Post 20/?
This post in the current spam-series is not relevant to the original topic. This one contaisn some loose notes on other things that Vijayavenugopal claimed.
Posts 16 and 18 are more on topic.
Related to the blockquote at the start of post 16.
Just pointing out some of the not-so-subtle indicators of Vijayavenugopal being a Buddhist and motivated for it:
Example 1: The usual modern Buddhist (and Jain) tactic of claiming - without providing evidence, of course - that "Hindus took over Buddhist/Jain temples"
Vijayavenugopal wrote:
Even his reference has only allowed Vijayavenugopal to conclude "some Buddhist temples might have been changed into Hindu temples". So he has not a single case to provide as evidence. I.e. he can't even state that "some" or even "a few" temples WERE converted.
How very typical. He's only being careful because he's writing for a publication and has to tiptoe by playing researcher, instead of shrieking that "All Indian/southern Hindu temples used to be Buddhist/Jain", as the whiny Jains of the JMF and Buddhists (neo and SL Sangha, for e.g.) often do. But he insinuates that Hindus "might have", knowing that generating suspicion is always enough to condemn heathens: it's cryptoBuddhist crap like this that often gets quoted, after all.
So he makes the claim, to get it out there - and thereby introducing the insinuation into the journal pool of citable stuff. Then someone will pick it up and refer to both Vijayavenugopal and his Venkatacami's op.cit. and it turn into "some Buddhist temples were converted into Hindu temples". And then the next Buddhist will come along - citing all - and declare that "all Hindu temples were Buddhist". And then the JMF (Jain Minority Forum) will plagiarise and declare that "all Hindu temples were Jain"; though admittedly the Buddhists often pilfer from earlier Jain falsehoods as well (e.g. Jamanadas seems to have plagiarised from JMF for Buddhism).
Still, not a remotely scholarly statement to have made. It said nothing tangible, made unsubstantiated insinuations - libel - and ran off. *Because* the writer knows he has no evidence. Plus all the little digs at Hindu religion - and claims for Buddhism - shows that it's a Buddhist writing the article and that, in his private time, he'd be quite the fire-brand.
Most interesting however is what Vijayavenugopal does say with no hint of speculation:
Note how there's no speculation in the second statement, because he is unable to deny what is so well-known. Vijayavenugopal *knows* there is evidence of the Hindu Kings patronising () Buddhism and Jainism. (Throwing money and land and manpower at them. Just like historical Hindu kings had patronised christianism foolishly. Moral: don't feed missionary religions.)
So while Vijayavenugopal can only confirm that Hindu kings were benign to the (as yet conspiring) missionary religions, what Vijayavenugopal is unable to provide is evidence of Buddhist temples being changed into Hindu temples. Yet he had to insinuate it anyway. Is this more Indian "scholarship"? Or should I just file it into more Indian Buddhist scholarship?
Hindus - and Chinese Taoists and Shintos, Tibet - have historical evidence of Buddhist persecution of their respective heathenisms. In Sri Lanka, can see an ongoing example of how Hindu regions get Bauddhified and Hindu sites get taken over - including in Buddhist writings that lay the groundwork/Buddhist moral imperative for such takeovers. Whereas Hindus and other heathens don't want Buddhist (or Jain) sites or their vigrahas, because they're not of our Gods and not actually accurate even when Buddhism tried hard at inculturation*. Traditional vigrahas are very specific and can't be made by non-Hindus since the Hindu sculptor needs to do dhyaanam on Hindu mantras when constructing the image, in order to produce something that is *actually* our Gods. Buddhists would never have constructed their clones of Hindu Gods with a Hindu mind, meditating on Hindu mantras and with the Hindu cosmological perception necessary. Therefore Buddhist/Jain output can never be the Hindu Gods - it's just stone to Hindus in that case: someone else's statues have no meaning - and will not be effective when appealed to by Hindus, the way our ancient Hindu vigrahas are very powerful.
Traditional Hindu sites are moreover places where Hindu Gods really are - or munis like Agastya. So it's not meaningful to take over originally-Buddhist/Jain sites where Hindu Gods would not have bothered appearing. It's another thing if the site was originally Hindu and taken over by other religions, but even that is an issue that Hindus don't tend to force, though all Hindus would certainly be willing to have the site back if it weren't occupied.
* E.g. traditional Taoists have been advising other traditional Taoists to *break* and despose of any false inculturating "syncretist" Buddhist images of Taoist Gods in their homes and replacing these with accurate Taoist images (like the Taoist God whom Buddhism presented as having a pig's head - which is Very Wrong). Taoists specifically don't advice breaking any fake Bauddhified images of Taoist Gods in Buddist sites, since that doesn't concern Taoism and because - being Bauddhified versions - they don't represent the Taoist Gods.
