Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

8/n



Anyway, things become more daring than I had anticipated. Apparently the invented "Shramana movement" - gradually being concretised using repeat assertions - is to now have influenced the Aranyaka portions of the Vedam <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

Influence on Hinduism

Sramana gave rise to several elements which were subsequently adopted by several Indian religions.[42] The concept of the cycle of birth and death, the concept of samsara, the concept of liberation[43] and yoga[44] are ultimately from Sramana. The Hindu ashrama system of life was an attempt to institutionalize Shramana ideals within the Brahmanical social structure.[45] The Shramana movement also influenced the Aranyakas and Upanishads in the Brahmanical tradition.[46]

I couldn't leave it, had to scroll to the given reference - and it's as idiotic as could be expected/hoped for (no doubt sufficiently convincing for the believing readers of wackypedia):

46.^ Reddy, Krishna. 2007. Indian History. Tata McGraw-Hill. pg. 122. "Sramana religion seems to have influenced the authors of the Aranyakas and the Upanishads."

That's all the reference can give us, one statement. And that too an "it seems".

So by 2007 at latest, people have already been hard at work - even in Tata McGraw-Hill - on inventing a "Shramana religion" that would predate and moreover "influence" the Aranyakas (and Upanishads).



Well, to be logically consistent, it's understandable that they'd *have* to claim the Aranyakas too - thereby making the claim extend predictably to the whole "Gnyana Kandam" of the Vedam. Because they're after declaring "samsara, liberation - sa~Nkhya and yoga" as being "ultimately from Sramana". And as I said, it's an unravelling thread. They have to keep claiming more and more of the Vedic religion.





More imaginatively still, it's supposed to be the older and *native* religion of India, while Hindus' Vedic religion is supposed to have "invaded" India <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> as seen in the best line - which gave away the whole plot:

The Shramana tradition of the Jaina religion is considered the oldest of the non-Aryan group, as an independent pre-Buddhist religion (Bhaskar, 1972), and is suggested to have existed before the brahmin cult.[20]

Heard first in the lunatic fringe, it appears to slowly become more mainstream that:

- Jainism is "non-Aryan" hence "native religion"

- existed before "Brahmanas" (which is code for "Jainism existed before the Vedas/Vedic religion, but don't ask for tangible proof").

- plus combine the reference to Jainism as "non-oryan" - which implies that Vedic religion is uniquely oryan - with the statement on Jainism being "widespread in the Indus Valley" and you get the Vedic oryans invading and oppressing poor native Jainists/stealing their land and adherents. And that's what the Jain Minority Forum claimed. And now the same is repeated in more ... mainstream places like wackypedia.

But I'd already gone over the reasoning behind the motivated projection of Brahmanas as uniquely foreign.

- "Brahmin cult" is again *interesting*: cult seems to be the new name for Hindus' (Vedic) religion. (Compare with repetition of "Shramana movement" to give it currency and respectability.) Their choice of using "Brahmin cult" (and refusing to use/recognise the word Hindu) is important <-> Apparently, there's no such thing as any other Hindoos. I wonder how other Hindoos feel about Buddhism/Jainism/the concocted ur-Shramanism denying that they exist - or even ever existed - and that they have a religion, and that this is very much the religion derived from the Hindoo Gods/Vedas. Then again, the word Hindu itself is denied, denying that there is a Hindoo laity. It's all calculated, of course. It always is.



Notice how they just invented the "native dravoodians" (of the oryan invasion theory, though not explicitly named) as the ur-"Shramanas" <- they've invented an ur-religion for the ur-Dravoodians. Naturally, this religion is (related to) the competing Indic religions. That these religions are most specifically competing with Hindu religion for the Hindoo laity - i.e. missionising on Hindoo laity - is obvious from their constant hobby of making claims on Hindu stuff (which were earlier heard screeched by neo-Buddhism and its equivalent, the Jain Minority Forum. But now their looney claims have seeped into the mainstream/visible space, where it is all presented as "fact".)



