[Buddha-l] Brahmi Script

[Dan Lusthaus]

Thanks, Lance,

> During his preaching career he is not located further west than the
> Delhi region and that is doubtful. He is mostly in what we now call Bihar.

Yes. From Sarnath (Benares / Varanasi) to Savatthi (where he hunkered down 
for rainy season), and eastward to Nalanda and Rajagrha, with important 
stops in Vasali and Kushinagar. You seem to agree that the Sankasya claim 
(which is what would put him near Delhi) is to be treated as legend only.

> The basis for this suggestion would be that there are accounts of people
> going to study (e.g. medicine) in Taxila. So it is faintly possible that
> the young prince Siddhattha was sent there to study in his youth, but we
> have no evidence to support this possibility.

http://iguide.travel/Taxila#/Map
http://belfun.com/Amaury/images/20010824%20Islamabad%20Taxila%2011.JPG
Taxila -- in the heart of Gandhara, in modern day Pakistan (ca. 30 km from 
Islamabad, E of Peshawar, in the strip between Kashmir and Afghanistan) --  
did have a reputation at some point as a source of advanced knowledge and 
technology (medicine, writing, etc.), and that is already attested in Panini 
(whose dates are debated as between 500-300 BC, making him a possible 
contemporary more or less of the Buddha). From what we can gather, 
instruction there was by mentor or apprenticeship, not "university," 
however.  If Buddha learned anything from the Taxila knowledge factories --  
directly or indirectly -- it would have been medicine, not writing, since 
medical analysis and categories are integral parts of his teaching (starting 
with the 4 Noble Truths, which are what today in medical school is called 
the "pathological model": Symptom[s], diagnosis, prognosis, treatment plan). 
It seems, however, when it came to practical medical knowledge, it was 
certain of his followers, not he himself, who had the expertise.

Maybe he met the Taxilan writing instructors halfway, in Sankasya, on his 
way back from whichever deva realm he had been preaching Abhidhamma in.

Dan