[Buddha-l] Inquisition and untouchability

[tccahill at loyno.edu]

Thanks Dan & Richard for the stimulating debate!

One detail that has not been brought up is the incorporation by new or
newer Catholics in the Middle Ages of rituals to support ancestors.  I
think this is an area where indigenous practices flourished, and Church
authorities were at a loss.  Happily for them, they eventually figured out
a profitable solution!

This brings to mind a brief exchange on the list that took place over the
summer. The topic considered was meat eating, butchers and untouchability.
 I'm familiar with arguments relating to early Buddhism's effect on
India's system of varṇa & jāti more generally, but I know little  about
its effect on formulating or fostering the untouchable status of butchers
and those who touch deceased animals. Did lived Buddhism result in the
creation of untouchablity, de facto, in ancient times?  Was Jainism
similarly involved?

best,
Tim Cahill


> [me]
>>> The Spanish Inquisition, to take just one of your examples, was not
>>> about
>>> hard-core Abrahamists persecuting multi-religionists. Generally the
>>> persecuted also belonged to a single religion -- Catholicism -- which
>>> has
>>> many sects. Those, like the conversos (derogatorily called Marranos in
>>> much literature), who remained closet Jews, were duplicitously
>>> maintaining two religions -- one publicly and the other in secret, so
>>> secret that it was forgotten even within the family after a few
>>> generations.
>>
> [Richard]
>> Exactly my point. The Inquisition was aimed only at Catholics who were
>> practicing some other religion alongside their Catholicism.
>
> [me]
> No, it was aimed at deviance WITHIN a single religion. The converso
> circumstance was not a matter of a group happily dappling in multiple
> religions and receiving the ire of authorities for such dappling, but
> rather
> one where one had to hide one's actual religion in order to avoid
> execution,
> and took on the appearance of the second religion to avoid persecution.
> They
> were not being persecuted for participating in two (or more) religions,
> but
> in order to assure that their conversion was pure, to exorcise any
> remnants
> of former Judaism. Given their druthers, they would have dropped the
> Catholicism, not the Judaism. Many Spanish and Portugese Jews chose exile
> --
> many moved east into the eastern mediterranean, north africa and middle
> east, and in northern and eastern Europe Amsterdam and Poland being some
> of
> the few places welcoming the refugees (e.g. granting them some degree of
> citizenship, etc.).
>
> As for Catholic subsects, they are still part of single religion. That
> there
> are authorities trying to regulate what is acceptable and requisite for
> such
> members doesn't alter that basic fact.
>
> Let's try an analogy. US citizens can lean right, left, in between, spend
> more time tweeting and following celebrity fluff than learning the names
> and
> policies of their state and federal representatives, antisocial hermits,
> philanthropists, etc etc etc. They are all citizens, and while there is
> plenty of conflict -- actual and attitudinal -- between such groups, they
> concede, sometimes grudgingly, that those "others" are citizens with
> rights
> to vote,etc (though they may actively try gerrymander or obstruct those
> rights). Whether diversity within a religion is welcome or alarming to
> some
> of its members and leadership, it does not mean that diversity constitutes
> a
> different religion.
>
> That religions sample and adopt elements from other traditions --
> appropriating INTO themselves those factors -- is something I mentioned
> before this side-thread appeared.
>
> [Richard]
>>So when I cite the Inquisition in general as an example of an attempt to
>> go
>>against the grain of the general population, which was comfortable with
>>several religions to a customer,
>
> [me]
> They were not "comfortable". It was forced on them, not a matter of
> self-motivated sampling, and they were terrified.
>
> Dan
>
>
>