[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Dan Lusthaus]

Oh goodness, Richard, here goes another public display of disagreement -- 
one we have argued for years on buddha-l.

> There is quite a bit of evidence that Buddhism was sponsored largely by
> merchants and that merchants found it to their economic advantage to be
> Muslims after the Arabs set up shop in western India.

The first half is absolutely true. To that one could add upper and
privileged classes and ruling classes as well. The sociology of the day was
such that a ruler's populace largely followed the lead of the ruler. If he
adopted a religion, so did many of his citizens, at least nominally. If he
or his successor subsequently changed religion, so did the populace (one of
the reasons that kings were often the referee of choice at inter-religious
debates -- but I digress). The second part of what Richard says, while most
likely true in some circumstances, manages to ignore something less benign
for which we have unimpeachable evidence (including Islamic and Buddhist
witness testimony). Richard used to cite Marshal Hodgson's _The Venture of
Islam_ (3 vols., only one of which deals with what we are discussing here)
when discussions of the demise of Buddhism in Central Asia and India came
up. Perhaps he has finally read that work carefully. Hodgson makes the
curious argument that Muslims did not per se kill Buddhists during their
progress toward and into India; instead, since, as mentioned above,
Buddhists could be identified with the "rich oppressors," all Muslims did
was foment the resentment of the underprivileged toward their "oppressors,"
promising that in Islam -- unlike Buddhism -- everyone is equal. Then those
soon-to-Muslims-but-not-Muslims-yet-how-convenient did all the revolting and
killing. The eerie similarity between this and the European myth of "Jewish
capitalists" shouldn't escape the observant. The results were also similar.

That, on the other hand, we have first-hand eyewitness accounts of Muslims
(Turks, to be sure) decimating Nalanda and other sites, and miserably
torturing the last surviving old monk (recorded by a Tibetan on pilgrimage),
who was too old to flee, indicates even Hodgson's dodge is only part of the
story.

But my raising the question of Buddhism and the efficacy of its survival
strategies was not so much a desire to revisit that particular debate, but
to bring the question to a deeper existential, doctrinal and historical
level -- which is why I expanded the horizon to East Asia. We could add
Tibet to this. Buddhism's establishing a firm foundation in Tibet is
predicated -- according to Tibetan tradition -- on a monk assassinating a
Tibetan king who was persecuting and banning Buddhism and would otherwise
have prevented its establishment in Tibet. That monk remains a hero in the
tradition, and the ethical justifications the tradition recites in support
of him gives some modern folks palpitations (the details of the story and
its justifications are layed out in Paul Williams' excellent _Mahayana
Buddhism_). I would submit that this was less an isolated incident than many
modern advocates of Buddhism would like to believe.

As modern Buddhists see themselves as less and less amenable to becoming
clerics (who can leave dealing with the power structure to the higher ups
and people with that special calling - and monastic Buddhism is nothing
without patronage, which is already a very ethically compromising
situation), and lay citizens cannot remain responsible citizens without
community and political involvement, then the ability to cultivate the
skills necessary to do so effectively should become a priority. I mentioned
in a previous message: "The left has fallen into mindless, ineffective
demonization prattle, while the right has
fallen into clever, effective demonization prattle." Recently the effective
way the conservatives have undermined Bush's own Supreme Court nominee -- 
mobilizing a variety of venues and effective arguments, has put her
confirmation in doubt. The anti-Bushites could only dream of being so
effective. A perhaps even more potent example can be found in today's New
York Times: Liberals are flumoxed that all the opportunities opened by
Katarina for turning the national debate in their favor have already been
hijacked very effectively by the conservatives:

 "We've had a stunning reversal in just a few weeks," said Robert
Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a
liberal advocacy group in Washington. "We've gone from a situation in which
we might have a long-overdue debate on deep poverty to the possibility,
perhaps even the likelihood, that low-income people will be asked to bear
the costs. I would find it unimaginable if it wasn't actually happening."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/politics/11poverty.html

In short, they are idiots. And all the self-righteous "Bush is dumb" jokes
can't hide that he and his cronies have outsmarted them at every turn, and
continue to do so. The reason FEMA hasn't been efficient is that the White
House has spent more energy on trying to guarantee that the New Orleans area
doesn't reconstitute itself as a Democratic constituency -- leaving the
whole South (all the way to the California desert, and they are working hard
in Sacramento to get over that hump as well) will be solidly red for
countless elections to come on the national and the local level.

As long as the Republicans' opposition thinks it is more spiritual to avoid
debates and confrontation, or to even think publically about political
issues, or that left and right are atavisms, guess who is going to be
calling the shots?

Dan Lusthaus