I'm wondering if Hiromasa even wanted the baton. I've not seen much of him, but it feels like he is doing it because Dad expected him to. Maybe I'm way offbase. Of course, there is the huge monetary incentive.

The image that sixtyseven posted of the 3 leaders---Toda was a businessman, can we say first and foremost? He certainly started the SGI $$$ motor revving with all the shakabuku fervor. But in the Human Revolution's earlier installments, the intolerance and drive to mow down doubt and opposing beliefs from others came through clearly.

Yup, that's where the NMRK is!

I haven't been to the FNCC in a long time, but it's easy to picture conferences turning into big ol' IkedaFests. Non-stop praise for the One. Sensei, Sensei, Sensei!

I'll bring up again another point---we do have mentors in life, people who teach us what we need to know to elevate our lives. Mentors are wonderful! But do we continously bow down and slave to them, "talk incessantly of them"?

Quote
Shavoy
I'll bring up again another point---we do have mentors in life, people who teach us what we need to know to elevate our lives. Mentors are wonderful! But do we continously bow down and slave to them, "talk incessantly of them"?

Some do, to be sure. But this is *not* a Buddhist attitude! Remember - the Four Noble Truths include "Attachments cause suffering." To allow ourselves to become so *attached* to a fellow common mortal is unhealthy AND will inevitably bring us suffering, to say nothing of making it impossible for us to experience enlightenment.

There is no person who can "save" you - that will come (or not) due to your own efforts (or lack thereof). The Buddha was quite clear on that:

No one can save you but yourself.
No one can, and no one may.
Each one alone must walk the path,
But Buddhas clearly point the way.

That's from the Pali canon. Anyhow, the whole idea that "a blue-tick fly can travel thousands of miles if he clings to the tail of a horse" or whatever (from the Gosho) makes it sound as if you need someone else to do your heavy lifting for you. That is not Buddhism. Buddhism acknowledges each person's individual path (which no one else can know). Just as there is no "one size fits all" chair or belt, there is no "one size fits all" mentor. Also, REAL discipleship involves people, on their own initiative and of their own volition, seeking out the person they wish to learn from. This can't be dictated; it can't be pushed; and each person must be free to choose for himself. THIS is the way of master and disciple! Yes - I said it! MASTER!!! HAHAHAHAHA!! Why couch the real word in namby pamby weasel wording like "mentor"? So what if, in our culture, "master" is associated with slavery?? IT IS WHAT IT IS!!

In the Christian scriptures, the Gospels describe Jesus walking around, begging and commanding people to follow him. This proves he was no teacher. A real teacher teaches and waits for the disciples to choose HIM. The cult of personality that Daisaku Ikeda has built around him should not be excused as something legitimately valuable or inherently beneficial to anyone but Daisaku Ikeda.

This is probably an unpopular thing to say, but I recommend the old TV series "Kung Fu", with actor David Carradine, as an introduction to Buddhism. I was skeptical, when I revisited as an adult, as a BUDDHIST adult, the series I'd loved as a young teen, but I was thrilled to see that they got the Buddhism right. Rent it or stream it if you can - you'll love it!

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TaitenAndProud

Quote

I might if I knew nothing of the history and prophetic nature of the Mahayana Mahaparanirvana Sutra which was composed 800 years before the Muslims and Rajputs slaughtered 20,000,000 pacifistic Buddhists in India. Nichijew

Oddly, I can't find any references to the massacre(s) to which you refer.

Given that the Nirvana Sutra (that's what that big long name is referring to) was written no earlier than the 2nd Century CE, you must be talking about ca. 900 or 1000 CE. I cannot find any evidence of what you mention - the sources I have found cite the hostility of the Hindu priestly caste, the Brahmans, as the cause of the decline of Buddhism in India. In India, most Buddhists practiced from within monasteries during this time. Please link me to a source so that I can educate myself on this horrific massacre, which pretty much rivals the results of Stalin's purges during the last century. Strange that I've never heard of this. Please straighten me out.

Also, can you guarantee that, if, in Japan, the government had complied with Nichiren's demand to institute fascism and make him and his preferred religion the only game in town, that this would have changed the situation of the pacifist Buddhists in India, or would have changed Japan's course of development into the modern, mostly atheist, most societally healthy world superpower it is today?

Interestingly, I have found sources claiming that there has been a recent resurgence of Buddhist belief within India, partly due to the influence of the Dalai Lama, about whom you apparently have nothing nice to say, since, as you claim, he was born with "a platinum spoon in his mouth." How 'bout that?

Finally, the story about Shakyamuni Buddha's own clan, the Shakyas, is that they embraced his pacifist teachings to the point that, when they were attacked by rival clans, the Shakyas were *completely* wiped out. Was that wrong of them? Even if they had fought back, they would have ended up dead in the end. "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

How does it advance the causes of peace and nonviolence to execute everyone who doesn't agree with you?

[www.ambedkar.org]

[en.wikipedia.org]

If 80,000,000 or even 40,000,000 Hindus were killed by the Muslims, how many non-violent Buddhists were killed? Let us not let our cynicism and dislike of the Soka Gakkai cloud our critical thinking. You didn't search very hard. I got these two articles in less than 5 minutes. At least 20,00.000 Buddhists were killed from between the 11th to the 14th century by the Muslims and perhaps an equal amount by the Hindu Rajputs [warriors].

Nichijew

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TaitenAndProud
Back to that passage from the Nirvana Sutra about how King Virtuous was rewarded for virtuously killing a dozen Taoist priests by being reborn as Shakyamuni Buddha... Considering that the definitive text for Daoism, the Dao-De-Ching, wasn't written until the late 4th Century BCE, that means that, when Taoism started, the Buddha had already been dead for decades, if not a century (according to the traditional dating). So that means that...King Virtuous...was rewarded...FOR KILLING OTHER PEOPLE...by being born as someone who was already dead! Makes *perfect* sense!

