GS,S&H:- Scholar of the Year?

Coming up Soon: Scholar of the Year 2010 TBA
Scholar of the Year 2009: TBA
Scholar of the Year 2008: Caste Views-Dharma's author Refractor
Scholar of the Year 2007, TBA
Scholar of the Year 2006, TBA

The grinding miseries that are ailing humanity? By Ven Bhikkhu Bodhi

In this insightful message to the world Buddhists, Ven Bhikkhu Bodhi one of the most scholarly and revered American Buddhist monk discusses the sufferings of Humanity world wide, he also points to the role of Buddhists in reaching out to the needy and socially, morally  and economically oppressed and suppressed, this is exactly what our great Buddha himself taught and practiced,

if we can eliminate the suffering from innocent and underprevileged humans around the globe, lot more better humanity can be build around us, this is not anything new in Buddhists society, Buddha did this 3500 years ago, but, the Buddha's Dhamma should not be sabotaged by the few elite or educated or one who can afford to take it for introvert purposes, after all such great tool as eliminating one's suffering must be shared with others, then to others and then to others ultimately taking the Dhamma to as many as possible.

What a great thoughts Ven Bhikkhu Bodhi brings to us so often as we need, just like a glowing light in the darkness of this era we live with so much sufferings.

While you are reading this great piece of information, do not forget to read our great P.P.LakshmanJi's remarks and vision about today's Buddhists (look at the left side bar in this blog for PPL's remarks). Lakshmanji is another scholarly writer and a revered Buddhists within our Dalit Brotherhood/sisterhood who often enlightens us.

A challenge to Buddhists
By Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Each morning, I check out a number of Internet news reports and commentaries on websites ranging from the BBC to Trutbout. Reading about current events strongly reinforces for me the acuity of the Buddha's words: "The world is grounded upon suffering."

Almost daily I am awed by the enormity of the suffering that assails human beings on every continent, and even more so by the hard truth that so much of this suffering springs not from the vicissitudes of impersonal nature but from the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion raging in the human heart.

Seeing the immensity of the world's anguish has raised in my mind questions about the future prospects for Buddhism in the West. I've been struck by how seldom the theme of global suffering - the palpable suffering of real human beings - is thematically explored in the Buddhist journals and teachings with which I am acquainted.

It seems to me that we Western Buddhists tend to dwell in a cognitive space that defines the first noble truth largely against the background of our middle-class lifestyles: as the gnawing of discontent; the ennui of over-satiation; the pain of unfulfilling relationships; or, with a bow to Buddhist theory, as bondage to the round of rebirths. Too often, I feel, our focus on these aspects of dukkha has made us oblivious to the vast, catastrophic suffering that daily overwhelms three-fourths of the world's population.

An exception to this tendency may be found with the Engaged Buddhist movement. I believe this is a face of Buddhism that has great promise, but from my superficial readings in this area I am struck by two things.

First, while some Engaged Buddhist seek fresh perspectives from the Dharma, for many Buddhism simply provides spiritual practices to use while simultaneously espousing socio-political causes not much different from those of the mainstream Left. Second, Engaged Buddhism still remains tangential to the hard core of Western interest in Buddhism, which has fastened upon the Dharma principally as a path to inner peace and self-realisation.

If Buddhism in the West becomes solely a means to pursue personal spiritual growth, I am apprehensive it may evolve in a one-sided way and thus fulfil only half its potential. Attracting the affluent and the educated, it will provide a congenial home for the intellectual and cultural elite, but it risks turning the quest for enlightenment into a private journey that, in the face of the immense suffering which daily hounds countless human lives, can present only a resigned quietism.

It is true that Buddhist meditation practice requires seclusion and inwardly focused depth. But, I ask myself, wouldn't the embodiment of Dharma in the world be more complete by also reaching out and addressing the grinding miseries that are ailing humanity?

I know we engage in lofty meditations on kindness and compassion and espouse beautiful ideals of love and peace. But note that we pursue them largely as inward subjective experiences geared towards personal transformation.

