Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries • Hacker News Board

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#271

Post by u801e » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 5:37 AM UTC

agileAlligator wrote: post #270

u801e wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop trying to manufacture a conflict between Buddhism and Hinduism where none exists. The point I'm trying to make is that these conflicts are caused by trying to place people of different ethnicities, religions, traditions, etc under the same political entity when they did not consent to it. It has nothing to do with particular religions. I've posted examples of various artificial partitions in previous comments…

> Religion is one of the reasons behind the divisions My brother it is literally in the founding documents of Pakistan. There is no other reason. There is no ethnic, cultural, genetic or other such divide between Pakistanis and Indians - we are the same for all intents and purposes except for religion.

> it is literally in the founding documents of Pakistan.

Have you looked into any of the other examples I cited in the last several comments I made? Why do you keep circling back to Pakistan and religion when I literally just told you that there are many other reasons why conflicts exist. For an ethnic Tamil living in the Tamil Nadu state in India, Pakistan isn't even relevant to them. They definitely would be more focused on what's happening in their state and Sri Lanka. Similarly, someone living in the Uttar Pradesh state wouldn't really be following what happens in Sri Lanka.

I'm looking at this from a more holistic point of view and trying to show that there are multiple factors beyond religion. I said religion is one of the reasons, but I didn't say it was the sole reason or primary one. This is referring to many examples of political entities and artificial devisions between them in general. You're not really using the most charitable interpretation of what I'm stating when responding.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#272

Post by agileAlligator » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:29 AM UTC

u801e wrote: post #271

agileAlligator wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religion is one of the reasons behind the divisions My brother it is literally in the founding documents of Pakistan. There is no other reason. There is no ethnic, cultural, genetic or other such divide between Pakistanis and Indians - we are the same for all intents and purposes except for religion.

> it is literally in the founding documents of Pakistan. Have you looked into any of the other examples I cited in the last several comments I made? Why do you keep circling back to Pakistan and religion when I literally just told you that there are many other reasons why conflicts exist. For an ethnic Tamil living in the Tamil Nadu state in India, Pakistan isn't even relevant to them. They definitely would be more f…

> literally just told you that there are many other reasons why conflicts exist

And I agree with you. There are factors beyond religion for conflicts existing. No one is denying that. It is just not so in this case.

> Why do you keep circling back to Pakistan and religion

Presumably because that's what the discussion was about?

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#273

Post by pankajdoharey » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:35 AM UTC

sudhirc wrote: post #191

pankajdoharey wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhists were the only folks who were building universities at the time Hindus didnt even have a school leave alone universities. The so called "Gurukul" has never been found at any archaeological site.

Ofcourse millions of Sanskrit manuscript were produced in fictional Gurukuls by fictional characters who never existed. > The so called "Gurukul" has never been found at any archaeological site. Chariot were considered fiction until they were not[0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakhigarhi&ved=2ahUKEwjwktvM...

Show one Sanskrit manuscript older than 1446. Not a single Stone inscription, Copper plate, Terracotta inscription of classical sanskrit has ever been found nor any Hindu site. Show a single evidence? The evidence of sanskrit found are of Buddhist Sanskrit at Buddhist schools like Nalanda here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda#/media/File:Nalanda_cl...

Not a single archeological evidence of Hindu (Brahman) dharm exist, if you have any evidence older that 1446 you have to furnish the proof.

Brahmins were writing Allahupanishad at the time of mughals praising Allah to be the supreme god and greater than Vishnu.

During the British Rule They wrote Bhavishya Puran and praising queen victoria to be the great ruler and even mentioned Macaulay. All those sanskrit books of Hindus religion were written much later infact they couldnt be written before teh invention of Devanagari script. And devanagari script itself was invented between 11th and 13th century.

Also your link doesnt work.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#274

Post by pankajdoharey » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 6:54 AM UTC

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.

So you must first tell what is the actual name of this religion, and its not "Hinduism" the origin of teh word Hindu is in Persian language. The persian dictionary define "Hindu" as "Thief", Also Buddhism is a Nastik Darshan (Atheist philosophy). Hinduism whose actual name is Brahman Dharm is Theistic philosophy worshipping gods etc. Also no evidence exist that Brahman dharm ever existed at the time of Buddhists, At best it was created after 11th century, which is why none of the chinese, korean, or greek travellers to India ever mentioned the existence of "Hindu" , "Brahman" or Hindu religion. All of them mentioned Buddhists and Jains. Only Al'biruni in 11th. century first mentions something called "Brahman" but even he translated the Buddhist texts, but did not get have any access to Hindu literature because the Brahman priests he met said they have not written it yet.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#275

Post by pankajdoharey » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 7:04 AM UTC

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…

Any archaeological evidence to prove the existence of Hindu (Brahman) dharm older than 1000 yrs? ANy written manuscript , stone inscription etc ..?

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#276

Post by sudhirc » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 7:04 AM UTC

pankajdoharey wrote: post #273

sudhirc wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ofcourse millions of Sanskrit manuscript were produced in fictional Gurukuls by fictional characters who never existed. > The so called "Gurukul" has never been found at any archaeological site. Chariot were considered fiction until they were not[0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakhigarhi&ved=2ahUKEwjwktvM...

