India's Revolutionary Icons who followed the paths of The Buddha

India's Revolutionary Icons who followed the paths of The Buddha
It all began with Buddha... and these are some of the great Torch Bearer's of Buddha's Dhamma.... This Blog is a Scholarly Blog created to provide insights into the life, services and Social contributions of some of the Greatest of Indian Scholars, Humanitarians, Saints and social activists about whom the vested interests and Rotten Indian media do not write. Nor there is a State or center policies to restore and protect the stunning stories of these great men and woman...let me walk you through the greatness..!!

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Father of Nation of India Dr.Bheemarao Ambedkar

The first Law Minister of India and the Father of Indian Constitution Bheemrao Ramji Ambedkar (Dr.B.R.Ambedkar)spoke, wrote and demonstrated quite extensively and comprehensively than any other known living or dead humans of India as to how treacherous, dangerous this so called Indian hindu society and it's deadly cultures that spread discrimination and bigotry between each of thousands of heterogeneous groups. To find a way to bring them all these "heterogeneous mess of India", and to put them in single order to lead a happy, free and prosperous life, to make them behave like humans and to treat fellow humans DrAmbedkar crafted this finest of the fine Constitution that even Americans refer to it when they are in crisis. Ofcourse, Dr.Ambedkar was an American Scholar and Columbia Doctorate, he did learn lots about humanity and freedom while he was in America, but he also studied American Constitution, so a well learned scholar and genius DrAmbedkar fathered the Indian constitution in real sense, he is the Father of Modern India, while SakyaMuni Buddha was the Father of ancient and all time Father of India. Here is the dedication to the Father of India: http://fatherofnationi.blogspot.com/

Thursday, February 16, 2012

National Seminar On Locations of Caste?- Mumbai, India


UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI

Dr. AMBEDKAR CENTRE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

NATIONAL SEMINAR
on

LOCATIONS OF CASTE:
Social Memory and Social Change in Contemporary India


Venue: J P NAIK BHAVAN, ICSSR Western Regional Centre

FEBRUARY 20-22, 2012



DAY ONE: Monday, February 20, 2012

INAUGURAL SESSION : 10.00 a.m-11.15 a.m.

Welcome: Dr. Surendra Jondhale, Professor & Co-ordinator, Dr. Ambedkar Centre for Social Justice

Keynote Address: Prof. Uma Chakravarti, University of Delhi

Vote of Thanks

TEA BREAK: 11.15-11.30 a.m.


SESSION ONE :-- THEORISING CASTE: 11.30 a.m.-1.00 p.m.

Chairperson: Dr. Gail Omvedt

  1. Dr. Braj Ranjan Mani: Caste and Knowledge
  2. Dr. G Aloysius: Caste and Social Sciences
  3. Dr. Murzban Jal: The Silent Counter-Revolution


LUNCH BREAK: 1.00-2.00 p.m.


SESSION TWO:-- CASTE, GENDER & EMANCIPATION: 2.00-3.30 p.m.

Chairperson: Dr. Uma Chakravarti

  1. Dr. Padma Velaskar: Dr. Ambedkar’s Emancipation Discourse on Gender
  2. Dr. Rudolf Heredia: Caste Hierarchy, Feudal Patriarchy: Reservations for Women
  3. Dr. Wandana Sonalkar: Footloose Development, Segregated Settlement: Caste in
Formation of Urban Communities


TEA BREAK: 3.30-3.45 p.m.


SESSION THREE:-- CASTE IN HISTORY (a): 3.45-5.00 p.m.

Chairperson: Dr. Aravind Ganachari

  1. Dr. Sadanand More: Caste in Bhakti Literature
  2. Dr. Bharat Patankar: Caste and Exploitation in Indian History



DAY TWO: Tuesday, February 21, 2012

SESSION FOUR:-- CASTE IN HISTORY (b): 10.00-11.00 a.m.

Chairperson: Dr. Bharat Patankar

  1. Dr. Kancha Illaiah: Colonialism, Caste and Counter-Culture
  2. Dr. Umesh Bagade: Matanga Purana and Caste Consciousness


TEA BREAK: 11.00-11.15 a.m.


SESSION FIVE:-- EXPERIENCING CASTE: 11.15 a.m.-1.00 p.m.

