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Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

bbc.com

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Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#201

Post by random314 »

selimthegrim wrote: post #146
rramadass wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only India, but Persia, countries in The Levant, North Africa and Mediterranean were highly developed before the advent of Islam (which originated amongst desert tribes). It is their knowledge which gave rise to the so called "Golden Age of Islam". Islamic conquest merely acted as a conduit for the spread of these ideas from one geographical region to another (a la the later Mongol Empire).

Central Asia certainly played its role too. I invite you to consider that when Jai Singh II built Jantar Mantar, he used "Islamic" sources (Zij) as well from there.

It is fairly standard in Indian right wing media to be dismissive of anything positive of Islamic origin, by constructing a short alternative history as per the writers imagination.

So any post Islamic Arab contributions to math would have to be stolen from India, using bloodshed - as if math is a treasure that can be lifted or looted or were existing amongst Arabs before Islam.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#202

Post by kamaal »

unmole wrote: post #185
db1234 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Ayodhya mosque-temple riots are another facet of this clash. Western commentators glibly say 'Hindus are anti-Muslim'. The issue in India is so much more nuanced than that; there is bad blood on both sides going back a thousand years. Islam cannot escape from these charges: the religion is fundamentally intolerant of non-Abrahamic ones, especially ones with liberal iconography (like Hinduism and Buddhism). Bhak…

Shivaji sacked the city of Surat twice. I'm pretty sure you'll find plenty of stuff named after him in and around Surat. Oh, and the same Shivaji allied with the Muslim Qutub Shah of Golkonda to defend the Deccan homeland from the Northern invaders.

One of the big problems with trying to fix history(which is impossible as past can't be changed) as a means for emotional relief for your current pains due to bad politics is you run in all sorts of contradictory situations, where any principle you take today will be in total opposition to a principle you will have to take days from now.

Wars happen because any political power over any region looks at war as a means to expand administrative control. When such wars happen they have to pull down power centers in conquered lands and rebuild their own ones. In many such contexts the seat of political power to a significant degree rests with the land's religious authority.

I guess if you took a step back to shoot a panoramic perspective of India's history you would find everybody was attacking everybody.

It is also stupid to blame the rulers of the past for making decisions that give you emotional pain in the present.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#203

Post by kamaal »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #195
u801e wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The India-Pakistan debacle today is an extension of a nearly millennium-long Hindu-Muslim feud. Not really. A lot of these arbitrary borders in modern times came about due to actions of former colonial powers. Prior to colonial times, there were many individual kingdoms/territories throughout the subcontinent. Other examples of arbitrary borders include the Durand line, and the Wakhan corridor.

I'm not just talking about border disputes, and I don't make this connection lightly. Pakistan was explicitly founded as a country for 'Indian Muslims'. The 1971 war wasn't over a border dispute: West Pakistanis openly genocided and raped[1] Bengali Hindus (and Muslims, for that matter), declaring Bengali women 'war booty', which forced India to step in. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_genocide As for '…

>>If this is your sort of goalpost, then even relatively homogenous countries like Germany and Italy shouldn't really exist today, given that they only coalesced in the late 19th century.

Yup. The Holy Roman empire, Roman Empire, Byzantines, Greeks, Hellenistic period etc etc.

Over a period of long intervals the geographical boundaries of any and every region on earth expand and shrink. That's just fact of life. And boundaries are basically things written on a piece of paper, where one administration decides to start or end its control. Also what does things like 'new countries' even mean here. It is not like when people make new countries they take they dig up their region from beneath and relocate to Mars. They are just saying they don't wish to live under your political administration.

There is no need to overthink these things beyond a certain point.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#204

Post by random314 »

sudhirc wrote: post #183
jhbadger wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but in turn when we do hear about the Indian contributions, we tend to think they were all Hindus, rather than recognizing the great contributions of the Buddhists at Nalanda. While Buddhism has little presence in India today, that's where it started.

Buddhism is not that different from Hinduism. Both coexisted and debated with each other for centuries until islamic invasions started. Buddhism being a pacifist sect fell first.

Buddhism is very distinct from Hinduism. In particular, there aren't multiple deities to worship and there is no caste system.

