Search for Origins of Mahayana Buddhism

Re: # 167All the philosophies and ideas have theri place and age and in his times Buddha's ideas were amazing and they did influence a lot of people ... and for present yes it is a fact their relevance is not as important as it was in past!

There is cut throat competition but the spirit of co-operation is the bases of development and love let us hope to revive that!

Re: # 167All the philosophies and ideas have theri place and age and in his times Buddha's ideas were amazing and they did influence a lot of people ... and for present yes it is a fact their relevance is not as important as it was in past!

There is cut throat competition but the spirit of co-operation is the bases of development and love let us hope to revive that!

Re: # 165
Buddha’s principles might have been righteous and moral, but real world is cut throat you can’t spend your life sitting under a tree meditating, you have to engage with the world to progress, even AMD and INTEL are involved in a sort of conflict for supremacy.

majumdar bhai: Homo Erectus (cousin-brother to all humans) no doubt had his share of war (having moved from Africa all the way to China) before the species died out. And the only invention over the couple of million years it was around (i.e. between 1-2 million years ago), the only invention this respected cousin could make was a measly sharpened stone.

So, it seems to me that while necessity remains the mother of all invention, maybe being stupid or smart is the father. And war is only a special case.

Re: # 164
How many basic inventions were for/due to war? Non much. I will provide list of such inventions. Please look at the Noble list. That will give fair amount of Idea.
Regarding neuclear fission, it was started in German universities. The bomb making was taken up by US. My intention is, how many such inventions are of great influence to humanity today. The basic human nature to perform well, when there intention is good and their state of mind is peaceful. There is a nice comment in Jurasic Park II. Technology and violence are not good bed-fellow.

Aslam bhai,

(Btw: some of the great inventions were invented during war.)

To name some more.

The Haber process for making ammonia (and urea) was invented to help Germany make explsoives after Chilean nitrate supply was cut off.
Kleenex tissue was first invented as a protective against Chlorine gas in WW-I.

Regards

Re: # 162
Conflict doesn’t necessarily have to be war, I’m sure first humans were involved in conflict as well, with nature and animals for food and survival.

Btw: some of the great inventions were invented during war. Brits invented radar and jet engine, germans rockets, Americans nuclear technology etc.

Re: # 137
Conflict/violence was never responsible for invention/creativity. In that respect, mislims, mongals,turks should have contributed large amount to the civilisation. That is not true. Most of the conflicts has occurred in mediaval period and is termed as dark age.
Modern European story was different. The British,French, Portugeese,Spanish monarchy has little to do with invention of Steam Engine,Electricity, Telegraphy and other scientific inventions. The best example was China and India before christ. Without conflict, these two vast nations exchanged ideas and excelled in most of the fields.

Among the 246 poet-authors mentioned in the Thera Gatha, 113 were Brahmins, 70 Kshatriyas. Thus, it is clear that Buddhism had no real opposition in India. In Fact, the kings gave equal protection to both Hinduism and Buddhism. For example, the Gupta empire, although Hindu, gave full protection to Buddhism. So did Harsha’s empire. Lalitaditya, the greatest king of Kashmir, although not a Buddhist, built the largest Vihara for the Buddhists.

Re: # 152

"-i have a lot of respect for buddha as a person and admire his life.."

That a load of BS Taquiyya. You are simply jealous of the peace that Buddha attained in his own life that your Walis could never on this very Earth. On one hand we can clearly see your Walis and Sheikhs popping their blood vessels going about doing Jehad and killing , looting and raping idolators- on the other hand is the Ahimsa, Ego-lessness of Buddha who attained that peace in his very life than conjecturing about peace after the death in some Jannah!!!

If Buddha is to be compared to the Prophet we can clearly see who is the enlightened person!!

Aquaris/Swarrier,

I guess Buddhism as it was practised required lots of monks and nuns. Now if you look at it from the kings POV it was a whole lot of waste.

Firstly, if you had lots of monks/nuns you were affecting your population growth which meant less soldiers for your army and less workers for your economy.
Secondly, the king had to support a whole of useless parasites.

No wonder in the long run the kings weren't too fond of Buddhists or Buddhism and stopped patronising them. Which in turn meant that these monks would starve. So I guess they decided that the best would be to do some honest work for a change. That's why Buddhism died out.

Regards

151 aslam: Thanks for an informative piece on shintoism. Note that the link between shintoism and japanese nationalism of the WWII style is not dead yet, and is in fact "enshrined" in the Yusukuni Shrine - the shinto shrine which contains the names of over 2 million japanese "shaheeds", including criminals like those who murdered tens of thousands of civilians in Nanking or did brutal "medical experiments" in the infamous Unit 731.

The "ultraclever" japanese emperor (who quickly surrendered when his own neck was on the line after sending millions to their death for his greater "glory") used to visit this shrine until this link with war criminals became public knowledge and, being "ultraclever", the scoundrel changed his tune. Sounds familiar?

