Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

Post 1/?



This serial spam session is directly related to

Posts 105 to 111

of this thread (india-forum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2224-removing-the-sheen-from-buddhism/page__view__findpost__p__109064)



on Rajeev Srinivasan's attempt to donate the Hindu God Ayyappa and his Shabarimalai temple site to Buddhism, based on Lokesh Chandra's speculative theories on this.



Am returning to that subject, because Rajeev's recently written an article at firstpost on Modi's slated visit to Shabarimalai. He highlights the deliberate mismanagement and systematic destruction of Hindu temples in Kerala by the usual anti-Hindus (3Ms), presumably to get BJP/Modi to turn their attention to this severe threat.



But in writing the article, he once again repeats his complete and indiscriminate acceptance of Lokesh Chandra's speculations on Ayyappa+Shabarimalai being Buddhist:



firstpost.com/india/sabarimala-metaphor-case-state-apartheid-hindu-shrine-1770403.html

Because it [Ayyappa at Shabarimalai] is a point of singular power, and it has been so for millennia: historian Lokesh Chandra notes that it was once a temple to both Shiva and the Avalokiteswara Padmapani (the Bodhisattva of Compassion) simultaneously, as described by the Buddhist monk Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang) who visited some 1,400 years ago and considered it already an ancient temple. (See my old article on its history here.)

With that last line, Rajeev then links to his much earlier Rediff article, where he quotes Lokesh Chandra's Bauddicising speculations in detail, and embellishes with some of his own (which latter were already covered in Posts 105 to 111).



The worry is that if BJP/Modi were to encounter the above material, since they're conceivably part of the target audience, they may be as ready to take Lokesh Chandra and Rajeev's word for it as so much of the rest of the Hindu population. In an extreme scenario, Modi influenced by such speculations might even add Shabarimalai into his "Buddha Circuit" project in India, and thereby facilitate Bauddhising the Hindu site and Hindu God.



This last is a genuine threat - part of a larger one to Hindu temples in the south - and not to be underestimated, as there are many neo-Buddhist and dravoodianist (and christian*) groups now operating in the south of India - well outside of the birthplace of neo-Buddhism - who are determined to remove Hindu religion from Hindu temples by taking them over under any excuses, such as Buddhism, Jainism and dravoodianism. To generate the numbers they need for this project, they regularly create or further develop and spread just such fictions, in order to claim that sacred Hindu sites were "actually, originally" Buddhist, Jain or back-projected christianism and dravoodianism. These compulsive liars further invert stories of actual historical replacement and inculturation on Hindu religion by missionary religions, to generate a persecution complex, to backproject recently-created identities onto the past (like dravoodianism), and present the ancient native Hindu religion of the south as "alien, imposed", and the novel Indian and foreign religions that were planted in the south (like Buddhism, Jainism, christianism) - as well as backprojected ones like dravoodianism - as the "original, historical, native" religions/identities.



[* Jesuit Francis Clooney already had advanced similar theories about several major Hindu temples, with as difference that he claimed they were originally "christian"]





Returning to Rajeev's earlier Rediff article, I wish to discuss this section:



rediff.com/news/dec/31rajeev.htm

There is considerable evidence that Lord Ayyappan was once a Buddhist deity, and that Sabarimala was once a Buddhist temple complex. However, it appears that prior to its Buddhist incarnation, the temple was an early Dravidian Saivite centre; therefore it has been a sacred spot of singular merit of at least three or four millennia. Its famed Makara Jyotis (Divine Light) which appears mysteriously in the forest on Makara Sankranti day gave it the name Potalaka.



Astonishingly, it appears that the Dalai Lama's Palace in Lhasa, the incomparable Potala, is named after Sabarimala! The Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) Avalokitesvara Padmapani, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, who is, by tradition, reincarnated as the Dalai Lama, was also the one worshipped at Sabarimala.



I am indebted to my cerebral friend Devakumar Sreevijayan (formerly of Austin, Texas and currently of New York City) for almost all of this fascinating research. It is in three texts: the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Hymn to the Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara, and the writings of the intrepid Chinese traveller Hsiuen Tsang (Zuen Xang?), that we find the detailed references. Dev found a good deal of information in the book, The Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara by Lokesh Chandra.



[...]

Says Lokesh Chandra: 'The Avatamsaka Sutra describes the earthly paradise of Avalokitesvara: ''Potalaka is on the sea-side in the south, it has woods, it has streams, and tanks''...Buddhabhadra's (AD 420) rendering of Potala (or Potalaka) is ''Brilliance." It refers to its etymology: Tamil pottu (potti-) ''to light (as a fire)''...brilliance refers to the makara-jyoti of Sabarimala.'



'Hsuen Tsang refers to Avalokitesvara on the Potala in the following words, summarised by Waters (1905): ''In the south of the country near the sea was the Mo-lo-ya (Malaya) mountain, with its lofty cliffs and ridges and deep valleys and gullies, on which were sandal, camphor and other trees. To the east of this was Pu-ta-lo-ka (Potalaka) mountain with steep narrow paths over its cliffs and gorges in irregular confusion...'' '



All of this is still true; Hsuen Tsang's description could easily be of contemporary Sabarimala. The only difference perhaps is that the forests are no longer so dense. Pilgrims believe that those who ignore the strict penances -- abstinence from alcohol, smoking, meat-eating and sex -- are in danger of being attacked by wild animals while on their trek. However, there are not too many large animals in these forests any more, as a result of human encroachment.



Lokesh Chandra continues: 'Hsuen Tsang clearly says that Avalokitesvara at Potala sometimes takes the form of Isvara (Siva) and sometimes that of a Pasupata yogin. In fact, it was Siva who was metamorphosed into Avalokitesvara...The image at Potalaka which was originally Siva, was deemed to be Avalokitesvara when Buddhism became dominant... The Potalaka Lokesvara and the Thousand-armed Avalokitesvara have echoes of Siva and Vishnu, of Hari and Hara.'



'...Lord Ayyappa of Sabarimala... could have been the Potala Lokesvara of Buddhist literature. The makara jyoti of Sabarimala recalls Potala's "brilliance"... The long, arduous and hazardous trek through areas known to be inhabited by elephants and other wildlife to Sabarimala is spoken of in the pilgrimage to Potala Lokesvara. The Buddhist character of Ayyappa is explicit in his merger with Dharma-sasta. Sasta is a synonym of Lord Buddha.'

Rajeev's articles on this subject are NOT innocent. There is no end to the mischief he has created with this (and this type of) careless myth-propagation. This has only been exarcerbated by the fact that, in his oft-repeated references to Ayyappa at Shabarimalai as "Buddhist", he has increasingly been passing this off as fact (as he has also done with his other theories Bauddhising Hindu religio-history).



I have seen other *Hindu-owned* sites quoting him verbatim and inserting his statements into much larger articles on the history of Shabarimalai, often without mention of Rajeev as the author of the Bauddhising statements, thereby completing the conversion of his opinion into universal fact of the "as is known to all/as all must accept" variety.



And that is not counting the number of anti-Hindu sites that use just such speculations to declare that Hindus have stolen Ayyappa/Shabarimalai from the Buddhists etc.