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Monday, June 9, 2008

[mukto-mona] Moyeen & jago bangladesh

 
Dear fellows
 
General Moyeen has floated "Jago Bangladesh" . Vines of Jago Bangladesh informs that recruiting political elements in small towns, which may see the light of the day as a political party.Do u support it ?
 
Best regards
 
 Habib

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[mukto-mona] Common Sense

 
 
London Times Obituary of the late Mr. Common Sense - Sunday, 31st March 2008

'Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who
has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was,
since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the
worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend
more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children,
are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but
overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy
charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens
suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher
fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the
job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly
children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental
consent to administer sun lotion or a Band-Aid to a student; but could
not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have
an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became
contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better
treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you
couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the
burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to
realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in
her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust;
his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son,
Reason.
He is survived by his 4 half brothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It
Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.
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[ALOCHONA] Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia?

Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia?

Many wonder why Buddhism disappeared from the Subcontinent but thrives in China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and in Sri Lanka.

 

Many Hindus claim that Buddha was a Hindu God. Of course Buddhists in China, Thaliand and other countires and in India do not accpet that doctrine. In fact Buddhism was hounded out of its birthplace.

 

SUMMARY OF BARHMAN ATROCITIES THAT DESTROYED BUDDHISM IN INDIA
1) The Divyavadana (ed. Vaidya, 282). The most important of the murderous
Hindu bigots who carried out their systematic campaign of violence against
the peaceful followers of Lord Buddha was Pushyamitra (184-48 B.C.), the
founder of the Shunga dynasty. For details and refrences do see BELOW

2) Goyal [430] "The culprit in this case was Toramana, a member of the
same dynasty as the Shaivite Mihirakula who did "immense damage to the
Buddhist shrines in Gandhara, Punjab and Kashmir." For details and
refrences do see BELOW

 

3) Mihirakula is said to have razed 1600 viharas, stupas and monasteries,
and "put to death 900 Kotis, or lay adherents of Buddhism" [Joshi, 404].

4) The Aryamanjushrimulakalpa tells us that Pushyamitra "destroyed
monasteries with relics and killed monks of good conduct." [Jayaswal,
18-19]

 

5) As Goyal [394] notes, "According to many scholars hostility of the
Brahmanas was one of the major causes of the decline of Buddhism in
India."

 

6) The celebrated Tibetan historian Lama Taranatha mentions the march of
Pushyamitra from Madhyadesha to Jalandhara. In the course of his
campaigns, the book states, Pushyamitra burned down numerous Buddhist
monasteries and killed a number of learned monks The archaeological
evidence for the ravages wrought by Pushyamitra and other Hindu fanatic
rulers on famous Buddhist shrines is abundant.

 

7) The Brhannaradiya-purana lays it down as a principal sin for a
Brahmana to enter the house of a Buddhist even in times of great peril.. 

 

8)  The drama Mrchchhakatika shows that in Ujjain the Buddhist monks were
despised and their sight was considered inauspicious.

 

9) The Vishnupurana (XVIII 13-1 8) also regards the Buddha as Mayamoha who
appeared in the world to delude the demons. Kumarila is said to have
instigated King Sudhanvan of Ujjain to exterminate the Buddhists.

 

10) The Kerala-utpatti describes how he exterminated the Buddhists from
Kerala."

 

11) The Chinese traveller Yuan Chwang (Huen Tsang), who visited India in
the seventh century records the oppressions of Shashanka, the king of
Gauda, who was a devotee of Shiva.

 

12) Yuan Chwang's account reads, "In recent times Shashanka, the enemy and
oppressor of Buddhism, cut down the Bodhi tree, destroyed its roots down
to the water and burned what remained." [Watters II p.115] He also says
that Shashanka tried "to have the image (of Lord Buddha at Bodhgaya)
removed and replaced by one of Shiva".

 

13) Another independent account of Shashanka's oppressions is found in the
Aryamanjushrimulakalpa, which refers to Shashanka destroying "the
beautiful image of Buddha" [Jayaswal, 49-50].

 

14) Another prominent seventh century murderer of Buddhists was Sudhanvan
of Ujjain, already mentioned in the quotation from Goyal above as having
been supposedly instigated by Kumarila Bhatt.

 

15) Madhava Acharya, in his "Sankara-digvijayam" of the fourteenth century
A.D., records that Suddhanvan "issued orders to put to death all the
Buddhists from Ramesvaram to the Himalayas".

 

16) Even after the Islamic invasions of India, Hindu bigotry and hatred
for Buddhists was not subdued. According to Sharmasvamin, a Tibetan
pilgrim who visited Bihar three decades after the invasion of
Bakhtiaruddin Khilji in the 12th century, the biggest library at Nalanda
was destroyed by Hindu mendicants who took advantage of the chaos produced
by the invasion.

 

He says that "they (Hindus) performed a Yajna, a fire sacrifice, and threw
living embers and ashes from the sacrifice into the Buddhist temples. This
produced a great conflagration which consumed Ratnabodhi, the
nine-storeyed library of the Nalanda University". [Prakash, 213].
Numerous destroyed Buddhist shrines were converted into Hindu temples
after their destruction.

 

17)  Ahir [58] notes that "The Seat of Buddha's Enlightenment was in the
possession of a Hindu Mahant till 1952.

 

18)   Similarly, at Kushinara, where the Buddha had entered into
Mahaparinirvana, the cremation stupa had been converted into a Hindu
temple, and on top of it stood the temple of Rambhar Bhavani when
Cunningham discovered the site in 1860-61.

 

19)  Among the shrines which still continue to be dedicated to
Hindu gods mention may be made of the Caityas of Chezrala and Ter in
Andhra Pradesh which are now Shiva and Vishnu temples respectively.

 

20)  The temple of Madhava at Sal Kusa, opposite Gauhati in Asam, was once
a sacred shrine of the Buddhists. …

 

21) And the famous Jagannatha temple at Puri in Orissa was also originally
a Buddhist shrine.

