Bharat Rakshak

I am starting this new thread to understand Buddhism's unique contributions to Bharat and what changes it brought in Hindu society, given the fact it almost disappeared from Bharat.

I will move relavent posts from past discussions here.

Really appreciate active participation from forum members.

Might be useful to read Rahul Sankrityayan.

Abhishekji

Could you pls post the book link and some summery if available, like RajeshAji does in Out of India thread?

Thanks

brihaspati saab has studied him in detail. Maybe he can provide pointers.

What I know is RS went to Tibet in extremely difficult conditions and brought valuable documents from there. They were kept in Patna museum for a while....I don't know where they are now.

A list of his works is available here. I have read only 1-2 of these.

As you can see from the list of books, his books have been translated to many Indian languages.

Buddhism was a major religion in the subcontinent and at points may have exceeded Sanatana Dharma. However, by the time of the Islamic invasions it was largely confined to the north west and east. Buddhism did not survive the Islamic onslaught. One of the reasons is that it was heavily dependent on state patronage and on monasteries which were destroyed and monks who were slaughtered. Hinduism had a personal God and could survive within individual homes even when the temples were destroyed and power was lost. The predominantly Buddhist regions of that period are today Islamic - south-eastern Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

RamaY ji,

thanks for starting this thread. Buddhism is a major channel through which to approach our relations with much of East Asia and Southeast Asia.

I would be interested in learning more about how Buddhism in North-West India and in East India found its demise at the hand of Islamic invaders. Any historical references to events and any statistics on this would be appreciated.

Some Neo-Buddhists in India are trying to wrongly portray the demise of Buddhism in the Subcontinent as the work of Hindus, naturally due to political and ideological reasons. This too needs to be clarified.

Another aspect is jainism...at one time a lot of south indians must have been jain given the distribution of old jain temples here and there..esp in karnataka...this was even in chandragupta mauryas time. Buddhism managed to survive by flourishing in tibet and asean region and now building brand in the west also.
To my knowledge jainism never spread from india to anywhere but unlike buddhism, jains have always survived whatever purges or conditions put paid to old buddhism here.
Might be worth studying the footprint and history of jainism in india as well.

Jainism is much older than buddhism and dated back to harappan era as a parallel tradition with vedic hinduism.

Map showing dharmic vs abrahamic religion coverage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abraham_Dharma.png

X-posting:
Why is this shyness in us about researching the possible role of Buddhist society in India - and not necessarily "Buddhism", in weakening India on the particular aspect of foreign collaborative invasions.

I have mentioned in many places - one sourced from the same text used by Thaparites selectively - to claim that "common masses of Sindhi Buddhists" "welcomed" the Islamists becuase of rising "Brahminical" repression.

The actual text gives special clues to who these common "Buddhists" were :

(1) sramans running huge Buddhist establishments
(2) "sramans" who live lavishly in urban centres, with "slaves", richly furnished and laid out houses
(3) sramans who are engaged in foreign trade with the Gulf
(4) sramans who went and secretly talked with teh Islamists at Kufa and Baghdad after ther three earlier invasions were repulsed with great slaughter
(5) these aspects were all shown by onlee one city's Buddhists - Nirun, an outpost to the "west", and settled primarily by "merchants".

As for "commons" - these Buddhist leaders went around to convince other cities and there are at least two cities cited - which resisted and refused.

The Buddhist leaders pleaded with the population not to make the leaders appear hostile to the Islamists by going against the Islamists. This plea was mounted after the massacre and rape and enslavement at Deval. So the Buddhist legendary siding with ahimsa did not apply here.

But the cities still decided to resist and fight.

Combined with this I also cited the Hieuen Tsang's travleogue - written possibly between 70 and 90 years before the Qasim invasion, which suggested that most Buddhist monasteries and residencies lay in ruins, with common people turning away from them. He also made some enigmatic comments difficult to clearly interpret - which runs like - "saddharma is in decline in these parts, the monks have deviated from the true path, and nilakantha temples have increased in the rural side".

