Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

Wow is Buddhism really good at rewriting history.

Check out Wacky's "Bon" page, where Bon is now declared a branch of Tibetan Buddhism. And compare it to what older versions of the page said.



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6n

(en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bon)

Wackypedia's "Bon" page as at today

Bon or Bön[1] (Tibetan: བོན་, Wylie: bon, Lhasa dialect IPA: [pʰø̃̀]) is a sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It arose in the eleventh century upward[2] and established its scriptures mainly from termas and visions by tertöns such as Loden Nyingpo.[3] Though Bon terma contain myths of Bon existing before the historical introduction of Buddhism in Tibet, "in truth the 'old religion' was a new religion."[3]

Had in recent years come across apologetics by western converts to Tibetan Buddhism where:



* the western Tibetan-Buddhist gradually argued - despite admitting they didn't really know about Bon or its history - that it "must have been" a Tibetan Buddhism because it's so like Tibetan Buddhism now (yeah well, that's because Tibetan Buddhism got many of its Gods from Bon).

And now such theory mongerying has become "fact" as established by Wikipedia.

BTW, that same Tibetan Buddhist apologetics/history-rewriting tract did admit - and clearly the western convert author got uncomfortable - that Buddhist texts of the era had been demanding those not of the (Buddhist) Dharma should have their eyes gouged out and be stomped on, etc. I.e. advocating violence. The Buddhists text said many such violent things actually, and Buddhists didn't leave it at words either.*



* the western Tibetan Buddhists converts (authoring a book for a Tibetan Buddhist publication) had created a whole new framework for negating Bon. They argued that Tibetan Buddhism's historical commandments to convert Bon Gods to Buddhism (i.e. take over native Gods) should be seen in a new sense: that Bon itself was created by Buddhism, as the "Other", to generate Gods for Buddhism to "convert", because Tibetan Buddhism has a need for a constant supply of Gods to convert for its tantra rituals.

(Oooh nice convoluted excuse! But some of the Gods in Bon have Taoist origins. And they were blindly transplanted/converted into Tibetan Buddhism even by looney Indian-influenced Tibetan Buddhism. So proof right there.)

But I'm sure converts to Buddhism will nevertheless happily lap it up to make themselves feel better about the past, especially since historical 1st hand sources do not lend themselves well to such a retelling of the past: primary Tibetan Buddhist sources, demonstrably screeched that the Bons should be very violently done away with, and which resulted in persecution of Bon, where Bonpos fled their ancestral land. <- All that may not be so amenable to Buddhists' convenient rewrite of their religion's unpleasant history in Tibet.





Extracts from older versions of the Bon page follow. Don't have time to look at it in detail, but some obvious elements stick out.

More interesting is the date of when things have changed so drastically (from Bon being its own, independent, indigenous, and pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion to Bon being declared a Tibetan Buddhism). Buddhism's been busy.



Older versions:



en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bon&oldid=618027561

Wacky Bon page as at 22 July 2014

Bon or Bön[1] (Tibetan: བོན་, Wylie: bon, Lhasa dialect IPA: [pʰø̃̀]) is the term for the religious tradition or sect of Tibet. It arose in the eleventh century upward[2] and established its scriptures from terma (hidden treasure) and visions by tertöns such as Loden Nyingpo.[2] Though Bon terma contain myths of Bon existing before the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet, "in truth the 'old religion' was a new religion."[2]

No direct mention of Bon being a Tibetan Buddhist sect on 27 Jun 2014:



en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bon&oldid=614586804

Wacky Bon page as at 27 June 2014

Bon or Bön[1] (Tibetan: བོན་, Wylie: bon [pʰø̃̀(n)]), also Bonism or Benism (Chinese: 苯教, Běnjiào) is the term for the religious tradition or sect of Tibet more accurately called Yungdrung Bon today, as well as the general term for the elements of alleged non-Buddhist or indigenous religious practices for common Tibetan people in some cases. The former religion arose from the eleventh century upward and established its scriptures from terma and visions of tertons such as Loden Nyingpo, who would have been one of the most influential Bonpo in the fourteenth century.[2] Though Bon terma contain myths of Bon existing before the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet, "in truth the 'old religion' was a new religion."[2]

And no mention of "alleged non-Buddhist or indigenous religious practices for common Tibetan people" in the following from January, or that it was a Bon myth that Bon existed before Buddhism invaded Tibet / that the "old religion was a new religion":



en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bon&oldid=450434691

Wacky Bon page as at 4 January 2014

Bon or Bön[1] (Tibetan: བོན་, Wylie: bon [pʰø̃̀(n)]) is the indigenous religion of Tibet, pre-dating the introduction of Buddhism. It influenced Tibetan Buddhism and is still practiced as a minority religion.