 

22) Similarly, the Vishnupada temple at Gaya was also once a Buddhist
shrine." As Rajendralal Mitra notes in his famous work of 1878 [quoted in
Ahir, 59] the feet of Buddha at Gaya were rechristened the feet of Vishnu
and held as the most sacred object of worship in the new Vishnupada
temple.

 

23) According to the records of Hieun Tsang and Kalhana's Rajaatarangini,
Asoka the great repented, converted to Buddhism (273-232 BC) and did a
lot for Buddhism. Asoka renounced violence, and renounced his religion
after the Kalinga war, and he became a Buddhist. During Asoka, Buddhism
had become the state religion. The Brahmans did not like him, and many
historians think the Brahaman opposition to Asoka led to the destruction
of the Muyarian dynasty.

 

24) In Glimpses of World History Jawahrlal Nehru says the following about
the Kushans (emphasis is mine and not Nehru's):
" This Kushan Empire is interesting in many ways. IT WAS A BUDDHIST
EMPIRE, and one of its famous rulers-the Emperor Kanishka-was ardently
devoted to the dharma…the Kushans were Mongolians or closely allied to
them. From the Kushan capital there must have been a continuous coming and
going to the Mongolian homelands, and Buddhist learning and Buddhist
culture must have gone to China and Mongolia…the Kushan Empire sat like
a colossus astride the back of Asia, in between the Greaco-Roman world in
the south. It was a halfway house both between India, and Rome, and India
and China. The Kushan period corresponded with the last days of the Roman
Republic when Julius Ceaser was alive, and first 200 years of the Roman
Empire

 

25) THE HINDU KASHATRIYA HINDU AND BUDDHIST WARS
Jawarhalal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says (Page 103 and
104) "Chandragupta proclaimed his holy war "against all foreign rulers in
India. The Kashatriyas and the Aryan aristocracy, deprived of their power
and positions by the aliens (Kushans), were at the back of this war. After
a dozen or so years of fighting, Chandragupta managed to gain control over
Northern India including what is now called UP. He then crowned himself
king of kings. Thus began the Gupta dynasty. It was a period of somewhat
agressive Hinduism and nationalism. The foreign rulers-the Turkis and
Parathions and other Non-Aryans were rooted our and forcibly removed. We
thus find racial antagonism at work. The Indo-Aryan aritrocrat was proud
of his race and looked down upon these barbarians and malachas. Indo-Aryan
States and rulers were conquered by the Guptas were dealt with leniently,
But there was not leniency for non-Aryans.

 

26) Jawarhalal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says
"Chandragupta's son Samadugupta was an even more agressive fighter than
his father….the Kushans were pushed back across the
Indus……..Samadugupta's son, Chandragupta II was also a warrior king,
and he conquered Kathiwad and Gujrat, which had been under the rule of a
Saka or Turki dynasty for a long time. He took the name
Vikramaditya…..The Gupta period was a period of Hindu imperialism in
India. There was a great revival of old Aryan culture and Sanskrit
learning. The Hellenistic, or Greek and Mongolian elements in Indian life
and culture which had been brought by the Greeks, Kushans and others were
not encouraged, and were in fact deliberately superseded by laying stress
on the Indo-Aryan traditions. Sanskrit was the official court language.
But EVEN IN THOSE DAYS SANSKRIT WAS NOT THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF THE PEOPLE.

 

The spoken language was a form of Prakrit….Kalidasa belonged to this
period ……………. Samadragupta changed the capital of his empire
from Pataliputra (Peshawar) to Ayodhia. Perhaps he felt that Ayodhiya
offered a more suitable outlook–with its story of Ramachandra
immortalized in Valmikis epic.

 

27) HINDU BUDDHIST CONFLICT
Jawarhalal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says "The Gupta
revival of Aryanism and Hinduism was naturally not very favorably inclined
towards Buddhism. This was partly because this movement was aristocratic,
with the Kashatriya chiefs backing it, and Buddhism had more democracy in
it; partly because the Mahayana form of Buddhism was closely associated
with the Kushans and other alien rulers of northern India….but Buddhism
declined in India…Chandragupta the first was a contemporary of
Constantine the great, the Roman Emperor who founded Constantinople. "

 

2 8) HINDU IMPERIALISM SAILS TO THE FAR EAST AND DESTROYS THE MALAY
CIVILIZATION
The years of ANO DOMINI saw the beginning of Hindu imperialism outside
India. Just like the Ferocious Aryans destroyed the IVC, these Hindu
invaders destroyed the 2500 year old civilization of the Malay peninsula
and imposed a foreign culture upon the peace loving people of the far
east. Local temples were destroyed, people were enslaved, and the local
language was abolished. Being polite, Jawahalal Nehru in the
understatement of the century writes in his book Glimpses of World History
says:

 

Jawarhalal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says "These
colonizing excursions started in the first century after Christ and they
continued for a hundred years. All over Malay and Java and Sumatra and
Cambodia and Borneo they went, and established and took Indian culture
with them…..In Burma and Siam and Indo-China there were large Indian
colonies. Many times even of the names they gave to their new towns and
settlements were borrowed from India-Ayodhia, Hastinapur, Taxila,
Gandhara…No doubt Indian colonialists misbehaved wherever they went, as
all such colonialists do. They must have exploited the people islands and
lorded it over them….Hindu States and empires were established in these
eastern islands, and then Buddhist rulers came, and between the Hindu and
the Buddhist there was a tussle for mastery. It is a long and
..story………mighty ruins still tell us of the great buildings and
temples …..there were great cities…Kamboja, Sri Vijay, Angkor …"

 

29) During this time Fa-hien visited India to study Buddhism (399 AD) and
found "gaya wa waste and desolate". He gives a detailed account of
Buddhist persecution by the Brahman Aryans.

 

THE ARYAN HUNS INVADE THE IVC. SUN WORSHIPPING and MAHAYANA BUDDHISM PROSECUTED
With the decline of the Guptas, the nomadic tribes of Central Asia called
the Huns invaded India. Their leader was Tormana (500 AD).
Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says:
"Skandagupta, the fith of the Gupta line had to face this Hun
invasion…gradually they spread all over Gandhara and the greater part of
Northern India. THEY TORTURED THE BUDDHISTS AND COMMITTED ALL MANNER OF FRIGHTFULNESS"….There must have been continuous warfare against them, but the Guptas could not drive them away. Fresh waves of Huns came …"

'30)Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says:


…Torman installed himself king . He was bad enough, but after him came
his son Miharagula, who was an unmitagated savage and fiendishly cruel.
Lalhana in his history of Kashmir–the Rajatrangini–tells us that one of
his Miharagula's amusements was to have elephants thrown over the great
precipices into the valley below".