The point is, heathens don't want nastika sites or stuff.
- It is missionary religions that want heathen sites, in order to claim for their own religion the heathens that throng there. (Can still see this in every Buddhist/Jain whining how every - coincidentally famous and major - Hindu temple "was originally Jain/Buddhist" as well as screeching that all the Hindus visiting the site "were once Jain/Buddhist". <- Usually Jains and Buddhists claim all the SAME Hindu temples for their own religion.)
- It is missionary religions that want heathen accomplishments.
- It is missionary religions that encroach, that inculturate and that will even go all the way to Hindu-specific pages on Wackypedia and deface them with Buddhist and Jain insinuations (e.g. Jogeshwari, Elephanta and Patanjali/Yogasutras wacky pages. Even that tacky "Vedism" page had Shramanas inviting themselves over to spin ur-Shramanism fables). Meanwhile Hindus have no interest in correcting the a-historical and false nonsense or even anti-Hindu libel seen on Shramana pages (e.g "Shramanism" page, or a Buddhism page that - among its list of persecutions - continues to repeat the known Buddhist fiction of Hindu Pushyamitra having "persecuted" Buddhists. See below)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Buddhism
- But you know Buddhism must be getting desperate if all the "persecution" they can point to in Hindu religion is a known falsehood, and moreover a libel invented by Buddhism (documented in detail by Elst at koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/ayodhya/pushyamitra.html) and which sobstory the Buddhists based on their own "great king" Buddhist Ashoka's massacre of 18,000 Ajeevikas and subsequent later massacre of further Ajeevikas or Nirgranthas (Jains). [The story about Ashoka may well be true: Buddhists did document it about Buddhism's own Constantine after all. They're proud of him, why would they lie?]
- The use of "apparently" in "Hindu 'brahminical' Pushyamtira apparently starting a wave of persecution against Buddhism" is instructive. Just like cryptoBuddhist Vijayavenugopal was careful with his claim that "Buddhist temples might have been converted to Hindu temples" - knowing full well that he has absolutely no evidence to provide for it, and only evidence of Hindu Kings foolishly patronising ingrate missionary religions - the Buddhists of today peddling their persecution sobstories at wackypedia likewise try to cover the fact that they are emitting a known falsehood by using "apparently". I.e. these words give deniability. They arouse suspicion, brainwash etc - as is the point - but the writers can always deny that they meant to state the facts, by saying they indicated it was an uncertainty. What was that word they accused Hindus (Vedic religion) of, but which applies to the missionary religions alone? Oh yeah. Swindlers.
Example 2: The tactic of building speculations upon speculations, all in order to donate some other part of Hindus' religion to the Shramanisms
Another example of Vijayavenugopal's "speculative scholarship":
Uh, did the editor notice there was NOTHING in that section that is not a speculation? And not even any references to support the out-of-hand speculation either.
Vijayavenugopal's purpose in the whole speculative chain is of course to derive Sekkizhaar's Periyapuraanam as a product of Buddhist inspiration, in order to then use that as an example for his inversionist claim: that the alleged "Buddha bhakti" was the origin of Hindu bhakti. <- This claim is a typical modern tactic of missionary religions: both extant types of Nastikas and christianism claim that each invented bhakti. IIRC the ur-Shramanism wackypedia page knew to be a little more prudent, though it declared that bhakti was a separate group - thereby admitting at least it wasn't Shramanic in origin, despite falsely presenting bhakti as magically independent of the Vedic religion. [Using the concocted "Ur-Shramanism", they like to tear the Sanatana Dharma/Vedic religion/"Hinduism" to shreds - by denying the existence of the Hindu laity and what ties them to their ancestral religion: the Gods - even as the Shramanists build up a false picture of their own religion and its faux-history.]
This faux-"Buddha Bhakti" theory Vijayavenugopal constructs surrounding his favourite pivot Avalokiteshwara (whose cult he alleges was very popular in TN at some point) seems to break down when Avalokiteshwara was entirely modelled on Shiva and was made to absorb the Hindu shaastraic accounts of Shiva concerning Tamil language (hence Tamils) too. But that's something Vijayavenugopal doesn't want to mention. Or maybe Vijayavenugopal merely wants to submit that "buddha bhakti" was in fact so appealing that it was able to convert the Shaiva Siddhar Vedic Rishi Agastya - backwards in time of course (a Shramanist speciality, I understand) - to the Avalokiteshwara cult?
I'm not sure if Vijayavenugopal coined the phrase "buddha bhakti" or whether he's merely part of a minority in using it, but it doesn't (yet) seem very popular in Google search. (Maybe it's just still waiting to catch on?) Nice backprojection by Vijayavenugopal of a "Buddhist innovation" that wasn't. But will get back to this subject in a subsequent post.
