[Buddha-l] Rice & Dragons

[Artur Karp]

OK, OK, OK ---

Ockham Razor and islam - taken together they should be enough for me
to retract all my earlier statements.

But, still, I'd like to remind you, that the concept of the triad
linking rice, (friendly) dragons and Buddhism is not mine, It belongs
to Edward Conze, called already by someone (I do not recall who) "an
old bugger".

Whatever.

Several remarks, from the very depths of my education.

A. Buddhism started to emerge as an alternative to the traditional
beliefs and practices in the wet-rice cultivation area of Gangetic
Plain.

B. It remains to be checked, whether the pockets of long-lasting
presence of Buddhism south of the Vindhyas weren't located mainly
along riverine aluvial deposits (and in the estuaries of large Indian
Peninsula rivers) forming the areas of wet-rice cultivation.

C. "Buddhism follows money". Agreed. But money comes mainly from
agricultural surpluses. Wet-rice cultivation produces them. The
rationale behind Aśoka's campaign against Kalinga (Mahanadi Estuary,
wet-rice cultivation area)?

D. "Buddhism flourishes where there is mercantilism". Right. Richard
Gombrich's concept of the Buddha's dhamma as a movable good. Gregory
Schopen's books. And, lately, a series of works on the Buddha's relics
and their easy movability.

a) Buddhism transferred by traders to the West, to areas without
wet-rice cultivation. A question: did Buddhism there take roots deep
enough to withstand the pressure from an exclusivistic monotheistic
religion? If not, the next question is --- why?

b) Then, Buddhism transferred by traders to the South and East. Its
easy acceptance - as far as I know - always in the lowlands, along
aluvial riverine systems forming natural wet-rice cultivation areas.
Examples: SriLanka, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Tailandia, Vietnam, Java,
and the centers of their historical development, depending on ag
surpluses. Poor highlands remaining non-Buddhist.

D)  "Buddhism flourishes where Islam is absent or restrained". No.
Buddhism flourished in S and SE Asia a long time before the advent of
the Islam. The question of its absence or restrainment is irrelevant.
A strong influx of Muslim traders in countries such as India, Ceylon
or Burma did not result in dramatic changes. And, contrary to what is
routinely believed, it's estimated that during the heyday of the Great
Moghul rule in India only 10 to 15% of the Hindustan Plains population
were Muslim (Richard Eaton's works on the Islamic rule in India make a
good reading, if anyone's interested).

E) "Muslims not only expunged Buddhism from western and most of
central asia, they also were major factors in eliminating it in India
as well (and not, as your thesis would suggest, a shortage of rice)."
OK: I recognize caricature where it's made. But, whatever. I have
always thought that Buddhism's decline in India was primarily caused
by the lack of imperial support for the Buddhist institutions. Lower
rank dynasties stopped endowing local monasteries, not needing them
anymore in the role of a legitimizing factor, long before Muhammad's
prophetic visions; the results of neglect clearly visible already for
Xuanzang and Yijing. When Bakhtiyar Khilji appeared in Bengal,
Buddhism was already in decline there - what he devastated were only
pitiful remnants of earlier riches.

Best,

Artur