Too seldom does this type of compassion roll up its sleeves and step into the field. Too rarely does it translate into pragmatic programs of effective action realistically designed to diminish the actual sufferings of those battered by natural calamities or societal deprivation.

American Jewish World Service doesn't aspire to convert people to Judaism but to express Judaism's commitment to social justice by alleviating "poverty, hunger, and disease among the people of the developing world regardless of race, religion, or nationality."

Why doesn't Buddhism have anything like that? Surely we can find a supporting framework for this in Buddhist doctrine, ethical ideals, archetypes, legends, and historical precedents.

I recognise that many individual Buddhists are actively engaged in social service and that a few larger Buddhist organisations work tirelessly to relieve human suffering around the globe. Their selfless dedication fully deserves our appreciation. Unfortunately, however, their appeal has as yet been limited

Buddhist teachers often say that the most effective way we can help protect the world is by purifying our own minds, or that before we engage in compassionate action we must attain realization of selflessness or emptiness.

There may be some truth in such statements, but I think it is a partial truth. In these critical times, we also have an obligation to aid those immersed in the world who live on the brink of destitution and despair.

The Buddha's mission, the reason for his arising in the world, was to free beings from suffering by uprooting the evil roots of greed, hatred, and delusion. These sinister roots don't exist only in our own minds.

Today they have acquired a collective dimension and spread out over whole countries and continents. To help free beings from suffering today therefore requires that we counter the systemic embodiments of greed, hatred, and delusion.

In each historical period, the Dharma finds new means to unfold its potentials in ways precisely linked to that era's distinctive historical conditions.

I believe that our own era provides the appropriate historical stage for the transcendent truth of the Dharma to bend back upon the world and engage human suffering at multiple levels - even the lowest, harshest, and most degrading levels - not in mere contemplation but in effective, relief-granting action illuminated by its own world transcending goal.

A special challenge facing Buddhism in our age is to stand up as an advocate for justice in the world, a voice of conscience for those victims of social, economic, and political injustice who cannot stand up and speak for themselves.

This, in my view, is a deeply moral challenge marking a watershed in the modern expression of Buddhism. I believe it also points in a direction that Buddhism should take if it is to share in the Buddha's ongoing mission to humanity.

Buddhism’s Revival in India in the 20th Century

Vinay Lal writes about the revival of Buddhism in India and the untiring torch bearers of the Buddhism in India and Tamil Nadu.

Buddhism’s Revival in India in the 20^th Century

Vinay Lal

The disappearance of Buddhism from the land of its birth, a gradual process that extended from the latter part of the 1^st millennium AD until about 1200-1300 AD, is a phenomenon that has been commented upon quite often.  [See the related article on this web site.]  Another part of this story is surely the revival of Buddhism, a reawakening with which the name of B. R. Ambedkar is indelibly linked.  Indeed, the story of modern-day Indian Buddhism  generally commences with Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism in 1956, a mere couple of months before his death.  By the early 1990s, there were an estimated 7 - 10 million Buddhists in India, the bulk of them in the western state of Maharashtra.

However, the narrative of Buddhism’s revival in India can more accurately be traced back to the 19^th century, and a more complex account of it would have to take stock of various Dravidian, anti-Brahminical, and self-respect movements that, in various ways, impinged on the fortunes of Buddhism in India from the late nineteenth century onwards.  The names of reformers such as Jotiba Phule (1826-1890) and much later E. V. Ramaswami ‘Periyar’ (1879-1973) are, of course, well-known, but one can also point to other tendencies.  Mahima Dharma, or the “religion” founded by Mahima Gosain [previously known as Mukunda Das] in Orissa in 1862, stood for the rejection of caste and idol worship, and Gosain embraced such Buddhist practices as begging for cooked food.  Gosain’s teachings were spread through many followers, none as famous as the blind adivasi poet, Bhima Bhoi, whose bhajans popularized Mahima Gosain’s teachings. 