The Buddhists had factions of iconoclasts - at least one case mentioned by Taranath - of incendiarism and vandalims against Buddhist "idols" in Bihar, by a section of radicalized Sindhi Buddhists. The story of Buddhist violence against other religions, against icons and idols, is never ever mentioned in the standard Thaparaite literature. This violence and iconoclasm is seen everywhere else too - in China, in SE Asia - where it is also acknowledged by historians and passed off as "radical fringe". But they are never mentioned in India - because it would problematize the convenient propaganda about all Hindu ruins being a product of mere neglect by Hindus, and all Buddhist ruins as by Hindus and not by Buddhist factions themselves.


More factoids - on a quick note - minting facilities have been discovered within Buddhist premises archeologically.

We need to understand how Buddhism in India might have evolved - right from the beginning - in close collaboration with imperialist needs, as an ideology of and for urban mercantile class, especially those engaged in foreign and long distance trade, and finance capital.

Their ME connections might have made them eager to join or perhaps even produce the basic memes that developed into the Byzantine Chrisitian iconoclastic Paulician strand which in turn went into Islamism - and which the mercantile sectionf o urban Indian buddhists sympathized with.

This could be out of both commercial interests [the same way we have voices of "peace" now who advocate concessions and allowance of ME theologians into India out of the need to have gazillions of investments], as well as the deracination that takes cover under "globalization" or internationalist outlook "rising far above" "narrow parochialism", and often is ashamed of its own roots or distinction from the foreign cultures it hobnobs with out of purely monetary motives. This would loosen their commitment to their own people and land and culture, as well as a mercantile attitude - which monetizes all values and basically reduces high-flown value-systems into conditional and opportunistic contextual application - as the Nirun rich merchant Buddhists did, even after the massacre and rape by Muslims at Deval.

The Hiuen Tsang narrative indicates that the common mass of Indians who resided more in the rural hinterland - were getting disillusioned withe the city cats, who were perhaps onlee looking after their own profits and therefore allowing or patronizing the foreign invaders in their "peaceful pre-jihad" deception phase, and were turning increasingly to indigenous older hitherto marginalized by kings/imperial powers - shaiva and Hindu trends.

Another aspect to be looked into - as in christian monastic reorganization of Europe - Buddhist organized structure too might have specifically sought to reduce warfare knowledge or any knowledge deemed to lead to violence, among the commons. One of these were to either destroy publicly held books/manuscripts/skills or collect them and remove from the public sphere. There are numerous pointers to how the church used this to at one stroke defang the commons capability to resist the state, and selectively allow this knowledge to benefit the aristos. The Buddhist establishment in India might have done this too - given records of how difficult it was to get into the universities, and how closely guarded were the texts that dealt with militancy or weapons-tech.

Either deliberately, or through invasions which could destroy these libraries at one go - the commons were left without the traditional inter-generational passing on of independent militancy and war-readiness.

The other aspect that should be researched is the possibility of Buddhist insistence on and development of the concept of "uttama" and "adhama" karma, associated with violence or non-violence, that might have specifically started the process of profession-based "casteism". The clue lies in the over-connection of medieval or reconstructed late casteism with rebirth and future penalties/rewards in next-life.

Both Jainas and Buddhists indulged in political and other types of violence - on an organized, monastic order basis. Their role in destruction of "Hindu" and each other's structures (often even by one faction against another faction of the same strand) is something to be looked into.

brihaspati garu,

just asking, what is this negative introspection of Buddhist society going to achieve? I can understand that there may be interest in academic circles for such scholarship, but at the popular level, what would be the benefits? Just looking for purpose here!

Why is this in the strategic forum?

