals and rewarding the hare.



That change appears to be a development internal to Buddhism.



However it's hard to shake the suspicion that the first mentioned may turn out to be one of the great many Bauddhified Jataka fables, i.e. the great many "pre-Buddhist Indian" (=code for Hindu) narratives which got Bauddhicised and included into the Jatakas. Often via the "And this character was a previous incarnation of the Buddha" routine.



Because a lot of even Hindus' Pauranic accounts and those from the Itihasas got copied, Bauddhified and included into the Jatakas (and other Buddha stories) in just such a manner. E.g. the narrative of the devout and just King Shibi, a very popular Vedic King to Hindus is already mentioned and remembered - and his rightful conduct recounted - as a historical ancestor in the exclusively-Hindoo Itihaasas:



originstories.blogspot.com/2013/10/shibi.html

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Shibi

The story of the King and the pigeon and the hawk is used to illustrate the compassion and generosity of the king. This story of Shibi appears in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The story of Shibi is as follows:

[...]

(For a summary of the MBh mention, see mahabharataonline.com/stories/mahabharata_story.php?id=7

Will look up the ref in Ramayanam later.)



In contrast, a Bauddhified plagiarism of the originally Hindu account exists in the Jatakas apparently, called the "Shibi/Sivi Jataka" as per en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibi_(King),

where the Bauddhified clone of the Hindu Shibi offered a totally different part of his body as sacrifice (his eyes), and to Indra undercover as a brahmin rather than a hawk. <- A few of the Buddhist "innovations"; someone get them a prize for originality. The other Buddhist novelty was of course that Sivi was then declared to be a previous life of the Buddha (since the Jatakas are about the "previous lives of the Buddha" and - like Jainism's backprojections of their teerthankaras - are all about claiming great famous Vedic Hindoos and great famous ancient Hindoo narratives of Vedic society as being "originally Buddhist" instead. <- I.e. back-projection of Buddhism and the Bauddhifying of Hindus' past for the converts to Buddhism. Like the christoconvert Deivanayakam is trying to claim all things Tamil Hindu as originally christian; or the Santa Thomas myth and backprojection of christianism into India's history to create a false sense of history among christians).

The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births - Google Books Result

books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=8120614739

E. B. Cowell, Edward B. Cowell - ?2000 - Reference

SIVI-JATAKA 250 How a prince gave his own eyes as a gift, and his reward. ...

manners: a tale of two parrots of which one was good and one bad according to ...

wisdomlib.org/definition/sivi-jataka/index.html

Sivi Jataka, 1 Definition(s)

'Sivi Jataka' belongs in these categories: Buddhism, Pali



1 DEFINITION(S):

The Bodhisatta was once born as Sivi, king of Aritthapura, his father bearing the same name as himself. He ruled well, and daily gave alms to the amount of six hundred thousand. One day the desire came to him to give part of his body to any who might ask for it. Sakka read his thoughts, and, appearing before him as a blind brahmin, asked for his eyes. The king agreed to give them, and sent for his surgeon Sivaka. Amid the protests and lamentations of his family and his subjects, Sivi had his eyes removed and given to the brahmin. It is said that the surgeon did his work in several stages, giving Sivi chances of withdrawing his offer. When the sockets healed Sivi wished to become an ascetic, and went into the park with one attendant. Sakkas throne grew hot, and appearing before Sivi, he offered him a boon. The king wished to die, but Sakka insisted on his choosing something else. He then asked that his sight might be restored. Sakka suggested an Act of Truth (sacca kiriya), as not even Sakka could restore lost sight. The eyes reappeared, but they were neither natural eyes nor divine, but eyes called Truth, Absolute and Perfect. Sivi collected all his subjects, and, resting on a throne in a pavilion, taught them the value of gifts.



The story was related in reference to Pasenadis Asadisadana. On the seventh day of the almsgiving the king gave all kinds of requisites and asked the Buddha to preach a thanksgiving sermon, but the Buddha left without doing so. The next day, on being questioned by the king, he explained his reasons for this (For details see Asadisadana). The king, greatly pleased with the Buddhas explanation, gave him an outer robe of Siveyyaka cloth worth one thousand. When the monks started commenting on how tireless the king was in giving, the Buddha related to them the old story, in which Ananda is identified with Sivaka, the physician, and Anuruddha with Sakka (J.iv.401-12; of. CypA.52f).



The Sivirajacariya is included in the Cariyapitaka (Cyp.i.8; the story is also given with variant details in the Avadanasataka i.183-6). It forms the topic of one of the dilemmas of the Milinda Panha. Mil.p.119f.

And it gets worse: because it's not merely a case of Buddhists* plagiarising from Hindu religion and then bauddhifying it, but a case of Buddhists bauddifying what they *badly* plagiarised - aka the usual case of Bad Copying by the late, missionary Indic religions, as revealed by comparing with the mention of the Hindu Shibi and Alarka in the Ramayanam:

[*Though the Jataka itself has Buddha getting the pre-existing tradition wrong (again), since the error is placed into Buddha's mouth: he's accused of narrating it.]



valmikiramayan.net/ayodhya/sarga12/ayodhya_12_prose.bak

Then, that fierce Kaikeyi again spoke these fiercer words to Dasaratha, who was burning with sorrow and was wailing as aforesaid, who had fallen unconscious and was tossing about as he was filled with grief, and was praying again and again for being speedily borne across the sea of grief.: "Oh, Valiant king! Having given boons, if you repent again and again how can you proclaim piety on this earth? Oh, knower of what is right! When many royal saints assemble and converse with you , what will be your reply? Can you say a wrong was done to Kaikeyi, on whose grace I am living now and who protected me earlier? Oh, King! You having granted boons indeed today, now talk in another way, creating blemish on other kings.When there was a dispute between a hawk and a pigeon (who were no other than Indra the ruler of gods ,and the god of fire respectively), the ruler of Sibis* gave away his own flesh to the bird and king Alarka** by parting with his eyes, attained to the highest destiny.



* Ruler of Sibi: We are told in our scriptures how in order to put the large -heartedness of the king to a test, Indra(the ruler of gods)and Agni (the god of fire) once appeared in his court in the disguise of a hawk and a pigeon. Being chased by the hawk, the pigeon which sought the king’s protection, descended into his lap. The hawk which closely followed it, demanded it back from the king, contending that the bird had been allotted to it as its food by providence and the king had no right to rob it of its quarry. The king, however was not prepared to forsake the fugitive on any account and agreed to part with his own flesh in order to indemnify the hawk. The hawk however out weighed the king's flesh every time he chopped it from his body till at last he ascended the scale himself and thus offered himself in exchange for the pigeon. **Alarka=The royal sage Alarka parted with his own eyes in order to implement a boon granted by him to a blind Brahmana who asked for the king's eyes in order to have his own eyesight restored.The ocean, having given a promise, never crosses its limits. Therefore, bearing in mind the previous occurrences, do not violate the pledge given by you to me Oh, the evil-minded ! By giving up righteousness and by installing Rama in the kingdom, you want to enjoy life with Kausalya forever".

(The uses of asterisks in this blockquote are as in original and not of my insertion. My only modification is adding the blue highlighting.)



Note from the above how Buddhism (or Buddha, since he's the one whom the posthumous Jatakas have recounting the Bauddhified story) has conflated the two Hindu accounts - i.e. typical case of bad copying by the nastikas, since - see blue bit above - it was King Alarka who gave his eyes to a brahmin, and King Shibi who gave of his flesh to Indra disguised as a hawk [and then Shibi was of course rewarded by Indra and the other Gods for his altruism]. Buddhism, desperately rewriting Shibi as a Bodhisatva to Bauddhify the ancestral religion to which the account belongs, confused the two accounts into one: the Bauddhified clone king Shibi now gave his eyes to an Indra disguised as brahmin and who requested it. And thus another Jataka was born: "This is the TRUE account of Buddha's multiple past lives." Oh yeah, *sure* it was. Never mind that it is the mangled version of the traditional accounts of Hindus' Vedic ancestors who'd never heard of Buddhism because it didn't exist yet back then (and who certainly wouldn't have converted into it). And anyone who believes that Shibi (etc) got reborn as Buddha should really convert to Buddhism already. After all, Shibi et al are only former lives of the Buddha in *Buddhism*.



People will continue to lecture how "Buddha taught the Vedic religion onlee" and how "Buddha is a Vedaj~nA and Vedantaj~nA" etc etc and will point also to how he (Buddhism) retreaded so many narratives of Vedic tradition. [badly] Except he couldn't even get the Shibi narrative straight, among others. (<- And which implies...)



The thing that Buddhism has managed to preserve - sort of - was the fact that the original, Hindu Shibi became an ascetic, as retold in the MBh quoted on this page:

valmikiramayan.net/ayodhya/sarga58/ayodhya_58_frame.htm

“Oh, charioteer! Tell me where Rama sat, slept and took food. By hearing these things, I shall survive, as Yayati survived in the company of saints.”



Comment: King Yayati, when doomed to fall from heaven requested Indra to cast his lot with saints. He was accordingly sent down to a spot on the earth, where four ascetics- Astaka Pratardana, Vasuman and King Sibi had been practicing austerities, and had discourse with them- Mahabharata, Adi Parva.

(Though Buddhism is likely to have taught a backprojected Buddhist asceticism for their Bauddhified clone Shibi instead. Like Jainism, in its late texts, backprojected an alleged Jain ascetic [teerthankara] brother onto Hindus' Vedic ancestor Sagara. Etc.)





The narratives of Shibi and the other king - Alarka - clearly must have been familiar and old in the time of Ramayana and MBh, that they just get namedropped in the first (since everyone is expected to know the details already and of why Kaikeyi invoking them for comparison is relevant) and Shibi's narrative moreover gets a revisit in the MBh.



As an aside: The early date assigned to the core part of a lot of the Jatakas starts making more sense when one realises that that early date actually refers to the Buddhist appropriation and Bauddhicisation of far more ancient, long-standing and originally (excusively) Hindu narratives.



Interestingly, unless I'm missing it, the MW dictionary doesn't even bother to list the Bauddhified character:

1 zibi m. (also written %{zivi}) N. of a R2ishi (having the patr. Aus3i1nara and supposed author of RV. x , 179) Anukr. ; of a king (renowned for his liberality and unselfishness , and said to have saved Agni transformed into a dove from Indra transformed into a hawk by offering an equal quantity of his own flesh weighed in a balance) MBh. Hariv. Pur. ; (pl.) a people descended from S3ibi MBh. Hariv. VarBr2S. ; N. of a son of Indra MBh. ; of Indra in the fourth Manv-antara (v.l. %{zikhin}) VP. ; of a son of Manu Ca1kshusha BhP. ; of a Daitya (son of Sam2hra1da) MBh. ; a king of the S3ibis VarBr2S. ; a beast of prey L. ; the birch tree (= %{bhUrja}) L. ; Typha Angustifolia L.

And now for general supportive data of what is not a claim, but a known fact:



h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-buddhism&month=0802&week=b&msg=snBC2kjuKk4vCzu7tYLdpQ&user=&pw=

From: Naomi Appleton <naomi.appleton@orinst.ox.ac.uk>

List Editor: H-Buddhism <h-buddhism@JJ.EM-NET.NE.JP>

Editor's Subject: Re: QUERY>Mundane Wisdom in Early Buddhism (Appleton)

Author's Subject: QUERY>Mundane Wisdom in Early Buddhism (Holba)

Date Written: Tue, 12 Feb 2008

Date Posted: Wed, 12 Feb 2008 08:00:04 -0500



Jiri Holba wrote:



> It seems to me that only the Dhammapada or some Jatakas can be called

> by "mundane wisdom" and used for some illustration of it in early

> Buddhism.



> Are there some studies or articles about the Dhammapada or some other

> Buddhist texts which can be useful for my task?



It is very difficult to tell if the _jataka_s of the _Jatakatthavannana_

qualify as sources of "Buddhist mundane wisdom" -- many scholars have

treated them as non-Buddhist (because of pre-Buddhist origins, parallels

with other folklore, and lack of clear Buddhist content), and yet the

text itself states that _jataka_s are illustrative of the path to

buddhahood (and you can't get much less mundane than that). The

situation only gets more complicated when you start to look at other

collections. The diversity of the stories and texts has been a real

obstacle to work on the ideology of _jataka_s (including any ethical

content) [...]

Maybe part of that can be explained by the fact that in inculturating on pre-Buddhist Hindu materials, Buddhism wasn't always aiming to impart Buddhism so much as to Bauddhify all previous popular narratives known to the laity. That is, to Bauddhicise their (perceptions of their) past in order to Bauddhicise them. Appropriation (Bauddhicising) for the purpose of appropriation (missionising).



The Jatakas may be one of the 3 cornerstones of Buddhism (of Theravada at least), but that doesn't make the content originally - or even specifically - Buddhist wherever this is derived, as so much of it apparently is.



Modern new-agey Indians of Hindu origins will invariably declare that everything Hindoo immediately belongs to Buddhisms and Jainisms etc; backprojected in time too: as having "always equally belonged to them". (And that is often the beginning of the problem: as some other Hindu narratives that got included in the Bauddhified Jatakas and other texts on Buddhas have been - or should I say: are still being - used to inculturate on Hindus [and on others].)





Anyway, the point was that one wonders whether the Jataka concerning the hare was also originally a Hindu narrative, and whether Buddhism merely managed to overshadow the original. Also considering that:

- even the nature of the hare's sacrifice - giving everything to a needy visiting stranger - is in several respects reminiscent of the weasel (?) incident in the MBh, who IIRC witnessed the sacrifice of a brahmana family that all went without food in order to give theirs to a stranger, and which weasel then felt that IIRC Yudhisthira's massive yagnya compared less favourably to the family's sacrifice (i.e. danam/austerity=yagnya), since the 'leftovers' from the king's yagnya could not make the other half of the weasel's pelt match the gold of the first half which had been coloured by the family's yagnya.

- And Indran testing the magnanimity and righteousness/worthiness of characters [often incognito] is a very Vedic, Hindu recurrence/pattern. (Indra is said to have been interested in gaging/revealing the extent of the famed justness and benevolence of Shibi. Likewise, the Jataka has Shakra interested in testing/gaging the sincerity of the the animals' resolution. The Hindu God appearing incognito as the dog that accompanies Yudhisthira on the way to swarga is part of the test for his uprightness. Indra and other Hindu Gods are described as likewise having tested others in ancient Hindu narratives.)

- Plus Buddhism isn't famous for much that is original, and is rather famous for taking the stuff belonging to local heathen religions and Bauddhifying this.





This next page is taken from the description of the book "Dharma Rain" by the [western?] Buddhist "Shambhala Publications". But it does not clarify the particular case I'm wondering about:



webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BNWjiyZTEt8J:http://www.calameo.com/books/000039257563f4ebe2496%2B%22

Two Jataka tales, from a popular genre with pre-Buddhist origins, depict the Buddha-to-be in his previous lives. In one, a lowly clump of grass saves a tree from a carpenter’s axe; in the other, a rabbit sacrifices himself as food for a poor traveler, throwing his body onto a fire ‘‘as joyfully as a bird drops into a bed of lotuses. ’’ In manifesting their compassion, both the grass and the rabbit are on their way to becoming Buddha.

It would be rather meaningful research, for a change - especially compared to the ocean of delusional insipidity out there that is passed around as scholarship - to see Indians investigating in detail which prominent so-called "Buddhist" narratives are in fact pre-Buddhist, Vedic=non-Buddhist in origin. Similar for Jainism.



It is high time Hindus did such a thing. Everyone else has encroached on Hindu religio-history (and are still very much using this as a means to encroach on Hindu sacred sites and Hindus). So, in order to shut up the compulsive-inculturationists, Hindus should at least delve into the details of what is long known to be true, such as, e.g.

the fact that the Buddhist Jatakas of India are frequently just Bauddhified pre-Buddhist (i.e. Hindu) narratives.



And as a beneficial side-effect, such research could help other heathenisms against a similar strain experienced under the revived Bauddhifying onslaught.

[Husky]

Crossposting 2/2, as it's relevant to subsequent posts.

The narratives of Shibi and the other king - Alarka - clearly must have been familiar and old in the time of Ramayana and MBh, that they just get namedropped in the first (since everyone is expected to know the details already and of why Kaikeyi invoking them for comparison is relevant) and Shibi moreover gets a revisit in the MBh.

Here:



mahabharataonline.com/translation/mahabharata_01003.php

Translation of Mahabharata of Vyasa by Kisari Mohan ...

then the excellent history of the hawk and the pigeon; then the examination of king Sivi by Indra, Agni, and Dharma;

Another brief allusion: MBh also expected all to already know of it by then.



(And More general mentions of King Sivi/Shibi son of Usinara in MBh.)







Searching for occurrences of Shibi in the MBh translation led me to the following interesting bit in the MBh that Bhishma narrates as a "well-known tale", one that "Bhrigu's son Rama" was already to have narrated to an earlier Vedic king, and which tale Yudhisthira already knows enough on to ask about it of Bhishma.



A hungry "fowler" (bird-hunter of sorts?) requests a pigeon for some food. As his host, the pigeon wants to do right by his guest by observing the right code of conduct. Having no food to give him, it leaps into a fire and cooks itself for him. He feels penitent and, inspired by its self-sacrificial nature, is determined to



mahabharataonline.com/translation/mahabharata_12a142.php

mahabharataonline.com/translation/mahabharata_12a145.php

mahabharataonline.com/translation/mahabharata_12a146.php

"Yudhishthira said, 'O grandsire, O thou of great wisdom, O thou that are conversant with every kind of scripture, tell me what the merit is of one who cherishes a suppliant that craves for protection.'



"Bhishma said, 'Great is the merit, O monarch, in cherishing a suppliant. Thou art worthy, O best of the Bharatas, of asking such a question. Those



p. 323



high-souled kings of old, viz., Sivi and others, O king, attained to great bliss in heaven by having protected suppliants. It is heard that a pigeon received with respect a suppliant foe according to due rites and even fed him with his own flesh.'



"Yudhishthira said, 'How, indeed, did a pigeon in days of old feed a suppliant foe with his own flesh? What also was the end, O Bharata, that he won by such conduct?'



"Bhishma said, 'Listen, O king, to this excellent story that cleanses the hearer of every sin, the story, viz., that Bhrigu's son (Rama) had recited to king Muchukunda.



[...]



Thus addressed, the fowler said, 'So be it.' And he set himself to warm his stiffened limbs. Recovering (as it were) his life-breathes the fowler said unto his winged host, 'Hunger is afflicting me. I wish thee to give me some food.' Hearing his words the bird said, 'I have no stores by which to appease thy hunger. We, denizens of the woods, always live upon what we get every day. Like the ascetics of the forest we never hoard for the morrow.' Having said these words, the bird's face became pale (from shame). He began to reflect silently as to what he should do and mentally deprecated his own method of living. Soon, however, his mind became clear. Addressing the slaughterer of his species, the bird said, 'I shall gratify thee. Wait for a moment.' Saying these words, he ignited a fire with the help of some dry leaves, and filled with joy, said, 'I heard in former days from high-souled Rishis and gods and Pitris that there is great merit in honouring a guest. O amiable one, be kind to me. I tell thee truly that my heart is set upon honouring thee that art my guest.' Having formed this resolution, the high-souled bird with a smiling face, thrice circumambulated that fire and then entered its flames. Beholding he bird enter that fire, the fowler began to think, and asked himself, 'What have I done? Alas, dark and terrible will be my sin, without doubt in consequence of my own acts! I am exceedingly cruel and worthy of reprobation. Indeed, observing the bird lay down his life, the fowler, deprecating his own acts, began to indulge in copious lamentations like thee.'"