Ambedkar’s closest forerunner may well have been Pandit Iyothee Thaas, a Tamil Siddha physician (1845-1914) who not only urged the Untouchables (as they were then known) to view themselves as non-Hindus, as casteless Dravidians, but also set another example for them by taking diksha at the hands of a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka.  Thaas went on to found the Sakya Buddhist Society in Madras.

Various other trajectories fed into Buddhism’s revival, among them the arrival in India in 1891 of David Hewavitarne, more well-known as Angarika Dharmapala.   The restoration of Bodh Gaya, the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment, was undertaken at his behest, and Dharmapala also founded the Maha Bodhi Society.  Before Ambedkar’s conversion in 1956 and the advent of what we might call Dalit Buddhism, the Maha Bodhi Society, which also wrested control of Bodh Gaya from the hands of its Hindu managers, would become the custodian of Buddhism’s fortunes. Dharmapala’s visit to India coincided with a spurt of scholarly interest in Buddhism among Indologists, including such famous ones as the Sanskritist R. G. Bhandarkar, and something of what might be called an antiquarian and spiritual interest in Buddhism among intellectuals and truth seekers in the West.  In 1881, the Pali Text Society had been founded, and authoritative versions of Buddhist texts soon came to be published and disseminated under its auspices.  One convert to Buddhism in India who was to acquire considerable fame in later years was Dharmanand Kosambi, who was born in Goa in 1876 and was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1902.  Though his fame has been eclipsed by that of his son, D. D. Kosambi, the most eminent Indian Marxist historian of his generation,

 

Dharmanand Kosambi authored one of the most popular biographies of Buddha, Bhagwan Buddha (1940, and still in print from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan).

 

Ultimately, however, Buddhism’s revival owes the most to Ambedkar’s alienation from Hinduism and his embrace of Buddhism, which by no means seemed inevitable to him even when he had emphatically denounced Hinduism, in October 1956.  That story has been taken up in great detail by Ambedkar’s biographers and is now part of Dalit lore; and consequently it will not be rehearsed now at any length. It is worth recalling that as late as 1929, when a group of Dalits threatened to convert to Islam or Christianity, Ambedkar did not really see Buddhism as a viable alternative for low-caste Hindus.  As he then wrote, “No particular effect will be felt on the bullying of the so-called upper castes by becoming Buddhist or Arya Samajist, so we see no meaning in following this path.  To successfully confront the domination of Hindus, we should become Christians or Muslims and win the support of a powerful community and with this erase the mark of Untouchability.”   Ambedkar was fully conversant with the problem that in India the tendency to view Buddhism as an off-shoot of Hinduism meant that converts to Buddhism would be treated with something like indifference, and that they would not be able to escape the liabilities of low-caste Hinduism.  Upper-caste Hindus were not likely to perceive conversion to Buddhism as anything of a threat.  By the mid-1930s, however, Ambedkar had certainly come around to the view that he could not remain within the fold of Hinduism.  As he was to declare on 13 October 1935, “Unfortunately, I was born a Hindu.  It was beyond my power to prevent that, but I solemnly assure you that I will not die a Hindu.”  He only took the final plunge in October 1956.  Perhaps not coincidentally, or not without its own symbolic politics, Ambedkar’s conversion, accompanied by the conversion of thousands of his followers, took place at a large field in the city of Nagpur, a place associated with the rise of Hindu nationalist sentiments.  The field where Ambedkar converted would be sanctified as “Diksha Bhoomi”, the field or earth of vow-taking.

 

Though Buddhism has gained adherents over the last five decades, Indian Buddhists are still relatively miniscule in numbers.  Buddhism’s presence in India is, of course, another matter, with the landscape in many parts of the country still dotted with remains of Buddhist monasteries, Buddhist sculptural art, and other reminders of the supreme presence that Buddhism once occupied in Indian life.  The hill regions of north-east India, Uttaraanchal, and Himachal Pradesh, as well as Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir are other areas where sizable Buddhist communities are found.  Japanese tourists arriving in India to take the Buddhist pilgrimage route are writing yet another chapter of the history of Indian Buddhism, as are, in more profound ways, Tibetan Buddhists.  There is a sizable population of Tibetan Buddhists, over 150,000 people, in India; and the Dalai Lama heads the Tibetan government in exile at the hill station of Dharmashala.  In the 12^th and 13^th centuries, as Buddhism was pushed further east and north, it eventually made its way to Tibet and found refuge in the mountainous retreats of that country.  It is, thus, perfectly apposite that Buddhism should now have come back to India from Tibet to nourish the soil on which it once grew.