 

31) Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says:
The treatment of men was sometimes worse then that of animals (some of the
animals like cows were actually revered because they were Gods). Lower
caste Hindus had a misrable life. Other historians have commented that
the treatment of women was even worse, specially women of lower castes,
they were considered the "property" of the upper caste Hindus, to be
molested and/or raped at will. In many cases the new bride had to stay a
night with the village Brahman before she was married off. Kashmir
converted to Islam during this time period. It was cruelty like this that
led to the whole sale conversion to Islam. The new religion offered them
equality and saved them from the Brahmans.

 

32) Jawaharlal Nehru says, "Soon however the Hun power weakened in
India… the Huns have been defeated and driven back, but many remain in
odd corners. The Great Gupta dynasty fades away after Balditya.

 

33) HUNS DEFEATED. HARSHA VARDHANA TRIES TO REVIVE BUDDHISM
Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says:
"The Huns killed the Raja of Kanauj and made his wife Rajashiri a
prisoner. Thereupon Rajashiri's brother Raja came to fight the Huns and
bacme an emperor (606-647 AD). The Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang visited
India at this time, he gives a very harsh account of the conditions of
India, and writes extensively of the persucution of Buddhists. Harshas
ancestors were sun worshippers, however he was also attracted towards the
Mahayana form of Buddhism. The Brahmans were very displeased with him and
even conspired to kill him. Harsha spent time and money on arts and
literature, and drama, and was probably the last great Buddhist emperor of
India. He extensivle wrote of the atrocities committed by the Hindus
against the Buddhists in India.

 

34) Jawahalal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says " Harsha
was a keen Buddhist. Buddhism as a separate faith, had weakened greatly in
India, …he was a pious Buddhist, and he came to visit the sacred places
of Buddhism and to take with him the scriptures of the faith ."

 

35) THE ARYAN RAJPUT INVASION
The death of Harsha ushered in an era of anarchy again. The Rajputs were
the invaders this time. This era is called the Rajput era. According to
Tod, the Rajputs were the descendants of Sakas, Huns, Ushans, Gujaaras
etc.

 

36) According to Rajatarangini of Kalhana which forms a major source of
our history, Duralabhavardhana founded a new royal dynasty about the
middle of the 7th century. Lalitaditya ascended the thorne in 724 AD and
he conquered large areas of India and brought it under Kashmiri rule.
After him (750 AD) the power of Kashmir receded.

 

37) Jiyapida, the grandson of Lalitaditya tried to revive the reputation
of the Karkota dynasty. The Karkota dynasty was replaced by the Utpala
dynasty about the middle of the 9th century. The Rajputs were true Hindus
and patronized Hindu religion and culture in all of India.
————
Bibliography.
Ahir, D.C. "Buddha Gaya Through the Ages", Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica
Series
No. 134, Delhi 1994.
Goyal, S.R., "A History of Indian Buddhism", Meerut 1987.
Jayaswal, "An imperial history of India", Lahore 1934.
Joshi, L.M. "Studies in the Buddhistic Culture of India", New Delhi 1967.
Marshall, John, "Taxila" Cambridge University Press 1951.
Prakash, Buddh, "Aspects of Indian History and Civilisation", Agra 1965.
Taranatha, "History of Buddhism in India", Indian Institute of Advanced
Studies, Simla, 1977.
Vaidya, P.L. ed. "Divyavadana", Darbhanga 1959.
Watters, T. "On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India," ed. by T. W. Rhys Davids
and S.W. Bushel, London 1904, 1905.

Rajwinder Singh.
From: r…@crux4.cit.cornell.edu (Rohan Oberoi)
The following is for the negationists who have been trying to conceal the
record of the Bloody Sword of Hinduism in India.
The massacres and oppression perpetrated by Hindus out of religious hatred
for Buddhists in ancient times are a matter of the historical record.
Yet, for reasons best known to themselves, negationists like Mr. Rajiv
Varma have been trying to conceal the hideous, blood-stained record of
Hinduism.

 

The truth must be told.
After the enlightenment of Gautama, the Buddha, in 483 B.C. his message
and his teachings spread across the face of India and Asia. Everywhere,
they encountered hostility and religious persecution from Hindu rulers and
priests. The conversion of Ashoka, who ruled over much of India in the
third century B.C., did much to counter this. After Ashoka's death,
however, the campaign of violence against Buddhists by Hindus began in
earnest.

 

The most important of the murderous Hindu bigots who carried out their
systematic campaign of violence against the peaceful followers of Lord
Buddha was Pushyamitra (184-48 B.C.), the founder of the Shunga dynasty.
The Divyavadana (ed. Vaidya, 282) tells us that this king resolved to
annihilate the teachings of the Buddha. He destroyed stupas, burned
monasteries, and killed monks as far as Shakala, where he made the
infamous declaration: "Whosoever gives me the head of a Shramana, him I
shall give a hundred gold coins."

 

The Aryamanjushrimulakalpa tells us that Pushyamitra "destroyed
monasteries with relics and killed monks of good conduct." [Jayaswal,
18-19]. In his famous "History of Buddhism In India", written in 1608
A.D. the celebrated Tibetan historian Lama Taranatha mentions the march of
Pushyamitra from Madhyadesha to Jalandhara. In the course of his
campaigns, the book states, Pushyamitra burned down numerous Buddhist
monasteries and killed a number of learned monks The archaeological
evidence for the ravages wrought by Pushyamitra and other Hindu fanatic
rulers on famous Buddhist shrines is abundant.