Tradition has three parts to Bon's spread. First, there is a story known as the Tazig 'Olm Lung Ring'. Second, in the fourteenth century Loden Nyingpo revealed a terma containing the story of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche.[2] Third, there are documents written by people from the Zhang Zhung kingdom who supposedly practiced Bon. Zhangzhung is not well known, but is believed to be located in western Tibet. Bon historians hold many Central Asian Buddhist antiquities are Bon.[3]



The scholarly history of Bon is difficult to clearly ascertain because the earliest surviving documents referring to the religion come from the 9th and 10th centuries, well after Buddhists began the suppression of indigenous beliefs and practices.[4] Moreover, historian Per Kværne[4] notes that "Bon" is used to describe three distinct traditions:



the pre-Buddhist religious practices of Tibetans and Tibetic peoples of Nepal that are "imperfectly reconstructed [yet] essentially different from Buddhism" and were focused on the personage of a divine king;

a syncretic religion that arose in Tibet and Nepal during the 10th and 11th centuries, with strong shamanistic and animistic traditions. This shamanic indigenous religion is not Buddhism, but is sometimes regarded by scholars as a substrate form of Buddhism.

a set of popular beliefs in which local shamans try to heal people using ideas sometimes ascribed to Bon. Shamans may divine deities' wishes, have supernatural fights with deities, or be possessed by deities. These shamanic practices are common in the Tibeto-Burman speaking ethnic groups, such as Magar, Tamang, Tibetan, etc.

However, other scholars do not accept the tradition that separates Bon from Buddhism. Christopher Beckwith calls Bon "one of the two types of Tibetan Buddhism"[5] and writes that "despite continuing popular belief in the existence of a non-Buddhist religion known as Bon during the Tibetan Empire period, there is not a shred of evidence to support the idea... Although different in some respects from the other sects, it was already very definitely a form of Buddhism."[6]



Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, recognizes the Bon tradition as the sixth principal spiritual school of Tibet, along with the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, Gelug and Jonang schools of Buddhism, despite the long historical competition between the Bon tradition and Buddhism in Tibet. In 1978 the Dalai Lama acknowledged the Bon religion as a school with its own practices after visiting the newly built Bon monastery in Dolanji."[7]

The Wiki edit revision undoes the previous content (see below) explaining:

"(cur | prev) 13:49, 4 January 2014‎ 79.16.78.192 (talk)‎ . . (35,505 bytes) (+112)‎ . . (That the 14th Dalai Lama has recognised Bon as a legitimate religion is NOT the same as saying that it is a school of Buddhism.) (undo)"

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 79.16.78.192 (talk) at 13:49, 4 January 2014 (That the 14th Dalai Lama has recognised Bon as a legitimate religion is NOT the same as saying that it is a school of Buddhism.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The previous version had said:

Bon or Bön[1] (Tibetan: བོན་, Wylie: bon [pʰø̃̀(n)]) is a branch of Tibetan Vajrayana.

And this section was still there on the Bon page in 4 January 2014, not sure when it disappeared, but it's not there in the present page:

en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bon&oldid=589139130

Competition with Buddhism

After the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet during the 7th century, there was often fierce competition between the two traditions, especially during the reign of Langdarma. Over time, Bon has been losing influence and has been marginalized by the Tibetan political elite.

And these next sections have notably entirely disappeared in Wacky's current Bon page. Sort of like what happened to the section on the Guan-Yin wacky page explaining how a Daoist Goddess was subsumed by Buddhism in China.



(Not sure when they disappeared exactly, but the following sections were at least still there at the dates shown.)



en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bon&oldid=614586804

Wacky Bon page as at 27 June 2014

Definitions of Bon



The scholarly history of Bon is difficult to clearly ascertain because the earliest surviving documents referring to the religion come from the 9th and 10th centuries, well after Buddhists began the suppression of indigenous beliefs and practices.[3] Moreover, historian Per Kværne[3] notes that "Bon" is used to describe three distinct traditions:



* the pre-Buddhist religious practices of Tibetans and Tibetic peoples of Nepal that are "imperfectly reconstructed [yet] essentially different from Buddhism" and were focused on the personage of a divine king;

* a syncretic religion that arose in Tibet and Nepal during the 10th and 11th centuries, with strong shamanistic and animistic traditions. This shamanic indigenous religion is not Buddhism, but is sometimes regarded by scholars as a substrate form of Buddhism.

