Open Thread – 08/15/2020 – Brown Pundits

Not sure how I missed this comment, but it I agree completely.

Aside from livability, a big issue I imagine is the visa hassle. Not an issue for Indian origin folk like myself, but it is for a lot of talented people.

The world is not flat, but it’s getting there.

Suriname is not the only Indian outpost. I am friends with a family like this who are from Curacao. Taken as indentured labour by the Dutch from Bihar, multiple generations lived in Curacao, and sometime in past 70 years their ancestors moved to Netherlands.

“the few times there has been a pan- India sovereign empire, it has usually been in the hands of Buddhists (Asoka), Muslims or Christians (the British)”

Yes of course, Chandragupta and Bindusara (the predecessors of Ashoka) were Buddhists, who says they weren’t. Also Ashoka totally didn’t convert after the Kalinga war (8 years after his rule started). Why would he, he was a Buddhist since his birth. In fact, his ancestors had been buddhist even before the buddha had been born. They just loved buddhism that much (sarcasm if you cant tell)

Curious seems to be one from the Lefty/Muslim alliance and his knowledge of history is appropriately selective. As for the Maurya dynasty:
Chandragupta the founder was a “Hindu” and later became a Jain
Bindusara was a “Hindu” by all accounts and most of the expansion of the empire across the subcontinent happened under him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindusara
Ashoka was a “Hindu” when he expanded the empire further and only later became a Buddhist.
Samprati his grandson and successor and perhaps the last great Maurya was a Jain and great patron of Jainism..

It boils down to inscriptions vs literary traditions. Mrittyunjoy is raising doubts on the accuracy of the Srl Lankan traditions, and that’s a valid point. However, like he points out, there are prominent scholars who disagree with the timeline of the inscriptions and take the literary traditions to be more accurate. One simple problem about inscriptions is that there might be a considerable delay between when they are sanctioned and finished building. The citation from John Fleet, makes a convincing case for the literary traditions holding more weight. It’s one of those things that we might never know for sure. That also means that the popular narrative which has been built in the minds of school children in unfair and this shouldn’t really exist in school text books.

A piece by former BP guest Mrityunjay as response to TrueIndology

Did you mean this as someone who’s written articles here, which I’ve found, or a podcast, which I couldn’t find?

This is going to be a comment essay, but I will try to moderate myself.

Its important to understand that almost all narratives of Asoka stem from the Dipavamsa and other Buddhist literature. The Indians “cancelled” Asoka from their narratives and king-lists, so to say, other than a few passing mentions. The hagiography is entirely found in Buddhist lore.

The legend/persona of Devanampiya Priyadarshi has been many centuries in the making. Too many unexplained and perplexing nuances exist. Our historians (or distorians) close their eyes in pursuit of a grand narrative. A few facts –

The minor rock edicts and minor pillars are all related to Buddha and his teachings and span a small-er geographical area (MP, Bihar, UP, Orissa, Andhra). The name, Ashoka, only appears in the minors.

The major rock edicts and pillars never mention Buddha or his teachings but only proclamations of principles. They are found as far as Afghanistan. Only the name Devanampiya or Priyadarshi is found in the majors, never Asoka.

On the 7th Major Pillar, Devanampiya states that this message may be re-written on other pillars, wherever they may be available or found (kind of like a whatsapp forward). This gives rise to the startling speculation that Devanampiya DID NOT BUILD the pillars, but merely ordered inscriptions on them. Now a lone standing pillar is a typical motif of a temple, the Dhvajastamba. Also it has important theological significance in the form of the connection between the temporal and the spiritual, the earth and skies, the Svarloka and Bhuloka.

The other major dissonance is that birth of the Buddha is not settled! Tibetan, Chinese, Cambodian and Indian literature puts the Buddha in the 2nd millennium BC. Its only the Srilankan chronicles that have put the date in the 1st millennium (the country that is the farthest from Lumbini). Prinsep and William Jones (they were brilliant Indologists!!) really messed up with their sheet anchoring. Consider the evidence – Megasthenes never gives any indications of Buddhists in his travels, Plutarch and Strabo only talk of gymnosophists (naked men) who might have been Ajvikas, Jainas or Nagas. They never talk about Buddhists!! This almost persuades me that Buddhism was dead or extinct in India in the period 2nd century BC to 1st century AD. The revival happened later on.

Both the IVC phases and the First millennium BC of Indian history has never been properly examined in terms of all these variations. It fits up only in the eyes of Western Indologists!

Sikhism is a religion built on dislike of Hinduism so I don’t know what you expect them to add to the conversation.

@justanotherlurker @Sumit @Saurav

“Wonder what moderate Sikhs in India and the west think of all this.”

In my friends group, the person most favourably disposed to Hindutva is Sikh. The kinds who use ‘librandu’ without any qualms when with me.

“I wish Sikh history had taken a different turn, Continued to identify as Hindus”,

It doesn’t matter as long as there is reciprocity. I’d rather have ten other religions spring out of Hinduism. That’ll reflect some intellectual ferment.

“and spread their influence throughout India, rather than becoming a Punjabi ethno-religion. Sikhi is of the unique among dharmic traditions for:
1. Discouraging detachment from worldly affairs
2. Khalsa”

Agree with this. I wonder why they don’t do it. And instead of going out and proselytizing in the rest of the country, they are slowly ceding ground to Christian missionaries even in Punjab.

“Too much is being asked of the sikh community. We Hindus haven;t been fair to them,”

Both agree and disagree. Hindus treat them as they’d any other caste with Sikhs’ demographic. But more should be done considering the wounds from the past.

“The whole issue suffers from the standard Indian response to every issue. Keep silent and let the issue slide.”

I’ll use Saurav’s argument and say that there’s no political capital to be gained and so it’s not done. Need a real ‘leader’ to initiate something like this.

I daresay the attitude of moderate Sikhs towards Khalistanis is the same as that of moderate Hindus towards RSS fanatics or of moderate Muslims towards Islamist fundamentalists.