[Buddha-l] Bangladesh Muslim lovefest

[Artur Karp]

No 13, of course. D.C. Sircar's translation.

And, Dan, with regard to your ramblings re your projections of my
views, let me quote you:

Dan, "you are smarter than that".

I do hope so.

On the lacunas in the pre-history of South Asia see (recently):

Giovanni Verardi, Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India, Manohar
2011. P. 88-89:

"Archaeology is the weak point in the debate on the Mauryas and Asoka.
No Mauryan settlement has ever been excavated, nor have the
relationship been examined between dharma pillars and stupas
and the territorial contexts where they were erected. While the debate
on the nature of Asokan policy continues, no monumental area has been
re-examined through fieldwork, and our knowledge
on the Asokan pillars and the nearby stupas is only slightly better
than it was after the inaccurate excavations carried out in the
nineteenth century.
No significant excavations have been carried out at
Patna/Pataliputra in the last decades, and no useful information is
available on Asoka's capital town, which is impossible to coherently
describe. Its plan remains the object of speculation. What we
know a little better today, thanks to extensive surveys and modelling,
is the territory of ancient Magadha and nearby regions and their
settlement history, especially the area of the plain that stretches up
to the Tarai. The network of roads and junctions, checking points,
river crossings and monumentalised areas show a complexity which goes
far beyond the traditional notion of an uttarapatha that, dotted with
dharma pillars, runs along the left bank of the Gandak River. The
network of roads and sites is much more complex than previously
believed, pointing to the fact that economic transformation touched
rather vast territories."

[Details of the process in: Upinder Singh, A History   of Ancient and
Early Medieval India. From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson,
2009.]

Nearly all this on the former tribal territories. Were they empty?
Ready to be colonized? Land without people for people without land?

Dhamma-vijaya type of land annexation? No violence? No slaughter? No
acts of extermination? No micro-Holocausts?

Kalinga war.

Oh, but I tend to forget the rule: political Buddhism should not,
cannot be compared to Islam. Any attempt at comparison is to be
interpreted as morally doubtful.

Artur