I think Bji is going backwards, from the problems created by muslim invasions in india to upto a 1000 yrs before in some deep dark backward CT spiral.

religions tend to outlast or dominate others due to many ebb and wax factors
- royal and nobles patronage , their followers will align
- royal persecution of non-believers
- lack of controls to stop believers from leaving for other faiths - islam owns the patent on that
- no women may marry out - again islam has locked the gate
- no room for re-interpreting or tolerance of divergent schools of thought - the shia sunni battle still rages on...the church has somehow managed to keep the lid on things and diverted people to fight for other causes
- the core area of the faith may also fall on bad times - will hinduism survive if india collapses into a 100 different warlord run states
- material or moral inducement or reward from being a believer - like free food/education via religious trusts and societies
- mental satisfaction and social "fitting in"
- ability to train generation after generation of priests to keep the faith alive and protect places of worship
- ability to seek and lock in new converts
- ability to gather people into armies and mobs to dominate others

jainism - never had a huge population base - kalinga and karnataka-MP belt seem to have been core areas. lost royal patronage, could not gather into a powerful military force or spread the faith. survived by flying below the radar and not being seen as a threat to the bigger religions.

buddhism - lost both royal patronage and its core centers of learning to invasion and war. was not a "distributed redundant system" like hinduism. people deserted enmasse. lack of punishments and controls to stop people leaving. but before dying, managed to spread the seed into fertile foreign lands where it survived and grew. I would say it lucked out by spreading EAST not WEST where the dynamic duo of islam and xtianity would have wiped it off the map just as Zoroasterianism was wiped and chased across the seas to west india. in the new lands it managed to seek and get royal patronage, which shows the new monks there were smart and savvy.

I created this thread for the very purpose of peeling the onion called Buddhism. Not necessarily to blame alone but to let the truth come out.

Many of our current socio-political challenges are influences and introductions of non-Hindu ideologies. By understanding what/who contribute what to current socio-political challenges we will be able to find suitable solutions.

I am glad Bji responded the way I hoped he would

Some random thoughts...

Buddhism came in to being somewhere between 1800-400BC based on whom we trust with Bharatiya history. In order connect with established geopolitical history let us assume circa 400BC is the accurate period.

What was the geopolitical environment in those days? There was no Christianity at that time. But Judaism was in full swing. The Silk Road was in full swing by 230BC.

Before Judaism entire world was under some kind of Dharmic/Pagan system. Every region had its own customs and beliefs and they accepted other's beliefs and customs with equal respect and reverence.

I think the advent of Judaism and Han connection to Silk Road made the Bharatiya Mercantile class to look for a materialistic and proselytizing ideology that they can use to secure markets and Buddhism came in handy in that strategy.

RamaY ji,

but considering that the number of Buddhists in India is very low, the issue is whether this issue has any importance today, especially in a strategic sense!

Are we not fighting the ghosts of long finished wars?

The current challenge today are the West-sponsored Neo-Buddhists among the "Dalits" who want to paint a picture of continuous hostility from the Hindus towards the Buddhists! It is far more relevant to clear up all the historical charges and claims they manufacture day in and day out, i.e. if such an exercise is to be carried out. However overemphasizing a relationship of conflict would not be that helpful there either.

Moreover if we wish to build relationships with the various Buddhist countries in the East, what we don't need is a rancorous environment!

So I consider it a self-goal!

Why is Buddhism being cut-off from Sanatan Dharma through the Dalit Neo-Buddhists activism? In every way it seems like a plot put together by Westerners, Islamists and the Chinese. Westerners want to digest Buddhism as their people have themselves started showing some openness to yoga etc. Islamists want to justify their rampant temple destruction etc. by manufacturing stories that Hindus did the same to Buddhists. China wants to have more sway in the Buddhist countries than India, and as such want to cut the umbilical cord between Sanatan Dharma and Buddhism.

But if Hindus instead of focusing on Islam's role in finishing off Buddhism from the Subcontinent, start shifting the blame to Buddhists, then it screws up the narrative!

Instead of negative history, we should concentrate on positive energy in strategic fields.

Just my thoughts!

I think otherwise RajeshA garu.