Section CXLVII

"Bhishma said, 'The fowler, seeing the pigeon fall into the fire, became filled with compassion and once more said, 'Alas, cruel and senseless that I am, what have I done! I ant certainly a mean wretch! Great will be my sin for everlasting years! Indulging in such self-reproaches he began to say, repeatedly, 'I am unworthy of credit. My understanding is wicked. I am ever sinful in my resolves. Alas, abandoning all kinds of honourable occupation, I have become a fowler A cruel wretch that I am, without doubt, this high-souled pigeon, by laying down his own life, has read me a grave lesson. Abandoning wives and sons, I shall certainly cast off my very life-breaths that are so dear. The high-souled pigeon has taught me that duty. From this day, denying every comfort to my body, I shall wear it out even as a shallow tank in the season of summer. Capable of bearing hunger, thirst, and penances, reduced to emaciation, and covered with visible veins all over, I shall, by diverse kinds of practise such vows as have a reference to the other world. Alas, by giving up his body, the pigeon has shown the worship that should be paid to a guest. Taught by his example. I shall henceforth practise righteousness. Righteousness is the highest refuge (of all creatures). Indeed, I shall practise such righteousness as has been seen in the righteous pigeon, that foremost of all



p. 328



winged creatures.' Having formed such a resolution and said these words, that fowler, once of fierce deeds, proceeded to make an unreturning tour of the world, 1 observing for the while the most rigid vows. He threw away his stout staff, his sharp-pointed iron-stick, his nets and springes, and his iron cage, and set at liberty the she-pigeon that he had seized and immured.'"

About the final paragraphs:



The lame ur-Shramanism peddlers will no doubt declare that Section CXLVII above magically points to ur-/Shramanism, and that the (implicitly Vedic ascetic) vows mentioned "must therefore actually be" Jain or Buddhistic monastic vows, or because there is mention of the notion of compassion that it must be Buddhist onlee, etc.

Sadly for ur-Shramanism peddlers/any desperate people trying to find proof of their later religions in the MBh and other early Hindu texts and oral traditions, the above tale too is Vedik Hindoo/it speaks of Vaidika principles onlee, and Bhishma - as he himself says - is only retreading here what other Vedic Hindoos before him* had long ago narrated to others as instruction. [* And a son of Bhrigu would be not just a Veda Brahmana but a Rishi moreover. Hence not Jain/Buddhist/whatever.]

Conclusion: the above narrative retold by Bhishma is Vedic Hindoo onlee. Plus MBh and preceding contexts do not know of Jainism/Buddhism yet (since those nouveau religions appeared much, much later) just like the MBh hasn't heard of the recently-invented, back-projected ur-Shramanisms or oryan-dravoodianisms or christianisms etc either.





Anyway, there are definite parallels between the pigeon's tale in the MBh - highlighted in blue above - and that of the hare in the Jataka. Can compare with

sangye.it/altro/?p=235

"Jataka Tales on Lord Buddha's life: 6 - THE HARE".



Can observe how both the MBh pigeon above and the hare at the link are determined, and insist on their action.

But still wonder if there's a more direct predecessor to the first Buddhist Hare story, the Jataka one: where Indra's still the one immortalising the hare's lesson by placing its image on the moon; whereas the later one - which sounds more properly/completely Bauddhicised - has Buddha playing Indra's role, while the hare no longer seems to be a previous incarnation of the Buddha. In any case the 2nd story doesn't appear to be a Jataka.)[/color]





Returning to the earlier posted

encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/hare

(Added numbering)

1. A Buddhist folktale recounts that the Buddha, in an earlier incarnation as a hare, willingly gave his own flesh to help feed a hungry soul. He gained immortality through this good deed, rising in the shape of a hare to the moon, where he is still visible to us today.



2. A legend from India claims that a hare once performed a great act of compassion for the god Indra. The hare spied Indra, disguised as a famished pilgrim, praying for food. The hare had nothing but his body to give so he cast himself on the fire so that the pilgrim might eat. The god rewarded the hare by granting him immortal life on the moon.

The above makes a distinction between "the Buddhist folktale" - with Buddha as the hare in an earlier life - and "the Indian legend" featuring Indra. Yet the former story (distinct from the Buddhist version where Buddha makes a hare immortal) already featured Indra. So does that mean that the 2nd item listed alludes to a version without Buddha/anything Buddhist? Or is it merely that the encyclopedia link confused the two Buddhist variants of the-hare-on-the-moon tale? Hm.







The 2 Buddhist variants again:



sacred-texts.com/astro/ml/ml08.htm

1. [...] (Indra undercover as) The brahmin at last went to the hare and begged alms of him. The hare said, 'Friend, I eat nothing but grass, which I think is of no use to you.' Then the pretended brahmin replied, 'Why, friend, if you are a true hermit, you can give me your own flesh in hope of future happiness.' The hare directly consented to it, and said to the supposed brahmin, 'I have granted your request, and you may do whatever you please with me.' The brahmin then replied, 'Since you are willing to grant my request, I will kindle a fire at the foot of the rock, from which you may jump into the fire, which will save me the trouble of killing you and dressing your flesh.' The hare readily agreed to it, and jumped from the top of the rock into the fire which the supposed brahmin had kindled; but before he reached the fire, it was extinguished; and the brahmin appearing in his natural shape of the god Sakkria, took the hare in his arms and immediately drew its figure in the moon, in order that every living thing of every part of the world might see it."

(The hare had clearly meant to plead that it wanted to stay huddled up forever in Indra's arms instead - and who could blame it. Oh wait, it's probably the Buddhist clone Sakkria/Sakka. Never mind then.)





2. Grimm says: "The people of Ceylon relate as follows: While Buddha the great god sojourned upon earth as a hermit, he one day lost his way in a wood. He had wandered long, when a hare accosted him: 'Cannot I help thee? Strike into the path on thy right. I will guide thee out of the wilderness.' Buddha replied: 'Thank thee, but I am poor and hungry, and unable to repay thy kindness.' 'If thou art hungry,' said the hare, 'light a fire, and kill, roast, and eat me.' Buddha made a fire, and the hare immediately jumped in. Then did Buddha manifest his divine power; he snatched the beast out of the flames, and set him in the moon, where he may be seen to this day." 78

The first seems to be earlier, because the 2nd one (where the hare interacts with and is rewarded by the Buddha) Bauddhises the earlier Bauddhified Jataka variant more. It fits better with later Buddhist cosmology where Buddha is more supreme than Gods.



Consider:



In the hare Jataka, Indra is the one who saves the hare and immortalise its image on the moon. In that version, the hare is the Buddha in a previous life and has no special powers - it couldn't conjure food for its guest: the Buddha-as-hare only has the ability (also seen in the MBh pigeon) to sacrifice its own life - willingly, which is a great trait, but altruism/self-sacrifice is still something within the ambit of mortals and doesn't necessarily indicate a deity (or transform them into one).

And in the Jataka, only Indra (still) had the power to magically extinguish the fire and set an image of the animal on the moon to immortalise its lesson. [Though Indra/Buddhist Indra by whichever time Shibi got Bauddhified into a Jataka did not possess the power to restore regular sight.]



Anyway, the presumably earlier, Jataka version of the hare tale is then superceded by the 2nd Buddhist variant: where the Buddha is now the one who has the power to immortalise the hare. And it is not a case of history coincidentally repeating in Buddhist cosmology, with a now-enlightened Buddha having acquired divine powers and an all-new altruistic hare, but rather a retelling/new version/replacement of the original story, since the main characters are by and large the same and their actions too (plus there's only one hare on the moon in Buddhism, I think, which means they're variants on the same story): in the 2nd version, the hare is no longer the Buddha but the recipient of Buddha's divine powers, which powers were approximately that of Indra in the first version. But the summary of the story already indicates that over time Buddha was viewed as a sort of divinity in Buddhism (or at least, some Buddhisms): "While Buddha the great god sojourned upon earth as a hermit [he met the hare] ... Then did Buddha manifest his divine power".

[Husky]

This series of spam is about Buddhism starting to claim that their cloned copy is the original Ramayanam. Jains did the same too, already discussed in an earlier post in this thread. It's directly related to the 2 posts above, which have been x-posted, but which relate directly to the subject of this set of posts.



Post 1/?

Introduction / the problem





Buddhists poached the material for their Jatakas (stories purporting to be the past lives of the Buddha/Shakyamuni, posthumously accredited to him) from pre-existing Hindu=Vedic religion. Quite like Jainism, Buddhism didn't just plagiarise from the ancestral heathenism of the region [which is Hindu=Vedic religion] in order to inculturate, but further mangled what they plagiarised too. That is, many of the Buddhist/Jain plagiarists often had a half-baked knowledge of the original Hindu materials AND they used this mangled knowledge as an outer 'framing' device to insert their Buddhist/Jain viewpoints into, before they then tried to pass it all off as original work and even as Buddhist/Jain theology-'history'. Thus was born the Buddhist/Jain Bad Copies. Some time later, Buddhism/Jainism - obviously embarrassed by their obvious plagiarism, and desperate to cover it up (which would necessarily require yet more lying/swindling on their part) - would declare that their Bad Copies were "the original" versions and that it was Hindus who had copied the Hindu origins from the (admittedly) inferior and late Buddhist/Jain clones, *backwards in time*.



The TamilAndVedas blog pasted in an earlier post of this thread also has mention of how the Jatakas were totally copied from pre-existing materials, and listed Hindoos' Ramayanam, Mahabharatam and Puranas as being among the original sources from which Buddhism pillaged from and Bauddhicised. Initially I assumed the reference to the Ramayanam and MBH was about how Buddhism badly copied and then Bauddhified the Vedic Shibi, turning him suddenly into a previous incarnation of Buddha and thereby christening :good word: all things Shibi as a Budhdism. That much I'd worked out for myself. However, I had no idea that Buddhism had attempted more with their Jatakas where the Ramayanam etc was concerned.



Then I remembered that Elst had somewhere threatened/implied that Buddhism has a claim on Rama, merely because a Jataka had declared -late- that Rama was suddenly a previous incarnation of Buddha. On the surface it seems harmless. So modern Hindus will doubtless be deeply touched that Buddhism had inculturated on Rama (the way Hindus are deeply touched -no?- that christianism has inculturated on a billion sacred Hindoo things now). Except for the little fact that surely can't escape even the new-ageist of modern Hindus: that, as per the Buddhist spiel, Rama had to reincarnate (many times) before he was born as Buddha before he could reach Buddhist nirvana [to realise the unVedic "anAtman" inversion of Buddhism] is not complimentary to Rama. (Unless you're a Bauddhified 'Hindu', in which case it may make perfect sense.)



So, it wasn't just Shibi who - as per the Buddhist inculturation project - wasn't perfect enough, but Sri Rama too, so that they both needed to reincarnate as Buddha before either could attain Buddhist nirvana. Something which the Vedic Hindoo Gods and persons needed as badly as the Shinto Gods, who were similarly 'lavished' with the same Buddhist attention.



Interested to find out more about how bad the Buddhist clone of Rama could possibly be - should have left well alone, when will I learn - I got more than I was prepared for.



1. Before getting to the actual Jataka and the hysterical conclusions by some Buddhist who's apparently been approved to lecture on the dhamma at a Buddhist site, this next page - forced to admit that the Buddhist Jataka plagiarised pre-existing tradition - implies that said pre-existing Ramayana was merely "folklore", i.e. 'all-Indian Kultur' that got ingested by Buddhism. You know, the same methodology that christianism uses: first declare everything that is Hindu to be generally Indian/'all-Indian', before inculturating on it and declaring that it is suddenly 'equally-christian' (before eventually declaring that it was "originally" christian and plagiarised by Hindus):



buddhism-guide.com/buddhism/jatakas.htm

Most of the Jatakas are folklores that have been provided with a Buddhist touch. The Jatakas also have a version of the Ramayana which is called the Dasratha Jatakas, which portray Rama and Sita as brother and sister, instead of husband and wife.

Shibi and Rama badly cloned by Buddhism - like the Sagara and Bharata and Krishna badly cloned by Jainism - are NOT "folklore". They are Vedic religion/religio-history.

And the Buddhist/Jain clones are inculturation, i.e. opportunistic attempts at evangelising Hindus and retaining converts.

[Husky]

Post 2/?

The Dasharatha Jataka



2. And here follows the relevant Jataka - "Dasaratha jAtaka" - badly plagiarised from The Ramayana, and ending with how the Bauddhified clone of Rama was a past-life of the Buddha.



wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/the-jataka-volume-iv/d/doc80635.html

The Jataka, Volume IV



Contents / No. 461.: Dasaratha-Jātaka. No. 461.: Dasaratha-Jātaka.

[1]



"Let Lakkhaṇa," etc.—This story the Master told in Jetavana about a landowner whose father was dead. This man on his father's death was overwhelmed with sorrow: leaving all his duties undone, he gave himself up to his sorrow wholly. The Master at dawn of day looking out upon mankind, perceived that he was ripe for attaining the fruit of the First Path. Next day, after going his rounds for alms in Sāvatthi, his meal done, he dismissed the Brethren, and taking with him a junior Brother, [124] went to this man's house, and gave him greeting, and addressed him as he sat there in words of honey sweetness. "You are in sorrow, lay Brother?" said he. "Yes, Sir, afflicted with sorrow for my father's sake." Said the Master, "Lay Brother, wise men of old who exactly knew the eight conditions of this world[2], felt at a father's death no grief, not even a little." Then at his request he told a story of the past.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Once upon a time, at Benares, a great king named Dasaratha renounced the ways of evil, and reigned in righteousness. Of his sixteen thousand wives, the eldest and queen-consort bore him two sons and a daughter; the elder son was named Rama-paṇḍita, or Rama the Wise, the second was named Prince Lakkhaṇa, or Lucky, and the daughter's name was the Lady Sītā[3].



In course of time, the queen-consort died. At her death the king was for a long time crushed by sorrow, but urged by his courtiers he performed her obsequies, and set another in her place as queen-consort. She was dear to the king and beloved. In time she also conceived, and all due attention having been given her, she brought forth a son, and they named him Prince Bharata.



The king loved his son much, and said to the queen, "Lady, I offer you a boon: choose." She accepted the offer, but put it off for the time. When the lad was seven years old, she went to the king, and said to him, "My lord, you promised a boon for my son. Will you give it me now?" "Choose, lady," said he. "My lord," quoth she, "give my son the kingdom." The king snapt his fingers at her; "Out, vile jade!" said he angrily, "my other two sons shine like blazing fires; would you kill them, and ask the kingdom for a son of yours?" She fled in terror to her magnificent chamber, and on other days again and again asked the king for this. The king would not give her this gift. He thought within himself: "Women are ungrateful and treacherous. This woman might use a forged letter or a treacherous bribe to get my sons murdered." So he sent for his sons, and told them all about it, saying: "My sons, if you live here some mischief may befall you. Go to some neighbouring kingdom, or to the woodland, and when my body is burnt, then return and inherit the kingdom which belongs to your family." Then he summoned soothsayers, and asked them the limits of his own life. They told him he would live yet twelve years longer. [125] Then he said, "Now, my sons, after twelve years you must return, and uplift the umbrella of royalty." They promised, and after taking leave of their father, went forth from the palace weeping. The Lady Sītā said, "I too will go with my brothers:" she bade her father farewell, and went forth weeping.



These three departed amidst a great company of people. They sent the people back, and proceeded until at last they came to Himalaya. There in a spot well-watered, and convenient for the getting of wild fruits, they built a hermitage, and there lived, feeding upon the wild fruits.



Lakkhaṇa-paṇḍita and Sītā said to Rāma-paṇḍita, "You are in place of a father to us; remain then in the hut, and we will bring wild fruit, and feed you." He agreed: thenceforward Rāma-paṇḍita stayed where he was, the others brought the wild fruit and fed him with it.



Thus they lived there, feeding upon the wild fruit; but King Dasaratha pined after his sons, and died in the ninth year. When his obsequies were performed, the queen gave orders that the umbrella should be raised over her son, Prince Bharata. But the courtiers said, "The lords of the umbrella are dwelling in the forest," and they would not allow it. Said Prince Bharata, "I will fetch back my brother Rāmapaṇḍita from the forest, and raise the royal umbrella over him." Taking the five emblems of royalty[4], he proceeded with a complete host of the four arms[5] to their dwelling-place. Not far away he caused camp to be pitched, and then with a few courtiers he visited the hermitage, at the time when Lakkhaṇa-paṇḍita and Sītā were away in the woods. At the door of the hermitage sat Rama-paṇḍita, undismayed and at ease, like a figure of fine gold firmly set. The prince approached him with a greeting, and standing on one side, told him of all that had happened in the kingdom, and falling at his feet along with the courtiers, burst into weeping. Rama-paṇḍita neither sorrowed nor wept; emotion in his mind was none. When Bharata had finished weeping, and sat down, towards evening the other two returned with wild fruits. Rama-paṇḍita thought—"These two are young: all-comprehending wisdom like mine is not theirs. [126] If they are told on a sudden that our father is dead, the pain will be greater than they can bear, and who knows but their hearts may break. I will persuade them to go down into the water, and find a means of disclosing the truth." Then pointing out to them a place in front where there was water, he said, "You have been out too long: let this be your penance—go into that water, and stand there." Then he repeated a half-stanza:



"Let Lakkhaṇa and Sītā both into that pond descend."



One word sufficed, into the water they went, and stood there. Then he told them the news by repeating the other half-stanza:



"Bharata says, king Dasaratha's life is at an end."



When they heard the news of their father's death, they fainted. Again he repeated it, again they fainted, and when even a third time they fainted away, the courtiers raised them and brought them out of the water, and set them upon dry ground. When they had been comforted, they all sat weeping and wailing together. Then Prince Bharata thought: "My brother Prince Lakkhaṇa, and my sister the Lady Sītā, cannot restrain their grief to hear of our father's death; but Rama-paṇḍita neither wails nor weeps. I wonder what can the reason be that he grieves not? I will ask." Then he repeated the second stanza, asking the question:



"Say by what power thou grievest not, Rāma, when grief should be?

Though it is said thy sire is dead grief overwhelms not thee!"



Then Rāma-paṇḍita explained the reason of his feeling no grief by saying,



"When man can never keep a thing, though loudly he may cry,

Why should a wise intelligence torment itself thereby?



[127] "The young in years, the older grown, the fool, and eke the wise,

For rich, for poor one end is sure: each man among them dies.



As sure as for the ripened fruit there comes the fear of fall,

So surely comes the fear of death to mortals one and all.



"Who in the morning light are seen by evening oft are gone,

And seen at evening time, is gone by morning many a one.



"If to a fool infatuate a blessing could accrue

When he torments himself with tears, the wise this same would do.



"By this tormenting of himself he waxes thin and pale;

This cannot bring the dead to life, and nothing tears avail.



"Even as a blazing house may be put out with water, so

The strong, the wise, the intelligent, who well the scriptures know,

Scatter their grief like cotton when the stormy winds do blow.



