Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

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





Post 1/3



Post 3 contains somewhat current news (from 2010).





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

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



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

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



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



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

Buddhist legends



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

About this ridiculous statement from above:

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



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





4. About this statement from above again:

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

Reasoning becomes clear in the 2nd quoteblock to follow



http://kataragama.org/warrior.htm

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

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

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



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



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

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