Hoping this can be my last post on that article by Rajeev Shrinivasan (the one where he, without any right or supporting facts, donates Ayyappa to Buddhism).
7/7
- In theory, Buddhism was not concerned with society, but with individual liberation (until much later on, after it had decided it needed to acquire a laity. And even then, any focus on egalitarianism was absent except for referring to occasional plattitudes, which are present in most pre-christian religions.)
- In practice, Buddhism has certainly not always been anywhere near "egalitarian".
The lack of egalitarianism in Buddhism is not a crime (it never aimed for it, it was concerned with something it regarded as deeper and more fundamental). But no need to pretend it was a feature in Buddhism when it wasn't.
Again: nothing more than speculation. Of a very common kind, though *different* sets of people have followed this line of speculation to further their own different ideologies: Dravoodianists (i.e. those who believe they are the biblical Hamites) and some Jains claim the same.
The reason (neo)Buddhists, some Jains, and Dravoodianists all feel they can make this claim is because none of them are actually mentioned in the Trivikrama account and hence, elements from all 3 groups have decided to insert themselves into Hindu religious accounts (and thereby insinuate themselves into Hindu religio-history) by reading it as skewed allegory instead.
They will read as they please (i.e. as they are able). But Hindu Puranas and other sacred Hindu literature remain *Hindu* and only traditional Hindus know what they are really about.
Here's an alternative reading to the Puranic text on Vamana and Mahabali to the one Rajeev presented. Read it as given (i.e. as traditional Hindus know it), instead of being all communist and reading class and feudal vs egalitarian struggles into it. It is a religious text concerning the manifestation of the Hindu Gods of Hindus. *Not* some text on some pseudo-mytho-historical-allegory wherein the evil brahmoons evilly concealed their evil dealings with the fantastical "egalitarian Buddhist rule" under fable. Really, the text as-is - as is known to Hindus who remain the *sole* experts on it - merely concerns another chapter in the history of the Hindu Gods.
[While the puranic account of Trivikrama - as far as I am aware - knows no Buddhism (or Jainism or dravoodianism), in contrast, one may remark that there exist Buddhist narratives in E Asia concocted to explicitly insinuate Buddhism into Taoism in order to declare Buddhism to be Taoism's Head. Examples abound where Buddhism inserts Taoists Gods into its fictionalising and either subordinates them to Buddhist characters when the resistance to bauddhification of the same Gods is too great, or turns them into (an aspect of) Bodhisattva in order to lay claim on the laity of the indigenous religion. I recall other examples such as of a particularly benign and peaceful Shinto God being converted into a very ugra form of Bodhisattva. Of course, neither Shinto nor Taoist Gods have anything at all to do with Buddhism. They don't know the Buddha(s) or Nirvana either.
To state the regrettable turn of events in E Asia in similar fashion to Rajeev, then:
"Buddhist narratives in say Chinese territory *confirm* what happened in the Taoist-Buddhist past: the happy, contented and peaceful Taoist nature of Chinese lands were subverted and overthrown by Sangha-led Mahayana-Buddhist monks and their converts." And this is *demonstrable*. Not hypothesis. Not speculation. Not depending on allegorical readings of entirely non-Buddhist texts, but confirmed by documented historic facts of both victors and victims.
Or: "Records of Tibetan history *confirm* what happened in the Bon-Buddhist past: the Bon religion and its adherents were persecuted into extinction/conversion by Sangha-led Buddhist monks and their converts." This too is supported by evidence.
Is there anything that even needs to be said on the matter?]
Anyway, the point is that Tirugnyaanasambandar's case showed that Hindus of the past were not shy about pointing out that they at last trumped the religion (Jainism, in this case)ÃÂ that was oppressing Hindu society and trying to stifle the adherence to its Gods and rites. Surely if - as is claimed here - Mahabali was some Buddhist king and the "brahmin-led-upaniShadic-Hindus overthrew him" to re-establish (Hindu) Dharma, it can just have been recorded as such? Buddhists gloated in direct terms when they won.