"One mortal dies—to kindred ties born is another straight:

Each creature's bliss dependent is on ties associate.



"The strong man therefore, skilled in sacred text,

Keen-contemplating this world and the next,

Knowing their nature, not by any grief,

However great, in mind and heart is vext.



"So to my kindred I will give, them will I keep and feed,

All that remain I will maintain: such is the wise man's deed[6]."



In these stanzas he explained the Impermanence of things.



[129] When the company heard this discourse of Rāma-paṇḍita, illustrating the doctrine of Impermanence, they lost all their grief. Then Prince Bharata saluted Rāma-paṇḍita, begging him to receive the kingdom of Benares. "Brother," said Rāma, "take Lakkhaṇa and Sītā with you, and administer the kingdom yourselves." "No, my lord, you take it." "Brother, my father commanded me to receive the kingdom at the end of twelve years. If I go now, I shall not carry out his bidding. After three more years I will come." "Who will carry on the government all that time?" "You do it." "I will not." "Then until I come, these slippers shall do it," said Rāma, and doffing his slippers of straw he gave them to his brother. So these three persons took the slippers, and bidding the wise man farewell, went to Benares with their great crowd of followers.



For three years the slippers ruled the kingdom. The courtiers placed these straw slippers upon the royal throne, when they judged a cause. If the cause were decided wrongly, [130] the slippers beat upon each other[7], and at that sign it was examined again; when the decision was right, the slippers lay quiet.



When the three years were over, the wise man came out of the forest, and came to Benares, and entered the park. The princes hearing of his arrival proceeded with a great company to the park, and making Sītā the queen consort, gave to them both the ceremonial sprinkling. The sprinkling thus performed, the Great Being standing in a magnificent chariot, and surrounded by a vast company, entered the city, making a solemn circuit right-wise; then mounting to the great terrace of his splendid palace Sucandaka, he reigned there in righteousness for sixteen thousand years, and then went to swell the hosts of heaven.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





This stanza of Perfect Wisdom explains the upshot:





"Years sixty times a hundred, and ten thousand more, all told,

Reigned strong-armed Rāma, on his neck the lucky triple fold."

[8]



The Master having ended this discourse, declared the Truths, and identified the Birth: (now at the conclusion of the Truths, the land-owner was established in the fruit of the First Path "At that time the king Suddhodana[9] was king Dasaratha, Mahāmāyā[9] was the mother, Rāhulā's mother[10] was Sītā, Ānanda was Bharata, and I myself was Rāma-paṇḍita."







- Footnotes:

1.

Edited and translated by V. Fausbøl, The Dasaratha Jātaka, Copenhagen, 1871. The story is like that of the Rāmāyana, except that here Sītā is the hero's sister, not his wife.

(At least those who penned the footnotes don't pretend there is any other original Ramayana than the Valmeeki one. See how it compares the later Jataka with "the Rāmāyana", which speaks of the Valmeeki original self-evidently.)



[...]

7.

This last incident is an addition to the narrative in the Rāmāyana, ii. 115, nor is it found in Tulsī Dās’ Hindi version.

(Don't know why the footnotes even bother to list a few additions and instances of divergence, when it has ignored other ones.)



9.

Gotama Buddha's father and mother.



10.

Gotama Buddha's wife.

Clearly, as any *Hindu* should be able to see, and despite Elst's attempts to present otherwise (by conveniently leaving out the crucial details of the alleged Rama in the Jataka), this earliest Buddhist clone of Rama - like the other even later Buddhist clones and like all Jain clones of Rama - is Not the same as the Rama of the Hindus, i.e. not the same as the Rama et al seen in the Valmeeki original or other HindOO Ramayanas, all steeped firmly in the Hindoo tradition. Both Jainism and Buddhism are talking about entirely different things (from the Hindoo original), both having not only plagiarised but also having nothing to do with the ancient Hindu tradition of Rama seen in Valmeeki, which last is however echoed in every local Hindoo rendition of the Ramayanam down to brief references too.*



Besides the fictional Buddhist clone of Rama still having a lot to reincarnate (paradoxically with his anatman) - being only a "Bodhisatva - before he could finally apear as the Buddha and attain nirvana, and besides the obvious case of the Bauddhified clone of Sita being rewritten as a sister, and the other change mentioned in footnote 7, here are some other obvious ones:



- "Benares" not Ayodhya and exiled to a forest in the Himalaya. Both seem to be places of Buddhist long-term evangelisation at the time that the Buddhist story (Dasaratha Jataka) was set. Benares is frequently declared as a backdrop in the Jatakas.



- The fictional Buddhist clone of Dasharatha thinks nothing of breaking his word to his wife. Whereas the original Hindoo Dasharatha ultimately died for his word. And Rama too refused to break his word to his father - holding truth paramount - despite everybody from his brother and mothers and preceptors pleading for him to return on his father's passing. Like Dasharatha was bound by his word - to be true - so too, Rama, following the example of his ancestors, kept his word. The Buddhist version subverts the importance of the oath truly given in Vedic religion.



- Makes it seem like it was Dasharatha who wanted Rama to go.



- On return from the exile, the Buddhist clone of Rama is made the king while the Buddhist clone Sita - who is here his sister - is made the "queen consort", i.e. the sister is made to marry the brother, contrary to ancestral religion. (Wonder if they were merely trying to aggravate Hindus? Reminds me of a Jain version that tried the same too. Subversionists often colluded in offending - as they do even today, see "Shramanism" and "ur-Shramanism" peddlers). Incest tends to be disallowed in Vedic religion.



- No Ravana etc arc at all. The Buddhist copy starts and stops at plagiarising the Ayodhyakanda of Valmeeki's original. This fact, by the way, is telling for reasons to come in a later post.

Presumably plagiarising anymore would make the single Jataka too long and involved perhaps: too many "morals" to impart. So they pillaged parts of the Ramayanam and strung together several Jatakas therewith, though this one is the one 'closest' to the original Hindoo Ramayana of the Vedic religion.



- Total inversion of Rama's character and actions here. In the real Ramayanam, the real Rama is devastated by the loss of his father and faints on hearing of his passing. Rama, Lakshmana and Sita all cry/mourn. See valmikiramayan.net/utf8/ayodhya/sarga103/ayodhya_103_frame.htm



The fact that the Buddhist spin has Rama deliberately not fainting - it is made the "pivot" of the story and the dialogue/sermon/lecture that follows - shows that it intentionally departed from the original here. Nothing is made of Rama fainting or mourning in the original Ramayanam - it is assumed natural and expected: Rama loved his father deeply and is predictably devastated by the realisation of the loss - but far too much is made of the Bauddhified Rama specifically Not fainting, showing that it is a gross copy, made to depart only so that questions would naturally get asked about this point of divergence ("why didn't Rama faint?" [while his behaviour got projected onto Lakshmana and Sita]).



Unlike the Buddhist copy who could never exist, Rama loved his father. Sure, Rama is generally filled with equanimity, especially where his own fortunes and situation are concerned, but he's not some robot like the Bauddhified clone (who is obviously invented). Rama is Not a Sannyasin and *cares* about this life and this world and to make it a better world for all in the Now and the Here, which will allow a better pursuit among all concerning the Beyond. And Rama is happy to be happy with his family and friends, instead of going on about some Buddhist lala-land/afterstate, which after-state was also badly copied from Hindu religion and subverted.

Rama even had IIRC tears when Bharata and his mothers and subjects departed. He was heartbroken at the separation from his wife, he was tormented by very real fears for the loss of his brother Lakshmana and overjoyed when the latter was resuscitated. He was angry with wrong-doers. Not some late-Indian post-Vedic new-agey character from the many new-agey religions doing the rounds in the Shramanist era. He was not unemotional or unfeeling, but lived a full life, following THE Dharma=Vedic Dharma alone, to set a true example. His heroism was derived from his great care for the world and to do right by it and by all, and to be a compass for the native heathens of Hindoo lands.



Anyway, none but new-agey "Hindus" will insist that the original Rama of the Hindoos' religion and the Bauddhified Rama of the Buddhist Jatakas (or any Buddhist or Jain Rama clones) are one and the same. So let that be an end to Elst and the like trying to brainwash/subvert modern Hindus into blindly swallowing that the Buddhist (or Jain) clones have anything to do with the original Hindu Rama.

[Husky]

Post 3/?

Tangential: new-ageists declare all Ramayanas equally valid. And that Hindoo Ramayanas - which are firmly within the Vedic tradition - are equally related/unrelated to each other as to the Jain/Buddhist subversions, and foolishly legitimise missionary inculturation (tomorrow must repeat the same for christian inculturation then)



On this comment I made:

the ancient Hindu tradition of Rama seen in Valmeeki, which last is however echoed in every local Hindoo rendition of the Ramayanam and all brief traditional Hindoo references too.*

* Like in Tiruppugazh on Murugan, and LS where all of Vishnu's dashavatarams reappear on Lalitha's behalf, in order to destroy their customary enemies like Ravana, Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu which have all been manifested by Lalitha's enemy the Bhandasura. Among the dashavataram who appear on Lalitha's bidding then is Rama, along with his brother and Hanuman, who proceed to vanquish the 10-headed one again. Like the LS of the BP, the Tiruppugazh also makes especial mention of various famous avataras of Vishnu. That is, Tiruppugah specifically refers to Vishnu's avataras like the Koormaavataram and Rama and Krishna - and their exploits, such as against Ravana - in the same breath as mentioning that these are all that Vishnu whose favourite is his nephew Murugan. Vaishnava exponents have got a lot of rather endearing details not in Valmeeki - though entirely consistent with Valmeeki's Ramayanam, i.e. the originally and exclusively Hindoo tradition of the Ramayanam - from the references to Vishnu's avatara Rama in Ramayanam [and his avatara Krishna in Mahabharatam and Bhagavatam] from Tiruppugazh.



The following concerns my (perhaps unreliable) memory about an indiafacts article I caught last year.



In contrast, last year's indiafacts article on multiple Ramayanas presented all the Hindoo Ramayanas - despite their being consonant with the Hindoo tradition on Ramayana - as "equally valid" as the Jain and Buddhist subversionist inculturationist missionary versions. To go beyond the call of duty to declare that the Ramayanam is all-Indian-secular - to make sure that Hindus don't dare to declare it to be originally let alone exclusively Hindu - indiafacts resorted to hiding behind their claim that not all branches of Hindu religion even recognised Rama as an avataram of Vishnu. Indiafacts

- implied this with their partially concealed reference to the LS - which as mentioned above - most certainly mentioned Rama as a Vishnu avataaram and affirmed all the 10 major avataras of Vishnu besides (of which Buddha is not one, since LS' locus is south India and Balarama is number 8 followed by Krishna and Kalki).

- claimed this of either some or all shaivas. I don't know which Shaivas the indiafacts author was talking about, but major Shaiva temples of India's historically-Tamil regions tend to have multiple other Gods in there including especially Vishnu, often Vishnu is present in his sannidhis as himself, at other times as one of his avataras (like Parasurama or Rama or Krishna, or BhuVaraha or even several of them) and often even as both Vishnu AND one or more of his avataras. But in all such cases, Vishnu AND his avatarams are marked with naamam on the forehead, so there's no mistaking that the Shaivas have any mistaken notions about which God this is. Several such Vishnu/avataram sannidhis in Shiva kovils further have Vaishnava priests doing pooja to the vigraham as per the rites for Vishnu [which, as usual, are very specific and non-random]. The one I remember from my last visit to TN, was most relevant: it was a Lakshmana-Rama-Sita-Hanuman sannidhi - bearing naamam of course - with 2 Vaishnava priests doing pooja, all within a famous huge and very ancient Uma-Shiva kovil. So the whole "shaivas don't recognise that Raama is Vishnu" spiel is just a spiel. There may possibly be such Shaivas - anything being possible - but in TN and much of the south too at least, it is a standing tradition since ancient times that Rama is Vishnu, both among Vaishnavas and Shaivas (which last includes Shaktas and Murugan-bhaktas in Tamil space).



But the indiafacts article didn't stop at denying the existence of Hindus/that there was any baseline consensus among Hindus and pretending that all Hindu subsects were as equidistant from each other as from Buddhism/Jainism (may as well throw in christianism, with inculturation it has started to "look" as "Hindu" as Buddhism and Jainism have done also thanks to inculturation). IIRC the indiafacts article even went one step further: pretending that the earliest Jain plagiarism of the Ramayanam (dated by western scholars to 2nd to 3rd century CE IIRC, whereas the west always dates the Valmeeki older than the Jain copy and admits the Jain clone to be a copy) may be "older" than the Valmeeki version. Ignorance and universalism all-Indianism seems to be plaguing lots of Indian nationalits vocalists allegedly batting for Hindu religion. Tomorrow they will follow the example of many nationalist Hindu vocalists from TN: who have blindly internalised the recent spiel that Tiruvalluvar and Adigal were Jain (previously they repeated these writers were secular, tomorrow they will repeat that these ancient Tamil writers are christian; whatever is the trend). So I expect that when christianism next inculturates on the Ramayanam - christianism really should, nothing else could expose the hypocrisy of modern angelsk-speaking new agey "Hindu" nationalist vocalists - the same nationalists will at first balk and protest, but given enough time, their kids will start repeating this subversion too.



Meanwhile, while angelsk-speaking Hindus are beyond foolish - and acting without permission - in their presumed magnanimity to share what is exclusively Hindoo with the inculturating missionary religions (then don't hypocritically complain when christianism does the same), Jains and Buddhists do Not reciprocate by sharing said Hindoo stuffs back: Jains started loudly claiming theirs is the original Ramayanam and that Hindoos plagiarised from them and made it Vedic religion [though no one but Jains have fallen far that one], whereas Buddhists - see next post below - have similarly started to declare that their equally-pathetic clone in the Jataka is the earliest version of the Ramayanam and that Hindoos plagiarised from Buddhism.



The moral is: Heathens sharing their religion with missionary religions Does Not Pay. 1. They all turn ingrate when the opportunity arises, 2. they all plagiarise for inculturation=missionary purposes and 3. they appropriate Hindoo religious stuffs for replacing Hindoo religion with their own (i.e. Replacement Theology), and so they mangle the original with intent to peddle Jainism/Buddhism/christianism/dravoodianism/moronism.

Therefore all Hindus - even the desperate nationalists - must really be prevented from their "sharing" tendencies, as these are suicidal (will destroy only HindOOs and Hindoo religion), whereas they promote the desperate missionary ideologies that are always competing with Hindu religion to obtain converts.



Having said that, I have every expectation of seeing several Bauddhified 'Hindus' in time swear by how "the oldest/original version of Ramayana was Buddhist" [or dravoodian, or Jain, or christoislamic]. You know, like that joke some pulled with the account of Trivikrama vs Bali. [The TamilAndVedas site points to Sayana for authority that the Rig Veda refers to Trivikrama's 3 steps. And you know that Mahabali can't be far behind where Da 3 Steps are concerned. Of course the Bauddhified will then merely conclude that "the Rig Veda therefore mentions Buddhism".]

[Husky]

Post 4/?

Example of desperate Buddhist claims to originating Ramayanam and that Hindus would have plagiarised it from them





3. This next was a priceless find. Because it is a perfect example of how recent subversionist spins on Hindu tradition are taken advantage of by the ever-opportunistic missionary religions. The way Jainism and Buddhism took advantage of the AIT in order to spin their religions as the original dravoodian religion, Buddhism has fastened onto the matter of the multiple Ramayanas in order to sell its late bad copy - and thereby itself - as an original.



The matter of multiple Ramayanas is argued in this way: Because the lately invented nouveau Indic religions eventually cloned the Vedic epic tradition of the Ramayana, "therefore" the Ramayana belongs to all Indic religions "equally", and in fact, it "actually" belongs to Buddhism and Jainism more than it does to Vedic religion (<- which by the way is the very recent argument Buddhism/Jainism have started using to claim Patanjali's Yogasutras and Yoga in general). Hindus will do nothing of course. If there is one action that Hindu vocalists can be guaranteed to take with regards to ongoing Buddhist and Jain encroachment on Hindu stuffs it is Utter Inaction. Yet they will whine about christianism when it commits the same crimes. Once again proving that it isn't the crime itself, but who commits it, that modern Hindus will object to.



First to get the easy one out of the way:



dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Ramayana

Go to Wat Phra Keo, the most important Buddhist temple in the country, and it is not the life of the Buddha that is depicted on the walls of the passageway around the main shrine but scenes from the Thai Ramayana, the Ramakien.

The Thai Ramayana tradition was originally Hindu. When Thailand got converted to Buddhism, they Bauddhified the Thai Ramayana tradition. A very late occurrence.

Most Indonesian Ramayanas (certainly those of Bali) are Hindu. Everything else were Bauddhified versions, because Buddhism like Jainism has no Ramayana tradition, it only has plagiarisms/inculturations. (That's what it would be called if christianism did the same.)



Having realised that no one cared about the poor Buddhist clones of the Hindoo originals, Buddhism did try to peddle the MBh and Ramayanam and other Hindoo (i.e. non-Buddhist) works in SE/E Asia as a Buddhist achievement - "look what great epics India-equated-to-Buddhism gave rise to"* - but they remain Hindoo onlee, and missionary religions' poaching on these and other Hindoo matters will forever remain illegitimate.



* Not unlike how christianism is trying to peddle bharatanatyam as a christian achievement in China, when it is a Hindoo religio-tradition onlee and a credit to Hindoo religion onlee.





Now the relevant portion:



dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Ramayana

The earliest version of the great epic [Ramayana] is the Buddhist one, the one found in the Jatakas (No 461). It’s called the Dasaratha Jataka, Dasaratha being of course Rama’s father. Now although the Dasaratha Jataka is immediately identifiable as a version of the Ramayana it differs greatly from most other versions. For example, Rama and Sita are siblings, not husband and wife; Dasaratha does not banish them but sends them away to protect them from their jealous step-mother; they are exiled to the Himalayas, not to Dandaka in the Deccan; there is no reference to Lanka or Ravana; Rama and Sita return to Benares not to Ayodhya after their exile, and somewhat uncomfortably, they then marry.



Now reading Valmiki’s Ramayana one discovers little bits of Buddhism popping up here and there throughout it. For example, the story of King Sibi giving his eyes to the blind man (Jataka No 499) is there. I strongly suspect that the exile of Vessantra as told in the Vessantra Jataka (No 549) was the inspiration for Rama and Sita’s exile in Valmiki’s Ramayana, although I don’t know what scholars say about this. Having said all this, it is also true to say that the Dasaratha Jataka is not a literary masterpiece and Valmiki’s Ramayana definitely is. It is nowhere near as long (is any poem?), it lacks its narrative charm and excitement, and its didactic elements are much more limited. If you are interested in reading the Ramayana (and you have 6 month to spare) have a look at www.valmikiramayan.net/ where you will find the Sanskrit text and a word by word translation of it with notes.



References

BuddhismA2Z.com/ Buddhism A to Z. Ven. Dhammika, 2007.

sdhammika.blogspot.com/

Buddhist swindling is getting better and better all the time.



This line:

The earliest version of the great epic [Ramayana] is the Buddhist one, the one found in the Jatakas (No 461).

How is the Bauddhified clone remotely the "earliest" version?