When I was still an SGI member, one of my favorite stories was about how King Ashoka, after killing so many people in wars, was so distraught etc. that he broke out in painful boils. Shakyamuni Buddha went to visit him, had compassion for him, and entered into a "moon-loving meditation", and a brilliant moonbeam burst forth from his forehead (or something), illuminating King Ashoka, who was in that instant healed of his boils. Only problem is, King Ashoka wasn't even born until a good 200 years after the Buddha had died!

I was rather shocked and disappointed when I learned about the mismatches between people and centuries, but now that I know a lot more about religions and how they will typically write in important people or rival religious leaders as subordinate (and even grateful!) to their own central figure, it makes perfect sense. For example, in the Christian scriptures, we find the Gospels telling about how John the Baptist, who had his own religious movement and his own disciples, was so in awe of Jesus that he basically started acting as his cheerleader. Yet he never sought to become his disciple, never sent his own disciples on over to the Jesus camp. Deuced odd! The sect that holds John the Baptist as its central figure, the Mandaeans, still survives to this day, in Iraq. It is a small sect, but its survival is striking, considering that it was never so fortunate as to secure government endorsement.

King Ashoka came before Buddhism - it is from Ashoka's edicts that we see the first expression of humanistic ideals that we will later refer to as "The Enlightenment." I refer to this as the "Early Enlightenment." Ashoka's influence spread all the way through the Mid-East, through the Mediterranean; King Menander of Greece was affiliated with him, for example. It was this precedent of humanism that became the earliest expression of Buddhism; all that intolerant stuff came into the picture later. As is usual with religions, their founding myths are written into the distant enough past to be separated from potential converts. No way to check the details, you see! How convenient! And of course their origin had to be shrouded in antiquity, so as to lend the veneer of age and respectability to the doctrines and tenets.

That was King Ajatashatru, a contemporary of Shakyamuni Buddha, not Ashoka, who broke out in boils.

Nichijew



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2013 01:01PM by Nichijew.

"That was King Ajatashatru, a contemporary of Shakyamuni Buddha, not Ashoka, who broke out in boils." - Nichijew

It was in an SGI meeting that I was told that King Ashoka was the one who converted to Buddhism as the result of the Buddha's "moon-loving meditation", and that, as an expression of his gratitude, he hired an army of scribes to write down all the Buddha's teachings and sent emissaries to the West. I believed it as told, and you can believe me or not, as you choose. It wouldn't be the first time I gathered misinformation from an SGI meeting, but that's neither here nor there. Mea culpa for not checking the sources myself, naturally. I believe we've got a syncretism between King Ajatashatru (who is also known as King Ashokachandra) and King Ashoka of the rock edicts:

Quote

which earned him the name of "çanḍa Ashoka" or "Chandaashoka," meaning "Ashoka the Fierce" in Sanskrit. Professor Charles Drekmeier cautions that the Buddhist legends intend to dramatize the change resulting from the Buddhist change, and therefore, exaggerate Ashoka's past wickedness and his piousness after the conversion. [en.wikipedia.org]

In the story of King Ajatashatru as well, we see the same theme - evil wicked horrible king becomes pure and wonderful because he embraces Buddhism. King Ashoka's father, BTW, is supposedly Bindusara (which is virtually identical to Bimbasara). It is due to King Ashoka, supposedly, that there were Buddhist missionaries in the Mediterranean as early as 250 BCE, and he is ultimately credited with converting Greek King Menander to Buddhism. However, I believe that Ashoka was the source and that he propagated his enlightened, magnanimous, tolerant views via his political clout.

If you wish to say, "It's just a story," then we have no argument. But if you want to claim historical veracity, we have a problem. The dates simply don't line up, regardless of whether you want to consider Ashokachandra or Chandaashoka.

It is commonplace for those within a religion to co-opt a famous person for their own religion - the Hindus hold that the Buddha is just another avatar of Vishnu, after all. The Christian Gospels describe John the Baptist, who had his own movement (which exists to this day) as nothing but a sniveling cheerleader for Jesus.

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The time of Gautama's birth and death is uncertain: most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE. However, at a specialist symposium on this question held in 1988 in Göttingen, the majority of those scholars who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all other historians. [en.wikipedia.org]

As you can see, the early historians' estimate of the Buddha's death line up with King Ajatashatru's reign (as accepted by early historians - 491-463 BCE). And the later ones do not - the Buddha did not start preaching until he was 40 years old or so, so doing the math shows that, with a death of 20 years either side of 400 BCE, he's too late for Ajatashatru's reign. Regardless, there is *no evidence* that the Buddha even existed in this time frame - or any other - up until the Pali Canon was written in 29 BCE. The legend that the Buddha's followers all got together in groups and wrote down what they remembered having heard and compared versions and whatnot - pure fancy.

The rock edicts of Ashoka are the *earliest* preserved historical texts in India. The EARLIEST. The problem we've got is of assuming that King Ashoka converted to Buddhism FIRST and thinking that King Ashoka's enlightened edicts did *not* precede Buddhism (or even form the basis for Buddhism). There is no evidence that Buddhism came first. We've got this elaborate origins mythology, with no evidence of any kind to anchor it in reality.

Thank you for your comments; I will address the rest tomorrow - promise!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2013 03:29PM by TaitenAndProud.

The view numbers on this one thread are very high.

Those who want to can plug into Alexa.com, look for Rickross.com and see how much if any view traffic is coming in from Japan.

Corboy

Quote
Shavoy
I'm wondering if Hiromasa even wanted the baton. I've not seen much of him, but it feels like he is doing it because Dad expected him to. Maybe I'm way offbase. Of course, there is the huge monetary incentive.

