Pushya mitra shyungudu evaru?

[Midnightsun]

 

[Guest]

Buddhist texts claim that Pushyamitra persecuted Buddhists; scholars have rejected these claims.

Based on Buddhist tradition, some scholars believe that Pushyamitra was indeed a persecutor of the Buddhist faith. However, others believe that Buddhist scholars were biased against Pushyamitra, because he did not patronize them.[16] According to archaeologist John Marshall, there is evidence of some damage to Buddhist establishments at Takshashila around the time of Shunga rule. He also theorized that the Sanchi stupa was vandalized in 2nd century BCE (that is, during Pushyamitra's reign), before being rebuilt on a larger scale.[17] G. R. Sharma, who excavated the Buddhist ruins at Kaushambi, suggested that the destruction of the local monastery might have happened during the reign of Pushyamitra Shunga. P. K. Mishra believes that the damage to the Deur Kothar stupa is also datable to Pushyamitra's period.[18] H. C. Raychaudhari pointed out that Buddhist monuments were constructed at Bharhut during the Shunga rule.[19] However, according to N. N. Ghosh, these were constructed during the reign of later Shunga rulers, not Pushyamitra's period.[18]

H. Bhattacharya theorized that Pushyamitra might have persecuted Buddhists for political, rather than religious, reasons: the politically active Buddhists probably supported the Indo-Greek rivals of Pushyamitra, which might have prompted him to persecute them.[20] The Ashokavadana states that Pushyamitra declared a reward for killing Buddhist monks in Shakala (present-day Sialkot), which was located near the Indo-Greek frontiers. According to K. P. Jayaswal, this further highlights a political motivation behind his alleged persecution of Buddhists.[21]

Others have expressed skepticism about the Buddhist claims of persecution by Pushyamitra. Étienne Lamotte points out that the Buddhist legends are not consistent about the location of Pushyamitra's anti-Buddhist campaign and his death.[22] The Ashokavadana claims that Pushyamitra offered Roman dinaras as a reward for killing Buddhist monks, but the dinara did not come into general circulation in India before the 1st century BCE.[23] Ashokavadana also claims that Ashoka persecuted Nirgranthas (Ajivikas), which some assert is a fabrication, considering that Ashoka's edicts express tolerance towards all religious sects.[24] The Sri Lankan Buddhist text Mahavamsa suggests that several monasteries existed in present-day Bihar, Awadh and Malwa at the time Pushyamitra's contemporary Dutthagamani ruled in Lanka. This suggests that these monasteries survived Pushyamitra Shunga's reign.[20]

H. C. Raychaudhury argued that Pushyamitra's overthrow of the Mauryans cannot be considered as a Brahmin uprising against Buddhist rule, as Brahmins did not suffer during the Mauryan rule: Ashoka's edicts mention the Brahmins before Shramanas, and the appointment of a Brahmin general (Pushyamitra) shows that the Brahmins were honoured at the Mauryan court.[19] The fact that the Ashokavadana mentions Pushyamitra as a Mauryan further erodes its historical credibility, and weakens the hypothesis that he persecuted Buddhists because he was a Brahmin.[24] Raychaudhury also aruged that according to Malavikagnimitra, a Buddhist nun named Bhagavati Kaushiki attended Pushyamitra's court, which indicates that they did not persecute Buddhists. However, Shankar Goyal states that there is no evidence of Kaushiki being a Buddhist nun.[25]

Historian Eric Seldeslachts states that there is "no proof whatsoever that Pushyamitra actually persecuted the Buddhists" though he may not have actively supported the Buddhists, invoking the Buddhist wrath.[26]

Romila Thapar writes that the lack of concrete archaeological evidence casts doubt on the claims of Buddhist persecution by Pushyamitra.[5]

It is possible that the Buddhist influence at the Mauryan court declined during Pushyamitra's reign, and the Buddhist monasteries and other institutions stopped receiving royal patronage. This change might have led to discontent among the Buddhists, resulting in exaggerated accounts of persecution.[21]

Michael Witzel states that Manudharma, which emphasizes the role of orthodox faith in state-craft and society, was first compiled under Pushyamitra's rule. According to Kaushik Roy, it was a Brahmanical reaction to the rise of Buddhism and Jainism.[27]

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, Midnightsun said:

 

I don't know who this man is but he definitely did not read history. Not even Wikipedia. 

Citing him as any source to history is peddling alternate fake history without an iota of common sense.