 

Marshall [I.] records evidence of damage done to Buddhist establishments
at Takshashila. Goyal [430] notes that at Sanchi, "there is all too clear
evidence of damage wrought during the age of Pushyamitra". At Kaushambi,
he continues, there is also evidence of the destruction and burning of the
great monastery of Ghoshitarama in the second century B.C. The culprit in
this case was Toramana, a member of the same dynasty as the Shaivite
Mihirakula who did "immense damage to the Buddhist shrines in Gandhara,
Punjab and Kashmir."

 

Mihirakula is said to have razed 1600 viharas, stupas and monasteries, and
"put to death 900 Kotis, or lay adherents of Buddhism" [Joshi, 404].
As the revival of Brahmanical Hinduism progressed, atrocities against
Buddhists increased both in strength and in number. As Goyal [394] notes,
"According to many scholars hostility of the Brahmanas was one of the
major causes of the decline of Buddhism in India." The hatred poured out
against Buddhists in Hindu scriptures offers ample evidence of this. To
quote Goyal again [394-5]:

 

"Yajnavalkya (I. 271-72) declares that the very sight of a Buddhist monk,
even in dreams, is inauspicious". The Brhannaradiya-purana lays it down as
a principal sin for a Brahmana to enter the house of a Buddhist even in
times of great peril. The drama Mrchchhakatika shows that in Ujjain the
Buddhist monks were despised and their sight was considered inauspicious.
The Vishnupurana (XVIII 13-1 8) also regards the Buddha as Mayamoha who
appeared in the world to delude the demons. Kumarila is said to have
instigated King Sudhanvan of Ujjain to exterminate the Buddhists. … The
Kerala-utpatti describes how he exterminated the Buddhists from Kerala."
The Chinese traveller Yuan Chwang (Huen Tsang), who visited India in the
seventh century records the oppressions of Shashanka, the king of Gauda,
who was a devotee of Shiva. Yuan Chwang's account reads, "In recent times
Shashanka, the enemy and oppressor of Buddhism, cut down the Bodhi tree,
destroyed its roots down to the water and burned what remained." [Watters
II p.115] He also says that Shashanka tried "to have the image (of Lord
Buddha at Bodhgaya) removed and replaced by one of Shiva". Another
independent account of Shashanka's oppressions is found in the
Aryamanjushrimulakalpa, which refers to Shashanka destroying "the
beautiful image of Buddha" [Jayaswal, 49-50].

 

Another prominent seventh century murderer of Buddhists was Sudhanvan of
Ujjain, already mentioned in the quotation from Goyal above as having been
supposedly instigated by Kumarila Bhatt. Madhava Acharya, in his
"Sankara-digvijayam" of the fourteenth century A.D., records that
Suddhanvan "issued orders to put to death all the Buddhists from
Ramesvaram to the Himalayas".

 

Even after the Islamic invasions of India, Hindu bigotry and hatred for
Buddhists was not subdued. According to Sharmasvamin, a Tibetan pilgrim
who visited Bihar three decaes after the invasion of Bakhtiaruddin Khilji
in the 12th century, the biggest library at Nalanda was destroyed by Hindu
mendicants who took advantage of the chaos produced by the invasion..
He says that "they (Hindus) performed a Yajna, a fire sacrifice, and threw
living embers and ashes from the sacrifice into the Buddhist temples. This
produced a great conflagration which consumed Ratnabodhi, the
nine-storeyed library of the Nalanda University". [Prakash, 213].
Numerous destroyed Buddhist shrines were converted into Hindu temples
after their destruction. Ahir [58] notes that "The Seat of Buddha's
Enlightenment was in the possession of a Hindu Mahant till 1952.
Similarly, at Kushinara, where the Buddha had entered into
Mahaparinirvana, the cremation stupa had been converted into a Hindu
temple, and on top of it stood the temple of Rambhar Bhavani when
Cunningham discovered the site in 1860-61. Among the shrines which still
continue to be dedicated to

 

Hindu gods mention may be made of the Caityas of Chezrala and Ter in
Andhra Pradesh which are now Shiva and Vishnu temples respectively. The
temple of Madhava at Sal Kusa, opposite Gauhati in Asam, was once a sacred
shrine of the Buddhists. … And the famous Jagannatha temple at Puri in
Orissa was also originally a Buddhist shrine. Similarly, the Vishnupada
temple at Gaya was also once a Buddhist shrine." As Rajendralal Mitra
notes in his famous work of 1878 [quoted in Ahir, 59] the feet of Buddha
at Gaya were rechristened the feet of Vishnu and held as the most sacred
object of worship in the new Vishnupada temple.

 

Hinduism's record of violence and bigotry against the peaceful followers
of Lord Buddha is unparalleled. I trust this marshalling of the available
evidence for the benefit of readers who may not have had access to it will
impel negationists like Varma to accept and apologise for the crimes
committed in the name of Hinduism.

 

After hundreds of years of conflict the Brahmans took complete control of
the system. They owned the people and the lands. This era of absolute
Brahaman control is the darkest era of Hinduism. Many Hindus and other
rebelled against the Brahamin injustices meeted out to the people.


Buddhism challenges Hinduism in the Valley of the Indus and the Valley of
the Ganges:
Around the 5th century B.C Buddhism took root in the subcontinent.
Suddharta (Gautam Buddh) rejected the caste system, the Hindu writings and
the absolute power of the Brahmans. Around 468 B.C. Jainism and Buddhism
appeared on the scene. Both Buddhism and Jainism competed with the tenants
of Hinduism.

 

Buddhist-Hindu wars claimed many lives. The Muyara and the Gupta dynasties
are chronologies of this time period. Many Zorastrian, Hindu and other
kings converted to Buddhism and spread it to the four corners of the
subcontinent and beyond.


"If you can't win 'em join 'em". Gautam Buddha was such a dynamic sage,
that after his death, many enlightened Hindus have adopted him as a God.

Even some Muslims consider him a prophet.


Buddhism is different from Hinduism. Though many Hindus later regard
Buddha as God, the Brahmans were always leery of Buddhists because
Buddhist teachings reduced the power of the Brahmins. Buddhism is
fundamentally different than Hinduism because it does not believe in the
caste system. Because of the lack of the caste system, the Brahmans did
not like Buddhists.

