[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[JKirkpatrick]

So let's put the question bluntly. Do you (or anyone on the list)
think that Buddha believed such things as Brahmas, devas, yaksas,
etc. exist, i.e., that they are part of the cosmos we experience
and that they can interact with us on occasion under certain
circumstances? (and not just as games our unconscious plays on
us... autonomous entities)

Dan 

_____________

Dan--(my name is Joanna, not Joanne):

As usual, you insist on over-kill, while condescendingly assuming
abysmal confusion on the part of one of the participants in this
discussion. Doesn't reflect well on you. 
 
I seem to recall having already posted on this list a
recommendation to read and revel in the following scholarly
source, which is relevant to your insulting little tirade (which
I abbrevaited above):

DeCaroli, Robert. Haunting the Buddha: Indian Popular Religions
and the Formation of Buddhism. OUP, 2004

Since I had to return the book via ILL, and cannot afford it
right now, I append instead the publisher blurb as a reminder of
what DeCaroli has to offer:

In this book Robert DeCaroli seeks to place the formation of
Buddhism in its appropriate social and political contexts. It is
necessary, he says, to acknowledge that the monks and nuns who
embodied early Buddhist ideals shared many beliefs held by the
communities in which they were raised. In becoming members of the
monastic society these individuals did not abandon their beliefs
in the efficacy and the dangers represented by minor deities and
spirits of the dead. Their new faith, however, gave them
revolutionary new mechanisms with which to engage those
supernatural beings. Drawing on fieldwork, textual, and
iconographic evidence, DeCaroli offers a comprehensive view of
early Indian spirit-religions and their contributions to
Buddhism-the first attempt at such a study since Ananda
Coomaraswamy's pioneering work was published in 1928. The result
is an important contribution to our understanding of early Indian
religion and society, and will be of interest to those in the
fields of Buddhist studies, Asian history, art history, and
anthropology. 

Joanna K.