The Jatakas - as every true scholar has admitted - is a total plagiarism of pre-existing (mostly Hindu) narratives. And no one but apologists for the opportunistic Shramanisms will pretend that the Ramayana is even equally Jain/Buddhist "originally", but will say outright that it is Hindu religion in origin, and its context was always specifically Vedic society. This is even seen, as mentioned in the 2nd post, in the footnote to the Dasharatha Jataka translation, which clearly uses "The Ramayana" as a reference to Valmiki Ramayana in pointing out where the Buddhists diverged in creating their Dasaratha Jataka plagiarism.



And it's all no different from how Buddhism Badly Plagiarised the ancient Shibi narrative of the Hindoos, and copied other pre-Buddhist Hindu sacred narratives to produce the "Jatakas", which Buddhism then went on to try to present as "original Buddhist/Buddhist history and theology".





Then again, Buddhism IS on a major "everything was originally Buddhist" spree. The way Buddhism is reinventing Bon as a post-Buddhist Buddhist sect. So it makes sense that with the theory that "the existence of multiple Ramayanas means all clones are equally valid" being floated about these days, that the Sangha would have leaped on this excuse to conceal their own blatant copying from Hindu religion (to pretend they're the victims of inculturation instead, as Jains have been doing). Buddhists will no doubt believe it. And tomorrow the Bauddhified will parrot it. I mean, if Bauddhified "Hindus" can backproject Buddhism onto the Trivikrama account - or invent Bauddhifying stories about Ayyappa/Shabarimalai in our century - surely they can swear by the Buddhist Jataka spin on Rama and this being the "original", no?



And as for this pathetic statement:

Now reading Valmiki’s Ramayana one discovers little bits of Buddhism popping up here and there throughout it. For example, the story of King Sibi giving his eyes to the blind man (Jataka No 499) is there.

Again, they keep digging a hole. Wow are they an embarrassment to themselves. And the above nonsense being on an official Buddhist site, it moreover reflects on Buddhism as a whole.



Typical Buddhist spin, though. They're able to link to valmikiramayan.net but they clearly haven't bothered reading it.



Like Jains do, Buddhists hear of snatches from Hindu texts and then conveniently read themselves into pre-existing Hindu scriptures. (The way Jains declared that Ramayanam mentioned that shramanas were invited to attend, and that the ref to shramanas "must" be an allusion to Jains. Except that the very reference was an invitation to attend a Vedic yagnya - an ashvamedha - which is specific proof that it could never have been an allusion to Buddhist/Jain/Other later-invented religion, but that the shramanas mentioned were simply Vedic yatis. Duh.)





Here, repeat. But also refer to the longer discussion in posts 265 and 266 above. From the following taken from Valmiki's Ramayanam can see how it is Alarka who gave away his eyes. While the Ramayanam (i.e. Valmiki), like the Mahabharatam - both referencing older Hindu tradition and thus making only summary allusions to Shibi's narrative - refer only to the *Vedic* narrative concerning the Vedic King Shibi: the indra-hawk vs agni-pigeon case where Shibi intervened and donated his flesh (not eyes, as that was Alarka).



valmikiramayan.net/ayodhya/sarga12/ayodhya_12_frame.htm

valmikiramayan.net/ayodhya/sarga12/ayodhya_12_prose.htm

shaibyaH shyenakapotiiye svamaamsaM pakshite dadau |

alarkashchakshushhii datvaa jagaama gatimuttamaam || 2-12-43



43. shaibyaH= Shaibya; dadau= gave; svamamsam= his own flesh; pakshhiNe= to the bird; shyena kapotiiye= when there was a dispute between a hawk and a pigeon; alarka= King Alarka; jagaama= obtained; uttamaam gatim= highest destiny; datvaa= by giving away; chakshhushhii= eyes.



When there was a dispute between a hawk and a pigeon (who were no other than Indra the ruler of gods and the god of fire respectively), the ruler of Sibis* gave away his own flesh to the bird and king Alarka* by parting with his eyes, attained to the highest destiny.



** Ruler of Sibi* We are told in our scriptures how in order to put the large-heartedness of the king to a test, Indra (the ruler of gods) and Agni (the god of fire) once appeared in his court in the disguise of a hawk and a pigeon. Being chased by the hawk, the pigeon which sought the king’s protection, descended into his lap. The hawk which closely followed it, demanded it back from the king; contending that the bird had been allotted to it as its food by providence and the king had no right to rob it of its quarry. The king; however was not prepared to forsake the fugitive on any account and agreed to part with his own flesh in order to indemnify the hawk. The hawk however out weighed the king's flesh every time he chopped it from his body till at last he ascended the scale himself and thus offered himself in exchange for the pigeon. **Alarka*=The royal sage Alarka parted with his own eyes in order to implement a boon granted by him to a blind Brahmana who asked for the king's eyes in order to have his own eyesight restored.

By the way, the Shibi Jataka postdates the Valmeeki Ramayanam tradition. As already discussed in posts 265 and 266 further above, this conclusion is derived from the fact that Buddhism clearly conflated the single Valmeeki Ramayanam verse that mentioned both Alarka donating his eyes and Shibi donating his flesh in order to create the Jataka of the cloned Buddhist Shibi donating his eyes. (Unless some other ancient Hindu text mentions Alarka and Shibi within a short space, sufficient for inept Buddhist plagiarists to confuse the two.) The MBh - as per Ganguly's translation - does not appear to mention Alarka and Shibi in the space of the same paragraphs. Therefore Buddhism's case of Bad Copying for the Cloned Shibi Jataka was derived from the mention of Shibi in *Valmeeki Ramayanam* and not the mention of Shibi in other Hindu texts. <- This last is inference, but it is so very likely that it can be regarded a certainty hereafter.



I've - for all intents and purposes - proven that the Shibi Jataka postdates the Valmeeki Ramayanam, as it clearly plagiarised from it. Do I even need to prove that the Buddhist Dasharatha Jataka similarly plagiarised from the Valmeeki Ramayanam?



Besides, the fact that not just the Buddhists but the Jains too plagiarised from the Valmeeki Ramayanam points to the original Ramayana tradition being the Hindu one. That is, the Jains didn't copy the Buddhist Dasharatha Jataka. They plagiarised what they knew to be the original Ramayanam, for a similar purpose as the Buddhist plagiarised the Valmeeki Ramayanam: that of creating a Jainised variant. Again, here's the earliest Jain spin on the Ramayanam:

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.

If the Jains had remotely considered the lame Buddhist spin as the original (let alone as worth imitating in any sense), surely they would have encroached on the Buddhist version? (Some Jains tried claiming that the first Jain rip-off of the Hindu Ramayanam was the "original" Ramayanam, except that not even alien scholars have bothered humouring that delusion.)



And even ancient Buddhists - presumably coming after the Dasharatha Jataka was concocted and included in Buddhist canon - didn't copy from the Dasharatha Jataka, but continued to pilfer from the Valmeeki original of the Hindoos. More proof is barely needed as to whose material is original, nah, when even the Buddhists couldn't 1. keep their story straight for very long and 2. chose to include further details not from the Jataka but from the Valmeeki Ramayanam. See next post below.



Arguing the way Buddhists do:

Surely that means one can simply reason that "the exile of Vessantra as told in the Vessantra Jataka" was inspired by the exile part of Valmeeki's Ramayanam, no? I mean, considering they stole the Shibi Jataka from there, Dasharatha Jataka from there. And they're not above stealing I mean plagiarising partial life-stories: only one part of Agastya's life was stolen for a Buddhist clone Jataka.

I strongly suspect that the exile of Vessantra as told in the Vessantra Jataka (No 549) was the inspiration for Rama and Sita’s exile in Valmiki’s Ramayana, although I don’t know what scholars say about this.

Admission that the revisionist spew was written by someone who doesn't regard himself as a scholar. And no one else (but the Bauddhified) would regard him as such either: I mean, the whole "Valmeeki mentions Shibi giving his eyes" nonsense is clearly the conclusion that someone who can't read even the English translation at valmeekiramayanam.net (despite linking to it) would come to.





And *this* is why Hindus can't fight inculturation. Because they never stopped Buddhisms and Jainisms from inculturating, they won't stop christianism from doing it either.

Christianism can easily write a christian Ramayanam tomorrow where Rama and Sita etc were all christians etc. Then slowly that will become equally valid and, say 2000 years from now, the progeny of today's Bauddhified (or apologists for Buddhist/Jain inculturation) can declare that christianism's version was the original. Because that's exactly how Buddhist/Jain inculturations have become legitimised: over time, and by growing forgetfulness among Hindus, and the stupid tendency in modern Hindus to not recognise blatant inculturation but to accord it an equal status (or any respectable status at all). I don't mind unity with other dharmic religions, but hereafter, it will be on the condition that they repudiate *all* their inculturations on Hindoo religion, and admit to this, instead of their pretending they were the originals and were victims of Hindus plagiarising from them.

[Husky]

Post 5/?

But: 1st-2nd century CE Buddhist work "Buddhacharita" notably pillaged from Valmeeki, not from Dasharatha Jataka.

Conclusion: even early Buddhists ignored the Dasharatha Jataka as they knew the real source for the Ramayanam. And so too the later Sri Lankan Buddhists, who similarly plagiarised from Valmeeki and ignored the Dasharatha Jataka.

And even ancient Buddhists - presumably coming after the Dasharatha Jataka was concocted and included in Buddhist canon - didn't copy from the Dasharatha Jataka, but continued to pilfer from the Valmeeki original of the Hindoos. More proof is barely needed as to whose material is original, nah, when even the Buddhists couldn't 1. keep their story straight for very long and 2. chose to include further details not from the Jataka but from the Valmeeki Ramayanam.

Like the Jains - who also used the Valmeeki Ramayanam a.o.t. Buddhist variants as the source for their plagiarised Jain spins of the same, and so Jains did not fall for the novelty that any of the Buddhist clones on the Ramayanam was the original either (though 1. they shared similar subversionist tendencies and may have found mutual inspiration, and 2. like the Buddhists, they also eventually started peddling their cloned versions about as the "true original" versions, in typical missionary fashion) -

Again: like the Jains, the Buddhists came up with many mutually contradicting Ramayanas too. The Sri Lankan Buddhist version, as mentioned often enough, does not merely introduce Ravana and Lanka, having moved well-past shadowing the Ayodhyakaandam, but has Ravana as the protagonist: Ravana and Lanka are now Buddhists, and much put-upon by Rama, suddenly the antagonist, whereas as per the Dasharatha Jataka Rama was Buddha in a past life.

Clearly the Sri Lankan Buddhists were motivated more by the fact that they realised that Buddhism did not have first claim on Sri Lanka (and hence had to pretend that Buddhism existed on the island during Ramayanam's setting, and so had to invent their own [even later] version) than their caring a jot about the Dasharatha Jataka, despite the Jatakas allegedly being one of the 3 foundational texts of all Buddhism [Dhammapada, Jatakas and I think possibly the Tripitaaka]. That is, Sri Lankan Buddhists knew that the Dasharatha Jataka had plagiarised the Valmeeki Ramayanam, which is why they knew not to take the fib of Rama having been a past life of Buddha seriously, which is why they didn't think twice about plagiarising Valmeeki for a second time but telling a different story to the Jataka AND making Rama the villain now (since they knew he wasn't ever Buddha, that was all just pretence for inculturation in India, which served little purpose in SL where creating a story of a more ancient Buddhist presence on the island was far more important).



In contrast, the Hindoo versions of the Ramayanam stay consistent on all key points. Which itself is proof that Ramayanam is originally and exclusively Hindoo: as only Hindoos are interested in preserving its pristine core, not the terminal-plagiarists (the missionary religions).





If the Dasharatha Jataka had been original, surely the Buddhists would have kept it intact instead of resorting to pillage the Valmeeki Ramayanam for subsequent clones?

To note here is the Sri Lankan Buddhist spin on the Valmeeki Ramayanam isn't the only early subcontinental Buddhist rewrite after the Jataka. Ashvaghosa's Buddhacharita - about Buddha's life, not his past lives - also made sufficient references to Rama. But, while it also restricted itself to Valmeeki's Ayodhyakandam - and in this respect remained consistent with the Buddhist Dasharatha Jataka - it otherwise significantly differs on points, to channel from Valmeeki instead.



Ashvaghosha - once a Hindoo (specifically Brahmana) - who was converted to Buddhism lived in the late 1st century to 2nd century CE. His date is well known as his king was a known Kushana, so people don't question the dating. The work Buddhacharita is therefore - at earliest - from 1st century's CE end, though Ashvaghosha would have been in his teens then (also, it took a while for Buddhism to convert him, so actually the work is far more likely to be from the 2nd century CE).



Important is that Buddhacharita - being about Buddha - is not about Rama, but it refers to Rama in simile: comparing aspects of Buddha's life as parallels to a few aspects from Rama. Clearly the choice of Rama as the comparison was because Rama's life story was more familiar to all (than Buddha's). Which is another indication of how the Buddhist spin in the Jatakas did not come first.



When looking in a translated text and notes for Buddhacharita - translation by some alien in the first half of the 20th century - I can find no mention of Lakshmana or Sita, since the subject involves Buddha and hence the comparisons are to Rama (and with reference to Dasharatha) alone.



+ Buddhacharita mentions Dasharatha being the son of Aja, which is a fact well-mentioned in Valmeeki's Ramayanam, e.g. it appears in a section listing all the ancestors of the Vedic Rama [where Vedic means of the Vedic=Hindoo religion of course]. Hindoo religio-historical texts like to give the ancestors of their heroes all the way up to the "beginning". That Dasharatha's father is called Aja does is not mentioned in Dasharatha Jataka. Ashvaghosha is therefore teasing additional details from Valmeeki Ramayanam. But it also betrays that Ashvaghosha knows the Valmeeki Ramayanam (whereas he doesn't seem to care much for the Dasharatha Jataka, assuming it existed at this point. The early average date for the collection of so-called "Buddhist" Jatakas is entirely owing to the core of the narratives included therein being pre-Jataka and pre-Buddhist.)



+ The son of Aja (Dasharatha) - whose son (Rama) departed to the forest - is described as "the friend of Indra", which is a conclusion taken from the Valmeeki Ramayanam. It is not there in the Dasharatha Jataka



+ More importantly, there is specific mention of both the Rishi son of Urvashi (which this translator correctly assumes to be Vasistha*) and Vamadeva going to see Rama, where the natural mention of Vamadeva is implicit in the Ramayanam and made explicit in the Mahabharatam. Ashvaghosha's explicit mention is again clearly lifted from the Vedic epics, as neither even get a mention in the poorer Dasharatha Jataka clone.

It is that section of the Mahabharatam that retreads the Ramayanam which specifically names Vamadeva: the Mahabharatam mentions Bharata as being accompanied by Vasistha and Vamadeva and Jabali besides as a host of others - including the Queen mothers and ministers - from Ayodhya's court going to see Rama to plead for him to return.

Note that Ramayanam mentions Bharata and Vasishta and Jabali by name (and each of these get one or more chapters of dialogue with Rama, see Ayodhyakandam), and in mentioning that, besides the queen mothers, the ministers and gurus were present, the reference to Vamadeva is implicit: Vamadeva is already known to be of the court. For example, Vamadeva is mentioned with Vasishta in the pattaabhishekam (just as they are both introduced together in the Balakandam, as the 2 Ritviks (let's say Vadyars) in Dasharatha's court besides the 8 or so ministers, though Balakandam is not considered admissable as evidence by non-Hindus). That all the gurus and ministers of the court were present in pleading with Rama to return is obvious from when the Valmeeki Ramayanam refers to the point where they all leave, and it is therefore implicitly the case that Vamadeva (mentioned explicitly by name in MBh) was present.



valmikiramayan.net/utf8/ayodhya/sarga112/ayodhya_112_frame.htm

[verse 30]

30. atha = then; raaghava vamshavardhanaH = rama; the augmentator of Raghu dynasty; sthiraH = firm; himavaan achalaH iva = as a Himalayan rock; svadharme = (abiding in) his own duty; pratinandya = greeted; tam = those men; aanupuurvyaa = in accord with their rank; guruumshcha = the host of his preceptors; mantriprakR^itiiH = ministers his subjects; tatha = and; anujau = and his brothers; vyasarjayat = and bade farewell.



Rama, the augmentator of Raghu dynasty, being firm as a Himalayan rock in abiding in his own righteousness, greeted those men, in accord with their rank, the host of his preceptors, ministers, subjects and his brothers and bade farewell to all of them.

Vasishta like Agastya is the son of Urvashi as per the Vedam. However it is Vashishta that in Valmeeki Ramayanam has travelled all the way from Ayodhya to Dandaka forest (Agastya did not live in Ayodhya then), and who consequently has several chapters of dialogue with Rama at the end of Ayodhyakanda, in the section where Bharata and various members try to convince or persuade Rama by various means to return home and be their king.

valmikiramayan.net/utf8/ayodhya/ayodhya_contents.htm

107: Rama tells Bharata about Dasaratha's promise of kingdom sarga/chapter

108: Jabali tries to persuade Rama to accept the Kingdom sarga/chapter

109: Rama refutes the atheistic arguments of Jabali sarga/chapter

110: Vasishta gives details of the creation of the world to Sri Rama. sarga/chapter

111: Vashishta urges Rama to grant the prayer of Bharata sarga/chapter

112: The sages requests Bharata to accept Rama's words sarga/chapter

113: Keeping Rama's sandals on his head, Bharata ascends his chariot sarga/chapter

Not knowing which means were used to conclude the Dasharatha Jataka in particular (a.o.t. the Jataka collection/avg Jataka) was earlier to Buddhacharita, it seems to me uncertain whether the Dasharatha Jataka was invented first or the 1st/2nd century CE Ashvaghosha's mere comparisons of Buddha's life of renunciation with that of Rama's exile in Ayodhya in Buddhacharita. I suspect (i.e. speculation, but with some reasoning) the latter was the earlier Buddhist plagiarism of Valmeeki's Ramayanam:



1. Ashvaghosha, despite having converted to Buddhism and turned into a typical zealot, shows no familiarity with Dasharatha Jataka which had equated a cloned Rama to Buddha (as a past life), since if Ashvaghosha had known of it, it is beyond likely that he would have alluded to it instead of merely choosing to draw desperate superficial comparisons between on one hand (Valmeeki's) Rama-and-Dasharatha and 2-specific-courtiers-come-to-plead-with-Rama and on the other hand the Buddha-and-his-father and the-2-courtiers-sent-to-plead-with-Budhda.



2. And I think it is in the Dasharatha Jataka that we see the Buddhists having developed further on Ashvaghosha's notion to compare Rama with Buddha (and Ashvaghosha uses the Valmeeki Ramayanam's Ayodhyakandam, not Dasharatha Jataka) to now declaring that Rama was Buddha's past life.



That is, the direction from Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita to Dasharatha Jataka can be explained straightforwardly, whereas there is no actual connection between the two - other than the common source of Valmeeki Ramayanam - to argue for Dasharatha Jataka to have led to Ashvaghosha's references to Rama in Buddhacharita. It is not impossible that the Dasharatha Jataka was one of the late Jatakas and hence post Ashvaghosha too. Of course, one must allow it to be possible that this Jataka (or perhaps all) were simply unfamiliar to even Buddhists like Ashvaghosha around the 1st/2nd century CE, though Buddhist unfamiliarity with one of the 3 key sources/source texts of Buddhism (Jatakas) seems a bit far-fetched to me - had the Dasharatha Jataka existed in Ashvaghosha's time.



