I’m reading What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula. In his opening chapter, Dr. Rahula claims that “there is not a single example of persecution or the shedding of a drop of blood in converting people to Buddhism, or in its propagation during its long history of 2500 years.” Is this true, or was the Northwestern professor conveniently forgetting some problematic cases? I understand that we can discount Asoka, who only converted to Buddhism after completing his violent conquests, but are there other cases where mass adherence to Buddhism was obtained through less than gentle means?
Burma has done a bit of it, according to some reports. I can’t find a great cite, but Wikipedia mentions it here: Freedom of religion in Myanmar - Wikipedia
Besides the current forced conversions in Burma, a lot of Southeast Asia had mandated mass conversions. The King of Burma or the King of Khmer or whoever would convert to Buddhism and say “Ok, this is a Buddhist country now. We’re all Buddhists.”
After Tibet adopted Buddhism, the Kings and Dali Lamas did a lot to suppress the native religion. There was also a bunch of forced conversion between Buddhist sects.
Lord Buddha had followers and disciples. In other words, wherever he traveled he was
followed and he was protected. Jesus and Mohammed knocked on doors, called press
conferences, provided meals, preached in public and private venues, made extravagant
prophesies.
The Buddha made no threats or ultimatums against the opposition. He said you do not
have to help others in order to fulfill “the law”. You need simply to NOT make the lives of
others worse than what they already are. This is why no one has been killed for Buddha
and no war has been fought for Buddha. The wars and the killings were done not by
Buddha but by the power struggles among his successors.
I’m guessing the fact that Gautama spent his life up into adulthood as a pampered royal prince, whose father the King was still alive when he began preaching, may have had something to do with that. Only sons of carpenters and merchants must resort to such crass methods, no?
Nice theory, friend; but too bad it doesn’t square with historical facts. Even today, there are people who are killing others for the simple reason that those others aren’t Buddhist.
And, for the love of whatever you hold sacred, please treat the return/enter key more gently.
Altan Khan in concert with Sonam Gyatso appear to have taken a rather coercive approach to the conversion of the Mongols, with a fairly heavy-handed crackdown on Shamanism. Not much mentioned in those articles, I should add. But other sources indicate that it was not an easy-going process.
Seriously, read a book.
Does anybody know of a good book that places Buddhism in an historical context?
Incidentally, the 1974 book mentioned in the OP is a leading college textbook. Its forward appears to be wrong though.
A history of religious coercion, with comparisons and contrasts, might be interesting as well. I would hypothesize that Islam would be worse than Christianity and both worse than Buddhism (after controlling for population), but there would be real problems of definition to consider.
Religious studies is the only field of the humanities that uncritically accepts the truth of what its subjects claim.
Here are two sources that show you are very wrong.
Wiki:
&
University of California at Davis
Religious Studies is obviously not what you evidently think it is.
My opinion is based on university courses I took and textbooks I read, which portray all religions as true, valid, and good and any deviance from this as people somehow doing their own religion wrong. You may also wish to see the OP of this thread, a quote from a textbook which makes the ludicrous claim that no Buddhist has ever committed religious violence.
Religious Studies is an academic excercise in observing and explaining something related to cultures. It is not, as you are now pretending, a Catechism.
Of course the claim that no Buddhist has ever committed religious violence is an asinine claim as it is patently false. It does not change the fact that there is a difference between Religious Studies and Catechisms.
My exposure to my College’s department of Religion is not consistent with this characterization. The stance of the departed poster Diogenes the Cynic, who had a degree in the subject, was not compatible with your statement, though it matched my impression on the matter.
I’ll paraphrase a classmate of mine: “The religion department is full of freaking atheists!!!” I’m not saying she was correct though.
I suggest that you take with a grain of salt any statements from someone who
quotes WIKIPEDIA. The best sources are BRITANNICA, WORLD BOOK, and
ENCARTA. Also, I would like for all those experts on Buddhism to make a list
of the wars and battles that were fought for Lord Buddha. Cite sources, please.
I don’t want a list of wars fought for state power among rulers.
I want to know who has been killed or tortured in the name of Dharma.
Lord Buddha was all about self-discovery and self-purification and had nothing
to do with forcing others to convert. He even admitted that his way was not the
only way to nothingness.
Well, if nothing else, we’ve learned that Buddhists can be just as delusional in their proselytizations as Christians.
This is happening right now. Let me guess, these are not the Real Buddhists, who are no doubt off in hiding with the Real Christians, the Real Muslims, the Real Communists, and so forth?
Lord Buddha was a true Scotsman.
Who is killing people today for the simple reason that those others aren’t Buddhist? (Assuming you really did mean “simple reason”, and not a complex reason such as a broader power struggle between groups that contain Buddhists and groups that don’t, in which case it’s not so simple).
spam reported