Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

"Meluhha" was the name that the Mesopotamians (supposedly) used to refer to the IVC.

The question - not important - was actually Why that name, not "What does that name mean". (Even if I had never heard of the word, I could have googled to work out its meaning. But what I can't google for is your reasoning behind choosing it.)

At the time of Buddha only brahmins use sanskrit as a liturgic language,just as medieval latin or old church slavonic,or coptic liturgic language in Egypt.

Really? Only "brahmins"? Apparently there were no kShatriyas etc - same religion, by definition - using it at all for say religious purposes (Vedic rites)?





Anyway: the Hindus of that period (and before and after) didn't *just* use Skt for religious rites. Unlike the unfortunate christianised medieval Europe - famous for mass-illiteracy, with even Vatican officials not even knowing proper Latin (McCabe states this with data to back it up) -

unlike them, heathen India was *not* illiterate, and its Hindus were *not* illiterate in Skt (even if not all may have known it) and certainly not during Buddha's life.



And Hindus were using Samskritam for FAR more than Divine Parroting and blind copying (c.f. monks blindly copying out their stuff on Roman paper that they had commandeered for that purpose out of desperation, thereby overwriting ancient GrecoRoman works. Which is how the said last remnants of GrecoRoman works came to be "preserved" by monks: entirely by accident).



The old Hindus used Skt for exposition of new ideas, for new religious works, for commentaries and for summarising previous works, etc, etc., as well as for religious rituals of course.

Prakrit and Pali developed from Sanskrit just like Spanish developed from Latin.

No comment.

But just to be contrary, IIRC:

- the Jains came in time (late) to regard their chosen sacred language as the "original, most ancient" language.

- Buddhists had declared - obviously mutually exclusive to the above - that their own Prakrita was the "most ancient, original" language. Then, Mahayana Buddhists declared the same when they chose to changeover to Samskritam - and it is still *after* this when, predictably, you see all the Buddhist claims to Panini (born out of competition to make the "original" claim on his Samskritam) appear, which that indologist Deshpande brought up.

(And then eventually, Jains also turned to Samskritam.)