Buddha's Name

Previously I posted an article about fictitious names of Buddha's parents. Now if I think about it, the original name of the Buddha is also rather dubious. In my opinion, Buddhism is an institutionalized ancient Indian Sramana/Jaina tradition.

In Jain tradition, a Siddha is a great soul who has achieved moksha. Our man Buddha was born with the essence(artha) of Siddha.

Buddhism and Untouchability

Generally, Buddhism has been viewed favourably by erstwhile untouchable groups in India. I have argued that in India Buddhism was never an exclusive identity. Hence it is tough to identify its true nature. The castes that followed Buddhism generally took their purity-pollution concepts to this religion too. My previous post illustrates that phenomenon. My opinion is that there were no true Buddhists(as a religious identity) but for few Buddhist monks. Few families might have followed Buddhist way of life but were known by their caste identity.

In addition to that there were incidences of untouchability in Nepal and Japan that appear to have a common factor in Buddhism.

But I have come across many studies that point out that many professions were considered low and hence the people in many societies. In other societies it was just a social phenomenon but in India it was religiously sanctioned feature.

With this background, I feel, there exists ambiguity about Buddhist attitude towards untouchability. The problem is compounded as the development of Untouchability that included slave farmers may be post Buddha. When it comes to untouchables who were slave farmers*, I think that it has something to do with Vaisyas(free common men like farmers, herders, smiths) becoming Sudras thus further pushing Sudras(slaves/serfs) into Asprishyas(who probably during Vedic period included undertakers, forest tribes etc... only).

Recently I came across this message at Indo-Eurasian_research Yahoo group. It's about Untouchability in historical China.

"Untouchables" long existed in China in the form of various groups of jianmin
"lowly people". They were clearly separated from regular, "good households"
(liangmin) in official population registers. Their exact components varied from
place to place. But most were in such universal "untouchable" professions as
entertainers, undertakers, prostitutes, professional beggars, garbage
collectors, etc. Some groups had fancy stories about their origin not unlike
that of Roma people/Gypsies (re. the nails to be used to crucify Jesus). Those
lowly people were forbidden to marry with "good households". Nor were they
allowed to go to school and to participate in civil service examinations.

From 1723 on, Emperor Yongzheng (reign 1723-1734) issued repeated edicts
abolishing such "lowly households" in government population registers. Two
particular remarks can be made here:

1. It took a "Barbarian" Manchu emperor to legally abolish "untouchability" that
had existed in China for centuries.

2. Emperor Yongzheng's decision was inspired by the Buddhist maxim that "all
lives were created equal," a notion that came from the Indian subcontinent among
all places.

Naturally, Qing legal actions could not eliminate many or perhaps most of those
"lowly people" who continued to engage in their traditional professions. For
instance, in Shaoxing (Zhejiang province), even on the eve of the Cultural
Revolution, many undertakers still came from traditional "duomin" families.

A somewhat meek point is that, because China's "lowly people" almost never
engaged in farming (which in Confucian ideology was the second most respectful
profession), untouchability in premodern China represented a very small and
mostly urban social component.

(Emphasis mine)

Buddhism in the hands of nomadic people (who didn't show much interest in purity-pollution) probably showed its true face at least in one aspect.

Note: Farming might have been noble profession in China but not so according to purity rules of Hinduism. Though it wasn't as low as the so-called low professions like scavenging, leather works etc... it wasn't an exulted profession. However, it was never deemed too low as almost all sections of the castes engaged in it.

Buddha's parents

Sage Publications allows free download until 31st May. There is a wealth of information on Indian social/cultural aspects. I have been busy downloading and hopefully I'll read them all. Now to the main topic.

I was reading "The Goddess Pattini and the Lord Buddha: Notes on the Myth of the Birth of the Deity" by Gananath Obeyesekere. This paragraph caught my eye and I thought of posting it.