The image that sixtyseven posted of the 3 leaders---Toda was a businessman, can we say first and foremost? He certainly started the SGI $$$ motor revving with all the shakabuku fervor. But in the Human Revolution's earlier installments, the intolerance and drive to mow down doubt and opposing beliefs from others came through clearly.

Yup, that's where the NMRK is!

I haven't been to the FNCC in a long time, but it's easy to picture conferences turning into big ol' IkedaFests. Non-stop praise for the One. Sensei, Sensei, Sensei!

I'll bring up again another point---we do have mentors in life, people who teach us what we need to know to elevate our lives. Mentors are wonderful! But do we continously bow down and slave to them, "talk incessantly of them"?

Mentors do not command protection.

I don't know if anyone is interested, but I've been interacting with some True Believers here: Their Main Page

What caught my eye was "the study of texts and other primary sources" - no surprises there :)

So I attempted to make a reply to this topic: First Topic

It's a moderated forum, but I was rather *shocked* when they took my reply and made it the opening post on a brand-new topic: WTF??

Separating a reply from what it is replying to is always a questionable move, as it often appears to be for the sole purpose of rendering the reply incomprehensible. I think, though, I incorporated enough of the source material so that it is clear what I'm talking about.

Even though they don't claim to be SGI, they're wild-eyed fanatics! Similar to what I've seen here, they insist that it would be better for everyone if certain ideas and even entire religions were to be censored. I keep asking, "WHO DECIDES??" No one will answer! The straw men are flying! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

This is standard intolerant behavior - they feel THEY should be empowered to decide for everyone, and to force everyone else to knuckle under, for their own good, of course. It's egregious and horrible - censorship, restrictions on everyone's freedoms, thought crimes... And for what? Because some barbaric and power-hungry priest in feudal Japan wanted everyone else's heads cut off?? That was over 700 years ago! WHY should that sort of person (or, rather, a modern devotee's interpretation) be authorized to drive the rest of us around like little cars? Why should we rely on any ancient person to tell us how to live in situations that he couldn't possibly envision or even imagine, when this much is clear from his teachings? What is this weird obsession with "something old"??

But they won't be honest and admit to what they'd like to do, be the ones censoring and restricting and coercing everyone else. That's unpopular to say. Far better to just say, "There are some ideas that are just bad and even harmful. If we disagree on that, that is the end of the discussion. Clearly, I do not think that restraining bad and harmful ideas is a bad thing." and "Bad ideas ought not spread." So who decides what's a "bad idea"??? Hmmm....? Oh, yeah - YOU O_O

Forgive me for my lack of enthusiasm for your proposal.

I'm not going to be able to continue over there - for the quality of posts I'm committed to, the time involved is simply overwhelming. And they're dogpiling on, and the level of accusation - I'm supposedly "ejaculating all over their butsudans" NO I AM NOT KIDDING SOMEBODY ACTUALLY SAID THAT!!!! - demonstrates that there really is no interest in considering that perhaps intolerance is a really bad thing, with all the rest of the connections such an acknowledgment would entail.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2013 03:47PM by TaitenAndProud.

Hi, Nichijew. I owe you a response; no, I didn't forget about you! My daughter had a sleepover last night - there was much wackiness.

Quote

[www.ambedkar.org]

[en.wikipedia.org]

If 80,000,000 or even 40,000,000 Hindus were killed by the Muslims, how many non-violent Buddhists were killed? Let us not let our cynicism and dislike of the Soka Gakkai cloud our critical thinking. You didn't search very hard. I got these two articles in less than 5 minutes. At least 20,00.000 Buddhists were killed from between the 11th to the 14th century by the Muslims and perhaps an equal amount by the Hindu Rajputs [warriors]. - Nichijew

Okay, first of all, your first source is an incoherent mess. The author, an Indian activist, describes erotic art as "obscene art", making himself sound like a prissy dilettante. He cites this art form as "evidence" of the cultural inferiority of the Hindus.

Quote

The Rajputs were great builders of temples, for the benefit of Brahmins. Though many are destroyed by Muslims, some are still surviving to show the skill, money and labour spent on creation of them. Unfortunately the later Rajput creations of art are the preservations of sexual obscenity.

"... The art critics divide the evolution of temple architecture in the Rajput period into two parts, The first part covered the period from 600 to 900 A.D. During the first period, there was a regular progress in the abundance of ornamentation in temple architecture. The originality of the ancient times was lost and the artisans relied on volume to give an expression of grandeur. Their tastes degenerated and we come across obscene figures. That was probably due to the influence of Tantrism on Hinduism. It has rightly been said that there is no beauty of original art in the architectural monuments of the age." [Mahajan, p. 559] [www.ambedkar.org]

Dude's got an ax to grind; that article is a polemic, not a documentary. As an opponent of the caste system, he paints Hinduism in an entirely negative light as an expression of his disdain and contempt for that belief system. Now on to your second source, which I'm afraid is far less supportive of your claims than you apparently realize:

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Considerable controversy exists both in scholarly and public opinion about the conversions to Islam typically represented by the following schools of thought:[1]

- That the bulk of Muslims are descendants of migrants from the Iranian plateau or Arabs.[2]
- Conversion was a result of the actions of Sufi saints and involved a genuine change of heart[1]
- Conversion came from Buddhists and the en masse conversions of lower castes for social liberation and as a rejection of oppressive existent Hindu caste structures.[2]
- Was a combination, initially made under duress followed by a genuine change of heart[1]
- As a socio-cultural process of diffusion and integration over an extended period of time into the sphere of the dominant Muslim civilisation and global polity at large.[2]
- That Muslims sought conversion through jihad or political violence[1]
- A related view is that conversions occurred for non-religious reasons of pragmatism and patronage such as social mobility among the Muslim ruling elite or for relief from taxes[1][2]

An estimate of the number of people killed, based on the Muslim chronicles and demographic calculations, was done by K.S. Lal in his book Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, who claimed that between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, the population of Hindus decreased by 80 million. His work has come under criticism by historians such as Simon Digby (School of Oriental and African Studies) and Irfan Habib for its agenda and lack of accurate data in pre-census times. Western Historians such as Will Durant contend that Islam spread through violence.[3][4] Sir Jadunath Sarkar contends that that several Muslim invaders were waging a systematic jihad against Hindus in India to the effect that "Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects."[5]

Notice that "massacre in cold blood" was *NOT* used.