Anyway:
Documenting the lives of heathen lineages is a very common heathen thing. It has nothing to do with Buddhism.
E.g. Taoists document the histories of their Immortals. In fact, if one was going to draw a comparison, Sekkizhaar's biographies of the Nazhanmaars have more in common with the narratives of the life-stories of Taoist Immortals than with the Buddhist Jataka stories. That's not even taking into account that the "Buddhist" Jataka stories are known to be mostly Bauddhified plagiarisms (mainly from pre-existing Hindu religion) that Buddhism simply passed off as "original work".
I'm surprised Buddhism didn't claim that christianism copied the notion of hagiographies from Buddhism. Certainly christianism's pointless relic industry seems to have been... "inspired" by the same in Buddhism.
Example 3: Pretending that the original religion in TN is some Shramanism, by concealing key historical facts.
And denying that Hindu subsects are part of 1 religion: the Sanatana Dharma/Vedic religion/Hindoo-ism/whatever it's called
More barely-veiled Buddhism by Vijyavenugopal:
- Suddenly Shaivam and Vaishnavam become separate "religions". That should certainly make Mahayana and Theravada and Vajrayana (and the extinct Mahasanghika, Sthavira, etc) Buddhisms separate religions too (they did compete after all - isn't that all the evidence necessary?); and so too Digambara and Shwetambara Jainisms of course.
- And Vijayavenugopal presents the Hindu Kings as having "adopted" new religions, instead of what they actually did: the Hindu royal dynasties merely reverted to their ancestral Hinduism after a period of dalliance with the nouveau religions of Buddhism/Jainism.
That the south was predominantly-Hindu (especially remote communities, and non-urban communities like hunters, see Silappadikaaram) well before Vijyavenugopal's earmarked "period of the bhakti movement" is even seen in Silappadikaaram (2nd-5th century CE) and in Tamil literature from centuries before that. TN and Kerala kings were originally Hindu, just as the laity, although the laity remained more constant in the intervening centuries - as true in Shu's guesses regarding Potiyil as in real life all over the southern regions to Afghanistan. So a king converting to Shramanism and building nastika centres isn't much of an indicator of the popularity of the nastika beliefs to a heathen laity. (I mean, Japan remained majority Shinto even after Japanese rulers tried to force Buddhism onto the Shinto Japanese population, following even an official policy of Buddhist "syncretism" on Shinto sites, i.e. Bauddhicisation of native heathenism. Many centuries later, Japan had remained largely Shinto. Maybe Vijayavenugopal would contend that they were immune to "Buddha bhakti"?)
It is clearly some unknown period after the Silappadikaaram's predominantly-Hindu era that Vijayavenugopal is speaking of, when southern kings were converted to nastika beliefs (and which must be the period where Vijayavenugopal alleges - without providing evidence - that Mahayana Buddhism was generally "very popular"). And as the author grudgingly implies, by "the period of [the] bhakti movement" ("650-950 CE") TN rulers had already been reverting back to their ancestral heathenism again. The start of the alleged nastika "golden age" in TN is not clear from Vijayavenugopal, but there is between 1.5 - 4.5 centuries between the Silappadikaaram's estimated dates and the start of the bhakti period. Perhaps it simply wasn't enough time for the Shramanisms' "popularity"/mass appeal to shine through?
Lots of ancient Hindu Tamil literature refer to Hindu religion. Tirukkural refers to Ulagu Alandaan (this is a famous Tamil personal name of Mahavishnu as Trivikrama, meaning "[He who] measured the world [with his feet]"), and refers to accounts from Hindoo Shastras: one of the verses mentioning Indran refers unambiguously to Vedic Rishi Gautama Muni's shaapam on Indran concerning the Ahalya matter. This is not Jain or Buddhist, it is exclusively Hindoo.
tamilspecilaty.blogspot.com/2012/06/thirukural-in-english.html
Actually, this next page by Michel Danino describes the ancestral religio of the south, with special focus on the Tamil regions and Kerala, but it's true for all of the southern region:
web.archive.org/web/20140420030913/http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/tamilculture.html
So, like I said: the TN rulers merely reverted to ancestral Hindoo=Vedic religion in the bhakti era after briefly dabbling in the nouveau missionary Indic religions. The laity remained significantly Hindoo throughout and understandably disinterested in the nouveau unheathen religions.
This post in the current spam-series is not relevant to the original topic. This one contains some loose notes on other things that Vijayavenugopal claimed.
This post in the current spam-series is not relevant to the original topic. This one contaisn some loose notes on other things that Vijayavenugopal claimed.
