[Buddha-l] Rice & Dragons

[Richard Hayes]

On Apr 14, 2012, at 10:53 PM, Christopher Fynn <chris.fynn at gmail.com> wrote:

> In South India Adi
> Shankara and his followers played a big role while Islam seems to have
> had little to do with it.

According to accounts I have read, Buddhism continued to flourish in the South until the 16th or 17th century. I have personally known Tamil Brahmins who claimed to be Buddhists. Perhaps they are examples of a claim I have heard fairly often, which is that the best of what Buddhism had to offer simply became a part of generic Indian culture and is still being transmitted. What died out was what was no longer viable. The boundaries between religions in India seem awfully porous. A pretty substantial chunk of Buddhism and "Hinduism" (whatever that is supposed to be) managed to become part of the fabric of Indian Islām, especially the Islām of the Ismailis and Ahmadīyas. Trying to draw stark delineations between one religion and another, or between one philosophical school and another, or between religion and philosophy, tends not to hold up very well in India. In fact, it doesn't hold up very well anywhere in the human race, as far as I can tell. Thankfully, religion is never as two-dimensional and boringly predictable in reality as it tends to be portrayed in Religious Studies 101 classes. 

Richard Hayes