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In particular the records kept by al-Utbi, Mahmud al-Ghazni's secretary, in the Tarikh-i-Yamini document several episodes of bloody military campaigns.[[b]citation needed[/b]]

^ Means "take with a grain of salt until someone provides a reliable source.

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Hindus who converted to Islam however were not completely immune to persecution due to the Caste system among South Asian Muslims in India established by Ziauddin al-Barani in the Fatawa-i Jahandari.,[6] where they were regarded as an "Ajlaf" caste and subjected to discrimination by the "Ashraf" castes[7]

Critics of the "Religion of the sword theory" point to the presence of the strong Muslim communities found in Southern India, modern day Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and western Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines coupled with the distinctive lack of equivalent Muslim communities around the heartland of historical Muslim empires in South Asia as refutation to the "conversion by the sword theory".[2] The legacy of Muslim conquest of South Asia is a hotly debated issue even today. Not all Muslim invaders were simply raiders. Later rulers fought on to win kingdoms and stayed to create new ruling dynasties. The practices of these new rulers and their subsequent heirs (some of whom were borne of Hindu wives of Muslim rulers) varied considerably. While some were uniformly hated, others developed a popular following. According to the memoirs of Ibn Battuta who traveled through Delhi in the 14th century, one of the previous sultans had been especially brutal and was deeply hated by Delhi's population. His memoirs also indicate that Muslims from the Arab world, Persia and Turkey were often favored with important posts at the royal courts suggesting that locals may have played a somewhat subordinate role in the Delhi administration. The term "Turk" was commonly used to refer to their higher social status.[citation needed] However S.A.A. Rizvi[8] points to Muhammad bin Tughlaq as not only encouraging locals but promoting artisan groups such as cooks, barbers and gardeners to high administrative posts. In his reign, it is likely that conversions to Islam took place as a means of seeking greater social mobility and improved social standing. [en.wikipedia.org]

Two key pieces of information about early Islam:

1) Islam spread farther in 100 years than Christianity managed to in 1,000 years.

2) Islam spawned the Islamic Golden Age, aka the Islamic Renaissance, that protected, fostered, and encouraged research and discovery into virtually every known area of human endeavor. The advances of the Islamic Renaissance continue to inform virtually every sphere of the arts, music, business, architecture, chemistry, medicine, literature, philosophy - the list is almost endless: [en.wikipedia.org]

With regard to point #1, there is simply no way that Islam could have spread that far "by the point of a sword" - the Muslims would have been spread far too thin. The only reasonable explanation is that the Muslims were *welcomed* in these areas, and given the subsequent devotion to learning and value of scholarship that was at the heart of Islam at that point ("The ink of the scholar is more valuable than the blood of the martyr" - Qur'an) compared with Christianity's consistent destruction of anything and everything non-Christian, this is plausible. The Muslims appeared as "white knights" to save the people and their culture from the devastation of Christianity.

Lest you think I'm being a big fat meanie about Christianity, notice that *everything* regressed in the areas under Christian control. The arts basically disappeared and had to be re-discovered from scratch - this is the best Christian artists could do by the 9th Century CE: [www.winifred.cichon.com] Now, we'd consider that admirable - for a 3rd grader. The great masters and schools all *disappeared* - this was the gift of Christianity to the world, the extinguishing of light and learning, the Dark Ages. For a pictorial timeline, see [historyhuntersinternational.org]

But in the MUSLIM-controlled territories, art and culture were flourishing! This is something that few people seem willing to acknowledge due to anti-Islamic bigotry, and we do not need to pander to that here. It shouldn't be OUR problem. And let's not lower ourselves and the level of our discourse to the point of claiming that the ONLY reason anyone would convert to Islam is because Muslims threatened to kill him if he didn't. Islam is enormously appealing to people - that is why it is so commonplace in our world. Likewise, Amida Buddhism (aka Shin, aka Nembutsu, aka Jodo Shinshu) is likewise enormously appealing. It would be far more profitable and fruitful to investigate what it is about human nature that finds satisfaction and fulfillment in these belief systems than simply insisting that the government should wipe them out because "I don't like them."

So, Nichijew, it appears that you wish us to "imagine" that Buddhists were massacred:

Quote

If 80,000,000 or even 40,000,000 Hindus were killed by the Muslims, how many non-violent Buddhists were killed?

I don't know, and you haven't told us!

Quote

Let us not let our cynicism and dislike of the Soka Gakkai cloud our critical thinking. You didn't search very hard. I got these two articles in less than 5 minutes. At least 20,00.000 Buddhists were killed from between the 11th to the 14th century by the Muslims and perhaps an equal amount by the Hindu Rajputs [warriors]. - Nichijew

First of all, what sort of number is "20,00.000"??

Neither source you supplied supported your claims of the numbers of Buddhists supposedly slaughtered. Now HERE is a source for you:

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The document(1) here translated is the preface to a `poetical inscription' on a stuupa erected in memory of the Indian priest Dhyaanabhadra, also called `Suunyaadi'sya, at the Korean temple Kuei-yen Ssuu (Juniper Rock temple). It was composed in the summer of 1378(2) by a certain Li Se who, previous to the fall of the Mongols in 1368, had been Secretary to the Mongol Administration of Manehuria and Korea.