Chairperson: Prof. Zaheer Ali

  1. Dr. Gopal Guru: Where is My Location in Caste Question?
  2. Dr. Ramesh Kamble: Locating & Memorializing Caste: The everyday ‘habitus’ of caste
  3. Dr. Gautam Gawli: Psychosocial Aspects of Social Memory of Caste


LUNCH BREAK: 1.00-2.00 p.m.


SESSION SIX:-- CASTE & REPRESENTATION: 2.00-3.30 p.m.

Chairperson: Dr. Ramaiah

  1. Dr. Badri Narayan: Dalit Identity Formation in North India
  2. Dr. C Lakshmanan: Caste Portrayals in Tamil Popular Cinema
  3. Dr. Ramesh Bairy T. S.: Studying the Brahmins: A Framework


TEA BREAK: 3.30-3.45 p.m.


SESSION SEVEN:-- RURAL-URBAN DALIT MOBILIZATIONS: 3.45-5.30 p.m.

Chairperson: Shri. Mahesh Gavaskar

  1. Prof. S Anandi: Dedicating Dalit Women: Gender, caste & cultural politics of development
Activism in Rural Tamil Nadu
  1. Dr. Edward Rodrigues: Dalit Assertion and Urbanism: Two contrasting modes of dalit mobili-
sation in Bombay/Mumbai
  1. Dr. Suryakant Waghmore: Caste Atrocities and Dalit Movement in Maharashtra: A study of
political inclusion/exclusion of dalits



DAY THREE: Tuesday, February 22, 2012

SESSION EIGHT: CHANGING SOCIAL STRUCTURE: CASTE & TRIBE: 9.30-11a.m.

Chairperson: Dr. Sudhakar Gaikwad

  1. Dr. P. G. Jogdand: Caste System in Changing Times
  2. Dr. B. S. Waghmare : Emergence of Dalit Middle Class in Globalising India
  3. Dr. Sanjay Kolekar: Interplay of Caste & Tribe: Case of Maharashtra


TEA BREAK: 11.00-11.15 a.m.


SESSION NINE: ECONOMY THROUGH CASTE PRISM: 11.15 a.m.- 1.00 p.m.

Chairperson: Dr. Ramesh Kamble

  1. Dr. Ramesh Dandge: Caste-based Occupational Discrimination & Their Implications
  2. Dr. Pradeep Shinde: Caste & Informal Sector
  3. Dr. Shailesh Darokar: Caste & Stigma: Scavengers & the Others


LUNCH BREAK: 1.00-2.00 p.m.


SESSION TEN: ANTHROPOLOGY OF CASTE IN RURAL M’SHTRA:2.00-3.00 p.m.

Chairperson: Dr. Gopal Guru

  1. Dr. Lee Schlesinger: Caste & Colour: Casual village conversations, visible contrast & diverse
classifications
  1. Dr. Girija Godbole: Everyday Life of Rural Dalit Women in Maval Tehsil, Pune


TEA BREAK: 3.00-3.15 p.m.


SESSION ELEVEN: POLITICS OF CASTE: 3.15-4.45 p.m.

Chairperson: S Anandi

  1. Dr. Gail Omvedt: Caste & Politics with regard to Anna Hazare
  2. Dr. Yeshwant Sumant: Idea of Justice in the Caste Debate
  3. Dr. Anand Teltumbde: How Anti-Caste are Caste-based Mobilizations?


VALEDICTORY SESSION

Chair: Dr. Uma Chakravarti

Dr. Gail Omvedt: In Response to Felicitation

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WESTERN BUDDHISTS TO LEARN FROM AMERICAN JEWS By PPLakshmanJi

