Post 7/?
Just some observations/loose notes
Firstly, concerning this line:
rediff.com/news/dec/31rajeev.htm
But Lokesh only speculated that Potalaka could have been Shabarimalai (itself based on comparatively late Buddhist speculation - such as by Hsuan Tsang - that Potalaka may be real worldly geography and conveniently located in India, instead of being a spiritual place like many other "places" described in Buddhist texts, including Hindu spiritual places commandeered by Buddhism/Jainism, like Meru). Not even Lokesh said that the Dalai Lama's palatial residence was named after Shabarimalai. Srinivasan drew that conclusion for himself - and for his readers - without stating what Lokesh had said, which was only to remark that Dala Lama's Potala was named for Potalaka. Moreover Lokesh makes this observation *before* he even begins conflating Shabarimalai's Ayyappa with the Avalokiteshwara.
The plain fact is that the Dalai Lama's place was named after Potalaka from the Avatamsaka Sutra. Not after Potiyil in Tamil Nadu or Shabarimalai in Kerala or Tirupati in Andhra and the other Potalakas identified in various parts of Asia by various Buddhist and Bauddhified persons. (Though the Indian cases have only been very recently identified. I.e. we're witnessing the back-projection.)
But the whole "Avalokiteshwara... was also the one worshipped at Sabarimala" is speculation based on Lokesh Chandra's speculation that Potalaka is in Shabarimalai, based on Hsuan-Tsang's speculation that Potalaka is a physical location (and in India), based on a non-historical myth in Buddhist scriptures.
I don't know why these same people object to the AIT, which is at least as good/convincing when it comes to building on a chain of speculative antecedents.
Like always: people should Prove It. Instead of repeating the same story, only to gradually start talking about it as "fact". Isn't Rajeev the one that has consistently objected to "truth by repeated assertion"? But then, I suppose for him, too, it all depends on who is doing the repeated asserting and how well the assertions appeal to his mind.
Lokesh mentions that "the syncretistic tendencies of the [oxymoron] Shiva-Buddha were a pronounced phenomenon in Indonesia." <- The bit he conveniently missed out on saying is that this was seen in exactly those places of Indonesia and SE Asia that were heavily Shaiva: e.g. Bauddicised Sri Vijaya *had* to encroach on Shiva, because it was significantly Shaiva Hindu before that. The same pattern of Bauddhicisation of Hindu domains was attempted in other parts of SE Asia (e.g. in Vietnam), where Hindu religion did successfully re-take the originally-Hindu kingdoms from the temporary Bauddhification under converted (Buddhist) rulers. And that's when the "syncretised" Shiva-Buddha inculturated forms ceased, because the Hindus - in charge once again - weren't subscribers to the jeebus=Krishna I mean Buddha=Shiva fictions.
Again: it was pure Buddhist opportunism to merge Buddha and Shiva in Indonesia (and Buddha and Vishnu in other SE Asian Hindu temples). The same opportunism is seen the length and breadth of E/SE Asia, where Buddha and even Buddhist fictions were conflated with native Gods. E.g. Buddhism tried similarly encroaching/inculturating on a prominent Shinto agricultural-and-war God in Japan, which was met with resistance from staunch Shinto quarters.
About this bit from Lokesh Chandra though:
(BTW, and *that* - plus his etymology for potalaka meaning "brilliant", and his choosing to tie this meaning into the Makara Jyoti in points i to iii - is what made Lokesh conclude that Shabarimala "must have been Potalaka" and that Ayyappa "must have been Avalokiteshwara".)
But what is evident is that Buddhism had already encroached on the name Mahadeva, in (the Chinese version of) the same undeniably missionary Buddhist fable wherein Buddhism essentially denied that Shiva deserved the name Mahadeva=Shiva's own personal name. And Buddhism also denied the other Hindu Gods of being worthy of the epithet. (Seen in the top part of p.33/the first screenshot from Lokesh's book in the previous post.) The Buddhist fable was rather like an Indian jeebus movie I once watched, whose moral was similar dawaganda: worshipping the Hindu Gods was in vain, no one but jeebus could help the put-upon main character. But then missionising is missionising.
** "The transformation of NIlakaNTha/Maheshwara/Yogeshwara, with alternating attributes of Hari-Hara into the Thousand-armed avalokiteshwara is evident in the hymn."