The work is interesting for several reasons. To begin with, it shows that Buddhism survived in India Proper at the beginning of the 14th century to an extent far greater than has hitherto been suspected.

Note: This would have been *AFTER* they'd all been supposedly wiped out in the massacres you claim.

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To find Buddhism at such a date in Bengal is indeed no surprise. But in Dhyaanabhadra's narrative we find it also at Kaa~ncipura (Madras Presidency), in the Chola Kingdom (Coromandel coast) and at Jaalandhara (Punjab).

Our narrative is interesting in the second place because of the light it throws on the kind of Buddhism that survived. One knows, for example, that in Ceylon in early days the Mahaayaana existed side by side with the Hiinayaana. But it is unexpected to find that at this late date a pilgrim should still be sent to Ceylon to study Mahaayaana. Again, it has been generally supposed that such Buddhism as survived in Central and Eastern India was, at any time subsequent to the 9th century, exclusively Tantric. But Dhyaanabhadra is definitely anti-Tantric. He may indeed, with his prevailing interest in the Praj~naapaaramitaa and Avata^nsaka Suutras, be described as a rather old-fashioned Mahaayaanist.

The third point of interest is that his Buddhism is coloured with certain characteristies which show great affinity with the Zen (Dhyaana) Buddhism of China and Japan. The method of sudden Awakening by means of violence, brusquerie, riddles, shouts, beatings, startling and 'gratuitous' acts of all kinds appears repeatedly in these pages, long before the Master's arrival in China. And just as in China it is against Tantrism that the hostility of the Zen priests is principally directed, so we find Dhyaanabhadra ridiculing the supposed magical power of Tantric invocations.

It is of course possible that Dhyaanabhadra's recollections were coloured by his long residence in China, and allowance must be made for the fact that it was a Chinese who committed these recollections to writing. Even so, I think the document suggests the existence in 14th century India, of a type of Buddhism very different from what we should have expected. It also raises the question whether many aspects of Zen which have been regarded as originating in China may not, after all, like other developments of Buddhism, have been importations from India.

Our ignorance of the fortunes of Buddhism in India at this period is due to the fact that our information is derived chiefly from Moslem sources which do not trouble to distinguish Buddhism from
Hinduism, or from Hindu sources which are unwilling to admit the existence of rival creed. From Taaranaatha(1) indeed we get a rather dim picture of the survival of Buddhism in Bengal and Orissa down
to an even later period. But he gives no definite information about the fate of Buddhism in other parts of India Proper at this period; moreover the historical elements in his narrative are hard to disentangle
from the legendary. [ccbs.ntu.edu.tw]

So, rather than Buddhism being forcibly *eliminated*, Buddhism simply changed over time, and even so, not nearly as drastically as some would have us believe!

Do not underestimate the appeal of Islam. It could not have spread as far and as fast as it did if it relied solely on violence and coercion. It could not have spawned the Islamic Renaissance (which was the catalyst that kicked off the later Renaissance in the Christian West) if it had been intolerant and hostile to differing views. Modern Islam appears to be a very different beast than early Islam, and this drastic and dramatic change appears to have begun with the Ottoman Empire. But that's a topic for a different forum.

Intolerance is the worst aspect of most religions. Intolerance is destructive to society. If you, Nichijew, are going to maintain that *some* ideas and religions should be outlawed by fiat, please explain to us what criteria should be used in deciding which ones will be snuffed out and who will be responsible for making these decisions. I'm asking again: WHO DECIDES??



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2013 05:23AM by TaitenAndProud.

Hi, Nichijew. I owe you a response; no, I didn't forget about you! My daughter had a sleepover last night - there was much wackiness.

Quote

[www.ambedkar.org]

[en.wikipedia.org]

If 80,000,000 or even 40,000,000 Hindus were killed by the Muslims, how many non-violent Buddhists were killed? Let us not let our cynicism and dislike of the Soka Gakkai cloud our critical thinking. You didn't search very hard. I got these two articles in less than 5 minutes. At least 20,00.000 Buddhists were killed from between the 11th to the 14th century by the Muslims and perhaps an equal amount by the Hindu Rajputs [warriors]. - Nichijew

Okay, first of all, your first source is an incoherent mess. The author, an Indian activist, describes erotic art as "obscene art", making himself sound like a prissy dilettante. He cites this art form as "evidence" of the cultural inferiority of the Hindus.

Quote

The Rajputs were great builders of temples, for the benefit of Brahmins. Though many are destroyed by Muslims, some are still surviving to show the skill, money and labour spent on creation of them. Unfortunately the later Rajput creations of art are the preservations of sexual obscenity.

"... The art critics divide the evolution of temple architecture in the Rajput period into two parts, The first part covered the period from 600 to 900 A.D. During the first period, there was a regular progress in the abundance of ornamentation in temple architecture. The originality of the ancient times was lost and the artisans relied on volume to give an expression of grandeur. Their tastes degenerated and we come across obscene figures. That was probably due to the influence of Tantrism on Hinduism. It has rightly been said that there is no beauty of original art in the architectural monuments of the age." [Mahajan, p. 559] [www.ambedkar.org]

Dude's got an ax to grind; that article is a polemic, not a documentary. As an opponent of the caste system, he paints Hinduism in an entirely negative light as an expression of his disdain and contempt for that belief system.

But I can't help noticing that the timeframe you quote is one that is well known - for the Black Death that killed between 1/3 and 2/3 of the population of Europe!

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The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350, and killing between 75 million and 200 million people.