3. Both Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita and the Dasharatha Jataka restrict themselves to plagiarising from the Ayodhyakanda of Valmeeki's Ramayanam for sure, but that could still be argued in support of the Dasharatha Jataka taking the lead from Buddhacharita: Buddhacharita was not required to invoke any other part of the Valmeeki Ramayanam when choosing to make mere comparisons with Buddha, so Ashvaghosha chose to restrict himself to an early part of Rama's forest exile when Rama resisted others' pleadings to return on account of keeping his word to his father. This is offset against the (only *very superficially* similar) Buddha refusing to return to his kingdom when he had renounced it all. (Of course Rama returned to rule as king after keeping his word for the duration of the exile, so that part does not parallel Buddha's life, neither does the abduction of Rama's wife, nor the antagonism of Ravana. Nor, one could argue, the childhood of Rama, who was not coddled in a life of mere wealth, but raised to recognise and be ever aware of his duty and responsibility towards his subjects and to observe the Vaidika Dharma, to discharge his duty to his subjects as the means of the moksha for a king and kshatriya (as opposed to conveniently renouncing it all forever, which may be okay for Buddhist kings but is not done by Hindu Kings: they become ascetics when they retire and have entrusted the kingdom to a trusthworthy child).



It may be that, independently, the Dasharatha Jataka chose to largely limit itself to Ayodhyakanda (even though it has the Rama clone returning to be crowned king and marrying his sister, the Sita clone, which is a separate section in the original Ramayanam of Valmeeki's tradition), or it may be that its restriction was "inspired" by the extent to which Ashvaghosha had bothered to draw comparisons with the Buddha. There is a logical reason for Ashvaghosha to limit himself to Ayodhyakandam: he was drawing comparisons with Buddha's actual life and most of Rama's life didn't remotely resemble that of Buddha. There is no logical reason for the Dasharatha Jataka to restrict itself largely to Ayodhyakandam: it purports to tell the life story of cloned Rama as a previous life of Buddha and so could have told the whole story, but may have been constrained by space (Ramayanam is a large narrative) or to avoid confusion (Buddhism may not have wanted the multiple arcs present in Ramayanam, but may have instead chosen to stick to a single one in order to Buddhistically moralise on it/teach a single lesson) or it simply restricted itself to largely retreading the part of the Valmeeki Ramayanam that Ashvaghosha had taken from. The fact that the Dasharatha Jataka does end hurriedly with little purpose or even little of event in their cloned Rama's life - the 'point' being that he sat in the forest mulling over alleged foreshadowings of Buddhisms perhaps - indicates in which direction the story was borrowed: the original is not likely to be an uneventful story* and it is obvious that Buddhism [as usual] drained it of most of its events to present a short moralistic story, which came to a sudden halt having had no climax and providing no real or new moral messages other than to invert Rama's response to Dasharatha's passing.



* Hindus have no reason to steal anything from others, as theirs is pre-eminently a religion with copious narratives, being an ancient religion. Not to mention that ancient Hindus were famous for penning even great fiction from the ground up, so even in such a situation as might call for fictional entertainment, there would have been no reason for Hindus to take the utterly pointless shadows of short stories from Buddhism or Jainism and try to enlarge these into having some actual content.

[Husky]

Post 6/?

Tangential notes. On alien Buddhacharita translator's unnecessary assumptions.





Another difference between the Dasharatha Jataka and Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita that is worth mentioning - but for other reasons - is that Ashvaghosha doesn't mention Bharata coming to plead with Rama. Of course, this is likely because there is no equivalent in Buddha's case to make the comparison to, whereas 2 courtiers (one purohit and a minister) did come to see the Buddha and could hence be somewhat paralleled with Vasishtha and Vamadeva - who are mentioned together in Valmeeki - coming to see Rama.



The reason I mention Bharata nevertheless is because the English translator - an alien working for some christian mission, although the work is published by the (IIRC Jain) "Motilal Banarsidass" publishers who seem to have assumed it to be reliable - makes it a point to draw attention to the absence of any mention of Bharata coming to see Rama in Ashvaghosha's selected reminiscences from the Ramayanam. This is one of a few points in the parts of the translation which I've seen that I want to draw attention to. The translator has a tendency to assume that Ashvaghosha is original and earlier and authoritative and that any divergence must be later interpolations by Hindus.



The christo-translator (who betrayed traces of being anti-Hindu not anti-Buddhist, though nothing out of the ordinary for a christian) claimed that the whole part where Bharata comes to visit Rama in Valmeeki Ramayanam must have been a post-Ashvaghosha 'sentimental' embellishment by Hindus. 1. Except this very feature is noticeably there even in the pathetic plagiarism seen in Dasharatha Jataka, and 2. as I said, it seems far more likely that Ashvaghosha left out this detail (as he did others) since it was irrelevant to the simile he was constructing which had to parallel to older courtiers sent by Buddha's dad rather than a brother of Buddha pleading. 3. Further, the translator admits that the mention of Bharata etc coming to plead with Rama is already there in MBH's summary of the same:



* See fullbooks.com/The-Mahabharata-of-Krishna-Dwaipayana-Vyasax17067.html

Thereupon the virtuous Bharata [...] And having proved his innocence before all the subjects of that realm he [Bharata] set out in the wake of Rama, desiring to bring him back. And placing Kausalya and Sumitra and Kaikeyi in the vehicles at the van of his train, he proceeded with a heavy heart, in company with Satrughna. And he was accompanied by Vasishtha and Vamadeva, and other Brahmanas by thousands and by the people of the cities and the provinces, desiring to bring back Rama. And he saw Rama with Lakshmana, living on the mountains of Chitrakuta with bow in hand and decked with the ornaments of ascetics. Bharata, however, was dismissed by Rama, who was determined to act according to the words of his father. And returning, Bharata ruled at Nandigrama, keeping before him, his brother's wooden sandals. And Rama fearing a repetition of intrusion by the people of Ayodhya, entered into the great forest towards the asylum of Sarabhanga. And having paid his respects to Sarabhanga, he entered the forest of Dandaka and took up his abode on the banks of beautiful river Godavari.

There is no reason for Hindus - who have remained consistent in this aspect between the two Hindoo epics - to get their own stuff wrong. By any sane assessment, the assumption should be that the Hindu version IS the standard version and any deviations are by the others, who are of course far more likely to get things mixed up (like Buddhism did with Shibi when they tried to clone him for Buddhism) or to miss out mentioning key details, etc. The comparison should be to the standards set by Hindoo religion (doubly so where these are internally consistent) rather than expecting Hindoo texts to conform to any Buddhist/Jain (or, more recently, christian/dravoodian) deviations.



There were three other curious conclusions by the christo translator that come to mind.

He declared that some other translators of Buddhacharita - Indians presumably, Hindu possibly, since he projected amnesia of the Vedam on to them - had misinterpreted seer son of Urvashi as Agastya instead of VasiShTha. Well, maybe it was Bauddhified 'Hindus' because even I know that Vasishtha like Agastya is of Urvashi and both Mitra-Varuna (which is why he is named after the latter). For some reason the translator thinks that Ashvaghosha's Hindu contemporaries must share the supposed 'amnesia' of 20th century Indian translators, which is why the translator commends Ashvaghosha's recollection of the Vedic reference to the Vedic Rishi Vasishtha as a son of urvashi (which, by the way shows quite tellingly that the Rama that Ashvaghosha was hoping to compare Buddha to is the Vedic Rama of the Valmeeki Ramayana - the one who had Vasishtha for guru/vadyar - a.o.t. the cloned Rama of the Dasharatha Jataka). But Ashvaghosha's ability to know this detail need not be surprising - and it's good that he didn't forget this bit from his once-Hindu upbringing - because he *was* a Brahmana before he let Buddhists evangelise and convert him.



The final criticism of Hindus by the translator that I wanted to harp on - :harp: :harp: - is that he claimed that the Valmeeki Ramayanam makes no mention of *Vamadeva* accompanying Bharata and Vasishtha et al, and that only Mahabharata knew of this; that Valmeeki Ramayanam had only rare mentions of Vamadeva otherwise; that Ashvaghosa's reference to a purohit and minister visiting Buddha and sent by his father and who were used in a simile that mentioned the seer son of Urvashi (Vasishtha) and Vamadeva, required that Vamadeva be a minister since Vasishtha was a known purohit being a Rishi besides. He insinuates that for the simile to make literal sense, this would mean that the MBh and Ramayanam are confused in having Vamadeva as a vedabrahmana too. Another charge levelled is that because Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita did not pillage from other Valmeeki kandas than the Ayodhyakandam, that Ashvaghosha was unfamiliar with the other kandas and that this moreover implies (how?) that the other kandas did not exist in their current form or at all at Ashvaghosha's time.



Except:

- As already argued, the Valmeeki Ramayanam does mention Vamadeva with Vasishtha et al by name together (at least in the Pattabhishekam section, and also introduces both together in the Balakanda as being the 2 vadyars of Dasharatha, see excerpt below). Further, the section of the Valmeeki Ramayanam where Bharata, as well as Vasishtha and Jabali and everyone go to plead with Rama, already mentions Vamadeva implicitly.

valmikiramayan.net/bala_7_sans.html

2. tasya = that, mahaatmanaH = great soul Dasaratha, IkshvakoH = who was born in Ikswaku dynasty, amaatyaa = (had) ministers, guNaiH = (who were) virtuous, mantraJNaH cha = could weigh the pros and cons of a problem, iN^gitaJNaH = could read the minds of others, nityam = (and) always, rataH = devoted to, priya hite = the welfare of their beloved master.



That renowned king Dasaratha had eight ministers who were pure at heart and always immersed in the affairs of the king and the kingdom.



3. ashhTau babhuuvuH = there were eight, amaatyaaH = ministers, shuchayaH = (who were) pure at heart, nityashah = always, anuraktaaH cha = immersed in, raaja kR^ityeshhu = king's affairs, tasya = to that king Dasaratha, viirasya = who was courageous, yashasvinaH = (and) who was renowned.



There were eight ministers for the Emperor Dasaratha namely, [1] Dhristi [2] Jayantha [3] Vijaya [4] Sidhaardha [5] Arthasaadhaka [6] Ashoka [7] Mantrapaala and the 8th one is Sumantra.



4. aastaam = there were, dvou = two, R^itvijou = Vedic scholars, R^ishi+sattamou = saints of eminence, vasishhtaH = (named) Vashishta, vaamadevaaH cha = and Vamadeva, abhimatau = (who were) dearer to, tasyaa = him (Dasaratha), tathaa = and, apare = (there were) some other, mantriNashcha = ministers also.



There were two Vedic scholars Vasishta and Vamadeva, who were eminent saints and who were dearer to the king. There were some other ministers also in the king's court.

Note the last line of "other ministers also" implies that the 2 previously mentioned "vedic scholars" (Ritviks) Vasishtha and Vamadeva were also counted as ministers, not just as Ritviks and Rishis, though this was a notable feature of theirs.



- Because Vamadeva-specific dialogue with Rama - and that of many others besides - is not presented, whereas Vasishtha, Jabali and of course Bharata and Rishis-en-force get chapters to themselves, there's no need to have mentioned Vamadeva explicitly. But the bit where all from Ayodhya take their leave of Rama at the end does indicate that Vamadeva was in the company: the gurus and ministers and subjects of Ayodhya are mentioned.



- Just as the translator admits that Ashvaghosha clearly pillaged from the Valmeeki Ramayanam, he should have proposed that Ashvaghosha got the explicit mention of Vamadeva's presence from MBh, or at least inferred it (sensibly) from the Valmeeki Ramayanam. No other assumptions are even necessary.



- The MBh and Valmeeki Ramayanam can and should be taken as authorities for in what capacity Vamadeva serves his king - i.e. as a Ritvik like Vasishtha, though also as a minister. Ashvaghosha cannot be the authority on this (and certainly not the translator's inference about what Ashvaghosha *sh/would* have meant to make the simile hold strongly). Here is the relevant Buddhacharita line in translation:

Then leaving the chariot3 the purohita [of Suddhodhana, Buddha's father], accompanied by the counsellor, went up to him [Buddha]，as the seer, the son of UrvasI [Vasishtha], accompanied by Vamadeva, approached Rama when he was in the forest.

There is no reason to force the issue that Vamadeva must be *only* a 'counsellor' to parallel the counsellor of Suddhodhana. The entire phrase could merely be a reference to two venerable persons in Suddhodhana's court going up to Shakyamuni Buddha, just as the 2 venerable personages of Vasishtha and Vamadeva approached Rama. Besides, the fact that the latter two are both Ritviks in the Valmeeki Ramayanam, does not deny their inclusion as ministers/counsellors of Dasharatha too, which they were: as per the same balakanda verse that introduces them together. (Also, Vashishtha for instance was IIRC advising Dasharatha to let a very young Rama and Lakshmana go with Vishvamitra to protect his yaagam, as the latter had requested.)



And just like Ashvaghosha does away with mention of Bharata in Buddhacharita, whereas a Bharata clone was every much present in the Buddhist plagiarism called Dasharatha Jataka (which lifted this practically wholesale from the Valmeeki Ramayanam), we need not assume that Ashvaghosha is giving us all the details. Even in the worst-case scenario where Ashvaghosha had meant the simile to hold literally and restrict Vamadeva to "only a counsellor, never a purohit", it can simply be argued that Ashvaghosha got it wrong, as the MBh still mentions Vasishtha, Vamadeva along with "other brahmanas", while Valmeeki has both of them - along with other famous Vedic Rishis - conducting the Patthaabhishekam:

valmikiramayan.net/yuddha/sarga128/yuddhaitrans128.htm

60-61. vasiShThaH= Vasishta; vaamadevashcha= Vamadeva; jaabaaliH= Jabali; atha= and; kaashyapaH= Kashyapa; kaatyaayanaH= kaatyayana; suyajJNaH= Suyyagna; gautmaH= Gautama; tathaa= and; vijayaH= vijaya; abhyaShinchan= consecrated; nara vyaaghram= Rama, the tiger among men; prasannena= with clear; sugandhena= and fragrant; salilena= water; vasavaH iva= as the eight Vasus;* (consecrated) sahasraakSham= the thousand-eyed; vaasavam= Indra the lord of celestials.



Vasishta, Vamadeva, Kashyapa, Katyayana, Suyajna, Gautama and Vijaya consecrated Rama the tiger among men, with clear and fragrant water, as the eight Vasus*

It is usually Vedabrahmanas who tend to conduct Patthabhishekams. That means that Valmeeki's Yuddhakandam is consistent with its Balakandam.



- The fact that Ashvaghosha does not refer to sections beyond Ayodhyakanda from the Valmeeki does not imply that he was unfamiliar with those other Kaandas (though, he being a convert to Buddhism, he could have grown amnesiac of his ancestral heathenism, as even Bauddhified 'Hindus' do today). Ashvaghosha not referencing them certainly does not imply that several or even all the other sections to Valmeeki Ramayanam did not exist then. As already argued, Ashvaghosha is likely to have poached from the section of the Valmeeki that was most similar (in his mind) to some aspect of Buddha's life - the part where he became a renunciate and people pleaded with him to return and he refused them. The other sections from The Ramayanam (i.e. the Valmeeki=Hindoo Ramayanam) may not have been deemed relevant to the story that Ashvaghosha wanted to tell in his Buddhacharita - since Sita's abduction and war with Ravana don't have echoes in Buddha's life - and so Ashvaghosha is not likely to have (and therefore didn't) plagiarise from them.



- Further, there aren't *that* many references to Rama (Ramayana) in the Buddhacharita, so it's not a large enough pool to draw drastic conclusions from about the state of the Valmeeki Ramayanam as at that time, as the alien translator had attempted to do.

[Husky]

Post 7/?

Tangential: Kalidasa got randomly assigned a date after Ashvaghosha. With as consequenece that everyone now suddenly pretends that "therefore" Kalidasa copied from Ashvaghosha.



Did find something most peculiar and interesting though. Most predictable too: how aliens (followed by Buddhist and Bauddhified parrots) having randomly assigned a late date to Kalidasa have turned him into a plagiarist of Ashvaghosha.



- Ashvaghosha's time of late 1st century to mid 2nd century is pretty well established, because of the Kushana king he lived under.

- The west has decided that too little is known of Kalidasa's time, and has chosen to identify a 5th century king (dubbed a Vikramamaditya) with the particular Vikramaditya that's associated with Kalidasa.



On the basis of the above two points, they conclude that the direction of copying - seen in the similarities between Kalidasa and Ashvaghosha - is that Kalidasa must have copied Ashvaghosha "because Ashvaghosha is 2nd century and Kalidasa is 5th century".



Except that by ancient long-established Indian tradition, Kalidasa preceded Ashvaghosha and should be in the 1st century BCE - associated with the rule of a Vikramaditya of that period. And even in a late stage of the era of British rule in India, the colonial Brits still argued for Kalidasa as 1st century BCE (had long ago posted an IIRC googlebook excerpt showing an instance of this in some IF thread).



It is only very recently that Kalidasa has been (deliberately) shifted down in time [there's a recognition hence of evidence of a pan-subcontinental Hindooism in Kalidasa's era, there is also bhakti and elements of SV/tantra in Kalidasa and the west can't have that existing in Hindoo religion in the 1st century BCE, now can they?].

And so now everyone - and every site visible online - is going around pretending how it has supposedly "always been the case" that Ashvaghosha preceded Kalidasa and that "Kalidasa copied Ashvaghosha/Kalidasa took a lot from Ashvaghosha". <- Which is yet another thing reminiscent of how everyone including many Tamil Hindus have just internalised the whole "Thiruvalluvar was a Jain or secular (or christian)" claptrap and the "Ilango Adigal was a Buddhist/Jain/anything except Hindu" nonsense.



It is interesting to note that people didn't seem to much bother noticing the similarities between Ashvaghosha and Kalidasa before, that is, not until Ashvaghosha had been made to precede Kalidasa. And now everywhere where Ashvaghosha is mentioned, it is only to insist that his writing style had inspired and been copied by Kalidasa. It is yet again an alien attempt or a Buddhist attempt to steal the natural credit from Hindu religion to donate to Buddhism. What religion *devised* the allegedly "secular" arts of Indian poetry? Vedic religion. And it wasn't secular, it was there in the Vedam (where the Hindoo Gods/Parabrahman are even called Kavi apparently). As for classical Skt, defined as it already was by Panini, it is *Hindus* that practised poetry therein. Buddhists were usually mentally focused on their afterlife and looked down on the "secular" arts. Their Sanskrit was more Prakrit than actually Skt (even admitted in wackypedia, but anyone could have noticed this in the allegedly "ancient" so-called "Skt" of Buddhist texts, many of which were not so much Skt at all), until Buddhism converted Hindu brahmanas to Buddhism. And then most of them turned into all-Hindoos' worst nightmare, by harrassing Hindoos with their sophistry and subverting Hindoo religion better using their detailed inside-knowledge. Brahmanas (and kShatriyas) make the greatest traitors once converted. Although, nowadays, every community can and does cut heathenism and the heathen homeland of the Hindoos like a knife upon conversion.