Posts 16 and 18 are more on topic.
Related to the blockquote at the start of post 16.
Just pointing out some of the not-so-subtle indicators of Vijayavenugopal being a Buddhist and motivated for it:
Example 1: The usual modern Buddhist (and Jain) tactic of claiming - without providing evidence, of course - that "Hindus took over Buddhist/Jain temples"
Vijayavenugopal wrote:
Quote:Sometimes some of the Buddhist temples might have been changed into Hindu temples.13 [Ref 13: Venkatacami, op. cit., p.59]
Even his reference has only allowed Vijayavenugopal to conclude "some Buddhist temples might have been changed into Hindu temples". So he has not a single case to provide as evidence. I.e. he can't even state that "some" or even "a few" temples WERE converted.
How very typical. He's only being careful because he's writing for a publication and has to tiptoe by playing researcher, instead of shrieking that "All Indian/southern Hindu temples used to be Buddhist/Jain", as the whiny Jains of the JMF and Buddhists (neo and SL Sangha, for e.g.) often do. But he insinuates that Hindus "might have", knowing that generating suspicion is always enough to condemn heathens: it's cryptoBuddhist crap like this that often gets quoted, after all.
So he makes the claim, to get it out there - and thereby introducing the insinuation into the journal pool of citable stuff. Then someone will pick it up and refer to both Vijayavenugopal and his Venkatacami's op.cit. and it turn into "some Buddhist temples were converted into Hindu temples". And then the next Buddhist will come along - citing all - and declare that "all Hindu temples were Buddhist". And then the JMF (Jain Minority Forum) will plagiarise and declare that "all Hindu temples were Jain"; though admittedly the Buddhists often pilfer from earlier Jain falsehoods as well (e.g. Jamanadas seems to have plagiarised from JMF for Buddhism).
Still, not a remotely scholarly statement to have made. It said nothing tangible, made unsubstantiated insinuations - libel - and ran off. *Because* the writer knows he has no evidence. Plus all the little digs at Hindu religion - and claims for Buddhism - shows that it's a Buddhist writing the article and that, in his private time, he'd be quite the fire-brand.
Most interesting however is what Vijayavenugopal does say with no hint of speculation:
Quote:The Alvars and Nayanmars spearheaded this movement and as a result a large number of Siva and Visnu temples were built by the kings who adopted these religions. Sometimes some of the Buddhist temples might have been changed into Hindu temples.13 [Ref 13: Venkatacami, op. cit., p.59] But at the same time these kings patronised other religions like Buddhism and Jainism, too, by making liberal donations, endowments, etc. to the viharas and pallis (of the Jains).
Note how there's no speculation in the second statement, because he is unable to deny what is so well-known. Vijayavenugopal *knows* there is evidence of the Hindu Kings patronising () Buddhism and Jainism. (Throwing money and land and manpower at them. Just like historical Hindu kings had patronised christianism foolishly. Moral: don't feed missionary religions.)
So while Vijayavenugopal can only confirm that Hindu kings were benign to the (as yet conspiring) missionary religions, what Vijayavenugopal is unable to provide is evidence of Buddhist temples being changed into Hindu temples. Yet he had to insinuate it anyway. Is this more Indian "scholarship"? Or should I just file it into more Indian Buddhist scholarship?
Hindus - and Chinese Taoists and Shintos, Tibet - have historical evidence of Buddhist persecution of their respective heathenisms. In Sri Lanka, can see an ongoing example of how Hindu regions get Bauddhified and Hindu sites get taken over - including in Buddhist writings that lay the groundwork/Buddhist moral imperative for such takeovers. Whereas Hindus and other heathens don't want Buddhist (or Jain) sites or their vigrahas, because they're not of our Gods and not actually accurate even when Buddhism tried hard at inculturation*. Traditional vigrahas are very specific and can't be made by non-Hindus since the Hindu sculptor needs to do dhyaanam on Hindu mantras when constructing the image, in order to produce something that is *actually* our Gods. Buddhists would never have constructed their clones of Hindu Gods with a Hindu mind, meditating on Hindu mantras and with the Hindu cosmological perception necessary. Therefore Buddhist/Jain output can never be the Hindu Gods - it's just stone to Hindus in that case: someone else's statues have no meaning - and will not be effective when appealed to by Hindus, the way our ancient Hindu vigrahas are very powerful.
Traditional Hindu sites are moreover places where Hindu Gods really are - or munis like Agastya. So it's not meaningful to take over originally-Buddhist/Jain sites where Hindu Gods would not have bothered appearing. It's another thing if the site was originally Hindu and taken over by other religions, but even that is an issue that Hindus don't tend to force, though all Hindus would certainly be willing to have the site back if it weren't occupied.