Even the Hindu retrieval of the pockets of Afghanistan that at one time had visible Buddhist rule and famous centers of Buddhist monkhood, such as Gandhara (but where again the laity remained largely Hindu, as documented by Buddhists visiting the region) was not glazed over with mythic allegory by Hindu history writing. The Hindus were openly pleased with their successful attempts to revert the region to the ancestral Dharma (that of the Hindu religion). On that: Buddhism as it existed there - i.e. mainly the monkhood and Buddhist centers of learning which did not impact the Hindu laity of the region - already went into natural decline even before islam*. This decline too was also particularly commented on by E Asian Buddhists travelling there at the time. (Fortunately, dravoodianist logic doesn't work on Afghanistan: even as per AIT logic, Afghanistan was more 'oryan' than even modern interior North India is allowed to be.) Hindu rule in Gandhara that succeeded the temporary flowering of Buddhism in the region when the latter simply peetered out, had an easy time in consciously reverting the region to their ancestral Dharma: the laity having remained consistently Hindu as elsewhere in Indian territory, it was mainly the centers of power and learning that needed to be shifted from Buddhist to Hindu, just as some of them had earlier been shifted from Hindu religion to Buddhism. The fact is, Hindus never decided to just roll with Buddhism, nor did they consider their own Dharma the same or interchangeable with Bauddhas' Dharma. They felt the ancestral Dharma needed to be restored - as Hindus like Tirugnyaanasambandar felt in his time - and they went about it quite consciously.
(*In Afghanistan's case, it was mainly Hindus that suffered significant losses vis-a-vis islam: e.g. Islam took Gandhara from Hindu rule, besides a largely Hindu population.)
As stated, it was easy to revert Hindu lands from the outposts of Buddhism precisely because the laity were largely never Buddhist to begin with, but Hindu. (Buddhism started to bother to actively acquire laity quite late - laity was needed to sustain the generally celibate Buddhist monkhood and nuns - and when Buddhism finally seriously started aiming for getting laity, it was a development that wasn't as successful in India as it turned out to be in E and SE Asia. But this development is what forced them into coming up with Mahayana Buddhism as seen in the east.)
Buddhism in Indian territory (as also in Asian territory before the Buddhist appropriation of Taoist and Shinto Gods) barely made inroads into the laity belonging to their ancestral Hindu religion. This is confirmed for the South Indian cases also: it was the imported Buddhist monkhood and the additional monks they acquired (usually from the local brahmanas, sometimes kshatriyas - others were not generally interested in Buddhism, contrary to modern myth-making) that represented the "Buddhist presence" in South India. The laity - as also repeated by the Japanese scholar who hypothesised yet another Potalaka but in Tirunelveli (see one of the above posts) - remained Hindu as their ancestors had been, and quite immune to Buddhism and Jainism.
Efforts of Hindus (including, but not limited to, brahmanas) in restoring Hindu religion in Afghanistan were directed at restoring Hindu Dharma among the non-laity, including the rulership and where patronage was directed. In South India, the reversion efforts were moreover to free a Hindu population from the oppressive, specifically anti-Hindu, measures of ruling minority religions that at times were forcibly trying to install their religions among a Hindu people otherwise disinterested in Buddhism and Jainism. These things were not quite "egalitarian" in their experience. Tibet's indigenous religion Bon certainly did not experience the famous "egalitarian" Buddhism 'known' exclusively to the imagination of arm-chair ponderers of this age.
If people want to find an egalitarian religion - one that quite reasonably deserves the descriptive - I can think of no better candidate than NA Native American religion.
There is certainly no *Indian* religion that fully deserves the term. But Hindu religion is not as un-egalitarian as others always insinuate, nor does it even compare unfavourably (in practice or the existence of theoretical plattitudes) to other Indic/Dharmic traditions.
7/7
Quote:egalitarian Buddhist ruleBuddhism is supposed to be egalitarian? In what respect? Theory or practice? Because:
- In theory, Buddhism was not concerned with society, but with individual liberation (until much later on, after it had decided it needed to acquire a laity. And even then, any focus on egalitarianism was absent except for referring to occasional plattitudes, which are present in most pre-christian religions.)