Buddhism disappeared from Bharat when truth about its ideological,spiritual and philosophical foundations were made available to public. Even now Truth is the only route for Bharat to regain its preeminence.

There is no success, glory or even truth in gaining preeminence by accepting and adopting every fashionable (meaning craze/power of the day) ideology as foundations of the nation.

Let China, America, KSA etc have whatever foundations they want and gain associated influence. If Bharat, for any reason, want to follow the footsteps of these colonial powers it will end up in major disaster to Bharatiya Civilization. I even doubt India will gain any influence/power by aping other powers. Look at Iran what happened after it turned Islamic (even being Shia). It lost whatever influence it had as a defeated Persian empire.

There is no need to 'invent/manufacture' narratives IMHO. Let truth come out and you will see people responding to truth.

RamaY ji,

I disagree strongly with that assessment. There is Truth and there is Rhetoric. When aligned they are a strong force. Whatever Truth you may want to get at is going to play right into the hands of the West, Islam and China, who will mint Rhetoric from your "Truth", as I mentioned earlier.

I hear a lot about stress on India getting back to expansionism, but whatever strategies and channels one can come up with, the "Truth-loving" Hindus are first to throw soil over it and bury it or blow them up!



What is even the meaning of this? Our civilization is getting hit after hit, and we are talking about the adverse affects of expansionism!!!

The only truth is nakedness! One can go on tearing down one's clothes and egos and end up getting Moksha, but then that is not really a competition against the other nations, is it?

Some of his books have been translated into Telugu as well. He was very popular in parts of gult land. Are there any used book shops in India a la Amazon?

RajeshA garu,

Pls do not get me wrong. The idea is not to denigrate Buddhism or denounce it as some non-Indic faith etc.,

The objective is to understand what happened, how happened and who did what. I am not definitely blaming one single factor for any foreign invasion and colonization. But by understanding the details, again away from Thaparaite secular rhetoric, we can build stronger foundations.

If those new foundations include Buddhist pillars, so be it. But at least we would have them pre-treated in such a way that termite cannot reach them.

MatrimC garu - thanks. I will search for them.

RamaY ji,

it is one thing to look at memes in the Buddhist society before Islam swept the Buddhists away in the Subcontinent, memes that made them weak viz-a-viz Islam. It is however quite another to speak of conflict between Buddhists and the rest of Sanatan Dharmics, especially with Buddhists siding with the Islamics in the past, in order to undermine Brahminism!

What we are telling the Buddhists of the Subcontinent and rest of Asia is that there is some historical enmity between Buddhism and Brahminism aka Sanatan Dharma, and since one cannot clap with one hand, Sanatan Dharmics either wronged the Buddhists for their alleged aversion, or there is some doctrinal conflict between the two, so whichever reason one picks, it is okay for Buddhists to resist Hindus and Sanatan Dharma! More than that you are telling them, it is even okay to align with Islam for doing so!

Now the Hindus can debate the fine points of what happened and how Buddhist society was to blame, but projecting that narrative to the present, this comes out as Buddhists should resist Hindus!

Is that the message we should be sending out? I don't understand the enlightened confidence we are all going to get from that!

^ Whether we send that message or not the old as well neo-buddhists looked/perceived/behaved as if they are in conflict with Hindus.

Coming to their colluding with Islamists or EvanJihadis to hurt Bharatiya interests, that too is happening as we speak.

There is nothing we are teaching the socio-political masters of any ideology, be it Hinduism all the way to communism and atheism.

My objective is to inform the mango-admi of all these ideologies what these ideologies are truly about. I trust the mango-admi to do the right thing.

For Mango-Aadmi ideology comes second. First is always identity, especially "minority" religious identity. So instead of attacking his religious identity, a better way is to warn him how his religious ideology is being abused by vested interests. While doing so it is always helpful to praise the ideology to the sky before requesting caution from vested interests.