 

This is what Suresh says:
'Except for brief period after Ashoka's time, it(Buddhism) had always been
associated with violence(wars) and nationalism. Always in rebellion
against Hinduism." Horrific examples from Southeast Asia in general (where
the majority of Buddhists practice the same form of Buddhism as in Sri
Lanka), attest to this belief: Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, Thailand and
Japan(Buddhist-Zen beliefs). Especially in Thailand which had its share
of Buddhist influence from the Sinhala-Buddhist clergy, Thai clergy gets
involved in politics and its public positions have nationalistic
overtones.

 

THE MACEDONIAN "GREEK" INFLUENCE ON BUDDHISM AND BACTERIAN COLONIES
One of the few direct results of the Macedonian "Greek" invasions of India
was the establishment of Macedonian "Greek" colonies in "India". One of
Asokas edicts refers to the existence of Yavana ("Greek") settlers on the
fringes of his empire. We now know that he was referring to the area of
Hunza. Actually after the fall of the Muyeria ("Greek") kingdoms in India,
the Bacterians formed a number of Greek kingdoms in the area in and around
Kashmir. In fact Chandragupta actually faced Alexander for military help
(324-300 BC) but did not secure it. On the eve of Alexander's invasion,
Kashmir was called Abhisara. Abhisara consisted of the districts of Punch
and Naushara.

 

THE MUYARAS, JAINISM AND THE SPREAD OF BUDDIHISM in the IV and GV
The foundation of the Maurya empire in the brought a new dimension to
"India". Chandragupta Muyara was a Jain. One of the most brutal massacres
of Hindus occurred at the hands of the Muyara kings, Asoka, during the
battle of Kalinga. Some historians put the number at 300,000 (akin to 3
million in present day numbers). Contrary to BJP belief, all massacres in
India were not committed by Muslims, Persians and Arabs. According to the
records of Hieun Tsang and Kalhana's Rajaatarangini, Asoka the great
repented, converted to Buddhism (273-232 BC) and did a lot for Buddhism.
Asoka renounced violence, and renounced his religion after the Kalinga
war, and he became a Buddhist. During Asoka, Buddhism had become the state
religion. The Brahmans did not like him, and many historians think the
Brahaman opposition to Asoka led to the destruction of the Muyarian
dynasty.

 

THE BACTERIANS INVADE THE INDUS VALLEY & BUDDHISM REPLACES ZORASTRIANISM
With political disunity in the subcontinent, many foreigners invaded
India. Alexander's kingdom was divided. The Bacterians invaded India (250
BC).


One of the Greek influences was the enshrinement of the father of Buddhism
in a statue and his elevation to the status of God. Later, Buddhism split
up into Mahayana and Hanayana sects. Mahayana was exported to the orient,
while Hanayana pretty much shrunk to an unceremonial non-existance in
India (though it still sruvives in, Sri Lanka, and Tibet, and also in Laos
and Kampuchia

 

While Buddhism was flourishing in "India", Cunfuciansim was being preached
in China, and Zorastrianism was being preached in Persia. The Sassandis
were in power in Persia and were in a constant state of war . The
Sassanids were under Ardeshir who was an ardent supporter of
Zorastrianism. He enforced Zorastrianism on all of Persia. Much much later
in the sevent century the defeat of the Sassanides in Persia led to the
expulsion of Parsis to India in the seventh century.

 

THE KUSHANS THE BUDDHIST EMPIRE OF IV AND AFGHANISTAN
Many different races invaded the IV and made it their home. From the ashes
of the Muyara empire, rose the Kushan dynasty. Kanishka the conqueror rose
to power (78 AD) and began a new Buddhist era in India. He annexed the
Indus Valley and conquered Kashmir. He set up his head quarters in
Purushapura (Peshawar in present day Pakistan). Throughout a long duration
in Indian history, the largest repositories of books were the Buddhist
universities. In fact many non-Buddhist scholars had studied under
Buddhist teachers.

 

In Glimpses of World History Jawahrlal Nehru says the following about the
Kushans (emphasis is mine and not Nehru's):


" This Kushan Empire is interesting in many ways. IT WAS A BUDDHIST
EMPIRE, and one of its famous rulers-the Emperor Kanishka-was ardently
devoted to the dharma…the Kushans were Mongolians or closely allied to
them. From the Kushan capital there must have been a continuous coming and
going to the Mongolian homelands, and Buddhist learning and Buddhist
culture must have gone to China and Mongolia…the Kushan Empire sat like
a colossus astride the back of Asia, in between the Greaco-Roman world in
the south. It was a halfway house both between India, and Rome, and India
and China. The Kushan period corresponded with the last days of the Roman
Republic when Julius Ceaser was alive, and first 200 years of the Roman
Empire

 

Kanishka was originally a Zorastrian. His coins display the sun god. Later
in life he supported Buddhism (to the ire of the Hindu Brahmans). Kanishka
had convened the Buddhist Council to spread Buddhism instead of Hinduism
in the subcontinent (much to the disgust of the Brahmans ). During Asoka,
Buddhism had become the state religion. Hinduism survived only due to
Indian princes like Gautamiputra Satkarni.

 

Jawahalal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says:
"the Kushans themselves had followed Indo-Aryan traditions to a large
extent. This was indeed the reason why they manged to stay in India and
rule over large parts of it for a long time. They wanted to behave as Indo
Aryans, and wanted the people of the country to forget that they were
aleins. They succeeded in some measure, but not quite, for among the
Kashatrayas especially the feeling rankled that aliens wer ruling over
them. They chafed under this foreign rule, and so the ferment grew and
peoples minds were troubled. Ultimately these disaffected people found a
capable leader, and under his banner they started a "holy war" as it is
called to free Aryavarta. This leader was called Chandragupta. (Nto be
confused wiith the other Chandragupta, the grandfather of the Mauryan
dynesty…this happened 534 years after Asokas death)"

 

THE GUPTAS AND THE REVIVAL OF HINDUISM, END OF BUDDHISM IN THE IVC and GVC
With the fall of the Muyara and the Kushan dynasty, the Guptas came to
power (beginning of the fourth century AD) with their independent
kingdoms. Dr. R.C. Majumdar writes that The empire of Samudragupta
included the whole of Northern India. The Gupta period saw the distinct
revival of Hinduism in the subcontinent. Buddhism declined, and never did
rise in India.

