Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

Post 1/3



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





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



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

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



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



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

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

Also contrast the blue bit above with the blue bit below



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

AmarakoshaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

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

[...]



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

Things one can note from just the two quoteblocks above:



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



- On the blue bits:

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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





Indian history rewrites are getting more entertaining all the time.

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





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





[EDIT: Corrected glaring typos]