Letter: Wrong depiction of Buddhist history in India

Mr. Sharma has changed history of Buddhist India by writing this article without any evidence or supporting data. Mr. Sharma (being ?Brahmin?) is trying to protect his Brahmin ancestor who destroyed Buddhism in India.

The Prince Brahdrad ( the grand-son of King Ashoka) was killed by Brahmin Leader Pushyamitra Shung in a conspiracy and these Brahmins destroyed the monasteries and massacred Buddhist monks. (Reference, see ?Saha Soneri Pane? ? book written by Brahmin scholar Shri. V D Sawarkar).

The Brahmins claims that they are ?Aryans?, people with origins from the North Pole in Europe. They migrated to india and ruled by creating a caste system to maintain their supremacy (Reference, see ?Artic home of theVedas? book by Brahmin scholar Lokmanya Tilak. (available on Wikipedia) .

Let Mr. Sharma give proof of ancient texts where the word ?Hindu? appears. Nowhere in Brahmins religious text book i.e. Vedas, Upanishdas, Manusmruti, etc does the word "Hindu" is written.

The people residing at the banks of the Indus river were called ?Sindhu ? but were pronounced as Hindu by Turkish rulers because they could not pronounce ?S? (accent ?H? instead of ?S?).

In the 16th century when the British came and ruled India they officially recognized these people (OBC, SC & ST) as Hindus. The ?Vedic? is a religion of the Brahmins, which basically is a veil of the Hindus. This is what is called Hindu religion.

Brahmins are always priest of the their gods and non-Brahmins (OBC, SC, ST) were made to worship Brahmins and their gods. Non-brahmins are not allowed to be priest nor given religious privileges.

It is true that Arab, Turk, Afgani, etc came and ruled India but they did not destroy Buddhist temples/monasteries. The Mahabodhi temple is still there in Bihar and Ajantha & Yellora, Sarnath, Sanchi and stupas and chaityas are still existing in India.

It is a fact that Brahmins themselves destroyed ancient Buddhist Universities such as Nalanda ,Takshashila, Vikramshila . Surviving Buddhist monks ran off to Myanmar with a few texts, thus preserving whatever that was left.

Brahmins converted famous Buddhist temple such as Vithoba (Pandharpur), Balaji, Mahabalipuram , Somnath, Jagganath Puri into so called Hindu temples (reference; see ?History of Buddhism? by Brahmin scholar Mr.Apte)

Before the British came, India was ruled by Muslim rulers such as Aurangzeb and Tipu Sultan. Mr. Sharma has written false article stating that Hindu king resisted Muslim ruler and Hinduism could not be wiped out.

There are evidence that Hindus (OBC, SC, ST) converted to Islam because they were being discriminated in the caste system introduced by Brahmins through their religious text ?manusmruti? (Reference, see ?Gulamgiri? by scholar and social reformer Shri Jyotirao Phule).

May I request that the editorial team from Buddhist Channel to refrain from publishing such misleadings articles with regards to the true history of Buddhist India.

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Note: OBC (other backward classes) , SC (scheduled caste) ST (scheduled tribes). These so called Hindus have now begun to follow Buddhism after knowing their past history . Recently 1.5 million from the "Maratha" community in Maharashtra State, India converted to a new movement called "Shivdharma". The founder Dr. A H Salunke of this new religion and who has written book "The great son of soil - Lord Buddha" said that once their people come out from the mindset of Hinduism under the new religion, then they will further convert them into Buddhism.

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‘Muslim for a Month’: It’s just wrong

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Gandhi, born a Hindu, once said: “I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.” Most people will never achieve such enlightenment (or spout such pious tripe, if you are of a less reverent turn of mind). But such thinking certainly creates an opening for innovative programs like Muslim for a Month.

No, really. There is an organization that invites people of other religions or none to come to Istanbul and live as Muslims for a month. Well, not a month, exactly: the nine-day Explorations program costs $900 and the 21-day Ruminations program costs $1,890.

“We like to think that Muslim for a Month facilitates more understanding of a religion which gets a lot of bad press,” explained Ben Bowler, who lives in Thailand and runs similar “religious immersion tours” in Buddhism for the same organization. “There’s a huge difference in the public perception of Buddhism, for example, and Islam — Islam is thorny, while Buddhism is warm and fuzzy.”

People who think Buddhism is warm and fuzzy would probably benefit from Bowler’s Monk for a Month program in Thailand. People who think that Islam is a religion of hatred and terrorism would likewise benefit from the Muslim for a Month program. Indeed, if all that’s going on here is a simple download of information and perspective, you could argue that every religion should be doing it.

Much of the human race lives in places where two or more major religions coexist — Buddhists and Muslims in Thailand; Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs in India; Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jews in South Africa. Not to mention countries where up to half the population are non-believers (like Britain and Korea). A crash course in your neighbours’ religious beliefs ought to be part of the school curriculum. In some places, it already is.

But there is still something disturbing about the very idea of religious tourism. Immersing yourself in the prayers and rituals of a religion even though you think its god is false smacks of condescension at best, blasphemy at worst. And although a sense of politeness prevents most people from saying it loudly in public, religious people generally believe that the gods of all religions but their own are indeed false.

Non-believers go even further. As Richard Dawkins, the world’s leading advocate of atheism, once put it: “We are all atheists about most of the gods that people have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” Fine. That’s a perfectly respectable position to hold. But if that’s what you think, then pretending to pray to Allah as a “cultural experience” is downright disrespectful.

The people who are organizing Muslim for a Month have the best of intentions. The Blood Foundation is a Thailand-based enterprise whose goal is “to promote the ideal of the sister/brotherhood of all humanity. We operate cultural exchange programs that build bridges of understanding between diverse peoples through the means of shared, authentic experience.”

According to the Blood Foundation, the Muslim for a Month program aims “to foster a spirit of good will and increased mutual understanding between Muslims and the west. It is not the purpose of the program to bring converts to the Islamic faith but rather to strive towards a greater sense of unity among people.”

I believe that is truly their goal. I also very much like the Sufi tradition of Islam, one of the most attractive forms of religious expression that I have ever encountered, and it is the Sufis who are providing the facilities and the teachers for the Muslim for a Month program in Turkey. But it still doesn’t feel right.

Here’s the thing. Almost all of the “modern” religions that have arisen in the past 2,500 years (and Judaism, which is much older) have sacred texts that are held by the believers to be divinely revealed truth. They are not negotiable or mutually compatible, like the old pagan beliefs were. To believe in any of the modern gods requires the faithful to reject all the others as false.

If Muslim beliefs are right, then Christian beliefs are wrong, and vice versa. If the Sikhs are right, then the Baha’i are wrong, and vice versa. If the Buddhists are right, then the Jews are wrong, and so on ad nauseam.

Why stop there? If the Mormons are right, then all the other Christians are horribly, catastrophically wrong. If any of the other Christian sects (or any of the non-Christian faiths) is right, then Mormon beliefs are downright ridiculous. If the Shia are right, then the Sunnis are wrong, and vice versa. So in a world where something like 90 per cent of the population is still religious (though much less in the developed countries), what is one to do?

We minimize conflict by simply not talking about the huge, irreconcilable differences in our religious convictions. (The non-religious play the same game: they rarely challenge the beliefs of the believers either.) It’s not an attractive behaviour, and it doesn’t always avert conflict, but most of the time it works. On most of the planet, we are no longer at each other’s throats about religion.

The world does not need Muslim (or Sikh, or Christian) for a Month. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

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