Has Buddhism been the source of ethnic, religious or other violence?
Are they the most non-violent of all major religions anyone can join? (Excluding any that you can only join by birth, or those with fewer than say 100k followers.)
Well, there’s never been a Buddhist jihad or crusade, AFAIK.
OTOH, this is the religion that gave the world Shaolin Kung Fu.
Relevant GQ thread from June: Has there ever been a Buddhist War? A: Yes.
There have been a few Buddhist holy wars, but not that many. Most notably, there was a war between Pagan and Mon in what’s now Burma over religion. The King of Pagan converted to Buddhism and asked the King of Mon to send him copies of the Buddhist scriptures and Buddhist monks. The King of Mon refused, and the King of Pagan responded by invading Mon and taking what he wanted.
The various Buddhist sects in Japan were constantly fighting over matters of doctrine in the Middle Ages, as well, and in modern times, the Zen Buddhist establishment in Japan was a big supporter of Japanese militarism, and tried to put a religious gloss on Japan’s wars. For instance, during the Russo-Japanese war Zen Master Shaku Soen became an army chaplain, explaining:
During World War II, Zen Master Harada said:
And, of course, Zen Buddhism was the religion of the samurai, who didn’t see any contradiction between their religious beliefs and cutting people to pieces.
One small issue with having violent Buddhists is that historically, it was a relatively confined faith. It only existed in a relatively small corner of the world, and in China and Japan was so intermixed with other religious matters that it often lacked a distinct character. Of course, there are arguments over whether Chinese Buddhism is anything of the sort, too.
I believe the Yellow Hats and Red Hats fought over which version of Linux they would use. Or something like that.
There’s that dude Tripiṭaka who caused all sorts of havoc on a quick jaunt out to India to borrow a book (though admittedly most of the trouble was started by his rather unruly simian companion).
Japan is 1 part Buddhism and 9 parts Bushido. ‘Herbivore men’ are also xenophobes and phallocentric to cusp of homophilic. Shitty archetype.
Having spent time in Thailand, what I’ve concluded about Buddhism is that it’s more a philosophy than a religion per se, with the latter’s commandments and precepts and whatnot. Thus it lacks is the strident nature inherent in doctrines predicated upon ‘laws’. The ‘8-Fold Path’ they aspire to is, as the title implies, a path. Not some decree set forth by an airy-fairy deity, punishable by supposed eternal damnation if contravened. You can aim to follow this path, but you’re not ostracized if you do not choose to do so, or indeed, fail in your journey.
To surmise, what sets Buddhism apart in my opinion, is that at its core it’s a tolerant religion/philosophy. As distinct from most other theological doctrine, which are patently intolerant coughIslamcough :rolleyes:
Sidebar: Isn’t there actual oesteo-tangible evidence of the existence of Buddha? I was under the anecdotal impression there was…? Which would lend further weight to the argument that fictitious beliefs lacking any semblance of credible evidence are nothing but a system of control in the guise of scripture
Uh, Northern India, China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Afghanistan and most of Southeast Asia is not a small corner of the world historically. And as one who practices Zen meditation (which started in China and spread to Japan) and has studied the history of Buddhism I’m not real sure what arguments you’re talking about when it comes to Chinese Buddhism. Do you mean now? There is no truly Chinese schools of Buddhism left after communism. But, historically, from the 6th to the 10th century Buddhism was the most dominant and powerful religion in China (something that actually led to Buddhism’s eventual downfall in China).
More to the OP, yes, there have been wars fought over Buddhist doctrine, though really, like most wars in China at the time they were more about territorial control than truly doctrine. The medieval history of Japan is nothing but constant warfare and this was all fit within a framework of Buddhism. This same notion, as has been mentioned, carried all the way to WWII in Japan.
There is no tangible historic or archeological evidence for the existence of Siddhārtha Gautama as far as I know. We have Greek texts that mention Buddhism itself, prior to the earliest Buddhist texts even, but no real historical documents that mention Siddhārtha Gautama himself outside of the Buddhist scriptures themselves. These were all written 400-600 years after Siddhārtha Gautama had supposedly died.
There’s a bone in China that’s supposedly the top of the Buddha’s skull, and various places are reputed to have the Buddha’s ashes. Even assuming those relics are real, though, I’m not sure that carries any sort of I don’t see how that supports your argument. A mosque in Medina contains the tombs of Muhammad and some of the early Caliphs.
Do you have a cite for this? I’m curious what these texts actually said about Buddhism.
Yeah but that only makes it better. If all wars were fought unarmed in togas by bald headed guys who only ate vegetables…
The answer to the first question seems definitively to be “yes”, even with the complicating factors mentioned.
What about the second question? By “nonviolent”, do you mean “effectively nonviolent currently” or “having less violence than any other mainstream major religion over the course of its history”?
Buddhism’s influence was patchy in much of that area.