However if one starts making systemic claims and criticisms about Buddhism and Buddhist society, then the Mango-Aadmi to whom it may be relevant is simply going to show you the middle finger, because the first impression is that you are hurting his religious sensibilities and after that usually the Mango-Aadmi goes deaf, i.e. unless one starts opening his ears showing street power and intimidation.

^ I understand your intention. But let me ask you a question.

I do not know how many Buddhists are there in Bharat, but there 15%+ Muslims here. Would you suggest the same approach to Islam too. We have to praise Islam, Christianity so we gain trust of Indian Muslims and Christians and then tell them how they are being abused by vested interests? Did that strategy work before?

MKG tried it. Where did it take him, partition riots?

RamaY ji,

there is of course some structural difference between Islam and Buddhism. Don't you agree?

What I do know is that Britannia has been kissing Islamic ar$e for a long time and they have good relations with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other countries, who have helped Britain keep some semblance of global influence. That they later imported the orcs is a different thing! In fact the West often keeps on saying nice things about Islam and its Prophet, and then telling Muslims to not be taken in by the vitriolic.

With Islam I have been advocating a different approach, and I have written a bit on that here.

Yes MKG tried it and it didn't help simply because Islamics are not going get into bed with races they think they deserve to rule over! Ashrafs are as racist as they come, so it was going to work anyway! MKG just didn't really do his Purva-Paksha well. But I guess his primary objective was Swatantrata and he did not know how else to go about it!

But the issue to ponder over is:

Islam is a foreign import into India, while Buddhism is an export from India to foreign lands! So should we be drawing parallels!

Agree with what you say.

We are trying to study and understand Buddhism from multiple perspectives. I will list out positive objectives only.

1. How buddhism can help improve the socio-political cohesion between Bharatiyas.
2. How buddhism can help facilitate Bharatiya interests outside the core territory

Do you think current wave of Buddhism can achieve any one of these? If yes, how? Please elaborate.

I have a third objective in my yindu-narrowmind. That is
3. How to educate Dhimmi Bharatiyas on contributions of various non-Hindu schools of thoughts and separate all those social-varnas from Hindu blame list?

RamaY ji,

What Buddhism achieved in the world is an investment made by Bhartiyas outside India. The time is coming when our savings account would be dissolved and we can get our return on the investment.

We can consider Buddhist Asia as a house that our grand-uncle built and we are next in line to inherit it. But we can only inherit it if we show we loved our grand-uncle.

The foreign-sponsored Neo-Buddhist Movements in India has many purposes, an important one of which is that we cannot monetize this investment, inherit the house by showing Hindus as enemies of Buddhists!

We don't want that!

I seriously doubt if there is any Buddhist 'investment' that is meant to be and can be reaped to begin with RajeshA garu.

Buddhism has two aspects. The spiritual structure and the socio-political ideology.

1/ What we exported was the spiritual Buddhism. There was no socio-political export that is available to reap benefit from. That is why none of the Buddhist nations find any socio-political affiliation with Bharat and were able to form independent national policies. The spiritual structure that exported in the name of Buddhism is adulterated version of SD. That is why Bharat proper did not feel any loss when it got rid of Buddhism. Please note that entire societies and regions were converted to Buddhism before they reverted back to Hinduism, for they realized there is no spiritual value in that system for the socio-political price it demanded. This experimentation however hurt Bharatiya interests immensely for it weakened the system to the core and left its traces all over even after the society reverted back to Hinduism.

2/ What we internally have is the socio-political Buddhism. Internally Buddhism cannot be an unifying factor due to it history, prejudices etc., Even after presenting and projecting (even if we assume with ulterior motive) Buddha as 9th Avatara of Hinduism, current Dalit-Buddhist movement doesn't see itself as part of overall Hindu structure or want it to be that way. For crying out loud, these Dalit-Buddhist leadership cry that Hindu Grama-Devatas are a Brahminic ploy to somehow insult them. The Dalit-Buddhist identity is nothing but a EJ ploy to segregate and separate Dalit-Hindu sections who are wary of Abrahamic memes by giving them a Buddhist socio-political identity.