 

THE HINDU KASHATRIYA HINDU AND BUDDHIST WARS
Jawarhalal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says (Page 103 and
104) "Chandragupta proclaimed his holy war "against all foreign rulers in
India. The Kashatriyas and the Aryan aristocracy, deprived of their power
and positions by the aliens (Kushans), were at the back of this war. After
a dozen or so years of fighting, Chandragupta managed to gain control over
Northern India including what is now called UP. He then crowned himself
king of kings. Thus began the Gupta dynasty. It was a period of somewhat
agressive Hinduism and nationalism. The foreign rulers-the Turkis and
Parathions and other Non-Aryans were rooted our and forcibly removed. We
thus find racial antagonism at work. The Indo-Aryan aritrocrat was proud
of his race and looked down upon these barbarians and malachas. Indo-Aryan
States and rulers were conquered by the Guptas were dealt with leniently,
But there was not leniency for non-Aryans.

 

Chandragupta's son Samadugupta was an even more agressive fighter than
his father….the Kushans were pushed back across the
Indus……..Samadugupta's son, Chandragupta II was also a warrior king,
and he conquered Kathiwad and Gujrat, which had been under the rule of a
Saka or Turki dynasty for a long time. He took the name
Vikramaditya…..The Gupta period was a period of Hindu imperialism in
India. There was a great revival of old Aryan culture and Sanskrit
learning. The Hellenistic, or Greek and Mongolian elements in Indian life
and culture which had been brought by the Greeks, Kushans and others were
not encouraged, and were in fact deliberately superseded by laying stress
on the Indo-Aryan traditions. Sanskrit was the official court language.
But EVEN IN THOSE DAYS SANSKRIT WAS NOT THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF THE PEOPLE.

 

The spoken language was a form of Prakrit….Kalidasa belonged to this
period ……………. Samadragupta changed the capital of his empire
from Pataliputra (Peshawar) to Ayodhia. Perhaps he felt that Ayodhiya
offered a more suitable outlook–with its story of Ramachandra
immortalized in Valmikis epic.

 

HINDU BUDDHIST CONFLICT
The Gupta revival of Aryanism and Hinduism was naturally not very
favorably inclined towards Buddhism. This was partly because this movement
was aristocratic, with the Kashatriya chiefs backing it, and Buddhism had
more democracy in it; partly because the Mahayana form of Buddhism was
closely associated with the Kushans and other alien rulers of northern
India….but Buddhism declined in India…Chandragupta the first was a
contemporary of Constantine the great, the Roman Emperor who founded
Constantinople. "

 

BRAHMIN IMPERIALISM SAILS TO THE FAR EAST AND DESTROYS THE MALAY
CIVILIZATION
The years of ANO DOMINI saw the beginning of Hindu imperialism outside
India. Just like the Ferocious Aryans destroyed the IVC, these Hindu
invaders destroyed the 2500 year old civilization of the Malay peninsula
and imposed a foreign culture upon the peace loving people of the far
east. Local temples were destroyed, people were enslaved, and the local
language was abolished. Being polite, Jawahalal Nehru in the
understatement of the century writes in his book Glimpses of World History
says:

 

"These colonizing excursions started in the first century after Christ
and they continued for a hundred years. All over Malay and Java and
Sumatra and Cambodia and Borneo they went, and established and took Indian
culture with them…..In Burma and Siam and Indo-China there were large
Indian colonies. Many times even of the names they gave to their new towns
and settlements were borrowed from India-Ayodhia, Hastinapur, Taxila,
Gandhara…No doubt Indian colonialists misbehaved wherever they went, as
all such colonialists do. They must have exploited the people islands and
lorded it over them….Hindu States and empires were established in these
eastern islands, and then Buddhist rulers came, and between the Hindu and
the Buddhist there was a tussle for mastery. It is a long and
..story………mighty ruins still tell us of the great buildings and
temples …..there were great cities…Kamboja, Sri Vijay, Angkor …"
During this time Fa-hien visited India to study Buddhism (399 AD) and
found "gaya wa waste and desolate". He gives a detailed account of
Buddhist persecution by the Brahman Aryans.

 

THE ARYAN HUNS INVADE THE IVC. SUN WORSHIPPING and MAHAYANA BUDDHISM PROSECUTED
With the decline of the Guptas, the nomadic tribes of Central Asia called
the Huns invaded India. Their leader was Tormana (500 AD).
Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says:
"Skandagupta, the fith of the Gupta line had to face this Hun
invasion…gradually they spread all over Gandhara and the greater part of
Northern India. THEY TORTURED THE BUDDHISTS AND COMMITTED ALL MANNER OF FRIGHTFULNESS"….There must have been continuous warfare against them, but the Guptas could not drive them away. Fresh waves of Huns came …"
'…Torman installed himself king . He was bad enough, but after him came
his son Miharagula, who was an unmitagated savage and fiendishly cruel.
Lalhana in his history of Kashmir–the Rajatrangini–tells us that one of
his Miharagula's amusements was to have elephants thrown over the great
precipices into the valley below".

 

The treatment of men was sometimes worse then that of animals (some of the
animals like cows were actually revered because they were Gods). Lower
caste Hindus had a misrable life. Other historians have commented that
the treatment of women was even worse, specially women of lower castes,
they were considered the "property" of the upper caste Hindus, to be
molested and/or raped at will. In many cases the new bride had to stay a
night with the village Brahman before she was married off. Kashmir
converted to Islam during this time period. It was cruelty like this that
led to the whole sale conversion to Islam. The new religion offered them
equality and saved them from the Brahmans.