* E.g. traditional Taoists have been advising other traditional Taoists to *break* and despose of any false inculturating "syncretist" Buddhist images of Taoist Gods in their homes and replacing these with accurate Taoist images (like the Taoist God whom Buddhism presented as having a pig's head - which is Very Wrong). Taoists specifically don't advice breaking any fake Bauddhified images of Taoist Gods in Buddist sites, since that doesn't concern Taoism and because - being Bauddhified versions - they don't represent the Taoist Gods.
The point is, heathens don't want nastika sites or stuff.
- It is missionary religions that want heathen sites, in order to claim for their own religion the heathens that throng there. (Can still see this in every Buddhist/Jain whining how every - coincidentally famous and major - Hindu temple "was originally Jain/Buddhist" as well as screeching that all the Hindus visiting the site "were once Jain/Buddhist". <- Usually Jains and Buddhists claim all the SAME Hindu temples for their own religion.)
- It is missionary religions that want heathen accomplishments.
- It is missionary religions that encroach, that inculturate and that will even go all the way to Hindu-specific pages on Wackypedia and deface them with Buddhist and Jain insinuations (e.g. Jogeshwari, Elephanta and Patanjali/Yogasutras wacky pages. Even that tacky "Vedism" page had Shramanas inviting themselves over to spin ur-Shramanism fables). Meanwhile Hindus have no interest in correcting the a-historical and false nonsense or even anti-Hindu libel seen on Shramana pages (e.g "Shramanism" page, or a Buddhism page that - among its list of persecutions - continues to repeat the known Buddhist fiction of Hindu Pushyamitra having "persecuted" Buddhists. See below)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Buddhism
Quote:Timeline of Buddhism
[...]
185 BCE: Brahmin general Pushyamitra Sunga overthrows the Mauryan dynasty and establishes the Sunga dynasty, apparently starting a wave of persecution against Buddhism
[...]
(The page also whines about Taoist and Confucian persecutions in China etc. Missionary religions always feel greatly aggrieved when the native ancestral religions don't approve of their missionising.)
- But you know Buddhism must be getting desperate if all the "persecution" they can point to in Hindu religion is a known falsehood, and moreover a libel invented by Buddhism (documented in detail by Elst at koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/ayodhya/pushyamitra.html) and which sobstory the Buddhists based on their own "great king" Buddhist Ashoka's massacre of 18,000 Ajeevikas and subsequent later massacre of further Ajeevikas or Nirgranthas (Jains). [The story about Ashoka may well be true: Buddhists did document it about Buddhism's own Constantine after all. They're proud of him, why would they lie?]
- The use of "apparently" in "Hindu 'brahminical' Pushyamtira apparently starting a wave of persecution against Buddhism" is instructive. Just like cryptoBuddhist Vijayavenugopal was careful with his claim that "Buddhist temples might have been converted to Hindu temples" - knowing full well that he has absolutely no evidence to provide for it, and only evidence of Hindu Kings foolishly patronising ingrate missionary religions - the Buddhists of today peddling their persecution sobstories at wackypedia likewise try to cover the fact that they are emitting a known falsehood by using "apparently". I.e. these words give deniability. They arouse suspicion, brainwash etc - as is the point - but the writers can always deny that they meant to state the facts, by saying they indicated it was an uncertainty. What was that word they accused Hindus (Vedic religion) of, but which applies to the missionary religions alone? Oh yeah. Swindlers.
Example 2: The tactic of building speculations upon speculations, all in order to donate some other part of Hindus' religion to the Shramanisms
Another example of Vijayavenugopal's "speculative scholarship":
Quote:It is possible that the Tamil poet Cekkilar who wrote the famous Saivite hagiology called Periyapuranam, 'the big Purana,' might have gotten some inspiration from the Buddhist Jataka stories in modelling the biographies of the Saivite saints. Or this could have been done even before him, at least in oral tradition, since Cekkilar is only giving a poetic form to these stories.
Uh, did the editor notice there was NOTHING in that section that is not a speculation? And not even any references to support the out-of-hand speculation either.
Vijayavenugopal's purpose in the whole speculative chain is of course to derive Sekkizhaar's Periyapuraanam as a product of Buddhist inspiration, in order to then use that as an example for his inversionist claim: that the alleged "Buddha bhakti" was the origin of Hindu bhakti. <- This claim is a typical modern tactic of missionary religions: both extant types of Nastikas and christianism claim that each invented bhakti. IIRC the ur-Shramanism wackypedia page knew to be a little more prudent, though it declared that bhakti was a separate group - thereby admitting at least it wasn't Shramanic in origin, despite falsely presenting bhakti as magically independent of the Vedic religion. [Using the concocted "Ur-Shramanism", they like to tear the Sanatana Dharma/Vedic religion/"Hinduism" to shreds - by denying the existence of the Hindu laity and what ties them to their ancestral religion: the Gods - even as the Shramanists build up a false picture of their own religion and its faux-history.]
