[Buddha-l] Nirvana si, bodhi no! [was: liturgical languages]

[r.g.morrison]

Robert:

: > I think even we Scots would admit that the notion of the 'Enlightenment'
: > extends beyond Scotland,

Richard:

: Aye, there is no doubt of that. The real question is whether the
: Enlightenment ever extended INTO Scotland.

Well, you do mention Hume - need one say more?  He was even 'enlightened' 
enough to change the spelling of his name from Home to Hume so that others 
could pronounce it correctly! When I was visiting the USA a couple of years 
ago (Blacksberg, Virginia), a friend gave me a book called 'How the Scots 
Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest 
Nation Created Our World & Everything in it'.  It is by an American 
historian, Authur Herman.  According to the author, not only did Scotland 
have its own 'Enlightenment', but it even extended over and into America! 
But he fails to mention that the Klu Klux Klan was also founded by Scots 
(the 'religious nut' kind)!

: > I've met modern Indian Buddhists who put Betrand Russell next to the
: > Buddha, so as to distinguish it from what they see as the irrational
: > superstitions of Hindhuism.

: I was "educated" in the United States, so I had a very poor knowledge of
: geography and history until shame drove me to correct the intellectual
: poverty that was my inheritance from the country of my birth. I think I
: was thirty before I discovered that India is in Asia instead of Africa.
: (It's not as crazy as it sounds. All the Indians I knew were from Uganda
: and Kenya.)

The advantage of being born on a small island (UK) is that if the geography 
lessons are to last more than a couple of months, then one has to take in 
the most of rest of the planet.  But there again, when I was at school, 
nearly two-thirds of the land on the world map was coloured pink, i.e. it 
belonged to 'us' (British Empire).  Just think, if America has stayed 
'pink', then you would have no Repulicans!  But you would have many more 
'Indians'.

Robert Morrison