But even the 3 names given above are Shiva's names. Yogeshwara is admittedly equally Vishnu's name (or that of several other Hindu Gods) and Maheshwara is a valid epithet for Vishnu - as it is that of other Hindu Gods, even though the -Ishwara suffix is generally of Shiva when no further indication is given (the way Perumaal is generally Tamizh for Vishnu=Tirumaal=Maal, although occasionally Perumaal is also used by Shaivas for Murugan and Shivan, though again qualified/indicated by context. E.g. "Perumaale" as direct-reference to Kumaran by AruNagirinAthar, etc.)
Back to the attempted Buddhist encroachment on Neelakantha. In Lokesh's shortlist of "NIlakaNTha/Maheshwara/Yogeshwara" usurped by Buddhism, the name Nilakantha seals the identity of the God who got cloned here: as it is specifically only Shiva who is Neelakantha. The kaalakooTa made his throat bluish-black so he is peculiarly called Nilakantha (also seen in the Vedam), whereas Vishnu is generally neelam all over.
Though Lokesh has not at all proven that Ayyappa is Avalokiteshwara/Potala Lokeshwara*, what he has reiterated - already long shown to be the case by earlier historians - is that Avalokiteshwara was a clone of Shiva. He has further underlined that Buddhism was quite so desperate as to even try encroaching on Shiva's ueber-personal name NilakaNTha, a name which *cannot* be randomly assigned to even other Hindu Gods let alone Buddhisms, *because* it is a physical descriptive unique to Shiva. I mean, did Buddha try to swallow the haalaahalam and have his throat coloured by it? Oh but I forget, Buddhists backprojected a merger of Buddha with Shiva and thus "(christo-)magically" Buddha was present during the samudra manthanam. No? [Although modern Hindus - desperate to invent the "Hinduism=Buddhism=Jainism=The One Dharmic Religion of India", something which Hindu ancestors resisted heavily - will swear to the spatially-and-temporally-localised/non-universal/opportunistic Buddhist credo that Shiva is the Buddha onlee, I mean the first Jain teerthankara of Jain theology, I mean the Judaic deity, I mean the Yezidi deity, I mean ...]
And again: as also indicated in extracts pasted in a previous post in this series, other scholars have also noted that Avalokiteshwara was cloned from Shiva in particular, even though the clone was also made to absorb features of other Hindu Gods (=the purpose of Mahayana Buddhism in Indian space). Lokesh Chandra only tries to force the issue of Avalokiteshwara having inculturated on Hari and Hara features in other Bauddhicised once-Hindu regions, in order to thereby better superimpose his Bauddicising theory on Hariharaputra Ayyappa at Shabarimalai.
There's no question that Buddhism tried inculturating on Hindu Gods - moorties, Hindu temples and sites - including using Avalokiteshwara (and other Buddhist characters that Mahayana regularly gave rise to). I'm still waiting for *proof* - a.o.t. Mere Speculation - from Lokesh/Rajeev and also Shu that Shabarimalai or any Shiva or other Hindoo Kovil in Shabarimalai, Podigai (or Tirupati, or ultimately any Hindu temple/sacred site in India) was regarded as Potalaka [by the natives]. There are Buddhist and other records of known Buddhist outposts in Kerala and Tamil Nadu that were recognised as Buddhist - despite Indian Buddhist pretence that this has been "obscured" (a mask for their disappointment that Buddhism etc never did that well in the south among the laity, only capturing the subvertibles among brahmanas and kShatriyas, as also in other parts of the subcontinent like once-Hindu Afghanistan). So where is the record of Shabarimalai or Podigai being identified by locals from centuries back as the "Potalaka" of Buddhism? [Potiyil and Podigai are unlikely to derive from bOdhi, as already mentioned in post 6: Tamil would have preserved the long-o of Skt then, but Podigai and Potiyil are still pronounced *short-o* (there is a difference in Tamil).]
This post was just some loose notes
Just some observations/loose notes
Firstly, concerning this line:
rediff.com/news/dec/31rajeev.htm
Quote:Astonishingly, it appears that the Dalai Lama's Palace in Lhasa, the incomparable Potala, is named after Sabarimala!
But Lokesh only speculated that Potalaka could have been Shabarimalai (itself based on comparatively late Buddhist speculation - such as by Hsuan Tsang - that Potalaka may be real worldly geography and conveniently located in India, instead of being a spiritual place like many other "places" described in Buddhist texts, including Hindu spiritual places commandeered by Buddhism/Jainism, like Meru). Not even Lokesh said that the Dalai Lama's palatial residence was named after Shabarimalai. Srinivasan drew that conclusion for himself - and for his readers - without stating what Lokesh had said, which was only to remark that Dala Lama's Potala was named for Potalaka. Moreover Lokesh makes this observation *before* he even begins conflating Shabarimalai's Ayyappa with the Avalokiteshwara.