Anyway. For those who wish to know that there are Hindus who haven't rolled over to the modern take on Kalidasa vis-a-vis Ashvaghosha, and to know that Hindus are still arguing for the traditional Indian chronology of events and more acceptable dates for Kalidasa, here are some links:



+ controversialhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Kalidasa

+ exoticindiaart.com/book/details/raghuvamsa-of-kalidasa-with-sanskrit-text-english-translation-detailed-notes-and-introduction-IDJ377/

+ trueindianhistory-kvchelam.blogspot.co.in/2010/01/vikramaditya-of-first-century-bc.html

+ swamiindology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/kalidasas-age-tamil-works-confirm-1st.html



The last link, which seems to belong to the owner of the TamilAndVedas site and may be a mirror of the same, gives an additional viewpoint on the matter, in that it uses ancient Tamil works to adduce how Kalidasa lived in an earlier period (also 1st century BCE I think) than currently assigned.





This series of spam was about Buddhism starting to claim that their cloned copy is the original Ramayanam. Jains have done the same too, already discussed in an earlier post in this thread.



The important parts are the 2nd quoteblock in post 270 further above, the large quoteblock in post 268 above that, and finally, the *title* (in bold) of post 271. The rest of these posts are comments regarding these, and further observations surrounding the matter.

[Husky]

Other posts relevant to this thread:

• Post 35 of the christian Inculturation thread
  
  
• Posts 138 and especially 139 of the Vegetarianism thread.
  
  

[Husky]

Post 1/2



tamilandvedas.com/2014/06/13/agastya-in-jataka-tales-and-kalidasa/

The Jataka Tales is a collection of tales of the numerous births of Bodhisatva, who later became the Buddha. It is a record of very old folk tales adapted by the Buddhists to suit their needs. They were current among Indians [read Hindus] from time immemorial. Buddhists did not hesitate to distort and twist all the old tales including the popular Hindu stories for their purpose.

They even used Ramayana, Mahabharata , Puranas and Panchatantra stories and ‘’Buddhaized’’ the stories.

The tamilandvedas site then proceeds to mention that the Buddhist Jatakas tried to clone some adventures of the Vedic Hindoo rishi Agastya as well, under the new name "Akitti" (badly prakritised version of Agastya?) before laughably trying to pass him off as "a previous life of the Buddha" too.



While this is suddenly interesting because it concerns the travels of one Akitti to Damila (aka Dravida) regions - the "south" - an obvious but actually bad copy of the pre-existing Hindoo narratives of Vedic Rishi Agastya settling in Tamil regions - it is also relevant for how it does NOT have anything to do with (nor support) the further Bauddhifying fictions from the 11th century where the Vedic Rishi Agastya at Potiyil who learnt Tamil from Shiva was suddenly appropriated by one Buddhist author attempting to project Agastya as having learnt Tamil from the Avalokiteshwara fiction instead.



Specifically:

- the Buddhist Jataka concerning Akitti does not mention Potiyil

- Buddhists have (at least until this very moment) denied that Akitti is supposed to be Agastya, and instead pretended that he - as other Buddhist clones of Vedic Rishis - were unrelated Buddhists characters. In other words: Akitti etc was just the usual bad Buddhist clone of the Hindoo original.

- Goes without saying there's no mention of Avalokiteshwara [nor Potalaka] in the Akitti Jataka (and not in any other Jataka either, I suspect: probably wasn't invented yet or not popular yet)

- No mention of Agastya learning Tamil or writing a Tamil grammar in the Jataka

- Needless to say, no mention of Agastya learning Tamil from Avalokiteshwara

- It is very telling that the much later Buddhist (post Hsuan-Tsang's 7th century) attempts at encroaching on Vedic Rishi-Siddhar Agastya at Potiyil specifically do not use the Akitti Jataka to launch their preposterous claims.





All this means that - tragically - the Akitti Jataka can't be held up as an "old Buddhist tradition of Agastya learning Tamil from Avalokiteshwara" let alone for the hogwash of there having ever been an ancient cult to Avalokiteshwara at Potiyil, let alone that Potiyil should be identified as Potalaka. [Earlier posts on this and the previous page of this thread explain why these observations are relevant.]



On the plus side (though the plus is exclusively to the benefit of Hindoos and Hindoo religion), the Akitti Jataka coming into being - and its obvious copying from pre-existing Hindoo sources - merely confirms that the Hindoo narratives of Agastya settling down south in the Dramila/Dravida [i.e. southern Indian] regions are very old (e.g. already mentioned in MBh), and were obviously still so popular in Buddhism's time that even Buddhism decided to pillage from these Hindoo narratives to acquire content for its Jatakas.





Here's the character background page for Akitti from the site which hosts English translations of the Jatakas. It also gives a very brief summary o the Akatti/Akitti Jataka itself:



wisdomlib.org/definition/akitti/index.html

Akitti, 1 Definition(s)

AKA: Akatti

'Akitti' belongs in these categories: Buddhism, Pali





1 DEFINITION(S):

The Bodhisatta in one of his births. He was a brahmin magnate of Benares, who, after giving away all his wealth in charity, retired to the forest with his sister, Yasavati. When gifts were brought to him as homage to his holiness, he sought obscurity, and, leaving his sister, dwelt in Karadipa, then known as Ahidipa, eating the leaves of a Kara tree sprinkled with water. By virtue of his asceticism Sakkas throne was heated, and Sakka (Anuruddha in a previous birth), having tested him, and being satisfied that worldly attainments were not his aim, granted him various boons, including one that Sakka should not visit him any more and disturb his asceticism! (J.iv.236f).



(Varanasi/Benares seems to be a very common backdrop for many of the cloned characters of the "Buddhist" Jatakas. Which is another thing that dates the Jatakas and ultimately Buddhism.)



His story is given in the Cariyapitaka (p.1), to illustrate dana paramita. In the Nimi Jataka he is mentioned in a list of eleven sages (*), who, by their holy lives; passed the Peta world to be born in Brahmas heaven. In the Jataka mala (no.7) his name occurs as Agastya, but he should not be confused with the Vedic sage of that name (See Vedic Index). Perhaps he belonged to the Kassapagotta, because, in the conversation related in the Jataka story, Sakka addresses him as Kassapa. (J.iv.240-1)



(*) J.vi.99, the others being the seven brothers Yamahanu, Somayaga, Manojava, Samudda, Magha, Bharata and Kalikarakkhiya; and Angirasa, Kassapa and Kisavaccha. See also KhA.127f

Somayaga is obviously a Vedic name indicating a Vedic ritualist, i.e. a Hindoo onlee.

Angirasa is yet another attempted clone of a Vedic Rishi. And so is Kassapa - Prakritised version of Kashyapa (but like Buddhism did above, Jainism also hijacked the Vedic Kashyapa gotra for a teerthankara - more competition).



For the translated version of the Akitti Jataka itself - and to see how Buddhism tried to mirror/plagiarise from some of the pre-existing Hindoo tradition of Vedic Rishi Agastya's travel to the south, see



wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/the-jataka-volume-iv/d/doc80654.html

Akkita Jataka



It is obviously clear, and a matter only further underlined by the bit highlighted in blue above, that the Vedic Rishi Agastya is NOT the same as the later Buddhist clone "Akitti" of the Jatakas. And that all the Hindoo narratives concerning Agastya - including the ancient ones about Agastya settling in Tamil regions, making his main abode in Potiyil, learning Tamil from Shiva and Murugan and writing the first Tamil grammar - are all originally exclusively Hindoo narratives (and are not "shared" with Buddhism: these Hindoo narratives were not yet cloned by Buddhism in its Jataka-manufacturing era) and do not and will Never remotely concern Buddhism, but concern Hindoo religion alone. Further, Hindoos only ever mean the Vedic Rishi-cum-Siddhar Agastya*, and do not mean the Jatakas' Akitti clone of him, nor the much later (11th century CE) independent Buddhist attempt to inculturate on the same Vedic Rishi-cum-Siddhar Agastya and his Potiyil background either.



*Including where all the Agastyar Kovils and moorties are concerned (which Agastya moorties - often with wife Lopamudra - are also seen in the famous Tamil Hindoo Shaiva kovils of SE Asia, which SE Asian Hindoo temple Agastya moorties are also dated well before India's Tamil Buddhist attempts to inculturate on Agastya via his Tamil grammar).



Am mentioning all the above in pre-emption, in case [neo-]Buddhists or Bauddhified (like Rajeev Srinivasan) next try to use the Akitti Jataka in their desperation to claim Potiyil - or even the Hindoo traditions regarding the Vedic Rishi Agastya or his moorties or kovils - as being "originally" Buddhist. Buddhists really are that jealous, desperate and vicious.



Tragically for them all, there is No connection between those elements plagiarised into the Akitti Jataka and the 11th century Buddhist claims attempted on the person of the Vedic Rishi of Agastya: because, as mentioned above, sadly for all Buddhist inculturationists, the Akitti Jataka does not have any references to Agastya at Potiyil or learning Tamil from Avalokiteshwara (or any reference to Potalaka or even Avalokiteshwara). The blame lies squarely at the feet at early Buddhism, which only plagiarised from pre-existing Hindoo religion in parts in order to be able to tell short stories so that a tenuous Buddhist moral could be slapped onto each. As also seen in Buddhism's limited plagiarism from Valmeeki Ramayanam (Buddhism limited its plagiarism from VR to mainly just the Ayodhya Kanda section).



Am sure there was more to be said, but can't remember.



BTW, if I find any "Hindu" "nationalist" trying to sell off Agastya and related matters to Buddhism (or whatever), I will make this personal. [And just to be clear, that last is not some lame romantic overture/innuendo, but a threat - obviously.]

[Husky]

Post 2/2



Just in case people thought the Buddhist persecution of Bon alluded to on the previous page of this thread sounded brutal hence deemed it unlikely that Buddhism could have been capable of it (isn't Buddhism that warm fluffy religion that one could curl up to, especially Tibetan Buddhism?),



this post is on the Shamanist point of view of Tibetan Buddhism "Lamaism", which - as people may (or perhaps may not) know - didn't just persecute the Tibetan natives (Bon religion) but also the Mongolian natives of a related Shamanist religion.



There are a number of books by historians on the subject of the violent conversion of Shamanists to Buddhism. But all of them invariably treat the misfortune as statistics or mere history. They may recognise the loss, but not in personal or heathen terms. The Shamanist perspective on the persecution of their traditions and their heathen ancestors is therefore more meaningful to fellow heathens.

Plus, it gives a break from the whiny timelines about the "Persecution of Buddhism by Taoism/Hinduism/blabla" that Buddhism regularly draws up on wikipedia. (And note how Buddhism always includes the Buddhist-invented sobstory about how Pushyamitra allegedly persecuted Buddhists, which never happened: koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/ayodhya/pushyamitra.html)





Before starting the copy-and-paste affair, though:

The Tengerism site (site on Mongolian/Siberian/C-Asian Shamanism) is hosted by a Buryat - IIRC a native of Siberia - but for a quick summary, this next page explains the relation between Buryat and Mongolian Shamanism:



tengerism.org/Buryat_Shamanism.html

Buryat Mongolian Shamanism



Welcome to the Shamanism section of the Buryat Home Page. Buryat shamanism is renowned for its ancient traditions and legendary shamans through the works of Eliade, Czaplicka, Harva, Sanjeev (could this at last be an Indian scholar, i.e. one who does not tow the Buddhist line?), and others. Please check back here frequently as new things will be added. Also please visit the Circle of Tengerism webpage for information about Siberian and Mongolian shamanism . Buryat and Mongolian shamanism are essentially one and the same, the distinction of Mongol and Buryat comes late in history, for until the latter part of the 17th century present day Buryatia and adjacent Buryat Mongol regions were an integral part of the Mongolian Empire and had been since the time of Chinggis Khan.

Now, the site's Table Of Contents links to the page on Tibetan Buddhism with the following highly descriptive anchor text:



tengerism.org/table_of_contents.html

The Struggle Against Lamaism



That link then goes to the following page:



tengerism.org/lamaism.html

Tibetan Buddhism



Tibetan Buddhism is often called "Lamaism". To avoid confusing Tibetan Buddhism with other forms of Buddhism, Lamaism is a term that will be used here.



The history of Lamaism among the Mongols is long and sometimes violent. It is important to know this history so people can better understand the root of some sentiments between Shamanism and Lamaism. It is also important to remember this history so the atrocities do not repeat themselves.

Since the time of Chinggis Khaan, only people who were of his royal lineage were allowed to rule Mongolia. This frustrated many would-be rulers who were not of this line. Altan khan was the most destructive of these usurpers. He perceived that through the Buddhist faith he could gain legitimacy by claiming to be a reincarnation of Khublai Khaan.



Altan khan chose the Gelug order of Tibetan Buddhism (founded by Tsongkhapa, 1357-1419). In 1577 he invited the leader of this order, Sonam Gyatsho, to come to Mongolia and teach his people.



Sonam Gyatsho proclaimed Altan Khan to be the reincarnation of Khublai Khan, and in return, Altan Khan gave the title Dalai Lama to Sonam Gyatsho. Altan Khan posthumously awarded the title to his two predecessors, making Sonam Gyatsho the 3rd Dalai Lama.



Altan khan then proceeded to convert the Mongols to Buddhism either by choice or force.

"The Mongolian government and Lamaist bodies of that period implemented a variety of measures intended to wipe out Mongolian shamanism. For example, Tumed's Altan Khan passed a law in 1578 that banned shamanist ideological propaganda and traditional rituals. Shamanist ceremonies, including burial-services that involved the burning of animal meat were forbidden by this law. In contrast, Buddhist annual and monthly fasting was strictly enforced. Laws protected inviolable rights of Lamaist officials as officers of the state according to their rank and positions respectively. The four main ranks of Lama priests became exempt from military and fiscal dues. Lavish gifts were given to incoming Lamas according to special codes. For example, a Lama should receive at least 100 horses or equivalent, if he were a learned priest, an unlearned one no less than 20, and even a servant or coachman should be given at least 10. Moreover, images and appurtenances of ongons were burned down and replaced with idols of Mahagal-Burhan. These were to be worshipped with sacrifices of the three kinds of animal flesh (mutton, beef, and horse), and all kinds of milk products. Households were forbidden to carry out shamanist worship at home. Culprits were to pay a fine in horses related to the number of offenses. These laws on one hand gave Lamaism legal, political and economic privileges, while on the other they persecuted shamans and severely restricted the practice of their customs.



Thanks mainly to the investment, assistance, and support of the Ming Dynasty, many Lamaist monasteries were built and many Buddhist texts were published in Beijing to be sent to Mongolia. It is evident that this zeal on the part of the Ming and Qing dynasties to spread the red and yellow Buddhist sects in Mongolia was primarily in order to undermine the heroic warrior traditions of the Mongols. Encouraging Lamaism or Yellow Buddhism in Mongolia subverted the Mongol traditional values. In this regard the distinguished scholar Roy Chapman Andrews wrote "There were several contributory causes of the decay of the Mongol race, but the primal factor was the introduction of Lamaism. Before this they were shamanists, worshipping the spirits of nature...in rocks, trees and mountains."



Until the 1940's there were a total of approximately 941 Buddhist monasteries, about 70% of which were not established until the 19th century.



The Manchurian Emperors [Qing Dynasty] instigated a number of aggressive and brutal measures against shamanism during the 17th century, including the humiliation of Oirad's official Neij (1557-1653) and Zayar Bandid Namhayjamts (1575-1662). The teachings of Maydar Hutagt, sent to Mongolia for the intensification of Lamaism, spread in Mongolia. Shamans were killed, murdered, burnt with dog droppings, and subjected to many fines paid in livestock. Between the 1860's and 1904, there were three mass burnings at campfires around Horchin, at which it was said, "The ones who have real powers will emerge unscathed, but the remainders shall die."

Another such burning occurred in the 19th century in Besud Yost Zasagt Hoshuu.

Excerpt from Mongolian Shamanism by Purev Otgony





Besides the killing of shamans, the campaign to wipe out shamanism had many strategies.



First, Lamaist ideology spread by targeting shamans, their family, and their children by telling them they were reincarnations of great Lamas. They would then be encouraged to go to the monastery or send their children there, where they would be "reeducated" in Lamaist dogma. If the shaman was considered powerful or important, Lamaists would target their entire family.



Second, shaman prayers were rewritten with Lamaist influences and dogma. People were forced to recite the new prayers.



Third, Shaman ancestor spirits were "reincarnated" as Lamas or "converted" to Lamaism.



Fourth, Lamaists labeled all shamans "Black shamans", no matter what their tradition. From the 17th to the 19th century, this label was used to create confusion, spread mistrust, and break down the different shaman traditions. (See "Types of Shamans").



Fifth, Mongolian protector spirits were "converted" into Lamaism and were incorporated into what is called the Tsam dance.



Sixth, sacred shamanic sites were taken over and monasteries and stupas built over them.



(The above points-wise listing is quite like how Bon was exterminated by Tibetan Buddhism. Now, out of left field, Tibetan Buddhism has started pretending that Bon - the indigenous pre-Buddhist Shamanist religion of Tibet - was an offshoot of Buddhism instead.)



In 1644 the Qing dynasty in China came to power. Unlike previous dynasties, the Qing dynasty was very involved with Mongolia, Tibet, and Central Asia. Through both military and diplomatic means, the Qing first overtook the Chahar Mongols and the territory of Inner Mongolia.



The Khalkha Mongols of outer Mongolia needed to unite. Tusheet Khan wanted to unite the Khalkhas. He believed that Lamaism could help unify the Mongols if they had their own Living Buddha. With a Living Buddha- a Bogdo Gegen- of Mongolian descent, he could unite the Mongols, and get out from under the over-lordship of the Dalai Lamas in Tibet. He nominated his son, Zanabazar (1635-1723) to be this living Buddha and sent him to Tibet to be recognized and schooled.



The political unity that Tusheet Khan sought was not successful. However, the tradition of a Bogdo Gegen of Mongolia had been born. Zanabazar returned from Tibet and was the first of many Bogdo Gegens.



In 1691, Mongolia was submitted to Qing ruler ship. The Qing government wanted to encourage Mongols to become pacifist-Lamaists and allowed the continuation of the Bogdo Gegen line. They did place many limitations on the Living Buddhas, however. A decree was made that reincarnations of Mongolia's Living Buddha had to be found in Tibet and may not be related to any Mongolian nobility. These incarnations were also educated in Tibet before their "reign" in Mongolia. These puppet rulers of Mongolia could only engage in Lamaist religious pursuits and could not even travel without permission from the Qing government.



The series of Bogdo Gegens solidified Lamaism's role through the region. More and more monasteries were built and people were expected to support them. Lamaist monasteries drained the wealth of the people and changed Mongolian society. My the mid 1800's, 45% of Mongol males had taken monastic vows.



]Many people were forced to serve as bondsmen to the monasteries. Bogdo Gegen had 22,000 monks and 28,000 bondsmen. ** There were many complaints of children being abused by monks. The monks themselves spread syphilis all over the countryside. The people began to feel unrest. In 1921, requests for assistance to the Soviet Communist government were made. In 1924, when the last Bogdo Gegen died with syphilis, the Mongolian People's Republic was born.



(* Buddhist monasteries in Thailand have repeatedly been in the news in the past years regarding this same topic.