* a set of popular beliefs in which local shamans try to heal people using ideas sometimes ascribed to Bon. Shamans may divine deities' wishes, have supernatural fights with deities, or be possessed by deities. These shamanic practices are common in the Tibeto-Burman speaking ethnic groups, such as Magar, Tamang, Tibetan, etc.

However, other scholars do not accept the tradition that separates Bon from Buddhism. Christopher Beckwith calls Bon "one of the two types of Tibetan Buddhism"[4] and writes that "despite continuing popular belief in the existence of a non-Buddhist religion known as Bon during the Tibetan Empire period, there is not a shred of evidence to support the idea... Although different in some respects from the other sects, it was already very definitely a form of Buddhism."[5]



Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, recognizes the Bon tradition as the sixth principal spiritual school of Tibet, along with the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, Gelug and Jonang schools of Buddhism, despite the long historical competition between the Bon tradition and Buddhism in Tibet. In 1978 the Dalai Lama acknowledged the Bon religion as a school with its own practices after visiting the newly built Bon monastery in Dolanji."[6]



The syllable -po or -pa is appended to a noun in Tibetan to designate a person who is from that place or performs that action; "Bonpo" thus means a follower of the Bon tradition, "Nyingmapa" a follower of the Nyingma tradition, and so on. (The feminine parallels are -mo and -ma, but these are not generally appended to the names of the Tibetan religious traditions.)[7]





Bon today

A complex appreciation of Bon is emerging by scholars. Bon, prior to the Tibetan diaspora, existed within a web of ancient indigenous animism, Hinduism, sympathetic magic, Buddhism, folk religion, shamanism, Vajrayana, asceticism and mysticism; complexes prevalent throughout the Himalaya and intermingling throughout the Inner Asian region. Pegg (2006) relates that these



"[c]omplexes include mosaics of performing practices and discourses rather than discrete or fixed sets of practices or beliefs. They are syncretic and overlapping. The power of sound to communicate with spirits is recognized…" and a recurrent motif throughout the region.



Leading Bon scholar Per Kværne writes:[citation needed]



Both Buddhists and Bonpos agree that when Buddhism succeeded in gaining royal patronage in Tibet in the eighth and ninth centuries, Bon suffered a serious setback. By the 11th century, however, an organized religious tradition, styling itself Bon and claiming continuity with the earlier, pre-Buddhist religion, appeared in central Tibet. It is this religion of Bon that has persisted to our own times, absorbing doctrines from the dominant Buddhist religion but always adapting what it learned to its own needs and perspectives. This is ...not just plagiarism, but a dynamic and flexible strategy that has ensured the survival, indeed the vitality, of a religious minority.

(But Per Kværne makes no mention of Buddhist plagiarism from Bon - which is much greater and which started much earlire: everything from Gods to rituals.

Plus lots of similarities of Bon with "Buddhism" is because of Hindu and Taoist elements in pre-Buddhist Tibet, and which elements Buddhism had already inculturated on.)





Q: Have to ask, is it the "Dharmic religions ra-ra" types - especially those who threatened to include Taoism under "Dharmic" alongside Buddhism and Jainism - that defaced the Bon page? You know, the indiafacts/vijayvaani types that spend aeons pandering to Buddhism etc.





And compare the following two sections:



en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bon&oldid=614586804

Wacky Bon page as 27 June 2014

Foundation

In the fourteenth century, Loden Nyingpo revealed a terma containing the story of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche.[2] It states that Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche established the Bon religion while searching for a horse stolen by a demon. Tradition also tells that he was born in the land of Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring (considered[by whom?] an axis mundi) which is traditionally identified as Mount Yung-drung Gu-tzeg ("Edifice of Nine Sauvastikas"), possibly Mount Kailash, in western Tibet. Due to the sacredness of Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring and the Mount Kailash, the Bonpo as well as Hindus regard both the swastika and the number nine as auspicious and as of great significance.

Note that the Foundation subsection is still there and Kailash and Swastika are still mentioned, but suddenly there is no more reference to "Hindu" on the current page.