The plain fact is that the Dalai Lama's place was named after Potalaka from the Avatamsaka Sutra. Not after Potiyil in Tamil Nadu or Shabarimalai in Kerala or Tirupati in Andhra and the other Potalakas identified in various parts of Asia by various Buddhist and Bauddhified persons. (Though the Indian cases have only been very recently identified. I.e. we're witnessing the back-projection.)
Quote:The Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) Avalokitesvara Padmapani, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, who is, by tradition, reincarnated as the Dalai Lama, was also the one worshipped at Sabarimala.In China, the Bodhidharma is worshipped as Guanyin/Avalokiteshwara, masking a female Taoist Goddess who got forcibly merged with a male character by Buddhist "syncretism" trying to ride the wave of her popularity. Which is why GuanYin in E Asia (and where there's E Asian influence in SE Asia) is magically female. While wherever there were Hindus (Indian subcontinent, SE Asia, Tibet) Avalokiteshwara was equally-magically superglued - again by Buddhism - to Shiva and/or Vishnu etc.
But the whole "Avalokiteshwara... was also the one worshipped at Sabarimala" is speculation based on Lokesh Chandra's speculation that Potalaka is in Shabarimalai, based on Hsuan-Tsang's speculation that Potalaka is a physical location (and in India), based on a non-historical myth in Buddhist scriptures.
I don't know why these same people object to the AIT, which is at least as good/convincing when it comes to building on a chain of speculative antecedents.
Like always: people should Prove It. Instead of repeating the same story, only to gradually start talking about it as "fact". Isn't Rajeev the one that has consistently objected to "truth by repeated assertion"? But then, I suppose for him, too, it all depends on who is doing the repeated asserting and how well the assertions appeal to his mind.
Lokesh mentions that "the syncretistic tendencies of the [oxymoron] Shiva-Buddha were a pronounced phenomenon in Indonesia." <- The bit he conveniently missed out on saying is that this was seen in exactly those places of Indonesia and SE Asia that were heavily Shaiva: e.g. Bauddicised Sri Vijaya *had* to encroach on Shiva, because it was significantly Shaiva Hindu before that. The same pattern of Bauddhicisation of Hindu domains was attempted in other parts of SE Asia (e.g. in Vietnam), where Hindu religion did successfully re-take the originally-Hindu kingdoms from the temporary Bauddhification under converted (Buddhist) rulers. And that's when the "syncretised" Shiva-Buddha inculturated forms ceased, because the Hindus - in charge once again - weren't subscribers to the jeebus=Krishna I mean Buddha=Shiva fictions.
Again: it was pure Buddhist opportunism to merge Buddha and Shiva in Indonesia (and Buddha and Vishnu in other SE Asian Hindu temples). The same opportunism is seen the length and breadth of E/SE Asia, where Buddha and even Buddhist fictions were conflated with native Gods. E.g. Buddhism tried similarly encroaching/inculturating on a prominent Shinto agricultural-and-war God in Japan, which was met with resistance from staunch Shinto quarters.
About this bit from Lokesh Chandra though:
Quote:However, Buddha is called MahAdeva only in the Chinese version [of the Buddhist fable demoting Shiva-the-Mahadeva and other Hindu Gods]. The convergence of Buddha and MahAdeva seems to be an early phenomenon, whose culmination can be seen in Harihara becoming Neelakantha alias Thousand-armed Avalokiteshwara.
The AvataMsaka, Hsuan-Tsang and the hymn to the Thousand-armed Avalokiteshwara lead to the following facts:
[...]
(v) Avalokiteshwara takes his abode on Potalaka "in coming and going" [color=purple][=literal English translation of Tathagata I think]. Sometimes he appears as Maheswara/Ishwara and at other times as a PAshupata yogin.
(vi) The transformation of NIlakaNTha/Maheshwara/Yogeshwara, with alternating attributes of Hari-hara** into the Thousand-armed avalokiteshwara is evident in the hymn.
The aforesaid remind of Lord Ayyappa of Shabarimala, who could have been the Potala Lokeshwara of Buddhist literature.
(BTW, and *that* - plus his etymology for potalaka meaning "brilliant", and his choosing to tie this meaning into the Makara Jyoti in points i to iii - is what made Lokesh conclude that Shabarimala "must have been Potalaka" and that Ayyappa "must have been Avalokiteshwara".)