Except that as a “religion”, it arguably was utterly and completely unrelated to actual Buddhism. Y’know, as held and created by Gautama Siddhartha. Those who adhere to it, and scholars, may and do argue over this. Ultimately, BUddhism in China and Japan was fit into the native animistic religion, and contributed to it philosophy. But what they call Buddhism then and now in China and Japan is only tenuously connected to the original, far more so than Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or even the Hindu Pantheism.
As are all religious wars, really.
Indeed. It’s very difficult to find a war that was fought purely over religious doctrine, without any admixture of regional/national/ethnic/dynastic power politics. (For instance, in all of the conflicts in the first couple centuries after Constantine over the nature of Christ, the degree to which an area embraced heterodox theology coincided very closely with that area’s distance from Constantinople. For something people might be a bit more familiar with, consider the degree to which the Protestant/Catholic split was also a germanic/romance language split.)
That’s what I came in to mention. Japan not only had wars over Buddhist doctrines, it had full-time warrior monks at one point.
Sort of like the European religious military orders (Templars, Hospitallers, etc…), only instead of fighting alongside samurai, they fought against them half the time. In particular, sohei formed the bulk of and drive behind a huge wave of peasant revolts against the whole feudal/caste system in the late 15th/early 16th century.
I’m sorry, but you’re simply wrong. At differing times and for stretches of centuries it was the most dominant religion in all those areas and, in some, still is. I’m not real sure where you’re getting your info from. The history and archeology are right there to see. These countries are still dominantly Buddhist:
* Thailand
* Cambodia
* Myanmar
* Tibet
* Bhutan
* Mongolia
* Sri Lanka
* Laos
* Vietnam
* Japan
And China and both North and South Korea would still be there if not for the Communist Revolution.
Again, I’m not sure where you get this. We have all the early sutras in Pali, Sanskrit on through Chinese and Japanese and they are extraordinarily consistent in there translations given the span of time. In China the dominant religion/philosophies by the time Buddhism reached it were Confucianism and Taoism. In China, Taoist names were adopted for many Pali terms but aside from that there are not major differences in the basic doctrine. I know of no scholar, Buddhist or not, that would support the contention that Chinese Buddhism or the Mahayana vs Theravada schools are “completely unrelated” to early Buddhism. All we know of early Buddhism is the sutras and we can see the chronological translations of them through time has been quite consistent.
As are all religious wars, really.
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Agreed.
I’ve spent more time in Thailand, and spent them steeped in Buddhist culture, than some posters on the Board have spent walking this Earth. My take is these are some violent fucking people. A big difference, in Thailand anyway, is the violence is rarely random. It’s almost always targeted, such as feuds and the like. Don’t ever – and I mean EVER – cross one of these guys unless you can avoid running into them again. One recent example is the Westerner who somehow survived the bomb that blew up his car, planted by the otherwise-sweet little Thai business lady whose condo business he was muscling into. Revenge is a national sport, and they don’t care if it’s served cold, hot or room temperature. Tourists often come away buying the whole “peaceful Buddhist” shtick, but spend some time here and scratch the surface, and it’s a whole different world.
Thai history is a very violent history. Endless wars with Burma, Cambodia and various kingdoms no longer extant. Internal repression. It’s quite at odds with perceptions.
Someone above asked about the historical Siddhartha. He does seem to have been a real person. The wife and I have visited the site of the palace where he was raised as a young prince, in Tilaurakot, Nepal, in what’s called the Terai. Close to the border of India, it’s a very un-Nepal-like area – flat, hot, dusty. But it’s where most Nepalis live today and a major agricultural region.
Archaeologists have uncovered 13 layers of habitation dating back 2800 years, and they believe one to have been his father’s palace and kingdom. The area is ironically predominantly Muslim now, and we saw no other tourists around when we visited, local OR foreign. It was difficult to reach, 30 kilometers along a badly corrugated road, with our driver having to keep stopping to ask for directions. (Contrast that with Lumbini, the site where he was born and which has been developed into a fairly major tourist attraction. And there’s some question as to whether that’s the actual Lumbini.) The ruins at Tilaurikot are a national historic site, and for a small fee a park official showed us around. Supposedly, once Siddhartha did exit the palace at the age of 29, he left through the eastern gate, and so we had our pictures taken in the ruins of what would have been the eastern gate of whatever layer of palace was poking up. Probably not the same one, but succwessive palaces may have been built on the same spot, and it was still nice to think it was right about there anyway, according to legend.
As for relics of the Buddha, those are a dime a dozen. There are no shortage of temples all over the East and Southeast Asia that claim to have this or that bone of his. But most amazing is his footprint in central Thailand, around which a temple has been built. Not an ordinary footprint, it’s something like 12 frickin’ feet long! Or 20 feet. Huge! And lots of little forest scenes imprinted into it where “toe prints” and the like should have been. I saw it when I first came to Thailand, and I mentioned to the Thai who was with me that, um, this doesn’t really look like a real footprint, and he told me in all seriousness: “You must understand, the Buddha was not an ordinary person.” Um, right, okay, whatever you say.