The Black Death is thought to have started in China or central Asia, before spreading west. The plague then travelled along the Silk Road and reached the Crimea by 1346. From there, it was probably carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships. Spreading throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, the Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe's population. All in all, the plague reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million to a number between 350 and 375 million in the 14th century.

The aftermath of the plague created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. The plague reoccurred occasionally in Europe until the 19th century. [en.wikipedia.org]

So we've got this drastic disease-driven reduction in population that supposedly came from the area where you are saying it had to have been Muslim atrocities that accounted for a significant drop in Indian population!

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What was Medieval India’s real role in the advance of the Black Death into Europe?

Many twentieth-century scholars of the Black Death claim that it invaded China and India before it arrived in the Middle East and Europe. Zeigler, in his analysis of the origins of the Black Death, claims that the Black Death was ravaging India by the end of 1346. Gottfried says that sometime in the late thirteenth century or early fourteenth century, Yersina Pestis, the bacillus that causes the plague, spread from the Gobi desert, its permanent locus, “east into China, south into India, and west across Central Asia to the Middle East and the Mediterranean Basin”. Aberth suggests that the disease originated in the land of the Mongols and invaded China and India before it spread to Europe. Sticker, a twentieth-century historian of epidemiology, asserts that there was a plague in India in 1332 and again in 1344, and he argues that the plague originated in India.

Support for the claim that the Black Death visited India before it spread to Europe comes from the chronicles of medieval merchants of Venice and Genoa, medieval historians from the Middle East, and other chroniclers of Europe. Gabriele de’ Mussi, a thirteenth-century chronicler from Piacenza, wrote an account of the Black Death in which he mentioned that almost everyone in the East, including the population of India, was affected by the pestilence. An anonymous Flemish cleric wrote that in Greater India it rained frogs, serpents, lizards, scorpions and many venomous beasts and, on the third day, the whole province was infected. We should be aware that when a medieval merchant from Venice or Genoa refers to Greater India, he is referring to the region bounded by Central Asia in the north and Indonesia in the south.

Modern epidemiological studies have established that the plague was endemic in the Central Asian Steppes, spreading from Central Asia to the West in the fourteenth century. One of the epidemiological theories attributes the spread of the Black Death to Eur ope from Central Asia to the expansion of the Mongol Empir e that linked China, India, the Middle East and Europe (Gottfried 33). Another theory suggests that the Black Death traveled along the trade routes. Both trade routes that connected the East with the West in the fourteenth century include India: the caravan route from China to Central Asia to Europe and the sea route along south Asia from ports in the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf. All these data provide justification for the claim that the Black Death visited India before it reached Europe.

Conspicuous by absence in this argument are historical records from India that substantiate the claim that there was a plague in India in the fourteenth centur y. This raises a question as to whether there are any historical records for that period originating from India. Until the eleventh century, sources for the history of India come from archaeological records, literary works, monographs, and inscriptions on monuments. The art of writing history began in India with the arrival of the Turkish invaders in the eleventh century. From 1332 to 1347, most of North India was ruled by Muhammed bin Tughlaq, and the history of this period is deduced from the chronicles of the Muslim historians, the travel logs of travelers from different parts of the world to India, and the writings of contemporary literary men. Ziyauddin Barani, Muhammed bin Tughlaq’s companion (nadim), compiled Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi in 1357, chronicling the history of India from 1266 to 1357. He is a principal authority for the medieval period. Ibn-Battuta, a Moorish traveler to India, wrote a detailed account of the events from 1334 to 1347 in his Rihla, the Book of Travels. He traveled extensively throughout India, from Delhi in the north to Madurai in the south (Fig. 2). While Sultan Muhammed ruled the greater part of North India from 1325 to 1351, Harihara and Bukka established a Hindu kingdom in South India in 1336, and this dynasty ruled South India until 1485. There is abundant information available about this empire from inscriptions, writings of the Muslim historians, literary compositions, and travel logs of the Portuguese, Italian, and Chinese visitors. With so much
information available from India, there should be a correspondence between the chronicles of the Italian merchants and the Indian historical records. Indians interpreted epidemics as a sign of the gods’ displeasure: smallpox is associated with the wrath of Goddess Sitala in the north and Goddess Mariamma in the south, and cholera is associated with Goddess Candi. Records of rituals in the fourteenth century for a god or goddess
associated with plague may also indicate the presence of an epidemic.

Hecker mentions that the population of India was decimated in the fourteenth century], and although Hecker does not explicitly attribute it to the Black Death, Zeigler considers this a result of the plague, and Gottfried
expresses a similar belief. On the other hand, Medieval Indian History provides a different explanation for this decimation. On his arrival at Delhi in 1334, Ibn-Battuta finds Delhi “empty and unpopulated save for a few inhabitants” (Dunn 196), but he does not mention an epidemic.

Notice that this "empty and unpopulated villages and cities" is a typical description of the Plague's aftermath across Europe.

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Historians Haig and Majumdar attribute this depopulation to Sultan Muhammed’s decision to move the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad. The contemporary historian Barani writes that when the Sultan forced everyone to move with their families, people were heartbroken, and many of them died on the w ay to Daulatabad. When they reached Daulatabad, it became “a graveyard of Muslims” (Barani 239).

Oh, dear! THAT doesn't fit with your narrative, now does it?? It should be "a graveyard of Hindus" or "a graveyard of Buddhists"!

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Another explanation for this loss of life, which is also well documented by both Barani and Ibn-Battuta, was the severe seven-year famine that hit India in 1335.

There's another explanation for a drop in population - read on:

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From Ibn-Battuta’s Rihla we know that towns and whole districts were wiped out (qtd. in Haig 152). Ibn-Battuta observed that Indians were reduced to eating animal skins, rotten meat, and even human flesh (Dunn 204). Barani also mentions that in the fatal famine, “thousands of people perished of want” (Barani 238). Neither Barani nor Ibn-Battuta mentions a plague even though they describe the ravages of the famine in detail.