This faux-"Buddha Bhakti" theory Vijayavenugopal constructs surrounding his favourite pivot Avalokiteshwara (whose cult he alleges was very popular in TN at some point) seems to break down when Avalokiteshwara was entirely modelled on Shiva and was made to absorb the Hindu shaastraic accounts of Shiva concerning Tamil language (hence Tamils) too. But that's something Vijayavenugopal doesn't want to mention. Or maybe Vijayavenugopal merely wants to submit that "buddha bhakti" was in fact so appealing that it was able to convert the Shaiva Siddhar Vedic Rishi Agastya - backwards in time of course (a Shramanist speciality, I understand) - to the Avalokiteshwara cult?
I'm not sure if Vijayavenugopal coined the phrase "buddha bhakti" or whether he's merely part of a minority in using it, but it doesn't (yet) seem very popular in Google search. (Maybe it's just still waiting to catch on?) Nice backprojection by Vijayavenugopal of a "Buddhist innovation" that wasn't. But will get back to this subject in a subsequent post.
Anyway:
Documenting the lives of heathen lineages is a very common heathen thing. It has nothing to do with Buddhism.
E.g. Taoists document the histories of their Immortals. In fact, if one was going to draw a comparison, Sekkizhaar's biographies of the Nazhanmaars have more in common with the narratives of the life-stories of Taoist Immortals than with the Buddhist Jataka stories. That's not even taking into account that the "Buddhist" Jataka stories are known to be mostly Bauddhified plagiarisms (mainly from pre-existing Hindu religion) that Buddhism simply passed off as "original work".
I'm surprised Buddhism didn't claim that christianism copied the notion of hagiographies from Buddhism. Certainly christianism's pointless relic industry seems to have been... "inspired" by the same in Buddhism.
Example 3: Pretending that the original religion in TN is some Shramanism, by concealing key historical facts.
And denying that Hindu subsects are part of 1 religion: the Sanatana Dharma/Vedic religion/Hindoo-ism/whatever it's called
More barely-veiled Buddhism by Vijyavenugopal:
Quote:The period between 650 A.D. and 950 A.D. is considered to be the period of bhakti movement which saw the revival of Hinduism and the gradual weakening of the influence of both Buddhism and Jainism. The Alvars and Nayanmars spearheaded this movement and as a result a large number of Siva and Visnu temples were built by the kings who adopted these religions.
- Suddenly Shaivam and Vaishnavam become separate "religions". That should certainly make Mahayana and Theravada and Vajrayana (and the extinct Mahasanghika, Sthavira, etc) Buddhisms separate religions too (they did compete after all - isn't that all the evidence necessary?); and so too Digambara and Shwetambara Jainisms of course.
- And Vijayavenugopal presents the Hindu Kings as having "adopted" new religions, instead of what they actually did: the Hindu royal dynasties merely reverted to their ancestral Hinduism after a period of dalliance with the nouveau religions of Buddhism/Jainism.
That the south was predominantly-Hindu (especially remote communities, and non-urban communities like hunters, see Silappadikaaram) well before Vijyavenugopal's earmarked "period of the bhakti movement" is even seen in Silappadikaaram (2nd-5th century CE) and in Tamil literature from centuries before that. TN and Kerala kings were originally Hindu, just as the laity, although the laity remained more constant in the intervening centuries - as true in Shu's guesses regarding Potiyil as in real life all over the southern regions to Afghanistan. So a king converting to Shramanism and building nastika centres isn't much of an indicator of the popularity of the nastika beliefs to a heathen laity. (I mean, Japan remained majority Shinto even after Japanese rulers tried to force Buddhism onto the Shinto Japanese population, following even an official policy of Buddhist "syncretism" on Shinto sites, i.e. Bauddhicisation of native heathenism. Many centuries later, Japan had remained largely Shinto. Maybe Vijayavenugopal would contend that they were immune to "Buddha bhakti"?)
It is clearly some unknown period after the Silappadikaaram's predominantly-Hindu era that Vijayavenugopal is speaking of, when southern kings were converted to nastika beliefs (and which must be the period where Vijayavenugopal alleges - without providing evidence - that Mahayana Buddhism was generally "very popular"). And as the author grudgingly implies, by "the period of [the] bhakti movement" ("650-950 CE") TN rulers had already been reverting back to their ancestral heathenism again. The start of the alleged nastika "golden age" in TN is not clear from Vijayavenugopal, but there is between 1.5 - 4.5 centuries between the Silappadikaaram's estimated dates and the start of the bhakti period. Perhaps it simply wasn't enough time for the Shramanisms' "popularity"/mass appeal to shine through?