So, once again, religion is used to stay in power

University of Nalanda was established 450 CE under the patronage of the Gupta emperors, notably Kumaragupta
it is mentioned Gautum Budh also stayed there a number of times,especially when on his last tour through Magadha.

Mahavira is several times mentioned as staying at NÄ?landÄ?, which was evidently a centre of activity of the Jains. Mahavira is believed to have attained Moksha at Pavapuri, which is located in Nalanda

There were two devastations on an extensive scale of Buddhist shrines and monasteries of northern India. The first was by the Ephthalites or White Huns, who invaded India in 500-520 AD

At that age, Buddhism had enough vitality to heal the wounds inflicted by the Huns for over a decade. Sangha life picked up again in new monasteries built over the ruins of the demolished ones. However, in the western part of India, namely: Gandhara, Kashmir and western Uttar Pradesh, Buddhism had lost much ground to the neo-Brahmanism of the Gupta age. In the eastern part, in Magadha (Bihar) and West Bengal, it began to revive again under the Buddhist king

During the Pala period of its history from the 9th -11th century AD, Buddhism became heavily adulterated by the Tantric cult, with its magic spells, yoga and practices that were completely alien to the earlier form of Buddhism.


The second time it was destroyed it was done by the Gauda kings from East Bengal. It was rebuilt by the Hindu king Harshavardhana

...From time to time Hindus, especially Shaivites, took aggressive action against Buddhism. At least two Shaivite kings—the Hephthalite invader Mihirakula (early 6th century) and the Bengal king Sasanka (early 7th century)—are reported to have destroyed monasteries and killed monks. The philosophers Kumarila and Shankara were also strongly opposed to Buddhism. In their journeys...


source
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-524701/Sasanka


But s it true , this Khiljee was the one,who not just destroyed but annihilated it...

to conclude i will quote from a Budhist site
who put it rather politely


the three factors discussed earlier contributed to the downfall of Buddhism in India, namely:

• Decay and disintegration of the Sangha.

• Extermination of the Sangha by external invaders.

• Internal opposition from the Hindu caste system.

source

http://www.buddhistpilgrimage.info/downfall.htm


Most of what we know about Nalanda is from the accouhts of chinese travellers and visitors....
in one of such narration, writes

"This inroad of the Huna army was bound to be fatal to the kingdom of Magadha and specially to the Buddhist religion then protected and patronized by the Gupta monarchs. Mihirakula, beyond doubt, in his hatred of Buddhism destroyed all its buildings that he found in his way, and killed all its priests"

...what is mostly done here is the acceptance of the First destruction....and then the Last third one, by the Khiljee
while just putting a passing remark to the second One , or rather undermining the second One,....which was rather partial ....and as some one put it somewhere...and Internal struggle between Budhism and Brahminism.

#152 Posted by Naqshbandi on December 6, 2007 9:09:03 am
( .. but i think his philosophy doesn't explain much about the world...)

Some of the most civilized people on earth (e.g. Japanes, Chinese) have found something in his message. His teachings were adopted voluntarily and he never had to call himself the prophet. May be it takes something to understand him.

[RE:#154 Posted by aquaris on December 6, 2007 9:54:54 am
Muslims are not the only culprits, before them Nalanda was destroyed ' TWICE ' , and because of what appears as
" Brahimin " VS " Buddism " skirmishes.]

Really, and you have proof of this. That some Brahmins went along and destroyed Nalanda. Now I'd be the last person to say Brahmins are the best of all peoples. They suffer from the same foibles are anybody else. There is also no doubt that Muslims are not the only culprits.

Nalanda was destroyed first by the Hunas under Mihirakula when it had just begun to be a centre of learning. It was rebuilt by Puragupta(Skandagupta's brother) and Narasimhagupta(Skandagupta's son??) who were Skandagupta's heirs. Skandagupta was the king when the destruction took place.
By the way the University was started by Kumaragupta I who was not a Buddhist.In fact the Gupta monarchs patronised Buddhism but were themselves Vaishnvaites(not sure about this but they were definitely Hindus).

The second time it was destroyed it was done by the Gauda kings from East Bengal. It was rebuilt by the Hindu king Harshavardhana.

The last time was by Khilji. There was nobody to rebuild it because there I guess there was a power vacuum , no kings were interested, and there was less interest in Buddhist philosophy.

There doesn't seem to be any proof of Brahminical incitation to destroy the university.

The truth is probably that under the Guptas Buddhism and Brahmanism flourished. But as time went on and Brahmanism in Central and North India split into Shaiva and Vaishnava sects the ruling monarchs allied with one of those sects and Buddhism did not receive royal patronage any more. Religion to a large extent can only be propped up by patronage, either patrician or plebian. If neither exists it will decline.

Re: # 153

yep maybe true , there could be a Bais.
but my point is simple...
Muslims are not the only culprits, before them Nalanda was destroyed ' TWICE ' , and because of what appears as
" Brahimin " VS " Buddism " skirmishes.

so laying all the Blame on ' Muslims ' only is not Fair.