absolutely I would love to read that series.

? I don’t remember ever encountering this Buddha as a descendent of Rama. Maybe some strange Buddhist retrofit.

The Buddha is always the Sakhya Muni, and the Sakhyas are a semi republican confederacy of lower himalayan tribes. Aryan more by cultural integration than blood.

Rama however is uber Aryan. Surya vamsha Ikshavaku dynasty, the Chakravarti emperor satpurusha.

Interestingly post the Buddha and during the time of Ashoka the sakhyas are revered as the highest caste of the country as vedic Hinduism is superceded by Buddhism countrywide.

The religious movements of India prior to Islam deserves a good series on brown pundits.

So many practices (such as vegetarianism) are Jain/Buddhist influenced and there is so much retro fitting of custom via oral traditions. The uncovering of this I feel has a vital role in challenging Hindu orthodoxies.

I’ll try to put something out.

I’m interested in your comments on the map heading this post that claims Sri Lanka as part of “Akhand Bharat” 🙂

The Ramayana does not mean much in Sri Lanka to both Sinhalese and Tamils. Everyone knows the story, thats about it.
Even Ravana is not a “God” in SL. In Kerala Ravana is a God.

There is a place in the hill country called Seethe Eliya. Meaning cold open plain. Now it its spelled Sita Eliya and the local recent Indian Tamils consider it to be where Sita was held captive. The Indian govt also built a big Hindu Kovil there. So coupled with another place called Ravana Ella (waterfall) about 50km away SL has Ravana Trails. Gullible Tourist expeditions to various places where Rama and Sita have supposed to have stayed. Also a place in the deep south Rumassala supposed to be rock that Hanuman dropped.

Like I’ve said above (maybe it was on another thread), I’m not trying to tell anyone what they should and should not relate to. The vast majority of Pakistanis are Muslim and as such do not relate to any Hindu mythology. Society has only become more conservative and Orthodox over the years.

Still, the play seems to have gotten an overwhelmingly positive reaction. No one was protesting in the streets that Hindu mythology was being staged in Karachi.

This whole post was written in reaction to a comment I made that having read The Ramayana I prefer the Greek epics. I still don’t see what is offensive in that statement since it simply expresses a personal literary preference.

One doesn’t expect Indians to be deeply moved by Arab history or mythology. So the reverse should also apply.

This is not a particularly controversial point: This map that you have used de-legitimizes other South Asian nation-states. That’s why we find it offensive. We should ask Sbarrkum what he feels about Sri Lanka being included as part of “Akhand Bharat”. Should be interesting to say the least.

Afghanistan to this day claims parts of Pakistan (KPK etc). So I guarantee that they are not going to respond pleasantly to being told that their country is part of “Akhand Bharat”.

It really shouldn’t be too much for all of us to agree to accept the boundaries of our modern nation-states.

I don’t see that there was anything to get offended about in what I said. We are all entitled to our literary preferences.

I’m not particularly religious and have never read the Quran all the way through. It is considered to be a classic of Arabic Literature even by non-Muslims though.

Personally, since I don’t read Arabic whatever little I read of the Quran as a child (at my grandmother’s insistence) really didn’t do very much for me. One can of course read it in English translation, but for someone who’s not all that religious reading about God’s commandments etc is not particularly interesting.