Scholars have reconstructed the historical Buddha on the basis of the myths recounted in the Pali Canon. There is not the slightest doubt about the historicity of the Buddha and some of the suttas do indeed give us useful historical and sociological information of the society and the period in which he lived. But there are real dangers in extrapolating or rationalizing history from myth, which as we have shown, provide symbolic solutions to problems of a very different order. Practically every historian of Buddhism has rationalized the myth of the death of Buddha’s mother seven days after his birth to mean that the Buddha’s mother died seven days after his birth and he was brouqht up by Maha Prajapati Gotami, the Buddha’s mother’s sister and co-wife of his father.We have shown that the necessity for eliminating the mother springs from a different set of motives. It is conceivable that the myth is a symbolic elaboration of a real event, but there is no independent evidence to justify this. Furthermore,take the names of the Buddha’s father and mother, Suddhodana and Maya, which practically all scholars believe were the real names of his parents. From the point of view adopted in this paper this is highly unlikely, and these names have to be viewed in relation to the mythmaking process. Maya means "illusion";, and in the Upanishadic view current in the time of the Buddha, the whole phenomenal world was an illusory manifestation of a true underlying reality or essence. Thus it is highly appropriate that she whose body bears the Buddha, a spiritual being, should be viewed as; "illusion";. Her husband’s name, Suddhodhana, means "pure-rice". But rice is also seed and symbolically means "semen". In many Indian languages the word for "seed" can also denote "rice", "egg"; or semen. It is likely that the attempt here is once again to maintain the purity of the Buddha’s mother, i.e., how could someone who bore a "Peerless One" like the Buddha ever have been polluted with sexual intercourse ? The solution is to deny that his sperm was of the normal kind "pure rice ( seed )". The name Suddhodhana is an attempt to bring a historical personage into the mythic scheme of events centering on the Buddha. Maya, however, consistently maintains a mythic nature in the texts, for the Mahapadana Sutta of the Digha Nikäya says that the Buddha was visible in the womb of his mother "as a thread through a precious stone."

Buddhist holocaust of Kerala

In India, every person has had a glorious past. Glorious Vedic, Buddhist, Dravida and probably non-patriarchal past. I will restrict myself to Buddhist past of Kerala.

Just other day, I came across a comment that Buddhists were all holocausted in Kerala. Since this part of the history is a constructed from archeological evidences and not recorded in the history, in print or in visual media, I think I can question this without being labelled as a holocaust denier.

I do have serious problems with glorious Buddhist past theory. Whenever, some of the propagandists from Kerala portray Buddhism as something secular, egalitarian and noble, I laugh. Just show that to me in the past Sri Lankan society.

Malayalee society before 7th century:
It seems Malayalees became agrarian society around 7th century CE. Well, Kerala society existed even before that. So what could have been the main communities of Proto-Malayalees. I can think of only tribals and fishermen. Tribals, could be spirit worshippers or shamans. What about fishermen, probably idol worshippers, worshipping the goddess of the sea and probably Tantriks. So what happens when Buddhist preachers visit such a society? For that, we have to understand the spread of Buddhism in pure Shamanist Tibetan society.

Shamans and Buddhism:
A member at Quetzalcoatl Anthropology forum mentioned that Tibetans got Shamanic religion from Burushos which was later supplanted by Buddhists from South Asia(Or is it from China, I forgot). Initially, Shaman priests were barred from practicing the religion. However, Buddhism being more egalitarian when it comes to education these Shamanist priests could merge their religion and could give rise to a synthesis of Buddhism and Shamanism, claiming back their priestly position. So there is no relation with Buddhism and Shamanism.

Tantriks and Buddhism in Kerala:
Among fishermen and tribals who could be the most advanced community? I think it should be fishermen. Just as in Tibet, the Tantrik fishermen also got educated because of Buddhism. However, unlike Tibet their Tantrik religion remained dominant and Buddha was lost. Again there is no relationship between Buddhism and Tantra.

South Indian society and religious wars:
In South India, many rulers were Jains until probably 12-13th century. The most of the religious wars were between Jains and Saivites(in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka) and between Jains and Buddhists(in Andhra Pradesh). At least, these were recorded in the history. I don't have any idea if any Andhra Pradesh Brahmins are known as Tantris. So I am not sure what happened to Buddhists of Andhra Pradesh. Since Jains were mostly rulers and elite in all of the South Indian society their numbers remained small or they were absorbed into Vishnuism of later centuries(as both had common enemies in Saivas). It should be noted here that Buddhists were never rulers of South Indian society.

Kerala Buddhists or most probably only Tantriks:
I don't think Tantriks of Kerala knew the story of Pushyamitra Shunga of 2nd century BCE. Also, since I don't believe Buddhists were ever rulers of Kerala society those Tantriks had any identity. The rulers could be mostly from the Shamanic tribals. As Vaidiks migrated to Kerala society something happened and all the Tantriks got merged with them. Of course, just like those Shamanist priests of Tibet, they continued to control the temples of Kerala but changing its character. I believe there could be a Jain holocaust in South India(which again I don't believe) but never Buddhist holocaust.

Reference:
1. Pattars in Kerala society. From the article;
They(Tamil Brahmins) held themselves higher than Malabar Brahmins and Namboothiris, who they say sprang from fisherman elevated to Brahminical dignity by Parusuraman.