[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Artur Karp]

"Buddhist Warfare", Jerryson, Intro. p. 3:

<<In Sri Lanka, for instance, members of the Buddhist political party
Janatha Vimukthi
Peramuna (JVP) were alleged to have blurred the lines between sacred
duty and murder; they
traced their justifications back to the Sinhalese mytho-historical
chronicle called the Mahāvamsa.
In this work, the Buddhist King Dhutthagamani wages a sacred war
against foreign invaders led
by Tamil King Elara in the second century B.C.E. In their view, the
killing of Tamil heathens did
not constitute murder, since the Tamil warriors were neither
meritorious nor, more importantly,
Buddhist.>>

In the Mahāvamsa (XXV, 109-110), the Tamils are - ultimately -
dehumanized. According to the text Duṭṭhagāmaṇī (101-77 BC) has no
reason to feel guilty for mass-killing his enemies. They are pasusamā
- "like cattle" (Geiger has 'beasts").

What I miss there is the famous mantra: "Gott mit uns".


Artur K.