The endgoal is not really the minute percentage of Brahmanas in India - although they're certainly in the way - but the humongous percent of every other kind of Hindoo.

Because all the above items point to missionising tendencies: the claim that Vedic religion is not in any way or any degree the religion of all the natives who are Hindus now, is an attempt to missionise the Hindoos who are not of Brahmana ancestry. Indeed, all those Hindus doing Yoga, anyone practising Hindu Tantra stuff (e.g. pooja or reciting stotras from Hindu Tantra texts - that's probably *you* BTW) or believing in Samsara and hence trying for Moksha and attracted to the Upanishads -

the claim is that all these are practising something that "actually" belongs to Shramanism and that they had therefore better convert to Buddhism/Jainism already, as this is supposedly their "true, original" religion.



Plus any Hindoos attached to their Hindoo Gods are (magically) declared to not be of "Vedic religion", but practising an independent religion filed suddenly under "Bhakti traditions" as if this is unrelated to the Vedas. Yet the Hindu Gods themselves are particularly related to the Vedas/Vedic religion - they are the Gods of the Vedic religion, they belong to it/it is of them.



So while easily-offended people may imagine this is all uniquely some insult to Brahmanas, the actual attack is - as always - on *Hindoos'* religion, it is aimed at severing the Hindoo laity from their ancestral religion. That is why the word Hindu is specifically never used, why the existence of Hindoo laity is never mentioned: this group is deliberately un-recognised, to strip them of their identity, so that they can then be herded into any identity others choose for them. By turning Hindu laity into Indians with no religion, these "Indians" are left "free" to be claimed by all religions: to be missionised by all missionary religions.

Because it is *this* group that is put at stake: put up for sale. Thus, the text tends to speak only of "Brahmanas" (used interchangeably with "Vedics"), no mention of any other types of Hindoos. So they claim "It's not anyone else's religion, it is solely the religion of Brahmanas." Apparently only Brahmanas followed/were originally of the Vedic religion <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> - it's now not supposed to be the religion of even the kShatriyas let alone the Vaishyas and Shudras. This is also why exclusively Brahmanas are singled out as the non-natives, as the (here implied, elsewhere articulated) "oryan" invaders: because the "Shramanic" religions want to claim all the remaining native Hindoos especially the Hindoo laity for their own. <- The Hindoo laity is regarded as the Prize pool, even though Buddhism was never originally a religion for laity.



And that is why they've now also invented a split of the religion into "Bhakti traditions" as a separate stream from the Vedic religion.



Never misinterpret what the missionary competition's negation of the existence of Hindoo laity means. It means only one thing: derecognition of them as Hindoos, as having existed as Hindoos - that is, as having any attachment to their ancestral religion. It is exactly the same reasoning behind why the christomedia calls Hindoo victims of christoislamic violence as "dalits" never mentioning their Hinduness, even when the victims mention their insubvertible Hindooness in no uncertain terms.



It's all a little mindgame. Everyone is out to convert the masses of Hindoos. They're considered a free for all. I wonder why Hindoos stand for this. Only they can protect themselves. Since that is the genius behind accusing Brahmanas exclusively (of non-nativeness/invasion, of swindle, of uniquely belonging to the religion etc): makes Brahmanas have no right to speak up for other Hindoos as being Hindoos. The clever tactic orphans both Hindoo parties from each other - leaving both bereaved - just as if they had never been of the same religion and had never been the children of the same Divine Parents.





But all this is creeping into the mainstream. Seen even in the opening quoteblock. Not only in Sandhya Jain's line that "In the 1920s itself, renowned archaeologist RP Chanda noted the Indus roots of Yogic tradition (possibly India’s most significant spiritual dimension), particularly the meditation forms that came to be associated with Bauddha and Jaina practice." But she also refers to Buddhist theology's many Buddhas to make Buddhism reach far back into a time when it didn't actually exist.





I think I've finished with that wacky page now. But there's sadly more. Not today.





Ramana's post is way up there in #163