I read with great interest "A Challenge to Buddhism" by Ven.Bhikkhu Bodhi that I was fortunate to read on the internet. 
We all know and revere Bhikkhu Bodhi. His talks and writings are always inspiring and  provocative. His distress evident in the above-mentioned article will be shared by all those who read it.
Of late we have been hearing a lot about the expression  "Engaged Buddhism". I find the expression mostly among the Mahayanists rather than among the Therawadis in the Western world. Mahayanists also use the expression "Humanistic Buddhism". To everyone who is not a Buddhist, it simply means Applied Buddhism or practical Budhism.
There has been  challenges to Buddhism in all eras. To my mind, there is no greater solution, no enduring remedy to the challenges in any era than the creation of Buddha's disciples known as Arhants who would advice and give lead to people to solve their problems as and when they arise, regardless of color, race, creed or nation. Whatever the problems - social problems like injustice or natural catastrophies like earthquake or global problems like climate change 
-  the cutting edges of weapons in Buddhist armory to counter them always lay in individuals in the first instance, and subsequently in their organizations, with or without the support of governments. Therawada Buddhism which I am more familiar with has had a monastic order in place since Buddha'.s time where trained monks are turned out in large numbers, year after year, in Therawada countries -  Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia.  Many of the trained monastics become bodhisatvas (seekers of enlightenment), few if any become fully enlightened worthy ones known as arhants who are worthy to advice and lead. Finding arhants is like mining for diamonds.
Many of the social service organizations, Buddhist or other,  fail because of the absence of arhants, the fully enlightened ones, to lead them. The fully enlightened arhants emerge out of the multitudes of monks, worthy to advice and worthy to lead..  
 
There have been a plethora of institutions with long histories of social service like the CARE, the American Peace Core, Red Cross, YMCAs, and many others. Bhikkhu Bodhi has mentioned American Jewish World Service (AJWS) which is relatively a new organization like the Islamic Relief USA and others, all of which "aiming to alleviate suffering, hunger, illiteracy and disease, worldwide". On the other hand,  organizations with limited goals also take birth like the Armenian Relief Society with its limited goal of serving the humanitarian needs of the Armenian people worldwide, who still suffer from the effects of its underreported holocaust of early 20th century. I wonder what make AJWS exceptional. 

Has AJWS  tested its declared objective of social service on the soils of Israel's next door neighbors or in the  Arab sector inside Israel itself?  Some material on the internet gave me the impression that AJWS perhaps took birth out of cognitive dissonance among American Jews suffering from psychological conflicts between incompatible beliefs and attitudes.  
The highly efficient style of working of organizations like AJWS backed by media support can make favourable impression of them even if they do not have enlightened leaders and violate one or more of the five precepts that the Buddhists always practise in all their endeavours.
Social service is the objective of most organizations, but they have besides social service something which make them distinct. For instance, the U.S. after taking thousands of lives in Japan with their nuclear armory seek to create a better image of the U.S.with its Peace Core volunteers, YMCAs seek to spread Christian messages behind their altruism,  what if AJWS seeks to show Jewish presence in world service, no matter that the Jews are only 0.2 percent of a world population of 7 billion.   
 
I wish to draw the attention of my readers to an organization which I had in  mind when I wrote earlier in this piece about arhants and searching for them like mining for diamonds. 
The organization is called Fo Guang Shan (FGS), which means literally "Buddha's Light Mountain", and its organizer is Master Venerable Hsing Yun, born in mainland China in 1927. Master Venrable Hsing Yun founded FGS in 1967 in a remote quiet area in the hills of  Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. It is a Mahayana Buddhist order promoting Humanistic Budddhism, a modern Chinese philosophy. Humanistic Buddhism aims to make Buddhism relevant in the world and in the people's lives and hearts. It is a monastic order and not a theoretical school of thought per se.
In May 1997, Hsing Yun got the gates of FGS closed to the general public in order to give a cloistered atmosphere to the temple residents.
But, following the plea of the public headed by the President of Taiwan, FGS reopened the gates in December 2000. In the last 40 years since its inception, FGS has been remarkably successful in extending its services beyond Taiwan,  setting up temples and organizations in 173 countries and encompassing more than 3,500 monastics. FGS also created an affiliate in 1992, Buddha's  Light International Association (BLIA),  
which has now over 100 chapters in the world.  The monastic order represented by Fo Guang Shan and Buddha's Light International Association has now over a milliom followers worldwide. It has been said  "In Master Venerable Hsing Yun, Buddhism has found a reformer, an innovator and an educator. Under his strong  leadership, Buddhism has extended beyond traditional temple life to integrate and further enrich the modern city dwellers."
 
 P.P.Lakshman
December 18, 2008
 
 

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Ravana & the depiction of 10 Heads? What is the Rationale?

Ravana's ten heads represent the ten crowns he wore as a result of his being the sovereign of ten countries.