[Buddha-l] Rice & Dragons

[Jo]

Dear List,


While reading one of Piya Tan's essays, I came across an interesting
quotation from Edward Conze's "Buddhism. A Short History", Oxford 1980, p.
VII.

Here it is:

<<In India the reaction arose in a region devoted to rice culture, as
distinct from the areas further West with their animal husbandry and
cultivation of wheat. For the last two thousand years Buddhism has mainly
flourished in rice-growing countries and little elsewhere. In addition, and
that is much harder to explain, it has spread only into those countries
which had previously had a cult of Serpents or Dragons, and never made
headway in those parts of the world which view the killing of dragons as a
meritorious deed or blame serpents for mankinds ills>>.

Has anyone tried to develop this idea?

Best,

Artur Karp

Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Pali (ret.) South Asian Studies Dept.
Oriental Faculty
University of Warsaw
Poland
-------------------------------

I don't agree with Conze's assertion of the bio-geography of south Asian
Buddhism.
Trade both by land and sea no doubt had a lot more to do with the broad and
intensive spread of Buddhism eastward. 
However, let us not forget Gandhara and its Bactrian allies in the
northwest, as well as the kingdoms of Mathura in the north. These areas
cultivated wheat and other grains,  and were also inhabited by the folkloric
figures of serpent and dragon. The serpent and dragon figures are found all
over the great continent of Asia, as well as within its peninsulas, such as
today's Europe as well as south Asia.

Joanna