 

Jawaharlal Nehru says, "Soon however the Hun power weakened in India…
the Huns have been defeated and driven back, but many remain in odd
corners. The Great Gupta dynasty fades away after Balditya.
HUNS DEFEATED.. HARSHA VARDHANA TRIES TO REVIVE BUDDHISM in the IVC
The Huns killed the Raja of Kanauj and made his wife Rajashiri a prisoner.
Thereupon Rajashiri's brother Raja came to fight the Huns and bacme an
emperor (606-647 AD). The Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang visited India at
this time, he gives a very harsh account of the conditions of India, and
writes extensively of the persucution of Buddhists. Harshas ancestors were
sun worshippers, however he was also attracted towards the Mahayana form
of Buddhism.. The Brahmans were very displeased with him and even conspired
to kill him. Harsha spent time and money on arts and literature, and
drama, and was probably the last great Buddhist emperor of India. He
extensivle wrote of the atrocities committed by the Hindus against the
Buddhists in India.

 

Jawahalal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History says " Harsha was a
keen Buddhist. Buddhism as a separate faith, had weakened greatly in
India, …he was a pious Buddhist, and he came to visit the sacred places
of Buddhism and to take with him the scriptures of the faith ."

 

THE ARYAN RAJPUT INVASION into the IVC
The death of Harsha ushered in an era of anarchy again. The Rajputs were
the invaders this time. This era is called the Rajput era. According to
Tod, the Rajputs were the descendants of Sakas, Huns, Ushans, Gujaaras
etc.


According to Rajatarangini of Kalhana which forms a major source of our
history, Duralabhavardhana founded a new royal dynasty about the middle of
the 7th century. Lalitaditya ascended the thorne in 724 AD and he
conquered large areas of India and brought it under Kashmiri rule. After
him (750 AD) the power of Kashmir receded.

 

Jiyapida, the grandson of Lalitaditya tried to revive the reputation of
the Karkota dynasty. The Karkota dynasty was replaced by the Utpala
dynasty about the middle of the 9th century. The Rajputs were true Hindus
and patronized Hindu religion and culture in all of India.

Disappearance of Buddhism From India: An Untold Story
Disappearance of Buddhism From India: An Untold Story by Naresh Kumar

The complete disappearance of the religion of the
Buddha from the land of its birth is one of the
greatest puzzles of history. Once holding sway
throughout the length and breadth of the subcontinent,
Buddhism today survives only in the Himalayan fringes
along the Tibetan frontier and in small pockets in
northern and western India among recent Ambedkarite
Dalit converts.

 

Various theories have been put forward which seek to
explain the tragic eclipse of Buddhism from India.
According to one view, corruption in the Buddhist
sangha or priesthood precipitated Buddhism's ultimate
decline. While it is true that with time the Buddhist
priests became increasingly lax in the observance of
religious rules, corruption alone cannot explain the
death of Buddhism. After all, Buddhism was replaced by
an even more corrupt Brahminism. Another theory is
that Buddhism disappeared from India in the wake of
the Arab and Turkish invasions in which many Buddhists
were said to have been killed. However, this theory,
too, seems not to be convincing as a complete
explanation of the extinction of Buddhism in India .
After all, in places such as Bengal and Sind, which
were ruled by Brahminical dynasties but had Buddhist
majorities, Buddhists are said to have welcomed the
Muslims as saviours who had freed them from the
tyranny of 'upper' caste rule. This explains why most
of the 'lower-caste' people in Eastern Bengal and Sind
embraced Islam. Few, if any, among the 'upper' castes
of these regions did the same.

 

Since Buddhism was replaced by triumphant Brahminism,
the eclipse of Buddhism in India was obviously
primarily a result of the Brahminical revival. The
Buddha was a true revolutionaryâ€"and his crusade
against Brahminical supremacy won him his most ardent
followers from among the oppressed castes. The Buddha
challenged the divinity of the Vedas, the bedrock of
Brahminism. He held that all men are equal and that
the caste system or varnashramadharma, to which the
Vedas and Other Brah'minical' books had given
religious sanction, was completely false. Thus, in
the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha is said to have
exhorted the Bhikkus, saying, â€Å“Just, O brethren, as
the great rivers, when they have emptied themselves
into the Great Ocean, lose their different names and
are known as the Great Ocean Just so, O brethren, do
the four varnasâ€"Kshatriya, Brahmin, Vaishya and
Sudraâ€"when they begin to follow the doctrine and
discipline propounded by the Tathagata [i.e. the
Buddha], renounce the different names of caste and
rank and become the members of one and the same
society.â€

 

The Buddhaâ€TMs fight against Brahminism won him many
enemies from among the Brahmins. They were not as
greatly opposed to his philosophical teachings as they
were to his message of universal brotherhood and
equality for it directly challenged their hegemony and
the scriptures that they had invented to legitimize
this. To combat Buddhism and revive the tottering
Brahminical hegemony, Brahminical revivalists resorted
to a three-pronged strategy. Firstly, they launched a
campaign of hatred and persecution against the
Buddhists. Then, they appropriated many of the finer
aspects of Buddhism into their own system so as to win
over the "lower" caste Buddhist masses, but made sure
that this selective appropriation did not in any way
undermine Brahminical hegemony. The final stage in
this project to wipeout Buddhism was to propound and
propagate the myth that the Buddha was merely another
‘incarnationâ€TM (avatar) of the Hindu god Vishnu.
Buddha was turned into just another of the countless
deities of the Brahminical pantheon.

 

The Buddhists were finally absorbed into the caste
system, mainly as Shudras and ‘Untouchablesâ€TM, and
with that the Buddhist presence was completely
obliterated from the land of its birth. Dr. Bhimrao
Ambedkar writes in his book, The Untouchables, that
the ancestors of today's Dalits were Buddhists who
were reduced to the lowly status of ‘untouchablesâ€TM
for not having accepted the supremacy of the Brahmins.
They were kept apart from other people and were
forced to live in ghettos of their own. Being treated
worse that beasts of burden and forbidden to receive
any education, these people gradually lost touch with
Buddhism, but yet never fully reconciled themselves to
the Brahminical order. Many of them later converted to
Islam, Sikhism and Christianity in a quest for
liberation from the Brahminical religion.


