dear Ven,


Please pardon my rather over-prolix contributions these last few
weeks, but i can't resist some comments on this one. Wow! I lived in
Thailand for 6 years, and never came across such ideas. You must
have all the parami, to encounter such exotica....

>
> 1) For how long has the modern world known that Buddhism

originated

> in India? Or did we always know? Was there ever a period of
> discovery?

Yes, there was a period of discovery. The early colonial explorers
took some time to piece together the various schools of Buddhism and
figure out they originally came from India. This was agreed upon, i
believe, by the end of the 18th century or therabouts.

Of course, anyone reasonably learned in any school of Buddhism would
know that their religion hailed from India.

>
> 2) How do we know that Dhammaasoka was really Piyadasi? They say

on

> this Thai website that the Buddhist king was actually not an

Indian

> King. They were two different people.

This was put together by the comparison between the Asoka pillars
and the Sri Lankan commentaries. While differing in some respects,
in certain key instances the two sources match up neatly.
The 'concreteness' of Indian history is also improved a little by
the refernces to 'Sandrokottos' (or 'Sandrakoptos'), positively
identified with Chandragupta (Asoka's grandfather) in passages
attributed to the Greek ambassador Megasthenes (Megasthenes's
writings do not directly survive, but he is quoted in later
Greek/Roman writers; he lived for several years in the court of
Chandragupta in Pataliputra).

In 1837 James Prinsep identified two letters (d and n) at the Sanchi
stupa, and together with already identified letters, he concluded
that the inscriptions were in Pali, and made translations of the
Asokan pillars. They refer to 'Devanampiya Piyadassi', and the same
name 'Piyadassi' is used in the Sri Lankan chronicles of a vastly
powerful, pan-Indian Buddhist monarch of a time soon after the
Buddha. This obviously must the be the monarch of the same name who
spread his words of gentleness and wisdom across the length and
breadth of India. 'Piyadassi' would seem to be the royal title of
Asoka.

>
> 3) If the Lord Buddha was born in Nepal, which they say has four
> seasons, why did the Lord Buddha speak of three seasons?

The Buddha was born on the Nepalese/Indian border; i don't know how
many seasons they have there (it is far south of Kathmandu). But the
Vinaya was established when the Buddha was living farther South,
where they definitely have three seasons.

>
> 4) In short, what proof is there that tells us beyond doubt that

all

> of this what we are talking about really took place in India, and
> not Thailand?

Obviously, the overwhelming evidence of all the texts, reinforced in
essentials by vast quantities of archeological remains of Buddhism,
dating a thousand years or more before anything is found in Thailand.

>
> 1) they say there are no Bodhi trees in India (anyone ever been to
> India?)

Complete rubbish. Bodhi trees may be seen commonly along the side of
the road throughout northern India, at least, where they are often
made into shrines. Proof of the antiquity of this custom is found in
the Indus valley seals, which clearly depict a Bodhi tree as object
of worship around 2000 before the Buddha.

>
> 2) they say it was not cold in the place of the Buddha, but there
> clearly was occasional snow wherever the Buddha lived, as

according

> to the sutta about the "between-the-eights".

We can only presume that the weather has changed, or that such
episodes were recorded in the North. It does get chilly in the cold
season, though - about the same as the cold season in most of
Thailand.

in Dhamma

Bhante Sujato