E.g. buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=52%2C11887%2C0%2C0%2C1%2C0#.VMxteCzudv-

** Forcing natives especially heathens into servitude [literally slavery] to Buddhist monasteries is a frequent feature of historical Buddhist monasteries in much of converted Asia, and was actually one means of converting the heathen laity to Buddhism. <- The reality of that Buddhist "egalitarianism" that (Bauddhified) Hindu nationalist vocalists regularly advertise for. Either they conveniently didn't read up on this little detail, or else prefer to be in denial about it when they find out. Yet it is a consistency from Tibet through C Asia to Korea. I.e. not just limited to the Tibetan strain of Buddhism.)





Today Mongolia is a democracy with freedom of religion.



Shamanism has reemerged in Mongolia and is growing strong. The tribes that had lost shamanic traditions during the period of persecution have been able to look to their cousins who retained their shared indigenous beliefs. Peoples such as the Darhad, Western Buryats, and Urianhay, who were out of the reach of Lamaist rule, had staunchly kept their shamanist traditions. Now, all work in solidarity to bring balance back to our world.

Missionary religions. Bah.



But how delusional I was. I never learn. Even after reading up on christianism and islam, I simply looked at the outward similarities of Buddhism (which are entirely owing to inculturation) and wrongly concluded it was a heathenism. But eventually, some years back now, came across some books by non-biased historians (some are Buddhists, but they quoted unpleasant primary sources from history) and then the world looked less pleasant. To say the least.

More fool me. No Indian historian ever writes about this stuff. They prefer to go on about how Buddhism is India's greatest export Ra Ra and how Buddhism is like Hinduism (no it isn't. Taoism and Shinto and Bon are more like Hindoo religion, all being heathenisms. In contrast, Buddhism is a missionary religion aka a replacement theology).



Anyway, as seen above, Buddhism - even that friendly-looking Tibetan Buddhism - indulged in convert-or-kill. Both in Tibet and in the Mongolian-Siberian expanse.



[On a related subject, Uighurs were Shamanists converted first to Manichaenism by force, e.g. look for occurrences of the word "shaman" at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_Khaganate (Manichaenism was a missionary religion too, so no surprises there). Uighurs were thereafter converted to Buddhism (and christianism) and now they're stuck in islam, e.g. look for occurrences of the word "shaman" at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_people]



Moving beyond the violence. There is a reason why Tibetan Buddhism is so distinctive/defined by "tantra". Historians have written about it (and Heissig, previously mentioned, also appears to have alluded to the same in his "Religions of Mongolia"). But in summary: tantra was heavily imported by Buddhism and incorporated at high level (and sold publicly, no initiations required all of a sudden) specifically to compete with and be a replacement for the native "magical" rituals of adherents of Bon. It was Tibetan Buddhism's means to an end: edging out the Bon laity's recourse to Shamans for protective talismans. Buddhism further inculturated heavily on Bon, including upon the Bon Gods. Tibetan Buddhism used Bon to destroy and replace Bon.



And then, with its success against the native Shamanism in Tibet (against which Tibetan Buddhism had railed not lightly), Buddhism - as always having learnt from past successes - repeated the same tactics in Central Asia to replace Shamanism there. <- That the same tactics were consciously used to supplant the native Shamanism and replace this with Buddhism is explicitly mentioned by historians.



Buddhism used Hindu religion - esp. its Gods - in Japan and China, because Buddhism understood that Japanese and Chinese heathens were essentially like Hindoos: they loved their Gods. Buddhism had perfected converting SE Asian Hindus to Buddhism too, and so repeated successes there using the earlier winning strategies. (Inculturated) Taoism was also used by Buddhism to convert Taoist Chinese and SE Asians to Buddhisms, once more based on winning strategies in Taoist space (everywhere there is Taoism, you will see Buddhism use Guan-Yin the Avalokiteshwara in the form of the Taoist Goddess).





This post was on:

tengerism.org/lamaism.html

The native Shamanist perspective on The Struggle Against Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism)

[Husky]

And now the adherents of the reconstructed Lokayata/Charvaka movement have also started backprojecting themselves and this highly atheist group is - gasp - moreover trying to poach the exclusively VEDIC female Gods of the Vedic religion=Hindoo heathenism via backprojection. Watch it peddle Lokayata (=missionise) among Hindus by employing the usual technique, the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of all missionary ideologies: appropriation (else inculturation and encroachment).





A comment at

indiafacts.co.in/indias-daughter-and-richard-dawkins-racism/

viswag59 • 7 days ago



As usual, a very well argued and well written article by Venkat. Brings out his sharp polemical style. However, it detracts us from the main issue.



While Venkat is right in painting and maintaining a broader picture of misogyny that engulfs Indian, Western and other societies the only way for us Indians is to rise above everyone and prove ourselves non-misogynistic. Our Lokayata traditions (as opposed to the Vedic-Brahmanical traditions) were extremely reverend of the female. These Lokayata traditions are still discernible in our worshipping of Durga, Kali, Saraswati and Lakshmi, This

is the tradition we need to revive, revitalize and re-invigorate our 21st century Indian civilization. The question is: How do we do so?



This is the question that we have to ask ourselves.



Our goal is not to defend ourselves against the 'white' colonialists or racists but to demonstrate through our everyday action that we were and are better in accepting equal freedom for our mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives.



To answer that question, we need to first recognize and accept that misogyny is also an integral part of our Vedic-Brahmanical traditions. On the

contrary, (and to repeat) our Lokayata traditions are non-misogynistic and extremely reverend of the female. Again, let us ask ourselves: How do we revive our Lokayata traditions and revitalize the 21st century Indian civilization with our Lokayata traditions?

(And typically there's not one response to such nonsense as the above from a single person commenting away at the indiafacts site. No wonder Buddhists and Jains from long ago down to modern aliens of the present have been running away with all things Hindoo too.)



Note the typically deceptive use of "our" - pretending to start from a position of commonality in order to take the gullibles to his deranged conclusions - in the above entity's use of "our Vedic" (dubbed "Brahmanical" another tell-tale sign of a missionary of a competing replacement ideology: refuses to recognise the Hindoo laity. Shamanism is also a misnomer as it is no less the religion of the majority, who are Not shamans.)





But, as anyone with half a brain can see,

Lokayata=another replacement ideology.



This was already evident when the early adherents backprojected themselves and subverted the ancestral heathenism of the subcontinent (i.e. Vedic religion) by encroaching on Brihaspati and twisting Vedic narratives related to him for the purpose of cloning him into a mouthpiece to pour their Lokayata doctrines from. As with all missionary/fraudulent ideologies, it could only work on the gullibles.



But people aren't going to continue to expect Hindoos to pretend the various Indic movements - all still competing with the ancestral heathenism - are all "Hindus together" anymore, right? When every other one is a missionary ideology intent on replacement and continues to stoop to poaching to do it.



But this is a new hysteria. I mean, just look at the desperate opportunism of modern adherents of this non-spiritual atheist school in pathetically groping at heathen Vedic Gods to appeal to the heathen masses of the ancestral (=Vedic) religion.

It's disgustingly vile.



And anyone who wants to argue that Lokayata was "logical", the proof is in the above stupidity. (And in the tendencies to lie, which are seen in all the nouveau=missionary Indic ideologies, which often behaved as compulsive liars in their desperation, thereby undoing any use their religions might have had.) But logic implies consistency with its own predicates at minimum (not necessarily consistent with the actual world, since such logic would be truth moreover). When materialist atheists suddenly start pretending their atheist religion is actually the original religion in which the Goddessses were worshipped, that's just self-inconsistency, which is the most basic case of all of Illogic. Yet that is the extent that missionaries would stoop to: to such blatant self-inconsistency/ill-logic as to be noticeable even to themselves. But they're just so desperate for converts (as seen in the obvious overtures in the blockquote above) that such sacrifices are nothing compared to gaining converts out of ancestral heathenism and into a new-agily-reconstructed Lokayata.



Apparently modern wannabe revivers of Lokayata can't even properly channel the dead ideology that they've replaced their actual ancestral religion with*, but have to be so new-age in fact that they will pull a neo-paganism/wicca by declaring that their religion [magically] owns the exclusively-Vedic Goddesses, and are starting to moreover pretend - also like typical neo-pagans/wiccans - that Goddesses could ever make sense without their male counterparts (just as vice-versa does not hold). But that false step is another indication in the lie of the above commenter: the religion that has both the female AND the male Gods in the only sensible configuration - i.e. male deities don't exist without their female counterpart and vice-versa, or at least, no pantheon without an abundance of both kinds - must be the original. And everything else is of modern invention (like James Cameron's religion for Pandora).



* The ancestral religion of these modern Lokayata peddlers (probably dravoodianists else communists in disguise) can't be of the charvaka school, because it extincted long ago. Just like India's suddenly Bauddhified (most of whom can't do Buddhism right, e.g. Arun Shourie), these are merely wannabe converts to the Lokayata school who can't do this ideology properly either.





Next the moronic modern new-ageists dabbling badly in the Charvaka school will declare that the Lokayata preceded the Vedas and gave rise to Vedic Mantras and Tantra.

Oh, here you go, speculative theories backprojecting Lokayata for just this very purpose (the internet has an example of every idiocy I can think up):



videshisutra.com/2013/11/15/hidden-lokayata-ii-proto-materialism-in-vedic-and-tantric-traditions/

From a blog called "Videshi Sutra - Heterodox Writings on South Asia"



(Um, Indians suddenly claiming to reconstruct Ajeevika religion have declared - via backprojection - that "magic" was originally Ajeevika. Maybe the reconstructionists of both can do a celebrity death match to determine who is right and who is dead?)



But I'm sure there are enough fools to fall for the link above too and to whom such speculations will appeal and will assume the tone of truth.

After all, there's already people - on fire for "Hindu" nationalism - who fell for Buddhist, Jain and even the even-more-recently invented Dravoodian and christian backprojections. So why not the Lokayata kind? Right? And all subversions away from ancestral heathenism come down to the same thing in the end: de-heathenisation. You're either a heathen or you're not. You can either be subverted or not. It's really as simple as a binary value.





Bah. Replacement ideologies=unheathenism. They all become so desperate when they eventually realise that heathenisms - i.e. Gods based religions - are the most ancient = ancestral religions of native populations and that that is what attracts all people (Europeans returning to their ancestral religions included), that eventually all the replacement ideologies start going against their most basic tenets by resorting to poaching on heathenism in their utter desperation. But that's just more proof of false religion/ideology.





[And this last really goes without saying. Yet, to state matter-of-factly - though I don't have to prove this (Experts have got it from the Primary Sources <- ooh, double meaning):

the Hindoo Goddesses are *known* to absolutely hate Lokayata. <- Fact. Which is more proof about which religion originally had the Vedic Gods/Goddesses and which religion didn't.

Not a single adherent of Lokayata would ever have seen a single Goddess of any sort, let alone the Vedic ones. But try try again.

Morons. Attempting to peddle Lokayata wouldn't concern me. But backprojection, encroachment, appropriation of the female Hindoo Gods in peddlers' attempts to replace Vedic religion - now that is just an invitation to lampoon said peddlers for their utter debile-ness.]



In time, there will appear (not here) a barrage of articles defending the sudden magic Right of Charvaka followers to claim the Hindu pantheon equally for their late ideology. But then, any such arguments may and should be equally applied to christianism poaching on Hindu religion. Surely, what's good for the goose is good for the gander?



But Hindoo theology - i.e. all things concerning the Hindoo Gods, including Hindoo cosmology (which is specifically theist) - belongs exclusively to Hindoo heathenism hence to Hindoos.

Not to atheists of older Indic ideologies or even modern non-affiliated Indian atheists. Nor to people of the other competing=missionary ideologies.

This is the *very* part of Hindoo religion - its core - that does Not belong to "all things Indian". -> Belongs exclusively to Hindoos = Hindoo heathens= "polytheistic idolators" onlee.

"Sorry".



I have seen even modern Indian atheists try to pretend they have any (forget equal) claim on Hindoo theology and moorties and Gods. The gall. They even take credit for the theistic-heathen insights of theistic=heathen Hindoos via the "our common ancestors" excuse. What a joke.

Hindoo heathen ancestors are not affiliated to de-heathenised. No more than Indian christians can pretend the insights and accomplishments of ancient Hindoos=heathens via genetic kinship. Genetic relationship means nothing and less than nothing. All de-heathenisation - whether into christianism, say, or merely into plain atheism - are from the heathen POV the same: they're all people who exited. Why or how or for what reason is irrelevant to the fact of that statement. They're simply no longer Hindoo=heathen and hence have 0 rights to claim Hindoo heathenism or pretend to have access to Hindoo religion as common "heritage" (equivalent to turning temples into tourist centres), be it making claims to so-called "art" (e.g. moortie fashioning) and "architecture" (temples) or "insights" (Hindoo hyper-theistic cosmology). Yet these are the very things that are hyper-theistic and could never have been accomplished by de-heathenised.** So how does any of it belong to the deheathenised at all? They should stick to what belongs to them.* And be consistent.



* I don't mind atheists parroting my arguments - even verbatim: they do it all the time. Western atheist colleagues regularly borrow my statements - often requesting my permission - and quote me down to identical phrasing. It's fine. Why would I speak on such important matters to them if it were not to help arm them against the christianism that is terrorising them too.

But all things Hindoo heathenism belong exclusively to Hindoos. All which is heathen belongs exclusively to heathens. These things are non-shareable. There are no two ways about this. These are the very things that missionary ideologies or even non-ideologies (i.e. plain vanilla atheism) have no right to, because these things specifically do not concern them and never will. Whether persons are foreign or native is irrelevant in this; what matters is that they're not of the native heathenism.



** E.g. Hindoo theistic cosmology was specifically rejected by Indic non-theists. And, what's more, could never have been conceived by non-theists. (In fact, the Hindoos did not claim to conceive of it: they were granted the perception. That is why ancient Hindoos -just like Taoists- knew certain aspects of the state of the universe, for instance, that they simply did not have the instruments to discover, let alone to gauge or verify them. And they did not pretend to have "discovered" it. Even today the same perceptions continue to be granted to Hindoos - and the Taoists, let's not forget - by the Gods. And by the very same means as of old.)

[Husky]

1. Image found at

mediacrooks.com/2015/04/church-crimes-2-declining-faith.html





Oh look, that's exactly what Buddhism (and Jainism too) pulled on the Vedic=Hindoo Gods. (Actually Buddhism also pulled it on Taoist Gods and Goddesses and Shinto ones. It even tried it on Greek Gods in Hellenised parts of Afghanistan. For instance, Buddhism turned Hercules the son of Zeus into a Bodhisattva fraud.)



Then enough time passed and Buddhism tried to encroach on Hindoo temples via its inculturation on Hindoo Gods. (E.g. the Avalokiteshwara fraud I mean fiction.) And it encroached on Taoist temples via the Buddhist inculturation on Taoist Gods (e.g. the Avalokiteshwara fiction again) etc.





Still more time passed, and today's Bauddhified "Hindus" (i.e. "Hindus" in love with Buddhism and who know more about Buddhism's inculturating fictions, including especially the recently-invented ones, than about Hindoo religion and Gods, they're that far gone) start believing in the Buddhist inculturation on Hindoo Gods and speaking of "syncretism/composite culture", that it must be equally Buddha/Bodhisattva and equally a Hindu God, and that this is "authentic", that Buddhism should have equal claims on the Hindoo Gods. And tomorrow the same types of ignorant Bauddhified will start claiming the "legitimacy" of Buddhist encroachment on Hindoo temples in TN. Tamil Hindoos should tell Bauddhified "hindoos" from other parts of the subcontinent to Stay Away (or else).





Anyway, the point of the above is to remark that the same process, given enough time, will happen with the jeebus inculturations on Hindoo Gods too.



Having inculturated on Vishnu by turning jeebus blue and giving him a shankha and chakra, and by presenting jeebus in the pose of Krishna in the Gita with the chariot and 4 horses,

in time, the evil jeebus-demons will - like their ancient Buddhist counterparts did with Vishnu, Shiva etc - start encroaching on Vishnu temples and declare that this is "actually jeebus" and hence "belongs to christianism" and "isn't a Hindoo temple but a christian church".

Later still, they will argue that "therefore, the people worshipping at these 'temples' were 'originally, actually' followers of Jainism I mean Buddhism I mean christianism, who were duped by the Vedic swindle/brahmanism into thinking these were Hindoo temples to the Hindoo=Vedic Gods instead".



That is EXACTLY what Buddhism and Jainism have done w.r.t. their missionary literature claiming Hindoo temples and their moorties.

And that is exactly what christianism will do. Hindoos do not seem to know this part of their history. But they would be wise to learn from it and be prepared for it.



Who says christianism is unlike the Indic religions? In behaviour and methodology, it is very like the Indic missionary religions/replacement theologies that sought to replace Hindoo heathenism aka Vedic religion aka Sanatana Dharma.

And just like Buddhism and Jainism consciously attempted to look more and more Hindoo by inculturating on Hindoo heathenism, so too christianism is starting to look more and more Hindoo by inculturating on Hindoo heathenism.

Doesn't mean that any of these missionary religions are actually related to the religion of the Hindoo Gods: just 'cause they look outwardly increasingly similar to Hindoos' heathenism, doesn't mean they're *actually* similar.



The minute jeebusites start referring to the word "dharma" (maybe they will encroach on it as theirs, the way Buddhism and Jainism did), Hindus will be forced to refer to it as a Dharmic religion. (And for the same reasons: inculturation on outward forms and terminology given twisted I mean re-interpreted meanings.) And then, christianism will also become as equally related to Vedic religion as Buddhism, Jainism etc are, so that "Hindu" "nationalists"/vocalists who've so often been seen claiming that Hindoos' heathenism = Buddhism = Jainism may start adding christianism to that running equivalence.

It is all the same (stupidity) after all. Now's not the time to start developing some powers of discrimination, so late. And let's not be partial either: let's not discriminate against christianism. No one wants to discover they're a hypocrite, after all.



This tendency to equalise is going to become a lodestone around modern Hindus' necks and all because they couldn't distinguish their own ancestral religion - where it begins and ends - from the other, later, inculturating Indic religions. <- It's actually Not all "the same" or "similar" to Hindoos' Vedic religion. Well, no more similar than christianism is to Hindoos' heathenism.





2. Found these next comments also at

mediacrooks.com/2015/04/church-crimes-2-declining-faith.html

Gautam Sharma April 08, 2015 11:20 PM



Sir,I apologize as my comment is not related to the above post.I just wanted to support your series of tweets about Sikhs killing Hindus during Punjab terrorism.You are absolutely right about what you said and I believe that Hindus have unfairly supported the myth of Sikhs as saviors of Hindus when history (eg Sikh betrayal during 1857 etc ) has shown that it is far from true.I live in Punjab and am suffocated by the pusillanimity of Hindu attitude towards Sikhs.Hindus face attack from all quarters and it is high time we join hands in crushing these threats.Sikhs believe British rule to be a fulfillment of some of their Guru's prophecy which got them material wealth as reward for betraying their motherland,this fact is not known among Hindus who falsely believe relative Sikh prosperity to be a result of some make believe 'hard work gene' which is apparently absent in the rest of non Sikh Punjabis.This coupled with the anti national asylum seeking trend among Sikhs got them money outside India at the expense of Indian foreign policy in international forums.Even today,Sikhs make great effort to distance their religion and way of life further from Hinduism and closer to Islam in more ways than one and dont even have the decency to accept that Nirguna Godhead philosophy at the center of Sikh religion comes directly from Hinduism and claim it to be thought by their founder on his own.