Is it just neo-Buddhists and Indic Buddhists again, or is it other Buddhists that are defacing it too? Reminds me of how neo-Buddhists removed the mention of Hinduism in Japan (point 6 of post 121 in this thread, from 2011, even though it only said that Hindu religion had arrived in Japan "when other Indian-related beliefs incl Buddhism" had arrived.)



Current wacky Bon page (today, Nov 2014):

en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bon

Foundation[edit]

Three Bon scriptures, mdo 'dus, gzer mig, and gzi brjid relate the mythos of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche. The Bonpos regard the first two as gter ma rediscovered around the eleventh century and the last as nyan brgyud (oral transmission) dictated by Loden Nyingpo, who lived in the fourteenth century.[4] In the fourteenth century, Loden Nyingpo revealed a terma known as The Brilliance (Wylie: gzi brjid), contained the story of Tonpa Shenrab. He was not the first Bonpo tertön, but his terma became one of the definitive scriptures of Bon religion.[3] It states that Shenrab established the Bon religion while searching for a horse stolen by a demon. Tradition also tells that he was born in the land of Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring (considered[by whom?] an axis mundi) which is traditionally identified as Mount Yung-drung Gu-tzeg ("Edifice of Nine Sauvastikas"), possibly Mount Kailash, in western Tibet. Due to the sacredness of Tagzig Olmo Lungting and Mount Kailash, the Bonpo regard both the swastika and the number nine as auspicious and as of great significance.

There was ancient Hindu presence in Tibet, before Buddhism came there. And that - and the Taoist connection to Bon - is what Buddhism has used to Bauddhify what little is known in the west of pre-Buddhist Bon. Buddhism pointed to Hindu elements and said "this is actually Buddhism" and declared that all the post-Buddhist parts of Bon are "Buddhist" too, and therefore that all of Bon is Buddhist onlee.

Except that there is a significant minority of Bon refugees in China-proper - IIRC from the time when Buddhism persecuted Bon with such measures that the adherents of the native Tibetan religion had to flee to neighbouring countries.





Buddhism is clearly cleaning up after itself.

• Like how it cleaned up after its encroachment on a Taoist Goddess for the Buddhist Guan-Yin, as seen in the Buddhist rewrite of actual history in wackypedia (<- see end of that linked post)
  
  
• Like how SL Buddhism cleans up after it takes over Hindu Gods and Hindu temples in SL and continues to write backprojected mythology on how "these were always part of Buddhism" (i.e. Bauddhifying for history)
  
  

Buddhism is clearly very powerful on wikipedia. 2nd only to christianism and islam I should say.

Even Taoism has no voice, predictably Bon has even less of a voice.



Again, the date of the drastic change from Bon being recognised as a separate indigenous religion to Bon suddenly being a Tibetan Buddhism is tell-tale: all these wackypedia changes happened somewhere midway this year.

Buddhism is desperate to fill up this black hole it had left in history.



Tomorrow Buddhism will rewrite its violent history in Mongolia too, I shouldn't wonder. And orobably following the same blueprint, too: that "it was all really a Buddhism" there since the beginning (aka "no such thing as Shamanism", even though both Mongolian and Tibetan Bon are Shamanist) and that nothing distinct existed before Buddhism. And can already hear Sri Lankan Buddhists declare for others that China and Japan etc are "Buddhist nations" and that their culture is "originally" Buddhist, when Japan and China are Shinto and Taoist and Confucianist in origin. And their ancestral heathenisms predated Buddhist invasion there and their native heathenisms predated Buddhism itself.



But it's all sort of like an ur-Shramanism theory being concocted for Tibet and Mongolia.



India released this disease onto other Asian populations. Instead of fixing it, Indians (incl. "Hindu" vocalists, the type seen at vijayvaani, or indiafacts) are peddling Buddhism AND even peddling such Buddhist apologetics/history re-writes as above.

Disgusting. I'm sure there will be retribution. I hope it doesn't get the Hindoos who would never do this to Asian heathens.



But like I said, Buddhism is on overdrive to Bauddhify Asia. As part of that mission, is the need to rewrite Buddhisms' history of violence, inculturation and encroachment there, and to Bauddhify any record of a previous, indigenous religion.





Post Summary: Wacky edits that show Buddhists turning Tibet's Bon religion from indigenous pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion to "a sect of Tibetan Buddhism". The edits all happened this year.