Barani and Ibn-Battuta report two epidemics, one in 1335 and another in 1344, and Sticker claims that those two epidemics were plagues. Barani describes the epidemic in 1335 in Warangal: “The Sultan arrived at Warangal where waba (pestilence) was prevalent. Several nobles and many other persons died of it. The Sultan was also attacked” (Barani 243). Ibn-Battuta also mentions that an epidemic broke out that wiped out half of the Sultan’s troops in Sargadwari near Warangal (Dunn 205). The half that survived went back to Delhi with Sultan Muhammed, and they did not infect other people in Delhi. The second one, the epidemic in Madurai, was witnessed by Ibn-Battuta. When he arrives at Madurai in 1344, he finds the people of Madurai dying of an epidemic: “There he found the population in the throes of an epidemic so lethal that whoever caught infection died on the morrow, or the day after, and if not the third day, then on the fourth” (Dunn 245). [mla.stanford.edu]

Aha. Mystery solved. During the time frame in question, there was a deadly famine that took out a significant portion of the population, and there was deadly infectious disease (possibly cholera, if not actually plague) that also took out significant portions of the population. Population crash explained without needing to invoke teh eeeevil Mooslems!

Now on to your second source, which I'm afraid is far less supportive of your claims than you apparently realize:

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Considerable controversy exists both in scholarly and public opinion about the conversions to Islam typically represented by the following schools of thought:

- That the bulk of Muslims are descendants of migrants from the Iranian plateau or Arabs.
- Conversion was a result of the actions of Sufi saints and involved a genuine change of heart.
- Conversion came from Buddhists and the en masse conversions of lower castes for social liberation and as a rejection of oppressive existent Hindu caste structures.
- Was a combination, initially made under duress followed by a genuine change of heart.
- As a socio-cultural process of diffusion and integration over an extended period of time into the sphere of the dominant Muslim civilisation and global polity at large.
- That Muslims sought conversion through jihad or political violence.
- A related view is that conversions occurred for non-religious reasons of pragmatism and patronage such as social mobility among the Muslim ruling elite or for relief from taxes.

An estimate of the number of people killed, based on the Muslim chronicles and demographic calculations, was done by K.S. Lal in his book Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, who claimed that between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, the population of Hindus decreased by 80 million. His work has come under criticism by historians such as Simon Digby (School of Oriental and African Studies) and Irfan Habib for its agenda and lack of accurate data in pre-census times. Western Historians such as Will Durant contend that Islam spread through violence. Sir Jadunath Sarkar contends that that several Muslim invaders were waging a systematic jihad against Hindus in India to the effect that "Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects."

Notice that "massacre in cold blood" was *NOT* used.

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In particular the records kept by al-Utbi, Mahmud al-Ghazni's secretary, in the Tarikh-i-Yamini document several episodes of bloody military campaigns.[[b]citation needed[/b]]

^ Means "take with a grain of salt until someone provides a reliable source.

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Hindus who converted to Islam however were not completely immune to persecution due to the Caste system among South Asian Muslims in India established by Ziauddin al-Barani in the Fatawa-i Jahandari, where they were regarded as an "Ajlaf" caste and subjected to discrimination by the "Ashraf" castes.

Critics of the "Religion of the sword theory" point to the presence of the strong Muslim communities found in Southern India, modern day Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and western Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines coupled with the distinctive lack of equivalent Muslim communities around the heartland of historical Muslim empires in South Asia as refutation to the "conversion by the sword theory". The legacy of Muslim conquest of South Asia is a hotly debated issue even today. Not all Muslim invaders were simply raiders. Later rulers fought on to win kingdoms and stayed to create new ruling dynasties. The practices of these new rulers and their subsequent heirs (some of whom were borne of Hindu wives of Muslim rulers) varied considerably. While some were uniformly hated, others developed a popular following. According to the memoirs of Ibn Battuta who traveled through Delhi in the 14th century, one of the previous sultans had been especially brutal and was deeply hated by Delhi's population. His memoirs also indicate that Muslims from the Arab world, Persia and Turkey were often favored with important posts at the royal courts suggesting that locals may have played a somewhat subordinate role in the Delhi administration. The term "Turk" was commonly used to refer to their higher social status.[citation needed] However S.A.A. Rizvi points to Muhammad bin Tughlaq as not only encouraging locals but promoting artisan groups such as cooks, barbers and gardeners to high administrative posts. In his reign, it is likely that conversions to Islam took place as a means of seeking greater social mobility and improved social standing. [en.wikipedia.org]

Two key pieces of information about early Islam:

1) Islam spread farther in 100 years than Christianity managed to in 1,000 years.

2) Islam spawned the Islamic Golden Age, aka the Islamic Renaissance, that protected, fostered, and encouraged research and discovery into virtually every known area of human endeavor. The advances of the Islamic Renaissance continue to inform virtually every sphere of the arts, music, business, architecture, chemistry, medicine, literature, philosophy - the list is almost endless: [en.wikipedia.org]

With regard to point #1, there is simply no way that Islam could have spread that far "by the point of a sword" - the Muslims would have been spread far too thin. The only reasonable explanation is that the Muslims were *welcomed* in these areas, and given the subsequent devotion to learning and value of scholarship that was at the heart of Islam at that point ("The ink of the scholar is more valuable than the blood of the martyr" - Qur'an) compared with Christianity's consistent destruction of anything and everything non-Christian, this is plausible. The Muslims appeared as "white knights" to save the people and their culture from the devastation of Christianity.