But what is evident is that Buddhism had already encroached on the name Mahadeva, in (the Chinese version of) the same undeniably missionary Buddhist fable wherein Buddhism essentially denied that Shiva deserved the name Mahadeva=Shiva's own personal name. And Buddhism also denied the other Hindu Gods of being worthy of the epithet. (Seen in the top part of p.33/the first screenshot from Lokesh's book in the previous post.) The Buddhist fable was rather like an Indian jeebus movie I once watched, whose moral was similar dawaganda: worshipping the Hindu Gods was in vain, no one but jeebus could help the put-upon main character. But then missionising is missionising.
** "The transformation of NIlakaNTha/Maheshwara/Yogeshwara, with alternating attributes of Hari-Hara into the Thousand-armed avalokiteshwara is evident in the hymn."
But even the 3 names given above are Shiva's names. Yogeshwara is admittedly equally Vishnu's name (or that of several other Hindu Gods) and Maheshwara is a valid epithet for Vishnu - as it is that of other Hindu Gods, even though the -Ishwara suffix is generally of Shiva when no further indication is given (the way Perumaal is generally Tamizh for Vishnu=Tirumaal=Maal, although occasionally Perumaal is also used by Shaivas for Murugan and Shivan, though again qualified/indicated by context. E.g. "Perumaale" as direct-reference to Kumaran by AruNagirinAthar, etc.)
Back to the attempted Buddhist encroachment on Neelakantha. In Lokesh's shortlist of "NIlakaNTha/Maheshwara/Yogeshwara" usurped by Buddhism, the name Nilakantha seals the identity of the God who got cloned here: as it is specifically only Shiva who is Neelakantha. The kaalakooTa made his throat bluish-black so he is peculiarly called Nilakantha (also seen in the Vedam), whereas Vishnu is generally neelam all over.
Though Lokesh has not at all proven that Ayyappa is Avalokiteshwara/Potala Lokeshwara*, what he has reiterated - already long shown to be the case by earlier historians - is that Avalokiteshwara was a clone of Shiva. He has further underlined that Buddhism was quite so desperate as to even try encroaching on Shiva's ueber-personal name NilakaNTha, a name which *cannot* be randomly assigned to even other Hindu Gods let alone Buddhisms, *because* it is a physical descriptive unique to Shiva. I mean, did Buddha try to swallow the haalaahalam and have his throat coloured by it? Oh but I forget, Buddhists backprojected a merger of Buddha with Shiva and thus "(christo-)magically" Buddha was present during the samudra manthanam. No? [Although modern Hindus - desperate to invent the "Hinduism=Buddhism=Jainism=The One Dharmic Religion of India", something which Hindu ancestors resisted heavily - will swear to the spatially-and-temporally-localised/non-universal/opportunistic Buddhist credo that Shiva is the Buddha onlee, I mean the first Jain teerthankara of Jain theology, I mean the Judaic deity, I mean the Yezidi deity, I mean ...]
And again: as also indicated in extracts pasted in a previous post in this series, other scholars have also noted that Avalokiteshwara was cloned from Shiva in particular, even though the clone was also made to absorb features of other Hindu Gods (=the purpose of Mahayana Buddhism in Indian space). Lokesh Chandra only tries to force the issue of Avalokiteshwara having inculturated on Hari and Hara features in other Bauddhicised once-Hindu regions, in order to thereby better superimpose his Bauddicising theory on Hariharaputra Ayyappa at Shabarimalai.
There's no question that Buddhism tried inculturating on Hindu Gods - moorties, Hindu temples and sites - including using Avalokiteshwara (and other Buddhist characters that Mahayana regularly gave rise to). I'm still waiting for *proof* - a.o.t. Mere Speculation - from Lokesh/Rajeev and also Shu that Shabarimalai or any Shiva or other Hindoo Kovil in Shabarimalai, Podigai (or Tirupati, or ultimately any Hindu temple/sacred site in India) was regarded as Potalaka [by the natives]. There are Buddhist and other records of known Buddhist outposts in Kerala and Tamil Nadu that were recognised as Buddhist - despite Indian Buddhist pretence that this has been "obscured" (a mask for their disappointment that Buddhism etc never did that well in the south among the laity, only capturing the subvertibles among brahmanas and kShatriyas, as also in other parts of the subcontinent like once-Hindu Afghanistan). So where is the record of Shabarimalai or Podigai being identified by locals from centuries back as the "Potalaka" of Buddhism? [Potiyil and Podigai are unlikely to derive from bOdhi, as already mentioned in post 6: Tamil would have preserved the long-o of Skt then, but Podigai and Potiyil are still pronounced *short-o* (there is a difference in Tamil).]
This post was just some loose notes