[Buddha-l] Non attached & mindful culinary triumphalism?

[Artur Karp]

[Resending the message without the attachment;
attachment sent separately to Joanna, Lance, Dan and Katherine]

Dan,

> (3) Are
> there reliable ways of identifying and unpacking the clues that may be
> hidden between the lines in the Pali texts? So far, seems largely ad hoc
> methodologically speaking.

Not only the Pali, also Sanskrit texts. An exhaustive questionnaire,
collocations (of the type XYZ :: rice, XYZ :: barley, XYZ :: wheat;
XYZ :: buffalo, buffalo :: chicken, buffalo :: pig; pukkusa ::
candala, pukkusa :: nesada, pukkusa :: vena; etc.). Putting the
questions in a hierarchical order, quantifying the results, and
finally weighing them. A map of significant connections. A map of
significant silences. That, hopefully, providing  an insight into the
texts ideology.

A lot of interesting work for the naturally computer-wise XXIst
century youngsters.


> One probably needs to be careful about the "theory of the
> week," esp. when it serves as a fairly mono-causal
> narrative, such as "deforestation."

A good warning. Except that I use the term "deforestation" always in
connection with another term, that is "detribalization". So, a fairly
bi-causal narrative. Which, I believe, is much better than the
mono-something one.And, let me stress again, both processes run in the
background of a much larger process; it is thanks to them that the
Indian style civilization gets its resources, that it has a nearly
inexhaustible pool of free/cheap workforce. Even today.

Let me attach a table showing the correlation between  Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes numerical strengths in selected Indian
states (India Census, 2001). One immediately notices, that in the
areas where there are no more tribes to be robbed of their land, the
proportion of Scheduled Castes population is fairly high (up to 30%).
And quite conversely, in the areas where the tribes still exist, the
proportion of SCs is fairly low, in some cases even nil. I believe
these findings can be linked with the extent of deforestation in the
areas in question.

Cf.:

http://www.frienvis.nic.in/forestcovermap.htm,

also, detailed maps for Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal,
Mizoram, etc., at :

http://www.mapsofindia.com/forest-maps/

Regards,


Artur