These are my jottings from last week and were supposed to be posted during the weekend. But I left the textpad behind at office. A bit late, but here comes:
- Either you hate Calcutta or you love it. Nothing grey about it. I fall into the second category, though I have lived there for a very short time. So, am I not happy to read this!
Little in Calcutta can be claimed to be ‘A’ class. Asim Dasgupta take note — Subrata Mukherjee’s civic body is one of them. In fact, A+. Credit Rating Information Services India Ltd (Crisil), which assesses credit-worthiness, has given the Calcutta Municipal Corporation the A+ rating that no other civic body in the country possesses.
- One good blog from last week: The waiter is one of the very few sensible writer-bloggers around. It's interesting to see people through his eyes. Especially, when he is blessed with such descriptive skills.
- A friend said: Angulimaal is the same person as Valmiki. He was transformed by Buddha. Who agrees and who doesnt? Let those comments pour in.
- The politics of power has always interested me, be it the authority of state/society/parents over individual, or any other forms of power play. The powerful derive their power from the suppressed. There is a flow of power from the object of power to the powerful. Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not. When this relationship is not of mutual consent, there will come a tipping point when the statement is rewritten. The powerful are wary of this tipping point. Both can see it coming. It's inevitable. It has to happen. But why did the tipping point come when it came? If power did not flow voluntarily, why did it flow at all? This is in the context of colonisation.
6 comments:
hi boss,
That valmiki query was quite intriguing! so i am making my first effort to react to your blog. it's an amazing thing to merge angulimaala and valmiki. because you kight recall that hindu religion started degrading in the later vedic period and thats how buddhism rose to prominence. so it cant be the case.
but when i did a google, historians question on buddha's reported time period of 600-500 BC. check http://www.stephen-knapp.com/reestablishing_the_date_of_buddha.htm
But another site gives this comment:
"RIG VEDIC PERIOD II (2200 TO 1700 BC – TRETA YUGA)"
Rajarshi Manu (of the Manusmruti fame) lived around 2200 BC. Here around the Ikshvakus split into two, the Magadhi Ishvakus and the Videhi Ishvakus. Kings Bhageeratha, Ambarisha, Rituparna, Mulaka, Dilip, Raghu, Dasharatha and Rama belonged to the Magadhi branch whereas King Janak I, Devarata, Hrasvaroma, Siradwaja Janaka (Mithila) etc were famous Videha branch kings. Muni Durvasa, sage Yajnavalkya, Vishwamitra, Vasishta . 2nd Tamil Academy Meet (Tamil Sangam II) happens around 1900 BC in the South. Also king Madhu Yadav (also known as Madhav) of the Yadu dynasty ruled from Saurashtra upto Yamuna river. There is no need to mention that kings Rama, Bali and Ravana were contemporaries. Around this time Paurushasva (Zarathushtra’s father),sage Zarathushtra and Rishi Atharvan lived in Persia and Abraham in Chaldea. The famous king Sesostris III, and the Sobkhotep kings ruled Egypt while Hammurabi and other Babylonian kings ruled Mesopotamian region.
The connection is not very clear to me. I was never taught this version of the Ramayan. If Buddha transformed Angulimaal into Valmiki, why did he not become a Buddhist instead? Why did he go on to write one of the epics of Hinduism?
One possible explanation: After the transformation, Angulimaal/Valmiki did write a story which had the core elements of Ramayan. Much later, maybe sometime between the 3rd - 7th century AD, the story was appropriated by Hinduism and took its present form.
This is, of course, pure conjecture.
This is the first time I came across such a linking of Valmiki and Buddha! Here's what I found from http://www.ashram.org/satsang_eng/eternal_youth/page26.html:
"Sage Narada was a master of this art. He transformed a robber named 'Valia' into a great sage named 'Valmiki'. Buddha was a master of this art. He transformed a cruel, heartless murderer Angulimaal (wearing a garland of fingers) into a great monk of the Buddhist order".
Hypothetically, if we consider that Buddha transformed Angulimaal into Valmiki, it would be saying that Narayana transformed Angulimaal into Valmiki, since many Hindu sects believe that Buddha was an incarnation of Narayana/Vishnu, whose avatar was Rama too!
Next, the earlier anonymous comment linked a posting on hindunet that talked of Rik Vedic Period II, etc. I'm not sure what are those calculations refering to. There are various beliefs related to the durations of yugas, the most common being as below (in years):
Krita/Satya Yuga: 1728000
Treta Yuga: 1296000
Dwapara Yuga: 864000
Kali Yuga: 432000
I wonder if Treta Yuga was anywhere as close as 2200 BC, the yuga of Rama avatar! (even so, Buddha didn't exist in Treta and Valmiki wrote Ramayana *during* Rama's existence)
Controversy solved !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmiki
Simple wikipedia search...
Valmiki was transformed by narada and not buddha !
What a discussion !
A surd managed to confuse hindus in singapore abt the hindus being actually buddhists !is that national integration or wot ??
;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angulimala
Even this could be of help...
Wikipedia zindabad !
hey ritz, thanks. I had found the Angulimaal = Valmiki theory hard to digest anyways.
Post a Comment