[Guest]

This excerpt from a book demolishes Ashoka’s reputation as pacifist

 

Sanjeev Sanyal’s interesting new book looks at how the Indian Ocean shaped human history. In the process, he questions a number of long held notions including Emperor Ashoka’s reputation as a pacifist

 

In 274 BC, Bindusara suddenly fell ill and died. The crown prince Sushima was away fending off incursions on the northwestern frontiers and rushed back to the imperial capital Pataliputra, present-day Patna. However, on arrival he found that Ashoka, one of his half-brothers, had taken control of the city with the help of Greek mercenaries. It appears that Ashoka had Sushima killed at the eastern gates. The crown prince may have been roasted alive in the moat! This was followed by four years of a bloody civil war in which Ashoka seems to have killed all male rivals in his family. Buddhist texts mention that he killed ninety-nine half-brothers and only spared his full brother Tissa. Hundreds of loyalist officials were also killed; Ashoka is said to have personally decapitated five hundred of them. Having consolidated his power, he was finally crowned emperor in 270 BC.

All accounts agree that Ashoka’s early rule was brutal and unpopular, and that he was known as ‘Chandashoka’ or Ashoka the Cruel. According to mainstream textbook narratives, however, Ashoka would invade Kalinga a few years later and, shocked by the death and destruction, would convert to Buddhism and become a pacifist. The reader will be surprised to discover that the popular narrative about this conversion is based on little evidence. Ashoka would invade Kalinga in 262 BC whereas we know from minor rock edicts that Ashoka had converted to Buddhism more than two years earlier. No Buddhist text links his conversion to the war and even Ashoka’s eulogists like Charles Allen agree that his conversion predated the Kalinga war. Moreover, he seems to have had links with Buddhists for a decade before his conversion. The evidence suggests that his conversion to Buddhism was more to do with the politics of succession than with any regret he felt for sufferings of war.

The Mauryans were likely to have followed Vedic court rituals (certainly many of their top officials were Brahmins) but had eclectic religious affiliations in personal life. The founder of the line, Chandragupta, seems to have had links to the Jains in old age while his son Bindusara seems to have been partial to a heterodox sect called the Ajivikas. This is not an unusual arrangement in the Dharmic (i.e. Indic) family of religions. This eclectic approach remains alive to this day and lay followers of Dharmic religions think nothing of praying at each other’s shrines. You will find many Hindus at the Golden Temple in Amritsar just as the streets of Bangkok are full of shrines dedicated to the Hindu god Brahma. The coronation of the king of Thailand is still carried out by Brahmin priests.

It is likely that when Ashoka usurped the throne, he was opposed by family members who had links to the Jains and the Ajivikas. He may have responded by reaching out to their rivals, the Buddhists, for support. The power struggle may even explain his invasion of Kalinga. The mainstream view is that Kalinga was an independent kingdom that was invaded by Ashoka but there is some reason to believe that it was either a rebellious province or a vassal that was no longer trusted.

We know that the Nandas, who preceded the Mauryas, had already conquered Kalinga and, therefore, it is likely that it became part of the Mauryan empire when Chandragupta took over the Nanda kingdom. In any case, it seems odd that a large and expansionist empire like that of the Mauryas would have tolerated an independent state so close to its capital Pataliputra and its main port at Tamralipti. In other words, Kalinga would not have been an entirely independent kingdom under Bindusara — it was either a province or a close vassal. Something obviously changed during the early years of Ashoka’s reign and my guess is that it had either sided with Ashoka’s rivals during the battle for succession and/or declared itself independent in the confusion.

Whatever the real reasons for attracting Ashoka’s ire, a large Mauryan army marched into Kalinga around 262 BC. The traditional view is that the two armies met on the banks of the river Daya at Dhauli near modern Bhubaneswar. It is possible that Dhauli was the site of a skirmish but recent archaeological excavations point to a place called Yuddha Meruda being the site of the main battle followed by a desperate and bloody last stand at the Kalingan capital of Tosali.

The remains of Tosali were discovered only recently by a team of archaeologists led by Debraj Pradhan, a humble and affable man who has made some extraordinary discoveries about Odisha’s ancient past. The site is at a place called Radhanagar, a couple of hours’ drive from Cuttack. It is situated in a broad fertile plain watered by the Brahmani river and surrounded by low hills. Surveying the beautiful valley from one of the hills, one is overwhelmed by a feeling of eternity — rice fields, fish ponds, coconut palms, mango trees, and thin wisps of wood smoke rising from village huts. Other than a few power transmission towers, the scene is perhaps close to what it would have looked to Mauryan generals planning their final assault.

The remains of the city’s earthwork defences suggest that Tosali was built in the middle of the plains; arguably a poor choice as the city’s defences would have been better served if they were wedged more closely to one of the hills. Archaeologists have only excavated a small section of the walls but have found it riddled with arrowheads; a blizzard of arrows must have been unleashed by the Mauryan army. The Kalingans never stood a chance. Ashoka’s own inscriptions tell us that a 100,000 died in the war and an even larger number died from wounds and hunger. A further 150,000 were taken away as captives.