Buddhist proselytism at the time of king Asoka (260-218 BCE), according to his Edicts. Why did the westward expansion fail, but not Eastward expansions?


Answer: Because Abrahamic ideologies failed to move past Bharat.

There are theological differences between Buddhism and SD. However, Buddhism is a product of Indic thought that has spread to different parts of the world. We should feel proud that someone like Buddha was born in our civilization. It is irrelevant to discuss what happened in Sindh 1500 yrs ago. Yes, Buddhism as practiced in certain parts had deficiencies which is why it got wiped out. As this discussion is in the strategic forum the focus should be on how to promote unity amount dharmic religions instead of creating more divisions.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom





Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism

To all who are upset at my assessment of evolution of Buddhism as well as strategic relevance of this discussion for the present:

(1) Singha ji : I actually referred to the century before the "Islamic invasions" in particular with the Sindh case. The inferences I drew were from the same standard source material as is used to whitewash the record otherwise : Chachnama/Kalichbeg(version 2), Hieuen Tsang's travels (the most extensive French trans.), Taranath - who would be the latest from the non-persian narrative side and coinciding with the high point of Islamic "invasion" into the GV.

(2) Further I am drawing from a comparative study of the Buddhist violent moves and in connection with imperialism too - in China and SE Asia, way before Islamic "invasions".

(3) The relevance for current strategic scenario is that

(a) Apart from Islamism, other strands also contributed to the stuff that is attributed to "Hindus" for bashing purposes. Hindus should recognize what is extraneous and layers of "outside" influence and not continue those stuff - profession realted "dirtiness/penalty-for-next-life/superior-birthdue-to past-life-good == special ruling rights by default" etc. Simulatneously - those who might have actually contributed to this shenanigan througjh the uttama/adhama karma thing, should not be basking in the glory and pretend to be an alternative.

Its about taking back what is ours and not accepting labels that are not we.

(b) Buddhism alone is not immunity against foreign collaboration with hostile forces and foreign imperialism. Myanmar, or SL, should be studies in the art. This is important for Indian strategists to remember.

(c) The historical context was drawn upon to show the common issues that might lead a "neo-Buddhist", even many ideological streams like that of the Indian Maoists/communists to violence and collaboration with foreign imperialist forces : and the mediation is finance and foreign trade/investments.

I am not diminishing any way what the Islamics did : but we should also recognize how the self-proclaimed "alternatives to Hinduism" actually worked out or if likely - contributed to the eventual success of the Islamic genocide/destruction meme in India.

No doubt about Bharat should be proud to have a son like Buddha, who is self-realized. After all Bharatamata had millions of such great, enlightened and God-realized individuals. The question is should the Mother be thankful to the son for being born to her or the son should be thankful for giving birth to him. This is even more important when the mother has given birth to millions of even more enlightened souls than Buddha, the younger child.

The key thing for Modern Bharatiyas to ponder is whether they should follow a more truthful, liberating, socially and environmentally self-sustaining elder brother Hindu or a suckling, half-knowledged and socially and environmentally non self-sustaining Buddha? Both are our brothers and we are proud of them.

Why look at some misguided neo-Buddhists and not look at the Dalai Lama. If India is to be the center of dharma you cannot ignore Buddhism. Without Buddhism, dharma will be relegated only to geographical India, attacked from all sides as it will be an island in an ocean of abrahamic faiths. There are close to 1.5-1.8 billion people living in Buddhist lands. China will be the key to Buddhism regaining its posture as one of the dominant religions in the world. If China is unable to come back to its Confucio-Buddhist roots it will never be a world leader inspite of whatever material progress they make as they will have no ideology to give to the world specially after the failure of Communism. Foundations of dharma is a powerful geo-strategic tool which needs to be harnessed. There can be fair competition within dharma as basically SD and B are nothing but different schools.