- In practice, Buddhism has certainly not always been anywhere near "egalitarian".
The lack of egalitarianism in Buddhism is not a crime (it never aimed for it, it was concerned with something it regarded as deeper and more fundamental). But no need to pretend it was a feature in Buddhism when it wasn't.
Quote:The legend of Mahabali -- the asura king sent to the underworld by an avatar of Lord Vishnu -- also gives clues to the Hindu-Buddhist past: an egalitarian Buddhist rule overthrown by Brahmin-led Upanishadic Hindus.(Let's just ignore the Hindu puranic accounts on the subject that say nothing of the kind and give no indication of Buddhism/Jainism/dravoodianism being involved.)
Again: nothing more than speculation. Of a very common kind, though *different* sets of people have followed this line of speculation to further their own different ideologies: Dravoodianists (i.e. those who believe they are the biblical Hamites) and some Jains claim the same.
The reason (neo)Buddhists, some Jains, and Dravoodianists all feel they can make this claim is because none of them are actually mentioned in the Trivikrama account and hence, elements from all 3 groups have decided to insert themselves into Hindu religious accounts (and thereby insinuate themselves into Hindu religio-history) by reading it as skewed allegory instead.
They will read as they please (i.e. as they are able). But Hindu Puranas and other sacred Hindu literature remain *Hindu* and only traditional Hindus know what they are really about.
Here's an alternative reading to the Puranic text on Vamana and Mahabali to the one Rajeev presented. Read it as given (i.e. as traditional Hindus know it), instead of being all communist and reading class and feudal vs egalitarian struggles into it. It is a religious text concerning the manifestation of the Hindu Gods of Hindus. *Not* some text on some pseudo-mytho-historical-allegory wherein the evil brahmoons evilly concealed their evil dealings with the fantastical "egalitarian Buddhist rule" under fable. Really, the text as-is - as is known to Hindus who remain the *sole* experts on it - merely concerns another chapter in the history of the Hindu Gods.
[While the puranic account of Trivikrama - as far as I am aware - knows no Buddhism (or Jainism or dravoodianism), in contrast, one may remark that there exist Buddhist narratives in E Asia concocted to explicitly insinuate Buddhism into Taoism in order to declare Buddhism to be Taoism's Head. Examples abound where Buddhism inserts Taoists Gods into its fictionalising and either subordinates them to Buddhist characters when the resistance to bauddhification of the same Gods is too great, or turns them into (an aspect of) Bodhisattva in order to lay claim on the laity of the indigenous religion. I recall other examples such as of a particularly benign and peaceful Shinto God being converted into a very ugra form of Bodhisattva. Of course, neither Shinto nor Taoist Gods have anything at all to do with Buddhism. They don't know the Buddha(s) or Nirvana either.
To state the regrettable turn of events in E Asia in similar fashion to Rajeev, then:
"Buddhist narratives in say Chinese territory *confirm* what happened in the Taoist-Buddhist past: the happy, contented and peaceful Taoist nature of Chinese lands were subverted and overthrown by Sangha-led Mahayana-Buddhist monks and their converts." And this is *demonstrable*. Not hypothesis. Not speculation. Not depending on allegorical readings of entirely non-Buddhist texts, but confirmed by documented historic facts of both victors and victims.
Or: "Records of Tibetan history *confirm* what happened in the Bon-Buddhist past: the Bon religion and its adherents were persecuted into extinction/conversion by Sangha-led Buddhist monks and their converts." This too is supported by evidence.
Is there anything that even needs to be said on the matter?]
Anyway, the point is that Tirugnyaanasambandar's case showed that Hindus of the past were not shy about pointing out that they at last trumped the religion (Jainism, in this case)ÃÂ that was oppressing Hindu society and trying to stifle the adherence to its Gods and rites. Surely if - as is claimed here - Mahabali was some Buddhist king and the "brahmin-led-upaniShadic-Hindus overthrew him" to re-establish (Hindu) Dharma, it can just have been recorded as such? Buddhists gloated in direct terms when they won.