(No different from the claim on the OMkaaram as referring to anything other than Hindoo Gods/Vedic Supreme Ultimate, or as being novel and original in Sikhism etc, rather than totally and obviously derived/copied from Vedic religion.)





kaps April 09, 2015 4:04 PM



@Gautam Sharma

I Partly disagree with you as me too from Punjab. What u said is true and this kind of mentality in Sikhs is of recent origin ie from Last few decades only.. All Gurus preached sacrifice, humanity and welfare of others ie the basic core of Indie religions like Hinduism,Buddhism,Jainism only. Sikhs are assertive in nature so there is tendency on their part to dominate.. In Hindus we are not bound by any Particular ritual and in the absence of any Identity based ritual , Hindus are too easily swayed by Assertive sikhs. And to compound the matter, Hindu as a religion is talked down upon fashionably in our country until now. While Muslim, Christianity has problems at its core ,it is not with Sikhism.. Guru Nanak I think was Born as Hindu only..

Sikhism got rewritten from a very late movement within Hindoo religion to an unrelated new religion.

Its central deity too got rewritten from a familiar and popular Hindoo God to a novel one.

Not my problem. But then they should stick to their choice, and not claim ANYTHING Hindoo thereafter, e.g. Rama or Vedam or the history of Vaidika Hindoos at sapta sindhu. (It ceases to be their ancestry. Sikhism's history and hence Sikhs' history can then start at Sikhism.) No pretending that OMkaaram was anything other than borrowed (or inculturated or stolen, as you will) from Hindoos' heathenism. Nor pretending that the OMkaara refers to anyone or anything OTHER than the Hindoo Gods alone. And NO encroaching on any part of Hindoo cosmology.

Can't have the cake and eat it, after all. Nor is it allowed.

After all, split-ups are a two-way event. And Hindoos won't be the poorer for any part of it. Not to mention that any historical persons who identified themselves as Hindu - and/or especially if they worshipped or invoked named Vedic Gods - belong to Hindoo religion still.



People are free to deny their derivation from Vedic religion. But they can't leave with any remnant of Hindoo heathenism in their religion after that. Anything less is hypocrisy.



I have learnt from other Indic religions - which are always missionary and always poaching on Hindoos and Hindoo religion. And having at last understood the reality of the matter, have no intention of rolling over ever again. Hindoo heathenism is always losing people to nouveau religions, with an attitude that they "still belong to it", but often the nouveau religions become cemented as separate and they start poaching and missionising or drawing contrastive relationships and denying associations (and hence denying their borrowings and encroachment on Hindoo stuffs) at which point it should be clear to all - as it is even to me - that they are no longer members of Hindoos' heathenism but of their own spin-off show, and which has essentially run off with once-were-heathens by gradually brainwashing them into what became independent religions. In other words: the Vedic religion of the Hindoos has only ever lost people and never regained them all.



So am ready for Hindoos to compete too in what all the others have been regarding as a competition/missionary enterprise: to be as willing to allow reverts back to the ancestral heathenism as they are to acquire converts into their novel replacement religions. Therefore: all Indics (and those in once-Hindu SE Asia and Himalayan regions etc) are always welcome to return to their ancestral Vedic religion=Hindoo heathenism, but are not allowed to adhere to more than one Indic religion/ideology at the same time (at least, not allowed to be in Vedic religion AND some other religion, Indic or foreign. Because that last is how the poaching on Vedic religion - and transfer to the novel replacement religions - starts.)

[Husky]

twitter.com/blog_supplement/status/580242659094192128

via

retweet by twitter.com/SimhaRakesh

manasataramgini

@blog_supplement



pbs.twimg.com/media/CA1vn6NUkAEgKnr.jpg







bauddhas just before the coming of the Mohammedan apocalypse invented several deities to show their superiority over



10:40 PM - 23 Mar 2015



manasataramgini @blog_supplement Mar 23



Astikas. Here one can see their images of vighnAntaka show slaying vinAyaka &skanda(top right). When the Islamic whirlwind struck them they

11 retweets 3 favorites



manasataramgini @blog_supplement Mar 23



came back to their Astikas cousins asking that the hatchet be buried& the form a common cause against the Mohds; but it was too late by then

10 retweets 3 favorites

They're just like that. It's their thing. And that, by the way, is what was inflicted on the rest of Asia*, and which Indian nationalist Hindus today regularly champion as some great Indian achievement. Many other heathens in Asia - including some Hindu kingdoms in SE Asia - were just bulldozed by this renegade strain that emanated from the Hindoo homeland.



* Buddhism tried to subjugate -"incorporate"- Taoist and Shinto Gods, and even Olympic Gods, into the Buddhist hierarchy using lying too: by means of false and offensive imagery and literature, even as Buddhism parasited on Shinto, Taoism and Hellenismos.



If christianism made idols of jeebus or mary stomping on Hindoo Gods, I suspect not even the most liberal "Hindu" would approve. Of course, christianism is still in the inculturation phase, of laying the longterm groundwork for pretending that inculturated imagery is equally and originally christian. When christianism is ready, it too will repeat the Indic inculturationists' development: of using such inculturated jeebus imagery to denigrate and replace Hindoo Gods with.



Soon

- a certain TN-origin Buddhism-convert blogger/webmaster will pretend that the anti-Hindu Buddhist imagery in these photos is "actually some deep Buddhist tantric view" or some such apologetic spiel

- and Bauddhified "Hindus" will continue repeating how Buddhism is "egalitarian" (since when?), that it is non-distinguishable from Hindoo heathenism ("it's all actually the same") and that Buddhism should have an equal claim on Hindoo Gods (anyone who thinks that, please convert to Buddhism already and paws off the Hindoo Gods, scriptures and all things Hindoo heathenism forever thereafter).



Astikas as "cousins" of Buddhists? Pass. Buddhists and their Shramanic twins are parasitic unwanted spin-offs, not cousins, never missing an opportunity to peddle their backprojected replacement twaddle. They were the first to come up with a re-invented history - complete with twisting of Hindoo texts by means of inculturation and re-interpretation - to brainwash Hindoo heathens and replace Hindoo heathenism with.



And the phrase that "Buddhists requested that the hatchet be buried" is misleading, as it implies a two-way street: but the Shramanas were always the offenders and instigators. It was their missionising on the Hindoo heathen natives that made them carry a hatchet about and plunge it repeatedly into Hindoos. Most of the time Hindoos just ignored them (like they all too often do christian iconoclastic terrorists today), which just fanned what others noted as Shramanas' justified inferiority complex all the more. If Hindoos finally said anything at all or wrote direct criticisms, it was only ever in retaliation.



Hindoos never could deal with missionary religions fully. Never dealt with inculturation successfully either. As a consequence can see Bauddhified "Hindus" peddling even the Hindoo Gods and Vedas and itihaasas as "equally Buddhist/Jain/all Indic". Worry that if it weren't for islam, Buddhism would still have been lingering in India whining away, tearing at its innards like christianism does today. Oh wait, that's what modern including pseudo Buddhism does today in India. And the SL Buddhist Sangha's literature on Hindoo heathenism and its history is still full of blatantly false persecution sobstories and claims on Hindoo temples, which christos infesting TN now repeat and stupid 'Hindus' on the internet parrot in blind faith.



The present problem with christianism is the same as the one Hindoos had before with the other inculturating missionary ideologies: Hindoos could fight off islam - with major losses of course, but nothing in history compares to Hindoos' resistance of and ultimate defeat of islam. But Hindoos could not fight off the passive-aggressive, backstabbing, under-your-skin missionary religions, like the inculturating kind.



Missionary religions. Bah.

But at least India's Buddhists got their just deserts: and with any luck, islam will do to the modern anti-Hindu missionary inculturationists (christianism) what it did to their predecessors. 'Cause in some respects, it feels like a repeat of history.





Some of the comments:

prasanna @Flyfiddlesticks Mar 23

@blog_supplement at least from the images I saw, the deities were just Monogoloid versions of Hindu ones, isnt it?

0 retweets 0 favorites



(Didn't the original tweet say they were invented Buddhist deities. What's "Hindu" about them? I mean, besides copying the style of imagery, the poses, ideas for ayudhas - that sort of thing - and then transposing these onto Buddhism, to inculturate on, replace and denigrate Hindoo Gods with.

No different from jeebusism cloning Hindoo Gods as replacements - examples of christianism are in the image in the previous post.)



manasataramgini @blog_supplement Mar 23

@Flyfiddlesticks All the deities originated in India but in Tibet,China,Mongolia&Japan they may have been depicted w regional idiosyncracies

2 retweets 2 favorites



Shanmukh @maidros78 May 13

@blog_supplement Is there a reference for this attempt to form a common front?

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(More importantly, is there any reference to Hindoos saying: "You're on your own"? That would be a sign that Hindoos had at last learnt their lesson. Imagine if Hindoos had destroyed islam before it destroyed Buddhism in India, so that Buddhism still lingered to continue at its large-scale vampirism on Hindoo heathenism.... Eek.

Hmmmm, Maidros is a name from the Silmarillion. I should know.)



manasataramgini @blog_supplement May 15

@maidros78 It is evident from the unified vision of kAlachakra tantra, its vimalaprabhA commentary, the travelogue of dharmasvAmin&allusions

1 retweet 3 favorites



manasataramgini @blog_supplement May 15

@maidros78 of tAranAtha in the last phase of of history

1 retweet 3 favorites



(Yeah, they even stole the sacred Hindoo term Kaalachakra - e.g. seen in IIRC the Surya ashtottaram of the MBh - and encroached on Kalki avataaram etc etc. Of course, Vishnu's avataarams will become magically kosher to modern Hindus - though from the Buddhist perspective onleee - the minute Buddhism inculturates on them.)

The images are just more proof that Gods in Buddhism were just a means to an end, where the end was always the conversion of the native heathens to the fake (and false) nouveau religion/the replacement theology. That the target was the conversion of the native heathens is obvious from the fact of how Buddhism etc always involves heathens' Gods, either to mask or clone them or to denigrate them, not to mention to encroach on heathen temples/sacred sites. Radha Rajan recently repeated how christian churches are deliberately mushrooming right next to Hindu temples all over TN. <- This is exactly what Buddhism and Jainism did too. And what Buddhism did in other heathen nations too.



GRRRRR. Angry mostly at Hindus still peddling that Buddhism=Jainism=Hinduism="Hindu" (or Buddhism=Vedanta). 'Cause No. They may be other Indic religions, can call them "Dharmic" (where Dharmic seems to mean any religion that uses the word Dharma, and tomorrow christianism will use it too), but that's where the umbrella terminology should end. They were never the same religion.





The important parts of this post are the non-purple text in the quoteblocks and of course the image containing photos.

The rest is angry spam.

[Husky]

This post is about the inculturating late Jain clone version of the Da Only (=Vedic) Gayatri Mantram and the Buddhist replacement for the Gayatri Mantram





Loosely continued from post 185 of the Sanatana Dharma thread, but this post belongs here.





Meanwhile that other Nastika, Sandhya Jain, whom I last saw screeching at Swami Swaroopanand for his views which were the same as that of the Dharma Sansad (and hence she screeched at them too, logically speaking, as the "crime" was the same),

that same Sandhya Jain has now come out with a totally different article (vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=3585), where she - in the course of reviewing Juluri - indirectly encroaches on the Vedam and Gayatri mantram as if these suddenly have equally to do with -or in fact, anything to do with- her Jainism. And in the article she also pretends that the Ishwara of the Vedam can in any way be equated with the 1st teerthankara/thhe "Adi" "Bhagavaan" of Jainism, by using new agey mystifying language (sort of what christian interfaith dialogue also uses to equate the Hindoos' Gods/Ishwara with the biblical gawd).



Really don't know how S Jain has the nerve to continue her Nastika/Jainist encroachment on the Vedic religio/religio-civilisation, after her attack on legitimate Hindoos upholding Vaidika tradition with legitimate views, and after she blackened their characters to an ignorant Hindu audience.





And good grief, the Gayatri mantram too.

She has right only to the very late and regionally restricted Jain clone (Bad Copy) of the Gayatri mantram: the Jain so-called "Gayatri mantram" of some southern Jains, which is essentially a combination of

- the wholesale copy of the Vedic Gayatri mantram (into which nastikas don't have deeksham, so why were they stealing again?) AND

- with the addition of a single line conveniently declaring the mantram's now speaking about their backprojected and invented 1st teerthankara instead.



Or maybe Sandhya Jain thinks her Jain Bad Copy - which was invented for inculturation purposes - is the same as the Vedic version of the same, which is Da True=Only version of it, and hence she thinks there's only one.



* Note also how in this way Jainism allowed southern ex-brahmana converts to Jainism to continue reciting the Gayatri Mantram by re-interpreting (twisting) it as something to do with jeebus I mean the 1st teerthankara/Jainism instead. By blatantly stealing elements from Vedic religion and then mangling/reinterpreting these as Jainism (or Buddhism) is how the Nastika religions even survived to today.

Among the many thefts and manglings that Jainism and Buddhism committed against Vedic religion for inculturation ends, Jainism cloned and mangled the Gayatri mantram for inculturation purposes alone too, just like christianism has similarly started inculturating on the Gayatri Mantram now in the very same way and is selling it as being suddenly all about jeebus/christianism.

Can note how both christianism and Jainism have followed the same inculturating process.



Here, a Jain page on the Jain inculturation on/Jain Bad Copy of the Gayatri Mantram:

jainsamaj.org/rpg_site/literature2.php?id=1145&cat=42





Buddhism does not have the Gaayatri mantram (and still sounds fortunately resistive, no doubt afraid of a Vedic infiltration of their 'pristine' Buddhism). Though sudden new-age converts to Buddhism have shown an eager interest in dabbling in the Gayatri mantram under the mistaken notion that it would magically belong to Buddhism too (lots of western sudden converts to Buddhism use Buddhism as a means to dabble in Vedic mantras and Gods and then Bauddhify these; they're horrible new-ageists and subversionists). E.g.:

- zenforuminternational.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7353

- dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=5631

(where the same question as in the first link is asked again - note the eagerness in the Gayatri - but is fortunately shot down.)



From that last link:

Hey Guys, and Gals, I'm interested in the Gayatri Mantra. I know it's a Vedic Mantra, but apparently it has some foothold in Buddhism as well. I have defitnely heard recordings of Tibetan Monks chanting it, but other than that I don't know much.



Thanks in advance.

Response there:

I have defitnely heard recordings of Tibetan Monks chanting it, but other than that I don't know much.

Nope, you have not. The Gayatri does not exist as a tradition in Buddhism of any kind. There may however be some Western Tibetan Buddhists that are fond of chanting it (I know one too).

Some western converts to Buddhism (new-ageists) can be disgusting in their illegal encroachment on Hindoo heathenism. They're unable (unwilling) to follow their chosen religion of Buddhism properly.





However, Buddhism apparently invented its "sharaNam gachChAmi" triple liner (seen peddled by Rajeev Srinivasan and other Bauddhified Hindus/Hindu nationalists on the web) specifically as a replacement for the Gayatri. As seen argued at the next link by a Buddhist



hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?4002-Buddhist-Gayatri!



At the above link, can also see that zealous Indic convert to Buddhism try to first sneakily peddle Buddhism and then - upon failure to convince/convert - overtly/angrily peddle the same among Hindus using out-and-out Replacement Theology tactics: referring to Buddhist so-called "Dharma Shastras" as The "Dharma Shastras" (i.e. as if Da Dharma Shastras of Vaidika Dharma is interchangeable with the Buddhist "Dharma Shastras"), and then insisting that the oh-so-obvious replacement of Hindoo heathenism done in these late Buddhist works means that Buddhism has superceded the Vedam in authority [="the New Vedam/the current form of Vedic Dharma"] and that the "Dharma Shastras" (the Buddhist replacements, of course) say that Buddha has superseded the Hindoo Gods as the go-to in Kaliyuga. *Exactly like how christianism has repeatedly tried to pass off the babble as the "5th Vedam" that supercedes the Vedam, and jeebus as the God who supercedes the Hindoo Gods.

Can see how Buddhism is *still* attempting to missionise among Hindoos, by invading Hindoo sites (as christians do) to peddle the babble I mean Buddhisms.



It's not just christianism. All these missionary religions are the same: aiming for replacement, by means of inculturation and encroachment and developing replacement theology and missionising.



Sandhya Jain has no right to pretend Jainism has any claims on the Vedas/Vedic Gods/Vedic religio (and civilisation). I see that she knows well enough to list Buddhism separately. She badmouthed a legitimate and well-meaning Shankaracharya (who was moreover correct) and tried to brainwash her Hindu readers with this too. Even otherwise, enough with nAstikas encroaching on Vedic=Hindoo heathenism, all in order to equate their replacement dharma shaastras and mantras and backprojected replacment adi bhagavaans/buddhas with that of the Vedic religion. There is no such equation. It is just replacement. She had earlier peddled the Jain late rewrite of Vedic King Bharata as being a "Jain" (c.f. the Jain late rewrites of Rama & co as Jains) and that Hindoos' Shiva-Maheshwara is the Jain Rishabha. Even if Sandhya's merely ignorant that there's No Equality between any of these things (Vedic Bharata/Rama and late Jain rewrites, Vedic Gayatri/Shiva and late Jain inculturation on these) her efforts should still be rebuffed to prevent subversion of Hindoo heathenism into Jainism. Enough Hindus of the internet generation have been Bauddhised and Jainised already by the Jain/Buddhist spins/inculturations on Hindoo heathenism.



While S Jain comes across as very positive in her article, Hindus allowing nastikas to piggyback on Vedic religion (Sanatana Dharma) is not a good idea and only allows nastikas to create a position of 'equal authority' among Hindus, which they invariably end up using to subvert or even generate rebellion against genuine tradition and authorities in Hindoo heathenism/Vedic religion. (Rather like what Elst does.)

Even Sandhya - next to her subverting aspects of Vedic religio-history to her Hindu audience using the Jain inculturations on these - stoked up suspicion among her Hindu readers against Swami Swaroopananda. And he and the loyal Naga Sadhus have been suffering (e.g. threats of lawsuits) from just this sort of unthinking positioning by modern Hindus easily misled by nastikas who are ignorant on Vedic religion.

Besides, no one needs fair-weather friends. In the end, nastikas keep turning into a stone around Hindus' neck: Hindus keep wanting to carry them along in some umbrella "Hindu" term and a significant and visible/influential number of them is only interested in dissing Hindus/Vedic religion and/or subverting/Jainising/Bauddhifying the latter (even if only subconsciously).



Hindus have never gained anything by letting others piggyback on Vedic religion=Hindoo heathenism (if other Indics want to have a share in the cake, they are always free to revert properly, i.e. without bringing in any of their nastika stuff). It always ends up being parasitism - besides infiltration of (subtle to gross) subversionism - and an excuse to let others have the cake and eat it too, which is how Hindoo religion lost any laity (and parts of SE Asia) to the nouveau Indic religions in the first place.





This post was about the inculturationist late Jain clone version of the Da Only (=Vedic) Gayatri Mantram and the Buddhist replacement for the Gayatri Mantram