Actually this thread is started for that very purpose; NOT to ignore Buddhism but to learn from the past to make a better future. Bharatiya future definitely includes Buddhism, but at its specific place for the benefit of Bharat and behaves exactly how Bharat needs it to be. In other words Buddhism as Bharat's weapon (This is exactly what RajeshA ji wants to do).

Before we can use Buddhism as an effective weapon to further Bharatiya/Dharmic interests, we must understand the weapon's support structures, capabilities, limitations, side-effects and so on. Using a powerful weapon such as Buddhist ideology without proper understanding will be perilous to Bharatiya astitva.

For any Bharatiya ideology to be effective outside Bharat, that ideology must have necessary and sufficient support base in Bharatiya core; which is Hindu/SD. Hindu/SD is the soldier/system that is going wield Buddhism to influence and help peripheral territories. I seriously doubt if the core is strong enough to wield a heavy weapon like Buddhism at this point.

Bharatiya core has been weakened since 1947. If JLN with all the influence, power, majority, soft-power and visibility he had couldn't use Dalailama as a weapon in 1962, the current Bharat with all the termite in the society cannot do much. The need of the hour is to strengthen the core.

I will give a modern analogy. India has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver these weapons all over china. India also has a million strong army which is 100% loyal to the civilian govt. We have had the +ve economic growth for nearly two decades. Yet India couldn't stop China/Maldives/Pakistan/ Srilanka/Nepal from not only hurting it's interests but also create geopolitical humiliation. The main reason for this failure is not in the weapon, but in the soldier, that is Bharatiya political system.

**
I think your China example is a contradiction.

For China - They attribute all their current success story to communist political system. This system got them hold over Tibet, got them unparalleled economic growth and even a possible superpower dream. At this point China is immersed in this opium called material success. For this China to see the value in the spiritual support system like Budhism, they need a shock-treatment. It need not be complete destruction of their economic power but a subtle shock to their national psyche. I do not know what it is but without that shock moment, China will not find the need for Buddhist spiritual support. Yes it can try to use Buddhism to further its geopolitical goals but I seriously doubt other Buddhist nations fall for it. Reason is that the buddhism Bharat exported to them is not a socio-political tool but a spiritual structure.

The contradiction lies in the fact that Buddhism's spiritual structure itself built over a Charvaka-worldview. Charvaka system itself is a materialistic world view and not sustainable. And for us to want to use Buddhism as a spiritual path for internal society would be suicidal.

I think here you're mistaken!

What does the West have in common? What does all the Islamic countries have in common? They all have the civilizational glue, and what they have learned is that the victory of one country belonging to their civilization over one of some other civilization is a benefit for their whole civilization.

We have not learned these lessons! In fact at some time we knew these lessons but have forgotten them - Sabhyata over everything else!

We may have exported spiritual Buddhism but where ever Buddhism took root it established its own sociopolitical structure there with its own cultural nuances. Often Buddhism was the official religion in these countries, stretching from Myanmar all the way to Japan.

It is fully okay for each nation to have its own Buddhism variant with nuances. It is fully okay for them to be independent of Bharat.

There is no compulsion on each and every Buddhist nation to receive its political directives from Magadh. What is important is that all see themselves as connected, belonging to the same civilization, that they prosper together and come to the aid of others, when other civilizations wish to prey upon them.

Only the Chinese model requires a single political center. Islam is based upon fragmented political actors but a single political ideology. West is based upon hidden white supremacism, and thus interests of a single race led by the strongest among them. West too allows multiple nations within it.

What the others expect of Bharat is not political domination of the others but spiritual and ethical leadership and civilizational defense! This has not been forthcoming from Bharat for over a thousand years now, and many have thus left the civilizational umbrella and looked elsewhere like Indonesia and Malaysia.

But an Indian would still receive respect everywhere where Buddhism has left an imprint and where the Western narrative has not buried it.

From Mongolia to Myamar people look towards Bharat and are disgusted to see their "mother civilization" totally deprived of it!