Lest you think I'm being a big fat meanie about Christianity, notice that *everything* regressed in the areas under Christian control. The arts basically disappeared and had to be re-discovered from scratch - this is the best Christian artists could do by the 9th Century CE: [www.winifred.cichon.com] Now, we'd consider that admirable - for a 3rd grader. The great masters and schools all *disappeared* - this was the gift of Christianity to the world, the extinguishing of light and learning: the Dark Ages. For a pictorial timeline, see [historyhuntersinternational.org]

But in the MUSLIM-controlled territories, art and culture were flourishing! This is something that few people seem willing to acknowledge due to anti-Islamic bigotry, and we do not need to pander to that here. It shouldn't be OUR problem. And let's not lower ourselves and the level of our discourse to the point of claiming that the ONLY reason anyone would convert to Islam is because Muslims threatened to kill him if he didn't. Islam is enormously appealing to people - that is why it is so commonplace in our world. Likewise, Amida Buddhism (aka Shin, aka Nembutsu, aka Jodo Shinshu) is likewise enormously appealing. It would be far more profitable and fruitful to investigate what it is about human nature that finds satisfaction and fulfillment in these belief systems than simply insisting that the government should wipe them out because "I don't like them."

So, Nichijew, it appears that you wish us to "imagine" that Buddhists were massacred:

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If 80,000,000 or even 40,000,000 Hindus were killed by the Muslims, how many non-violent Buddhists were killed?

I don't know, and you haven't told us!

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Let us not let our cynicism and dislike of the Soka Gakkai cloud our critical thinking. You didn't search very hard. I got these two articles in less than 5 minutes. At least 20,00.000 Buddhists were killed from between the 11th to the 14th century by the Muslims and perhaps an equal amount by the Hindu Rajputs [warriors]. - Nichijew

First of all, what sort of number is "20,00.000"??

Neither source you supplied supported your claims of the numbers of Buddhists supposedly slaughtered. Now HERE is a source for you:

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The document(1) here translated is the preface to a `poetical inscription' on a stuupa erected in memory of the Indian priest Dhyaanabhadra, also called `Suunyaadi'sya, at the Korean temple Kuei-yen Ssuu (Juniper Rock temple). It was composed in the summer of 1378(2) by a certain Li Se who, previous to the fall of the Mongols in 1368, had been Secretary to the Mongol Administration of Manehuria and Korea.

The work is interesting for several reasons. To begin with, it shows that Buddhism survived in India Proper at the beginning of the 14th century to an extent far greater than has hitherto been suspected.

Note: This would have been *AFTER* they'd all been supposedly wiped out in the massacres you claim.

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To find Buddhism at such a date in Bengal is indeed no surprise. But in Dhyaanabhadra's narrative we find it also at Kaa~ncipura (Madras Presidency), in the Chola Kingdom (Coromandel coast) and at Jaalandhara (Punjab).

Our narrative is interesting in the second place because of the light it throws on the kind of Buddhism that survived. One knows, for example, that in Ceylon in early days the Mahaayaana existed side by side with the Hiinayaana. But it is unexpected to find that at this late date a pilgrim should still be sent to Ceylon to study Mahaayaana. Again, it has been generally supposed that such Buddhism as survived in Central and Eastern India was, at any time subsequent to the 9th century, exclusively Tantric. But Dhyaanabhadra is definitely anti-Tantric. He may indeed, with his prevailing interest in the Praj~naapaaramitaa and Avata^nsaka Suutras, be described as a rather old-fashioned Mahaayaanist.

The third point of interest is that his Buddhism is coloured with certain characteristies which show great affinity with the Zen (Dhyaana) Buddhism of China and Japan. The method of sudden Awakening by means of violence, brusquerie, riddles, shouts, beatings, startling and 'gratuitous' acts of all kinds appears repeatedly in these pages, long before the Master's arrival in China. And just as in China it is against Tantrism that the hostility of the Zen priests is principally directed, so we find Dhyaanabhadra ridiculing the supposed magical power of Tantric invocations.

It is of course possible that Dhyaanabhadra's recollections were coloured by his long residence in China, and allowance must be made for the fact that it was a Chinese who committed these recollections to writing. Even so, I think the document suggests the existence in 14th century India, of a type of Buddhism very different from what we should have expected. It also raises the question whether many aspects of Zen which have been regarded as originating in China may not, after all, like other developments of Buddhism, have been importations from India.

Our ignorance of the fortunes of Buddhism in India at this period is due to the fact that our information is derived chiefly from Moslem sources which do not trouble to distinguish Buddhism from Hinduism, or from Hindu sources which are unwilling to admit the existence of rival creed. From Taaranaatha indeed we get a rather dim picture of the survival of Buddhism in Bengal and Orissa down to an even later period. But he gives no definite information about the fate of Buddhism in other parts of India Proper at this period; moreover the historical elements in his narrative are hard to disentangle from the legendary. [ccbs.ntu.edu.tw]

So, rather than Buddhism being forcibly *eliminated*, Buddhism simply changed over time, and even so, not nearly as drastically as some would have us believe!

Do not underestimate the appeal of Islam. It could not have spread as far and as fast as it did if it relied solely on violence and coercion. It could not have spawned the Islamic Renaissance (which was the catalyst that kicked off the later Renaissance in the Christian West) if it had been intolerant and hostile to differing views. Modern Islam appears to be a very different beast than early Islam, and this drastic and dramatic change appears to have begun with the Ottoman Empire. But that's a topic for a different forum.

Intolerance is the worst aspect of most religions. Intolerance is destructive to society. If you, Nichijew, are going to maintain that *some* ideas and religions should be outlawed by fiat, please explain to us what criteria should be used in deciding which ones will be snuffed out and who will be responsible for making these decisions. I'm asking again: WHO DECIDES??