Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

6/?



To add to this bit that I wrote in post 105 above:

More importantly, several other, more ancient martial arts of E Asia are from Daoism - more ancient than the Hindu presence and subsequent contribution in E Asia. The origins of these ancient martial arts are even confirmed in the oral traditions concerning the Daoist Gods, and the (much smaller) collection of narratives on the Gods that got written down a lot later. These martial arts are generally Tai Chi based, rather like how various Hindu martial arts of India (as also Hindu religious dance forms such as Bharata Natyam) were derived from Hindu Dharmic religion's Yoga.

Other examples include how Shinto's Ninjas developed Ninjitsu - their martial arts and strategies - from their religion/Kamis.





Shinto also has Daoist Gods and sacred creatures in its pantheon since quite ancient times (along with the incorporation of a lot of Daoist influences, including Daoist Thought and Practices) - brought in from Daoism/China. <- Just to indicate that it wasn't only Hindu religion that was incorporated into pre-Buddhist Japan, but that in several parts of Asia - usually due to traditional Chinese presence - Taoism has always held a special place (even though in time, Taoism - similar to Hindu religion - ended up becoming another base that Buddhism learnt to spread on, which moved back over SE Asia too with this).

But don't want to give the wrong impression that Shinto is but some kind of mish-mash of Daoist and Hindu religion: there is a wealth of authentic native Japanese religion and religious-thought to Shinto, which is obviously the main part of the religion.