Even the Hindu retrieval of the pockets of Afghanistan that at one time had visible Buddhist rule and famous centers of Buddhist monkhood, such as Gandhara (but where again the laity remained largely Hindu, as documented by Buddhists visiting the region) was not glazed over with mythic allegory by Hindu history writing. The Hindus were openly pleased with their successful attempts to revert the region to the ancestral Dharma (that of the Hindu religion). On that: Buddhism as it existed there - i.e. mainly the monkhood and Buddhist centers of learning which did not impact the Hindu laity of the region - already went into natural decline even before islam*. This decline too was also particularly commented on by E Asian Buddhists travelling there at the time. (Fortunately, dravoodianist logic doesn't work on Afghanistan: even as per AIT logic, Afghanistan was more 'oryan' than even modern interior North India is allowed to be.) Hindu rule in Gandhara that succeeded the temporary flowering of Buddhism in the region when the latter simply peetered out, had an easy time in consciously reverting the region to their ancestral Dharma: the laity having remained consistently Hindu as elsewhere in Indian territory, it was mainly the centers of power and learning that needed to be shifted from Buddhist to Hindu, just as some of them had earlier been shifted from Hindu religion to Buddhism. The fact is, Hindus never decided to just roll with Buddhism, nor did they consider their own Dharma the same or interchangeable with Bauddhas' Dharma. They felt the ancestral Dharma needed to be restored - as Hindus like Tirugnyaanasambandar felt in his time - and they went about it quite consciously.
(*In Afghanistan's case, it was mainly Hindus that suffered significant losses vis-a-vis islam: e.g. Islam took Gandhara from Hindu rule, besides a largely Hindu population.)
As stated, it was easy to revert Hindu lands from the outposts of Buddhism precisely because the laity were largely never Buddhist to begin with, but Hindu. (Buddhism started to bother to actively acquire laity quite late - laity was needed to sustain the generally celibate Buddhist monkhood and nuns - and when Buddhism finally seriously started aiming for getting laity, it was a development that wasn't as successful in India as it turned out to be in E and SE Asia. But this development is what forced them into coming up with Mahayana Buddhism as seen in the east.)
Buddhism in Indian territory (as also in Asian territory before the Buddhist appropriation of Taoist and Shinto Gods) barely made inroads into the laity belonging to their ancestral Hindu religion. This is confirmed for the South Indian cases also: it was the imported Buddhist monkhood and the additional monks they acquired (usually from the local brahmanas, sometimes kshatriyas - others were not generally interested in Buddhism, contrary to modern myth-making) that represented the "Buddhist presence" in South India. The laity - as also repeated by the Japanese scholar who hypothesised yet another Potalaka but in Tirunelveli (see one of the above posts) - remained Hindu as their ancestors had been, and quite immune to Buddhism and Jainism.
Efforts of Hindus (including, but not limited to, brahmanas) in restoring Hindu religion in Afghanistan were directed at restoring Hindu Dharma among the non-laity, including the rulership and where patronage was directed. In South India, the reversion efforts were moreover to free a Hindu population from the oppressive, specifically anti-Hindu, measures of ruling minority religions that at times were forcibly trying to install their religions among a Hindu people otherwise disinterested in Buddhism and Jainism. These things were not quite "egalitarian" in their experience. Tibet's indigenous religion Bon certainly did not experience the famous "egalitarian" Buddhism 'known' exclusively to the imagination of arm-chair ponderers of this age.
If people want to find an egalitarian religion - one that quite reasonably deserves the descriptive - I can think of no better candidate than NA Native American religion.
There is certainly no *Indian* religion that fully deserves the term. But Hindu religion is not as un-egalitarian as others always insinuate, nor does it even compare unfavourably (in practice or the existence of theoretical plattitudes) to other Indic/Dharmic traditions.