Buddhism, the dominant religion of India circa 400AD (as per Chinese travellers), was already under attack from Brahmins who made it a key strategy to get royal patronage, set up the religious rules for society which heavily favored themselves and also focused on acting as confidantes to kings, leading to the elimination of Buddhism(focused on monastic life) from much of the Indian subcontinent even before Islam was founded.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#205

Post by raincom »

random314 wrote: post #204
sudhirc wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhism is not that different from Hinduism. Both coexisted and debated with each other for centuries until islamic invasions started. Buddhism being a pacifist sect fell first.

Buddhism is very distinct from Hinduism. In particular, there aren't multiple deities to worship and there is no caste system. Buddhism, the dominant religion of India circa 400AD (as per Chinese travellers), was already under attack from Brahmins who made it a key strategy to get royal patronage, set up the religious rules for society which heavily favored themselves and also focused on acting as confidantes to king…

Nah, the so-called 'isms' of India ('Buddhism', 'Jainism', 'Saivism') are called agama traditions. The question scholars face or faced is this: what was earlier? Indologist story that both left wing and right scholars accept is that: there was Vedism, corrupted to become 'popular' hinduism, later Indian Martin Luther (Buddha) fought against the veil immorality of Hindus (because caste system forces immoral obligations on everyone), thereby Buddhism emerging. This is the standard story.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#206

Post by Symbiote »

bnralt wrote: post #135
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding And there is linguistics, a science that studies language including etymology.

I mean, I don’t think anyone here doubts that linguistics exists. The point was rather that fake etymologies also exist, and can be extremely common. As other replies have noted, it doesn't look like there's evidence that the word "Baccalaureate" comes from the Arabic "Bihaqq Al-riwayatt," and there seems to be a high likelihood that this is a fake etymology.

The Oxford English Dictionary even points out the fake etymology for bachelor meaning a laurel wreath, and says it's just an old pun.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#207

Post by kamaal »

random314 wrote: post #204
sudhirc wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhism is not that different from Hinduism. Both coexisted and debated with each other for centuries until islamic invasions started. Buddhism being a pacifist sect fell first.

Buddhism is very distinct from Hinduism. In particular, there aren't multiple deities to worship and there is no caste system. Buddhism, the dominant religion of India circa 400AD (as per Chinese travellers), was already under attack from Brahmins who made it a key strategy to get royal patronage, set up the religious rules for society which heavily favored themselves and also focused on acting as confidantes to king…

Buddhism from its very history exists because Prince Siddhartha walked out of his palace and saw people dropping dead like flies out of disease and hunger. Apparently the sheer scale of suffering drove him to quit everything and become the Buddha.

This whole narrative of rivers of milk and honey flowing in Indian history obviously appears cooked up to drive political narratives(propaganda?) to anybody who can do basic analysis of history.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#208

Post by random314 »

raincom wrote: post #205
random314 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhism is very distinct from Hinduism. In particular, there aren't multiple deities to worship and there is no caste system. Buddhism, the dominant religion of India circa 400AD (as per Chinese travellers), was already under attack from Brahmins who made it a key strategy to get royal patronage, set up the religious rules for society which heavily favored themselves and also focused on acting as confidantes to king…

Nah, the so-called 'isms' of India ('Buddhism', 'Jainism', 'Saivism') are called agama traditions. The question scholars face or faced is this: what was earlier? Indologist story that both left wing and right scholars accept is that: there was Vedism, corrupted to become 'popular' hinduism, later Indian Martin Luther (Buddha) fought against the veil immorality of Hindus (because caste system forces immoral obligation…

It is not clear that Vedism was created before Jainism, which has a strong archeological presence in South India.

There is also speculation that Shaivism is much older and was merged in to Hinduism quite late, some what contemporaneous with the elimination of Brahma (Brahmism) as a deity to be worshipped.

Also, it is weird to talk about left/right wrt history. History is just history, not left or right. In the Indian context, left has come to mean the actual history by historians, while right implies pseudohistory of PN Oak, out of India hypotheses and various other fantasies.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#210

Post by rg111 »

ranit wrote: post #163

It is amazing it taught 10,000 students at once, but having 10 million books … at times when only handwritten books existed?!? Currently Indian National Library has 2.2 million books and British library has > 13 million. Something is misquoted I guess.

I think what the author is calling book maybe a manuscript?

I think they are counting even five written pages as a unique book?

So maybe essays are also being counted as books.

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