Buddhism and Hinduism both come under Dharmic religions, each influenced by the other. Both respected the other and philosophies were discussed and debated, there was civil space for all dharmic religions in the same land .... Jainism included.
Towards its fag end Buddhism had abandoned the community visits and concentrated on their own salvation. As the average devotees were ignored, Buddhism started losing the general support from the community. Subsequently revival of hindusim resulted in withdrawal of support from contemporary rulers. Towards the end stage of this decline, Muslim invasion of India destroyed the remaining Buddhist spread and they were forcible converted to Islam. You can look at Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh to confirm those facts
Political violent wars between Hindus and Buddhist is just an aberration in the long history of both religions in India. Quite unlike Islam and Christianity I may add
Clearly common sense would have made someone acknowledge the facts and not use exceptions to make their point. But consider a debate with a bigot, I am most certainly prepared to go to any level required to counter propaganda.
Schlock scholarship at its worst.
Buddhism and Hinduism both come under Dharmic religions - what is the connection between these two? Other than a post-facto reconciliation of an historically recorded bitter hostility?
Both respected the other - except that one was born in revolt against the other, and trashed the entire rigmarole of empty ritual, and the other repaid the compliment by calling practitioners of the new religion heretics. We are opening up new nuances of the word 'respect' here.
Philosophies were discussed and debated - a profound reflection, but what else DOES one do with philosophies?
There was civil space for all Dharmic religions in the same land, Jainism included. Just like there was civil space for all religions in the same land, the brutalities of one or the other excepted, thereafter. It is the great Hindutva lie, the quasi-Hindu equivalent of the Two Nation Theory that religions other than Dharmic did not co-exist at any time, most exposed to ridicule by Kerala, where Syrian Christian, Muslim and Hindu dwelt in civilized communities without being subject to the bilious outpourings of fanatics and bigots.
Towards the fag end, Buddhism had abandoned community visits and concentrated on their own salvation, we are informed. Our born-again scholar is thinking of the Seventh Day Adventists, perhaps; only the utterly ignorant or the utterly cynical could evert describe Buddhism is anything but the original quest to seek personal salvation. Not to see this as all pervasive, to see an evangelical aspect to Buddhism
which over-rode the quest for salvation is the kind of idiot statement that displays great innocence of learning or great perversion of learning.
We are informed that the average devotee was ignored, obviously from the Brahminical point of view. That one disastrous misunderstanding of the role of the Buddhist Sraman, as distinct from the Hindu, Puranic Brahmin, lays all bare - we are dealing with a fool here, not a knave. This great exegete does not even comprehend that there was no nexus between 'devotee' - one can imagine the Buddha writhing in agony at this stake through the heart of his essential teaching - and monk, as there was between devotee of inferior caste and Brahmin priest in the Puranic system. No daily ritual, no ceremonial for birth, for tonsure, for first rice, for thread, for marriage, for death - none, that is, required to be sanctified by a wretched, money-grubbing priest, eye always on the main chance.
But that is too much for our reborn dimwit.
For him, the loosening of a bond that never existed is the explanation of the revival of Hinduism. For him, the need for a battle-ready creed in the times of the invasion of the Huns, during the early Gupta emperors, and afterwards the need to handle the not very pacific inclinations of the settled-in Scythians, Parthians and Kushans, transmuted into sun-born, moon-born and fire-born clans, or the need to handle subjects of diverse faiths, during the Maukharis, none of this mattered. Not when he has the facile explanations of some web-site or the other to bank upon.
So we find stupid statements like Buddhism lost the general support from the community. Ignoring the fact that thousands of scholars populated the great complex of universities around Nalanda, Odantapur, Vikramshila...presumably not drawn from the community, according to our hero, presumably denizens of the Moon. And then the equally stupid statement that the revival of Hinduism resulted in the withdrawal of support from rulers. What a pathetic reversal of cause and effect!
And then the big bad wolf makes his appearance. The Muslim now prances onto the stage and very selectively converts the Buddhist, leaving the Hindu alone so that he can pluck the low-hanging fruit. The most hilarious part of this comedy version of 1066 and all that? The inference that the big, bad Muslim did this to a homogenous community of the Dharmic, living together in indistinguishable propinquity.
You have to be lobotomized to graduate to the higher orders of the khaki chaddi.
Nothing else could convert the pre-Muslim population of Afghanistan and Pakistan to Buddhist majorities, against the evidence that the reigning Turki Shahi dynasty was as Hindu as they come, and to hell with the irrelevant information that the reports of the Chronicles of the north-western Turkish invaders of the eleventh century only mentioned Hindus battling the invaders, or as being slaughtered. Obviously our hedge scholar knows nothing about the fierce tribes of Potohar, that more than once fought the invaders to a standstill, or of their subsequent history.
But then his coin is not historical, it is propaganda.
......no to mention buddhu Rahul.