Lots of ancient Hindu Tamil literature refer to Hindu religion. Tirukkural refers to Ulagu Alandaan (this is a famous Tamil personal name of Mahavishnu as Trivikrama, meaning "[He who] measured the world [with his feet]"), and refers to accounts from Hindoo Shastras: one of the verses mentioning Indran refers unambiguously to Vedic Rishi Gautama Muni's shaapam on Indran concerning the Ahalya matter. This is not Jain or Buddhist, it is exclusively Hindoo.
tamilspecilaty.blogspot.com/2012/06/thirukural-in-english.html
Quote:Verse 25As even colonial translators had already argued: only Hindu religion will accept that persons who subdue their five senses (ascetics) would pronounce shaapa-s (i.e. such ascetics being Rishis, and the example given is of Gautama Muni, i.e. *Hindoo* shaastras alone), whereas Jainism and Buddhism would not recognise as an evolved Jain/Buddhist (i.e. "who has subdued their 5 senses") any who 'gives way to anger' in such a manner.
Such is the power of those who subdue the five senses that even Indra,
Sovereign of spacious heaven's celestials, suffered their curse.
Actually, this next page by Michel Danino describes the ancestral religio of the south, with special focus on the Tamil regions and Kerala, but it's true for all of the southern region:
web.archive.org/web/20140420030913/http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/tamilculture.html
Quote:The Tolkappiyam also formulates the captivating division of the Tamil land into five regions (tinai�), each associated with one particular aspect of love, one poetical expression, and also one deity�: thus the hills (kuri�ji�) with union and with Cheyon (Murugan)�; the desert (palai�) with separation and Korravai (Durga)�; the forests (mullai�) with awaiting and Mayon (Vishnu-Krishna)�; the seashore (neytal�) with wailing and Varuna�; and the cultivated lands (marutam) with quarrel and Ventan (Indra). Thus from the beginning we have a fusion of non-Vedic deities (Murugan or Korravai), Vedic gods (Indra, Varuna) and later Puranic deities such as Vishnu (Mal or Tirumal). Such a synthesis is quite typical of the Hindu temperament and cannot be the result of an overnight or superficial influence�; it is also as remote as possible from the separateness we are told is at the root of so-called �Dravidian culture.�
(Uh, Kotravai=Durga is from the Vedam - e.g. YV's Mahayanaraynopanishad and Atharvasheersham. Every description of Kotravai is of Durga only as from the Hindu shaastras. Murugan IS Skanda who is from the vedam, Vishnu is just as much from the Vedam - e.g. YV.
And Dravida culture=southern Hindu culture. "Dravidian" is modern English terminology for brainwashed and thus self-alienated southern Hindus -usually/mostly Tamils- of once-Hindu ancestry; it's also the word that JMF and neo-Buddhists, christians/dravoodianists etc have encroached on to backproject pseudo-histories of grievances/persecution-complexes etc.)
Expectedly, this fusion grows by leaps and bounds in classical Sangam poetry whose composers were Brahmins, princes, merchants, farmers, including a number of women. The �Eight Anthologies� of poetry (or ettuttokai�) abound in references to many gods�: Shiva, Uma, Murugan, Vishnu, Lakshmi (named Tiru, which corresponds to Sri) and several other Saktis.[37] The Paripadal, one of those anthologies, consists almost entirely of devotional poetry to Vishnu. One poem[38] begins with a homage to him and Lakshmi, and goes on to praise Garuda, Shiva on his �majestic bull,� the four-faced Brahma, the twelve Adityas, the Ashwins, the Rudras, the Saptarishis, Indra with his �dreaded thunderbolt,� the devas and asuras, etc., and makes glowing references to the Vedas and Vedic scholars.[39] So does the Purananuru,[40] another of the eight anthologies, which in addition sees Lord Shiva as the source of the four Vedas (166) and describes Lord Vishnu as �blue-hued� (174) and �Garuda-bannered� (56).[41] Similarly, a poem (360) of a third anthology, the Akananuru, declares that Shiva and Vishnu are the greatest of gods[42]
Not only deities or scriptures, landmarks sacred in the North, such as the Himalayas or Ganga, also become objects of great veneration in Tamil poetry. North Indian cities are referred to, such as Ujjain, or Mathura after which Madurai was named. Court poets proudly claim that the Chera kings conquered North Indian kingdoms and carved their emblem onto the Himalayas. They clearly saw the subcontinent as one entity�; thus the Purananuru says they ruled over �the whole land / With regions of hills, mountains, / Forests and inhabited lands / Having the Southern Kumari / And the great Northern Mount / And the Eastern and Western seas / As their borders....�[43]
The Kural (second to seventh century AD), authored by the celebrated Tiruvalluvar, is often described as an �atheistic� text, a hasty misconception. True, Valluvar�s 1,330 pithy aphorisms mostly deal with ethics (aram), polity (porul) and love (inbam), following the traditional Sanskritic pattern of the four objects of human life�: dharma, artha, kama, and moksha�the last implied rather than explicit. Still, the very first decade is an invocation to Bhagavan�: �The ocean of births can be crossed by those who clasp God�s feet, and none else�[44] (10)�; the same idea recurs later, for instance in this profound thought�: �Cling to the One who clings to nothing�; and so clinging, cease to cling� (350). The Kural also refers to Indra (25), to Vishnu�s avatar of Vamana (610), and to Lakshmi (e.g. 167), asserting that she will shower her grace only on those who follow the path of dharma (179, 920). There is nothing very atheistic in all this, and in reality the values of the Kural are perfectly in tune with those found in several shastras or in the Gita.[45]
Let us briefly turn to the famous Tamil epic Shilappadikaram (second to sixth century ad), which relates the beautiful and tragic story of Kannagi and Kovalan�; it opens with invocations to Chandra, Surya, and Indra, all of them Vedic Gods, and frequently praises Agni, Varuna, Shiva, Subrahmanya, Vishnu-Krishna, Uma, Kali, Yama and so forth. There are mentions of the four Vedas and of �Vedic sacrifices being faultlessly performed.� �In more than one place,� writes V. Ramachandra Dikshitar, the first translator of the epic into English, �there are references to Vedic Brahmans, their fire rites, and their chanting of the Vedic hymns. The Brahman received much respect from the king and was often given gifts of wealth and cattle.�[46] When Kovalan and Kannagi are married, they �walk around the holy fire,� a typically Vedic rite still at the centre of the Hindu wedding. Welcomed by a tribe of fierce hunters on their way to Madurai, they witness a striking apparition of Durga, who is addressed equally as Lakshmi and Sarasvati�the three Shaktis of the Hindu trinity. There are numerous references to legends from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas. After worshipping at two temples, one of Vishnu and the other of Shiva, the Chera king Shenguttuvan goes to the Himalayas in search of a stone for Kannagi�s idol, and bathes it in the Ganges�in fact, the waters of Ganga and those of Cauvery were said to be equally sacred. Similar examples could be given from the Manimekhalai�: even though it is a predominantly Buddhist work, it also mentions many Vedic and Puranic gods, and attributes the submergence of Puhar to the neglect of a festival to Indra.
As the archaeologist and epigraphist R. Nagaswamy remarks, �The fact that the literature of the Sangam age refers more to Vedic sacrifices than to temples is a pointer to the popularity of the Vedic cults among the Sangam Tamils.�[47]
(Though even temples would indicate Hindoo religion onlee. As even the whiny Jain Minority Forum (JMF) blundered in stating that the notion of constructing temples derive from/are built around the concept of "Yajaneeya Devataas". Aka the Gods of the Yagnya onlee. <- JMF foolishly admitted to the *Hindu* origins of temple construction. Honestly, sometimes you don't even have to give people any rope for them to hang themselves.)
I should also make a mention of the tradition that regards Agastya, the great Vedic Rishi, as the originator of the Tamil language. He is said to have written a Tamil grammar, Agattiyam, to have presided over the first two Sangams, and is even now honoured in many temples of Tamil Nadu and worshipped in many homes. One of his traditional names is �Tamil muni.� The Shilappadikaram refers to him as �the great sage of the Podiyil hill,� and a hill is still today named after him at the southernmost tip of the Western Ghats.
It would be tempting to continue with this enumeration, which could easily fill a whole anthology. As a matter of fact, P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri showed with a wealth of examples how �a knowledge of Sanskrit literature from the Vedic period to the Classical period is essential to understand and appreciate a large number of passages scattered among the poems of Tamil literature.�[48] Others have added to the long list of such examples.[ 49] In other words, Vedic and Puranic themes are inextricably woven into Sangam literature and therefore into the most ancient culture of the Tamil land known to us.
So, like I said: the TN rulers merely reverted to ancestral Hindoo=Vedic religion in the bhakti era after briefly dabbling in the nouveau missionary Indic religions. The laity remained significantly Hindoo throughout and understandably disinterested in the nouveau unheathen religions.
This post in the current spam-series is not relevant to the original topic. This one contains some loose notes on other things that Vijayavenugopal claimed.