I think it is wrong to see it this way. Bharatiya Sanskriti is a knowledge tree and it would naturally grow with different sampradayas and philosophies emerging from what there is before. Why should something be static? The search for Truth cannot be seen as completed!

As long Dharma, especially Raj Dharma is taken care of, any Dharmic Sampradayik evolution is acceptable or replaceable.



It did not really matter which mata मत really had the upper hand in some Indian kingdom as long as the king looked at it from PoV of Raj Dharma, equal treatment of all, equal protection to all and was aggressive about defense. If the King did not act accordingly then he was useless.

The system became weak because of religious identity politics and mercantile interests, but it did not necessarily have to do with Buddhism.

Pitting Buddhism against Hinduism makes zero strategic sense, even from the point of view of historical analysis and revisionism.



So if Dalit Neo-Buddhists do not see themselves as part of overall Hindu structure, isn't it better to do something about it and change it. Why this reflexive urge to break ranks with the other! This is the same reflexive response as with not wishing to doing Shuddhi of others because of their "betrayal", or not accepting women back into the fold who have lost their "honor". This is rubbish! If they are some Neo-Buddhists who follow Western directives, then all the better to smuggle in some of our own who fall upon those who seek conflict with Hindus and who are willing to rip apart this mischief-makers. This is a turf of competition, so our impulse should not be one of walking away from it.

If India has to "weaponize" Buddhism for power projection, then the rudiments and foundations required for that within India have already been laid. They need to be properly oriented and nourished. But currently, the Ambedkarite Buddhist movement has been hijacked and made into an anti-Hindu Periyarist nonsense. That needs a course-correction. The empowerment of the vast dalit masses is a good thing not only from the PoV of the rise of a very large segment of the population that will now fight to protect its new-found empowerment (fight with internal AND external enemies), but also in terms of power-projection in future.

THE BUDDHA AND HIS DHAMMA - by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Ambedkar and Buddhism - by Sangharakshita

I couldn't agree more with RajeshA ji.

Correcting the problem means correcting the political leaders of Buddhist as well as correcting the still-rampant casteist nonsense that pervades Hinduism. It is a fact that grama-devatas are used by caste clans to manipulate and accumulate wealth or power. I personally know such caste brahmins - drinking buddies in college hostel - who would brag about it over a peg of Old Monk. Isn't this nonsense that needs to be rooted out? Even these buddies of mine admitted it does. So, the reform and reorientation has to be mutual - not one-sided.

Secondly, I think we do need to draw a distinction between Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana Buddhisms, as well as a neo-Buddhism that can draw on all three. This may be significant not only from the theoretical PoV but also in discussing the negative role played by Buddhists in facilitating Islamist invaders, etc.

This is now spinning into a social/religious debate that is already done on other threads.

Casteism - etc, in "current Hindus" should be discussed elsewhere. My point was about possible Buddhist contribution to the original development of "casteism". Linking actual profession or "karma" with rebirth and penalties/rewards in a future birth - smacks too heavily of Buddhist memes, and intensification of marginal strands within the Vedic and post-Vedic that were made into a central issue by the Buddhist infrastructure.

Whether there is a huge difference between Hinayan, Mahayana, etc - is irrelevant for the strategic viewpoint. The core question reduces to - what exactly in any variant of currently existing Buddhism anywhere, stands against Islamics, or "west" or communist China? From that point, the finer points of doctrinal interpretations about the nature of the soul and mahadhamma and means of moksha, are as valuable (or as valueless) as how twelver Shias differ from non-twelvers, and how Shias differ in the claim to spiritual empire by descent from the Sunnis, or how the 4/6 different schools within the Sunni differ on whether the sweat is haraam or not, or how the over 100 sects of protestant Christianity differ on the Sabbath from Catholics.

The two independent seats of Buddhism we can test this on - are Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Both have had no compunction in kissing all three forces mentioned above and mortally hostile to the idea of India, and some of them to the very idea of a "Hindu" India.