[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[andy]

I haven't read more than the precis os Kasuta's paper, as per the link by 
Curt, but I would suggest that there is a difference between defending the 
sanga and protecting the dharma.  And, G-d forbid, protecting the Buddha! 

No doubt there were arrangements made for the defense of monastic 
institutions, or at least the non-dissolution of them (Chinese and Japanese 
experience here), but the question is whether this amounts to a doctrine of 
the trinity:  failure to protect the Buddha, the dharma, and the Sangha 
(especially the Sangha)  is equivalent to the extinction of Buddhism itself.   

The larger question is one I pose to members of the monotheistic faiths:  if 
your god really depends on mere mortals to defend him/her,   perhaps you ought 
to think about upgrading!  


On Tuesday 13 July 2010 08:00:27 pm L.S. Cousins wrote:
>   On 14/07/2010 02:17, Curt Steinmetz wrote:
> > The Buddha appears to have accepted not only the economic
> > largesse of powerful allies, but also their physical/armed protection.
> > If the Buddha himself did not do this, then it happened very soon
> > afterwards because the theme of political allies militarily protecting
> > Buddhism is in the Pali Canon as far back as one can go.
> >
> > In all of "Buddhism and Warfare" there is no mention, not even in a
> > footnote, of Matthew Kosuta's excellent study "The Military in the Pali
> > Canon", in which Kosuta concluded that "in a mundane perspective, the
> > military is ever present, of high prestige, and even necessary in some
> > circumstances for the protection of Buddhism."
> >
> > Here is a link to Kosuta's paper:
> > http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma6/militarycanon.html
> 
> I haven't read Kosuta's paper, but this seems a bit puzzling. The idea
> of 'military allies protecting Buddhism' seems quite anachronistic in
> this context. We have monks and their associates. We have teachings
> attributed to the Buddha and his disciples, but I don't see anything one
> could call a religion of 'Buddhism'. That comes later.
> 
> Lance Cousins
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-- 
James Andy Stroble, PhD
Lecturer in Philosophy
Department of Arts & Humanities
Leeward Community College
University of Hawaii

Adjunct Faculty 
Diplomatic and Military Studies
Hawaii Pacific University 

_________________

"The amount of violence at the disposal of any given country may soon not be a 
reliable indication of the country's strength or a reliable guarantee against 
destruction by a substantially smaller and weaker power."  --Hannah Arendt