Show one Sanskrit manuscript older than 1446. Not a single Stone inscription, Copper plate, Terracotta inscription of classical sanskrit has ever been found nor any Hindu site. Show a single evidence? The evidence of sanskrit found are of Buddhist Sanskrit at Buddhist schools like Nalanda here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda#/media/File:Nalanda_cl... Not a single archeological evidence of Hindu (Brahman) dharm…

> Not a single Stone inscription, Copper plate, Terracotta inscription of classical sanskrit has ever been found nor any Hindu site

Ok here you go.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hathibada_Ghosundi_inscripti....

> All those sanskrit books of Hindus religion were written much later infact they couldnt be written before teh invention of Devanagari script.

Sanskrit is script agnostic language so Sanskrit manuscript are found in every Indian script. If you do not know this then you are not qualified to talk about Sanskrit.

Edit: Hinduism is neither doctrine based nor centralised so every single purana and upnishad isn't authentic. Hindus and are free to discard what doesn't align with Dharma as described in Vedas. What make you think Allopnishad wasn't written by Muslims to convince Hindus?

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#277

Post by pankajdoharey » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 7:09 AM UTC

sudhirc wrote: post #226

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…

>there aren't multiple deities to worship and there is no caste system. There are multiple deities [0] and Buddha didn't oppose caste system. He advocated it on deed and not birth which is not very diffrent from Hindu views of caste. Could you point to some instance from ancient Indians history when discrimination was made on the basis of caste, color, or gender? The Buddha:– "Not by birth is one an outcast; not by b…

When were these document written and any original manuscript of your references?

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#278

Post by readthenotes1 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 9:30 AM UTC

fcatalan wrote: post #214

readthenotes1 wrote: post #46

I went to the university in Salamanca Spain, founded 1218. There were a lot of old buildings, but nowhere was there a Salamanca U t-shirt as a souvenir (and FYI, the Rome University sweatshirts aren't official--the biz school sells some polos, but that's it).

Uh I don´t know what this has to do with the rest of the discussion but... The University sells some official swag through their "Mercatus" store, including clothing, and in fact in recent years had a lot of it related to the 800th aniversary. But it also tolerates every souvenir shop in the town selling shirts and hoodies showing the university seal, which I guess makes them kind of "semi-official". Many students we…

It was before that. Maybe they got my strongly worded comment card and took it to heart.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#279

Post by sudhirc » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 10:34 AM UTC

random314 wrote: post #265

sudhirc wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there aren't multiple deities to worship and there is no caste system. There are multiple deities [0] and Buddha didn't oppose caste system. He advocated it on deed and not birth which is not very diffrent from Hindu views of caste. Could you point to some instance from ancient Indians history when discrimination was made on the basis of caste, color, or gender? The Buddha:– "Not by birth is one an outcast; not by b…

Buddhism has no concept of caste. Gita has caste by birth as a central theme. In particular, Gita makes it loud and explicitly clear that even if a person is better at the birth caste duties of a different caste than his own caste duty ( which he is not any good at) he should only perform his own caste duties. Caste lines cannot be crossed. There is absolutely nothing like this in Buddhism. https://www.holy-bhagavad-…

> Buddhism has no concept of caste.

Do read this.

https://archive.org/details/I.B.Horner-Vinaya-Pitaka/I.B%20H...

On the issue of Gita. Could you please elaborate the words which refer to birth categorically? I know enough of Sanskrit to understand the original verses.

Edit: Here is a link to whole research paper on caste in Buddhism. Dp read the chapter appropriately titled.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/29757366&ved=2ahUKEwiRrp7Oksz9A...

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#280

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 11:34 AM UTC

brigandish wrote: post #233

Symbiote wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copy out a short novel, by hand, using a quill pen, and then decide what the limit is for handwritten books. By the way, you also need to make the quills, ink and paper by hand, and work with natural light and no eyeglasses.

Why is the chosen length a short novel? Books range from a few pages to hundreds of pages. If we make some unlikely assumptions - that there were 10,000 students attending Nalanda every year from its foundation to its destruction, and that each student wrote for only 1 hour a day, 5 days a week for 40 weeks of the year, that gives us 2,000,000 hours of writing. Over 763 years that is 1,526,000,000 hours. There were 2…

How was Taksashila (where my cousins live today by the way) destroyed by Muslim invaders when it happened before Islam existed? Don’t you mean the Huns, as your own cited source of Britannica says? See my other comment in this thread.

cf. “Decline” in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila#History

>The White Huns and Alchon Huns swept over Gandhāra and Punjab around 470 CE, causing widespread devastation and destruction of Taxila's famous Buddhist monasteries and stupas, a blow from which the city would never recover. From 500 CE to 540 CE, the city languished [54] after falling under the control of the Hunnic Empire ruled by Mihirakula. A patron of Hindu Shaivism,[55] Mihirakula presided over some destruction of Buddhist sites and monasteries across northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent.