Complaining about new trend. Only one example covered. Will try to locate the other one if I remember to (had saved it somewhere).
indiafacts.co.in/dear-abhinandan-sekhri-scholarly-debate-salman-khan-movie/
Note that I confirmed (by searching with Ctrl F for Find) that the Firstpost article by Jaideep Prabhu at firstpost.com/india/religious-conversion-really-fundamental-right-can-ban-1701877.html does not even contain the word Tao/Dao.
So it is Sandeep's own ..."interpretation" that Taoism is to be lumped with Buddhism.
Typical Indiafacts/Sandeep. He probably knows even less about Taoism than he does of what he has dubbed "Temple culture", which he recently "discovered". (Wasn't that him?)
I don't want to write a whole essay on why Taoists do NOT want their religion grouped with Buddhism.
The short explanation is, Taoism belongs with Buddhism as much as Hindu religion belongs with christianism (say).
And here's another example to illustrate the point. It's a famous example, one that Buddhists always whine about. I've chosen it because the para from wackypedia - look even wacky admits this much - is succinct in conveying the view of Emperor Wuzong of the Tang dynasty (and he was neither the first nor the last Taoist of this view), one of several emperors who persecuted all the alien=missionary religions invading China (not just Buddhism, but christianism, zoroastriansm and manichaeanism that the then-Manichaean Uighurs were trying to inject into the Chinese heartland):
[1. Uh, I've never heard of Wuzong being assassinated, let alone by his own inner circle... Did I miss something or is this merely Buddhists' consolation tale for why Buddhism didn't succeed in China? All I know is that Wuzong did die in time, possibly from self-medication (happens even today). And that there was a fumble over succession, but IIRC after he died. And I think his successor was lenient to Buddhism or a Buddhist himself, just like some Tang predecessors had been. But that's all I had heard.
2. And what, no mention of how many Chinese "Buddhist" mantras and other esoteric "Buddhist" practices were totally and blatantly stolen from Taoism? E.g. the famous ~9-syllable Taoist mantra from - at the latest - a 2nd century CE exclusively Taoist text invoking the Taoist heavenly army to give victory in battle? <- Honestly, it's scary how similar heathen religions are. That description the way I've casually described it almost sounds like a Veda mantram, but the Taoist "mantram" is entirely Chinese, including syllables and sounds Hindoos simply don't have. Not to mention the little detail that it is the exclusively Taoist Shen-sena that it manifests, not the Hindu Devasena. :Ohohohohoho:]
Note that Buddhists love listing the persecutions they suffered: about how they were repeatedly "persecuted" by Taoists [and Confucianists] in China and by Shintos in Japan (etc etc), always carefully shielding the prior dealings of Buddhism w.r.t. the native religions. In reality, it was always an inevitable reaction. Other heathenisms didn't react strongly enough and hence didn't survive: Bon, various Shamanisms etc.
[In fact, I can still see Buddhists officially listing Pushyamitra as a "brahminical" (read: Hindu, though Buddhism otherwise carefully denies "Hindu") persecutor of Buddhism in India. <- Yes, the same "persecution by Pushyamitra" that an old Koenraad Elst article clearly exposed as being just a Buddhist concoction, modelled closely on Buddhist-convert Ashoka's greater and prior persecution of Jains no less.]
While complaining about the native religions repeatedly "persecuting" (obstructing the advance of) Buddhism in various Asian nations, Buddhists love to declare that China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, etc etc nevertheless readily converted to Buddhism, to the extent that Buddhism paints the picture of entire heathen Asian nations getting converted to Buddhism wholesale (when just the usual upper echelons in the govt and sometimes the military converted). But Buddhism has about the same record of replacement in Asia that christianism has in Europe.
So Wuzong and several other Chinese rulers recognised Buddhism (and christianism etc) as alien missionary ideologies that had no right to the Chinese and their lands and did what they felt was necessary to stunt its undeserved growth. There were at several periods of govt-level "persecutions" of the uninvited religion of Buddhism in China, both by Taoists and Confucianists.
- Now, had it been christianism at the receiving end, Indian Hindu nationalists would have cheered and written articles eulogising how China should be India's example in dealing with the missionary menace of christianism. (Though, of course, China dealt quite as harshly with christianism too, but Buddhism had spread more in China then, and hence more of the native govt's reprisals were directed at Buddhism.)
- But because it was Buddhism that native Chinese govts persecuted, Indians will no doubt immediately frown on the Taoist Wuzong and other Taoist and Confucian Chinese rulers and weep about "poor Buddhism in China, persecuted by the Chinese" [or Japan]. Well, maybe Sandeep and similars will no longer deign to consider Taoism as having the dubious distinction of being "worthy" to be listed alongside Buddhism. Though it is actually Buddhism that has no right to be listed alongside Taoism or Shinto. Buddhism is a *missionary* religion, i.e. a replacement ideology. Taoism and Shinto are ethnic religions, non-proselytising. (Though I will say Taoism actively accepts reverts, but unless Hindus want to Boo at active Hindu reconversion drives inviting reversions from Indian converts to christoislamania, no need to hypocritically frown at Taoism now reverting ethnically Chinese. Especially since Buddhism is on conversion overdrive in E/SE Asian nations - and not just by subcontinental instigation, though Indians seem poised to add to other Asians' woes.)
- Again: Hindus have these rose-coloured glasses through which they look at the other Indic ("Dharmic") religions. But missionary religions are replacement religions.
And wherever Buddhism actually/fully succeeded in Asia, it weeded out the native ancestral heathenism. Often rather violently too, and not just Tibet's Bonpo. All kinds of Asian heathen religions bit the dust in similar manner. You only see native and other heathen religions surviving in regions that didn't get successfully=fully converted to Buddhism (e.g. E Asia, Vietnam, Bali, etc).
Modern Hindus get unnecessarily pained by a blatant fact: Buddhism, like all missionary religions, is absolutely nobody's ancestral religion. And it has even lied (about others' Gods) and cheated (inculturation, encroachment on sacred sites) and used force (violence, iconoclasm) often enough to achieve its successes.
I'm thinking that heathens do recognise the existence of a dichotomy. But they make a distinction not between monopolytheisms (heathenisms didn't even know about that monologue, which is one specifically invented by the monotheisms), but between missionary religions=replacement theologies and the native, ancestral (=ethnic) religions of populations =heathenisms. Can see this in how Shintos, Taoists and Hindus have all historically complained about "foreign religions" when referring to foreign missionary religions/ideologies, as these were replacing the native heathenisms, i.e. the natural tendencies of the native population, which tendencies were alive and fully embodied in the native heathenism.
The real complaint is actually against all missionary religion that replaces (subverts) the ancestral heathenisms of any population, regardless of whether the missionary ideology is foreign or native.
The inability for heathens at large and Indians especially to lodge the general complaint, stems from the fact that Buddhism (and Jainism, Sikhism and other Indian religions) get unfairly labelled as "heathenisms" (also in the minds of some western reconstructionists), despite none of these Indic religions actually being heathenisms. (The only things "heathen" about them are ironically what they inherited/took from Hindu religion.) It is *because* they are Indic, non-Abrahamic religions, and moreover because are called Dharmic religions (since they use the Vedic term Dharma, despite having overwritten its meaning from Vaidika Dharma to suit their own religions' ends, i.e. inculturation + subversion) that has given them a free pass. [Similarly, Zoroastrianism is an old Iranian religion, hence most western reconstructionists/modern polytheists - and especially oryanists - tend to label Zoroastrianism as a heathenism too, through no actual virtue of its own.]
From all that I've seen so far, Hindu religion is far more like Taoism, Shinto, Hellenismos [etc] than like the other Indic/Dharmic religions. (And none of the other Indic religions are like Taoism and Shinto etc except for those elements they took from Hindoos' heathenism, but which have a superficial place in the other visible Indic religions. Reason: because Hindoos' religion is a heathenism, the way Taoism, Shinto and Hellenismos etc are. Nagas' shamanism is also somewhat like certain E Asian shamanisms. Tibetan Bonpo is a lot like Taoism apparently, probably because Mongolian Bonpo was *factually* related to a branch of Taoism and the Bonpo that exists in China beyond Tibet is still somewhat related to Taoism.)
The other Dharmic (Indic) religions seem related to Hindu religion - on the surface - but only *because* they have elements of Hindu religion in them, though this is no more than owing to inculturation/the spin-off nature of all missionary (non-ancestral) religions.
Hindu religion is naturally a Dharmic religion. In fact it is *the* Dharmic religion, since "Dharma" is originally (and hence exclusively) a reference to the Vaidika concept "Dharma". Every extant Indic religion which came later poached on that term (like they did on the o~Nkaara, etc) and subverted the original meaning, making these deeply Hindoo aspects suddenly allude to the novel religions instead. But since all these Indic religions did factually appear in time and started to lay claim to the word Dharma - whether Hindoos wanted them to or not - they are all "Dharmic religions", and hence they also get logically grouped as "Dharmic religions" together with Hindus' own religion (called Hinduism/Vedic religion/Sanatana Dharma/whatever).
And while Hindus may object to Sagarika Ghose trying to get Indian pSecularism declared as "Dharma" too - see indiafacts.co.in/sagarika-ghose-must-go-school/ - Buddhists and Jains and Sikhs surely have no ground to object her on this score: since Dharma wasn't originally their word either and they took it from Hindus too, just like Sagarika is trying to. Sagarika has as much right to give "dharma" a new meaning as the other novel Indian replacement ideologies have, who also tried to wean the Hindu masses from their ancestral religion into novel religions. Hindus' should have argued that Dharma has one original=actual meaning, assigned by the religion that invented and hence owns the term, i.e. Vedic religion. And that all others' usage of that word is externally assigned - by outsiders, who don't own the term - and hence all equally unrecognised by Hindus. But Hindus won't do that. The way that the silly recent indiafacts.co.in article on the many Ramayanams weights Jain and Buddhist subversions on the Ramayanam equally to the Ramayanams by vaidika Hindoos, starting from the original Vedic tradition recounted in Valmeeki's Ramayanam. By that same argument, then - logically speaking - Sagarika can write a psecular anti-Hindu Ramayanam next, promoting Indian psecularism (=another Indic ideology and now also another Indic Dharmic tradition, as per Sagarika), and declare it should be considered equally valid as a Ramayanam. Surely?
That's how replacement religions work. They all start some time after the ancient ancestral religion, and then encroach on some or many aspects of the ancestral heathenism and subvert these to varying degrees, and after manny centuries, they and their claims to the heathen elements they encroached on becomes recognised as "ancient" and therefore "equally valid". Some centuries from now Sagarika's "Indian pSecularism is dharma" will also be ancient and established and hence magically "true" - using the bad logic of modern Hindus.]
Summary:
The insertion of *Taoism* alongside Buddhism is Sandeep's innovation (there's no mention of Tao/Dao in Jaideep Prabhu's article which Sandeep attempted to distill).
A famous example from history for why Sandeep is hopelessly wrong in grouping Taoism with Buddhism (since Taoism doesn't want to be lumped with Buddhism, so Indian nationalists can stop terrorising Taoists and their religion etc):
Indian nationalists/vocalists seem to be taking steps towards becoming a threat to non-Indian Asian heathenisms. People need to nip this in the bud (or I will, and I guarantee no Dharmic will like the way I do it).
indiafacts.co.in/dear-abhinandan-sekhri-scholarly-debate-salman-khan-movie/
Quote:[...blablabla]
Two recent pieces on Firstpost on the issue of religious conversions caught my attention: the first one by Jaideep Prabhu for its erudition and depth, and a response to it by Abhinandan Sekhri for its shocking ignorance of history and its flippant tone.
The essence of Jaideep Prabhuââ¬â¢s piece is basically this:
- <lists several points, among which is this next statement containing a false predicate:>
- The key fundamental dictum of the Abrahamic faiths to convert (or kill) non-Abrahamics acts to the detriment of Dharmic faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and so on.
...
Article Title: Dear Abhinandan Sekhri: A Scholarly debate is not a Salman Khan Movie
Author: Sandeep Balakrishna
Note that I confirmed (by searching with Ctrl F for Find) that the Firstpost article by Jaideep Prabhu at firstpost.com/india/religious-conversion-really-fundamental-right-can-ban-1701877.html does not even contain the word Tao/Dao.
So it is Sandeep's own ..."interpretation" that Taoism is to be lumped with Buddhism.
Typical Indiafacts/Sandeep. He probably knows even less about Taoism than he does of what he has dubbed "Temple culture", which he recently "discovered". (Wasn't that him?)
I don't want to write a whole essay on why Taoists do NOT want their religion grouped with Buddhism.
The short explanation is, Taoism belongs with Buddhism as much as Hindu religion belongs with christianism (say).
And here's another example to illustrate the point. It's a famous example, one that Buddhists always whine about. I've chosen it because the para from wackypedia - look even wacky admits this much - is succinct in conveying the view of Emperor Wuzong of the Tang dynasty (and he was neither the first nor the last Taoist of this view), one of several emperors who persecuted all the alien=missionary religions invading China (not just Buddhism, but christianism, zoroastriansm and manichaeanism that the then-Manichaean Uighurs were trying to inject into the Chinese heartland):
Quote:An avid Daoist, Wuzong despised Buddhism and considered the sangha useless tax-evaders. In 845, he ordered the destruction of 4600 vihara and 40,000 temples. Around 250,000 Buddhist monks and nuns had to give up their monastic lives. Wuzong stated that Buddhism was an alien religion and promoted Daoism zealously as the ethnic religion of the Han Chinese. Although Wuzong was soon assassinated by his own inner circle, the damage had been done. Chinese Buddhism, especially Esoteric practices, never fully recovered from the persecution [...]
[1. Uh, I've never heard of Wuzong being assassinated, let alone by his own inner circle... Did I miss something or is this merely Buddhists' consolation tale for why Buddhism didn't succeed in China? All I know is that Wuzong did die in time, possibly from self-medication (happens even today). And that there was a fumble over succession, but IIRC after he died. And I think his successor was lenient to Buddhism or a Buddhist himself, just like some Tang predecessors had been. But that's all I had heard.
2. And what, no mention of how many Chinese "Buddhist" mantras and other esoteric "Buddhist" practices were totally and blatantly stolen from Taoism? E.g. the famous ~9-syllable Taoist mantra from - at the latest - a 2nd century CE exclusively Taoist text invoking the Taoist heavenly army to give victory in battle? <- Honestly, it's scary how similar heathen religions are. That description the way I've casually described it almost sounds like a Veda mantram, but the Taoist "mantram" is entirely Chinese, including syllables and sounds Hindoos simply don't have. Not to mention the little detail that it is the exclusively Taoist Shen-sena that it manifests, not the Hindu Devasena. :Ohohohohoho:]
Note that Buddhists love listing the persecutions they suffered: about how they were repeatedly "persecuted" by Taoists [and Confucianists] in China and by Shintos in Japan (etc etc), always carefully shielding the prior dealings of Buddhism w.r.t. the native religions. In reality, it was always an inevitable reaction. Other heathenisms didn't react strongly enough and hence didn't survive: Bon, various Shamanisms etc.
[In fact, I can still see Buddhists officially listing Pushyamitra as a "brahminical" (read: Hindu, though Buddhism otherwise carefully denies "Hindu") persecutor of Buddhism in India. <- Yes, the same "persecution by Pushyamitra" that an old Koenraad Elst article clearly exposed as being just a Buddhist concoction, modelled closely on Buddhist-convert Ashoka's greater and prior persecution of Jains no less.]
While complaining about the native religions repeatedly "persecuting" (obstructing the advance of) Buddhism in various Asian nations, Buddhists love to declare that China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, etc etc nevertheless readily converted to Buddhism, to the extent that Buddhism paints the picture of entire heathen Asian nations getting converted to Buddhism wholesale (when just the usual upper echelons in the govt and sometimes the military converted). But Buddhism has about the same record of replacement in Asia that christianism has in Europe.
So Wuzong and several other Chinese rulers recognised Buddhism (and christianism etc) as alien missionary ideologies that had no right to the Chinese and their lands and did what they felt was necessary to stunt its undeserved growth. There were at several periods of govt-level "persecutions" of the uninvited religion of Buddhism in China, both by Taoists and Confucianists.
- Now, had it been christianism at the receiving end, Indian Hindu nationalists would have cheered and written articles eulogising how China should be India's example in dealing with the missionary menace of christianism. (Though, of course, China dealt quite as harshly with christianism too, but Buddhism had spread more in China then, and hence more of the native govt's reprisals were directed at Buddhism.)
- But because it was Buddhism that native Chinese govts persecuted, Indians will no doubt immediately frown on the Taoist Wuzong and other Taoist and Confucian Chinese rulers and weep about "poor Buddhism in China, persecuted by the Chinese" [or Japan]. Well, maybe Sandeep and similars will no longer deign to consider Taoism as having the dubious distinction of being "worthy" to be listed alongside Buddhism. Though it is actually Buddhism that has no right to be listed alongside Taoism or Shinto. Buddhism is a *missionary* religion, i.e. a replacement ideology. Taoism and Shinto are ethnic religions, non-proselytising. (Though I will say Taoism actively accepts reverts, but unless Hindus want to Boo at active Hindu reconversion drives inviting reversions from Indian converts to christoislamania, no need to hypocritically frown at Taoism now reverting ethnically Chinese. Especially since Buddhism is on conversion overdrive in E/SE Asian nations - and not just by subcontinental instigation, though Indians seem poised to add to other Asians' woes.)
- Again: Hindus have these rose-coloured glasses through which they look at the other Indic ("Dharmic") religions. But missionary religions are replacement religions.
And wherever Buddhism actually/fully succeeded in Asia, it weeded out the native ancestral heathenism. Often rather violently too, and not just Tibet's Bonpo. All kinds of Asian heathen religions bit the dust in similar manner. You only see native and other heathen religions surviving in regions that didn't get successfully=fully converted to Buddhism (e.g. E Asia, Vietnam, Bali, etc).
Modern Hindus get unnecessarily pained by a blatant fact: Buddhism, like all missionary religions, is absolutely nobody's ancestral religion. And it has even lied (about others' Gods) and cheated (inculturation, encroachment on sacred sites) and used force (violence, iconoclasm) often enough to achieve its successes.
I'm thinking that heathens do recognise the existence of a dichotomy. But they make a distinction not between monopolytheisms (heathenisms didn't even know about that monologue, which is one specifically invented by the monotheisms), but between missionary religions=replacement theologies and the native, ancestral (=ethnic) religions of populations =heathenisms. Can see this in how Shintos, Taoists and Hindus have all historically complained about "foreign religions" when referring to foreign missionary religions/ideologies, as these were replacing the native heathenisms, i.e. the natural tendencies of the native population, which tendencies were alive and fully embodied in the native heathenism.
The real complaint is actually against all missionary religion that replaces (subverts) the ancestral heathenisms of any population, regardless of whether the missionary ideology is foreign or native.
The inability for heathens at large and Indians especially to lodge the general complaint, stems from the fact that Buddhism (and Jainism, Sikhism and other Indian religions) get unfairly labelled as "heathenisms" (also in the minds of some western reconstructionists), despite none of these Indic religions actually being heathenisms. (The only things "heathen" about them are ironically what they inherited/took from Hindu religion.) It is *because* they are Indic, non-Abrahamic religions, and moreover because are called Dharmic religions (since they use the Vedic term Dharma, despite having overwritten its meaning from Vaidika Dharma to suit their own religions' ends, i.e. inculturation + subversion) that has given them a free pass. [Similarly, Zoroastrianism is an old Iranian religion, hence most western reconstructionists/modern polytheists - and especially oryanists - tend to label Zoroastrianism as a heathenism too, through no actual virtue of its own.]
From all that I've seen so far, Hindu religion is far more like Taoism, Shinto, Hellenismos [etc] than like the other Indic/Dharmic religions. (And none of the other Indic religions are like Taoism and Shinto etc except for those elements they took from Hindoos' heathenism, but which have a superficial place in the other visible Indic religions. Reason: because Hindoos' religion is a heathenism, the way Taoism, Shinto and Hellenismos etc are. Nagas' shamanism is also somewhat like certain E Asian shamanisms. Tibetan Bonpo is a lot like Taoism apparently, probably because Mongolian Bonpo was *factually* related to a branch of Taoism and the Bonpo that exists in China beyond Tibet is still somewhat related to Taoism.)