According to the official storyline, Ashoka was horrified by his own brutality and became a Buddhist and a pacifist. But, as we have seen, he was already a practicing Buddhist by then, and from what we know of his early rule, he was hardly a man to be easily shocked by the sight of blood. The main evidence of his repentance comes from his own inscriptions. It is very curious, however, that this ‘regret’ is mentioned only in locations far away from Odisha (such as in Shahbazgarhi in north-western Pakistan). None of the inscriptions in Odisha express any remorse; any hint of regret is deliberately left out.

The Ashokan inscriptions at Dhauli are engraved on a rock at the base of a hill. Almost all tourists drive right past it to the white coloured modern stupa at the top of the hill. So I found myself alone with the inscriptions and the translations put up by the Archaeological Survey of India. What will strike anyone reading them is how they specifically leave out any sign of regret. The silence is deafening.

If Ashoka was genuinely remorseful, he would have surely bothered to apologize to the people whom he had wronged. Far from it, he doesn’t even offer to free the captives. Even the supposedly regretful inscriptions include a clear threat of further violence against other groups like the forest tribes who are unequivocally ‘told of the power to punish them that Devanampriya possesses in spite of his repentance, in order that they may be ashamed of their crimes and may not be killed’. This is no pacifist.

It is likely that Ashoka was using his inscriptions as a tool of political propaganda to counter his reputation for cruelty. As with the words of any politician, this does not mean he changed his behaviour. Moreover, many of the inscriptions are placed in locations where the average citizen or official of that time would not have been able to read them. Several historians including Nayanjot Lahiri have wondered about this. Is it possible that some of the inscriptions were really meant for later generations rather than his contemporaries?

The Buddhist text, Ashoka-vadana, tells us of more acts of genocide perpetrated by the emperor many years after he supposedly turned pacifist. These were directed particularly at followers of the Jain and Ajivika sects; by all accounts he avoided conflicts with mainstream Hindus and was respectful towards Brahmins. The Ashoka-vadana recounts how Ashoka once had 18,000 Ajivikas in Bengal put to death in a single episode. If true, this would be the first known instance of large-scale religious persecution in Indian history (but, sadly, would not be the last).

This is not the only incident mentioned in the text. A Jain devotee was found in Pataliputra drawing a picture showing Buddha bowing to a Jain tirthankara. Ashoka ordered him and his family to be locked inside their home and for the building to set alight. He then ordered that he would pay a gold coin in exchange for every decapitated head of a Jain. The carnage only ended when someone mistakenly killed his only surviving brother, the Buddhist monk Vitashoka (also called Tissa). The story suggests frightening parallels with modern-day fundamentalists who kill cartoonists whom they accuse of insulting their religion.

Supporters of Ashoka may claim that these incidents are untrue and were inserted into the story by fundamentalist Buddhist writers in much later times. While this is entirely possible, let me remind readers that my alternative narrative is based on exactly the same texts and inscriptions used to praise Ashoka. Perhaps the same scepticism should be evenly applied to all the evidence and not just to portions of the text that do not suit the mainstream narrative.

[Guest]

Emperor Ashoka: Did he suffer from von Recklinghausen's diseases?

Emperor Ashoka is widely regarded as one of the greatest rulers of India. This paper mainly deals with his medical condition as recorded in the Buddhist texts of Sri Lanka as well as in the Buddhist texts of North India and Nepal. These sources mention his skin disorder which is described as very rough and unpleasant to touch. He is also known to have episodes of loss of consciousness at various times in his life. One of the earliest representations of Ashoka, about 100 years after his death at one of the gates of Sanchi Stupa, shows Ashoka fainting when visiting the Bodhi tree and being held by his queens. In this sculpture, Emperor Ashoka is shown as a man of short height, large head and a paunchy abdomen. In this paper, it is speculated that Emperor Ashoka was probably suffering from von Recklinghausen disease (Neurofibromatosis Type 1), which could explain his skin condition, episodes of loss of consciousness (probably epilepsy) and other bodily deformities.

[Neurofibromatosis type 1: psychiatric disorders and quality of life impairment]:

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is often associated with psychiatric disorders, which are more frequent in NF1 than in general population (33% of patients). Dysthymia is the most frequent diagnosis (21% of patients). There is also a high prevalence of depressive mood (7%), anxiety (1-6%), and personality (3%) disorders. The risk of suicide is four times greater than in the general population. Bipolar mood disorders or schizophrenia appear to be rare. The impaired quality of life associated with NF1 may play an important role in the development of psychiatric disorders. Quality of life assessments may help to identify a population at high risk.