To lend legitimacy to their campaign against Buddhism,
Brahminical texts included fierce strictures against
Buddhists. Manu, in his Manusmriti, laid down that,
â€Å“If a person touches a Buddhist […] he shall
purify himself by having a bath.†Aparaka ordained
the same in his Smriti. Vradha Harit declared entry
into a Buddhist temple a sin, which could only be
expiated for by taking a ritual bath. Even dramas and
other books for lay people written by Brahmins
contained venomous propaganda against the Buddhists.
In the classic work, Mricchakatika, (Act VII), the
hero Charudatta, on seeing a Buddhist monk pass by,
exclaims to his friend Maitriyaâ€" "Ah! Here is an
inauspicious sight, a Buddhist monk coming towards
us." The Brahmin Chanakya, author of Arthashastra,
declared that, "When a person entertains in a dinner
dedicated to gods and ancestors those who are Sakyas
(Buddhists), Ajivikas, Shudras and exiled persons, a
fine of one hundred panas shall be imposed on him."
Shankaracharaya, the leader of the Brahminical
revival, struck terror into the hearts of the
Buddhists with his diatribes against their
religion.

 

The simplicity of the Buddhaâ€TMs message, its stress
on equality and its crusade against the bloody and
costly sacrifices and ritualism of Brahminism had
attracted the oppressed casts in large numbers. The
Brahminical revivalists understood the need to
appropriate some of these finer aspects of Buddhism
and discarded some of the worst of their own practices
so as to be able to win over the masses back to the
Brahminical fold. Hence began the process of the
assimilation of Buddhism by Brahminism. The Brahimns,
who were once voracious beef-eaters, turned
vegetarian, imitating the Buddhists in this regard.
Popular devotion to the Buddha was sought to be
replaced by devotion to Hindu gods such as Rama and
Krishna. The existing version of the Mahabharata was
written in the period in which the decline of Buddhism
had already begun, and it was specially meant for the
Shudras, most of whom were Buddhists, to attract them
away from Buddhism. Brahminism, however, still
prevented the Shudras from having access to the Vedas,
and the Mahabharata was possibly written to placate
the Buddhist Shudras and to compensate them for this
discrimination.. The Mahabharata incorporated some of
the humanistic elements of Buddhism to win over the
Shudras, but, overall, played its role of bolstering
the Brahminical hegemony rather well. Thus, Krishna,
in the Gita, is made to say that a person ought not to
violate the â€Å“divinely ordained†law of caste.
Eklavya is made to slice off his thumb by Drona, who
is finds it a gross violation of dharma that a mere
tribal boy should excel the Kshatriya Arjun in
archery.

 

The various writer of the puranas, too, carried on
this systematic campaign of hatred, slander and
calumny against the Buddhists. The Brahannardiya
Purana made it a principal sin for Brahmins to enter
the house of a Buddhist even in times of great peril.
The Vishnu Purana dubs the Buddha as Maha Moha or
‘the great seducerâ€TM.. It further cautions against
the â€Å“sin of conversing with Buddhists†and lays
down that â€Å“those who merely talk to Buddhist
ascetics shall be sent to hell.†In the Gaya
Mahatmaya, the concluding section of the Vayu Purana,
the town of Gaya is identified as Gaya Asura, a demon
who had attained such holiness that all those who
saw him or touched him went straight to heaven.
Clearly, this ‘demonâ€TM was none other the Buddha
who preached a simple way for all, including the
oppressed castes, to attain salvation. The Vayu
Purana story goes on to add that Yama, the king of
hell, grew jealous at this, possibly because less
people were now entering his domains. He appealed to
the gods to limit the powers of Asura Gaya. This the
gods, led by Vishnu, were able to do by placing a
massive stone on the â€Å“demonâ€TMs†head. This
monstrous legend signified the ultimate capture of
Budhdhismâ€TMs most holy centre by its most inveterate
foes.


Kushinagar, also known as Harramba, was one of the
most important Buddhist centres as the Buddha breathed
his last there. The Brahmins, envious of the
prosperity of this pilgrim town and in order to
discourage people from going there, invented the
absurd theory that one who dies in Harramba goes to
hell, or is reborn as an ass, while he who dies in
Kashi, the citadel of Brahminism, goes straight to
heaven. So pervasive was the belief in this bizarre
theory that when the Sufi saint Kabir died in 1518 AD
at Maghar, not far from Kushinagar, some of his Hindu
followers refused to erect any memorial in his honour
there and instead set up one at Kashi. Kabir's Muslim
followers were less superstitious. They set up a tomb
for him at Maghar itself.

 

In addition to vilifying the fair name of the Buddha,
the Brahminical revivalists goaded Hindu kings to
persecute and even slaughter innocent Buddhists.
Sasanka, the Shaivite Brahmin king of Bengal, murdered
the last Buddhist emperor Rajyavardhana, elder brother
of Harshavardhana, in 605 AD and then marched on to
Bodh Gaya where he destroyed the Bodhi tree under
which the Buddha had attained enlightenment. He
forcibly removed the Buddha's image from the Bodh
Vihara near the tree and installed one of Shiva in its
place. Finally, Sasanka is said to have slaughtered
all the Buddhist monks in the area around Kushinagar.
Another such Hindu king was, Mihirakula, a Shaivite,
who is said to have completely destroyed over 1500
Buddhist shrines. The Shaivite Toramana is said to
have destroyed the Ghositarama Buddhist monastery at
Kausambi.


The extermination of Buddhism in India was hastened by
the large-scale destruction and appropriation of
Buddhist shrines by the Brahmins. The Mahabodhi
Vihara at Bodh Gaya was forcibly converted into a
Shaivite temple, and the controversy lingers on till
this day. The cremation stupa of the Buddha at
Kushinagar was changed into a Hindu temple dedicated
to the obscure deity with the name of Ramhar Bhavani.
Adi Shankara is said to have established his Sringeri
Mutth on the site of a Buddhist monastery which he
took over. Many Hindu shrines in Ayodhya are said to
have once been Buddhist temples, as is the case with
other famous Brahminical temples such as those at
Sabarimala, Tirupati, Badrinath and Puri.


 

http://rupeenews.com/2008/02/03/why-did-buddhism-disappear-from-the-south-asian-subcontinent-summary-of-brahmin-atrocities-that-destroyed-buddhism-in-the-subcontinent/



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