HTML Version: Posted:  24 February 2006

8th Century BC, Nandanar & Cast System in Tamil Nadu?: Kings Looted lands from Dalits to give it to the nomadic,landless Brahmins, Read further...!

S.Viswanatahan from Tamil Nadu is a well known and reputed writer, at times his writings are scholarly in his expression and style. 

The following review article written by him is about one of the most revered, powerful spiritual saint  with an astonished performance of crusade against brahminism and casteism during 8th century, the greatest of all saints Saint Nandanar or Thirunaalaippovar, a Tamil Dalit (what?, a dalit at 8th century?, isn't this amazing how barbaric Indias and Tamilians even at this early century). Yes, Nandanar belongs to erstwhile pariyar community, they were untouchables who were chased out to their lands and belongings to the outskirts for living (Caste Segregation, that we can see even today in every single village in India). After almost several centuries gone by, Tamil Nadu is still full of riddles of hinduism the caste animosity and atrocity against dalits, they are predominently segregated in almost all the villages?. 


REVIEW ARTICLE

Dalit struggle and a legend

S. VISWANATHAN

The Legend of Nandan: Nandan Kathai by Indira Parthasarathy, translated from the Tamil by C.T. Indra; Oxford University Press; pages 82, Rs.195.

DALITS, who constitute a little over one-sixth of India's one billion people, have for generations been at the very bottom of the social ladder. They are kept outside, and subservient to, the four-tier hierarchical caste structure sanctified by Varnasrama Dharma.

HISTORIANS relate the segregation of a section of people in Tamil Nadu as "outcastes" and "untouchables" to the process of Aryanisation of southern India. Dalit isolation grew in intensity in pace with this process. "The Aryanisation of the South was doubtless a slow process spread over several centuries. Beginning probably about 1000 B.C., it had reached its completion before the time of Katyayana, the grammarian of the 4th century B.C., who mentions the names of the Tamil countries of the extreme south." (K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India)

In his Slavery in the Tamil Country: A Historical Overview, historian S. Manickam observes: "It is difficult to say when the institution of slavery originated in the South. Perhaps the conquest of southern India by the Aryans and the consequent fusion between them and the inhabitants of the land could have been the possible cause of the birth of Caste System and the institution of slavery which is closely allied with the former."

The "Pulaiyars'', the "Paraiars" and the "Pallars" are some of the large Dalit communities. Many historians have shown that large sections of original inhabitants (the Pallars and the Paraiars, for instance) were alienated from their land. Manickam contends that the Aryanisation process reached its peak during the period of Imperial Cholas under state patronage and this led to a form of slavery, mainly associated with land. The distribution of land as gift to Brahmins by the kings during the Pallava and Chola periods brought about changes in land relations. Brahmins, who were until then mostly advisers andpurohits to the king, became landowners in several places.

Nandan, in a way, has been the symbol of the Dalit aspiration for liberation since the 8th century. The evolution of the story of Nandan, from a brief reference to his inner piety by the Tamil Saivite seer and poet Sundarar, one of the 63 nayanmaars of the Saivite order, ("chemmaiye Thirunaalaippovaarkkum adiyen") to Indira Parthasarathy's Nandan Kathai, through several re-interpretations is interesting.

Read this whole review, the life story of Saint Nandanar is a model of model for inspiration and humanity, though there are several controversial stories, he is the probably the first known Tamil Dalit during 8th century to fought against caste system and single handedly crushed the upper castes and high and mighty procrastinators of religious stupidity of those years.