The other Dharmic (Indic) religions seem related to Hindu religion - on the surface - but only *because* they have elements of Hindu religion in them, though this is no more than owing to inculturation/the spin-off nature of all missionary (non-ancestral) religions.
Hindu religion is naturally a Dharmic religion. In fact it is *the* Dharmic religion, since "Dharma" is originally (and hence exclusively) a reference to the Vaidika concept "Dharma". Every extant Indic religion which came later poached on that term (like they did on the o~Nkaara, etc) and subverted the original meaning, making these deeply Hindoo aspects suddenly allude to the novel religions instead. But since all these Indic religions did factually appear in time and started to lay claim to the word Dharma - whether Hindoos wanted them to or not - they are all "Dharmic religions", and hence they also get logically grouped as "Dharmic religions" together with Hindus' own religion (called Hinduism/Vedic religion/Sanatana Dharma/whatever).
And while Hindus may object to Sagarika Ghose trying to get Indian pSecularism declared as "Dharma" too - see indiafacts.co.in/sagarika-ghose-must-go-school/ - Buddhists and Jains and Sikhs surely have no ground to object her on this score: since Dharma wasn't originally their word either and they took it from Hindus too, just like Sagarika is trying to. Sagarika has as much right to give "dharma" a new meaning as the other novel Indian replacement ideologies have, who also tried to wean the Hindu masses from their ancestral religion into novel religions. Hindus' should have argued that Dharma has one original=actual meaning, assigned by the religion that invented and hence owns the term, i.e. Vedic religion. And that all others' usage of that word is externally assigned - by outsiders, who don't own the term - and hence all equally unrecognised by Hindus. But Hindus won't do that. The way that the silly recent indiafacts.co.in article on the many Ramayanams weights Jain and Buddhist subversions on the Ramayanam equally to the Ramayanams by vaidika Hindoos, starting from the original Vedic tradition recounted in Valmeeki's Ramayanam. By that same argument, then - logically speaking - Sagarika can write a psecular anti-Hindu Ramayanam next, promoting Indian psecularism (=another Indic ideology and now also another Indic Dharmic tradition, as per Sagarika), and declare it should be considered equally valid as a Ramayanam. Surely?
That's how replacement religions work. They all start some time after the ancient ancestral religion, and then encroach on some or many aspects of the ancestral heathenism and subvert these to varying degrees, and after manny centuries, they and their claims to the heathen elements they encroached on becomes recognised as "ancient" and therefore "equally valid". Some centuries from now Sagarika's "Indian pSecularism is dharma" will also be ancient and established and hence magically "true" - using the bad logic of modern Hindus.]
Summary:
Quote:[...blablabla]
Two recent pieces on Firstpost on the issue of religious conversions caught my attention: the first one by Jaideep Prabhu for its erudition and depth, and a response to it by Abhinandan Sekhri for its shocking ignorance of history and its flippant tone.
The essence of Jaideep Prabhuââ¬â¢s piece is basically this:
- <lists several points, among which is this next statement containing a false predicate:>
- The key fundamental dictum of the Abrahamic faiths to convert (or kill) non-Abrahamics acts to the detriment of Dharmic faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and so on.
...
Article Title: Dear Abhinandan Sekhri: A Scholarly debate is not a Salman Khan Movie
Author: Sandeep Balakrishna
The insertion of *Taoism* alongside Buddhism is Sandeep's innovation (there's no mention of Tao/Dao in Jaideep Prabhu's article which Sandeep attempted to distill).
A famous example from history for why Sandeep is hopelessly wrong in grouping Taoism with Buddhism (since Taoism doesn't want to be lumped with Buddhism, so Indian nationalists can stop terrorising Taoists and their religion etc):
Quote:An avid Daoist, [Chinese Emperor] Wuzong despised Buddhism and considered the sangha useless tax-evaders. In 845, he ordered the destruction of 4600 vihara and 40,000 temples. Around 250,000 Buddhist monks and nuns had to give up their monastic lives. Wuzong stated that Buddhism was an alien religion and promoted Daoism zealously as the ethnic religion of the Han Chinese.
Indian nationalists/vocalists seem to be taking steps towards becoming a threat to non-Indian Asian heathenisms. People need to nip this in the bud (or I will, and I guarantee no Dharmic will like the way I do it).