Dear Yifer.

>   1. Too many transplant of gods, stories and ceremony from Brahman
> Religion to Buddhism.

The rise of Tantric Buddhism was like a double-edged sword: it answered the
challenges of Brahmanism/Hinduism, esp Saivism, but at the same time, in copying the
adversary, one in the end becomes the adversary. In due course, there is very little
significant difference between the two systems. This is of course an over-simplified
answer as things are more complicated.

Understandably an average Indian today has little difficulty in accepting "Buddhism"
as it is to them an integral part of Hinduism--in many ways, they are right!

For this reason, there is a vital move amongst thinking Buddhists back to their
roots: like learning Pali and the Pali texts. What some of us are trying to do here
is to see the woods hidden away by the trees planted in Sri Lanka (see for example
Ajahn Sujato's "History of Mindfulness"). Much scholastic additions have been made to
the Suttas (not to mention the Commentaries) in Sri Lanka.

Early Buddhism as mind-training is a simple and effective method. But nationalism,
simony, materialism, sense-indulgence, relic-worship, worship of the future Buddha,
etc have taken over much of what we call Buddhism today. Last week, someone from a
Thai temple here to told me that Buddhists should not sing hymns because they do not
do that in Thailand. Although I do not advocate any singing in the uposatha hall, I
think the young people should freely express their Buddhist happiness until such time
there is less dust in their youthful eyes.

Some scholars say that Buddhism is or should be taken as what "becomes" of it, that
is, we need to look at Buddhism descriptively. This may well be true of a
professional scholar (a sociologist, etc), but for a practitioner like myself, I
prefer the good old vintage. Besides I am enjoying its peace, clarity and beauty
through the Pali Suttas and meditation (both the forest tradition and the so called
"Vipassana" method). Scholars need money to live, so they have to stir up the mud so
that something can be clear. That's how the get paid.

>   2. Major Buddhist monasteries supported by royal families instead of
> popular people. Monks and nuns evolved to be scholars instead of
> teachers of Dhamma.

This is very true of all institutionalized Buddhism in Sri Lanka, China, Korea and
Japan, as I found out and spoke about in my lecture series on "History of Buddhism".
Buddhism in Korea is especially tragic during the Yi dynasty (that is, just before
the modern period when Christianity made inroads). One of the reasons that
Christianity was eagerly accepted by the Koreans was that Buddhism was effectively
put out of the picture by the vengeful Confucians in the Yi court. Confucianism as a
politico-ethical system could not provide any spiritual solace or answer religious
needs of the people. The Yi Koreans generally and practically had no Buddhism. People
like Nevius (the evangelist who first worked in China and then went to Korea), became
famous for telling the local Christians how to indigenize themselves so that
Christianity is "Korean". We have to learn about such developments. We need to
develop the area of Buddhist missiology to understand what happened in Buddhist
history, which may well tell us what WILL happen.

Ironically, many are Christians because they do not know (not much anyway) about
Christian history. Many are Buddhists without know much about Buddhist hsitory
either. As Santana says: those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. This is
also inscribed on a plank that hung in the compound of the Jonestown Doomsday cult
that committed mass suicide.

>   3. Buddhism is easier to be an international religion, so Sangha and
> lay-deciples have ways to escape into foreign countries. Jains is more
> or less like domestic religion. Foreign countries can not accept Jains'
> Doctrine due to their own culture.

Buddhism is an international religion, indeed the first world religion, in not being
rooted in only one social class, or speaking of a chosen people, or even a God idea.
In this sense, it is apolitical (the God idea is one of power, and is closely
connected with the politics of a group wishing to dominate another). Jainism survived
the Muslim onslaught, as pointed out by PS Jaini (whom I knew in Berkeley), because
they have lay followers too involved in teaching their Dharma.

>   Do you agree upon above-stated possibilities.
>   Do item 1, 2 & 3 also have the same impact to Jains?

I do not know enough about Jainism to answer this last question. There surely are
others who might be able to help you here.

I have sent a copy of the relevant section on the decline of Buddhism, directly to
you email address.

Hopefully no curfew is violated in this winding and rambling answer which has little
to do with Pali, except in the semantic sense (Pali also means that which protects).
We need to speak out for what we love and value.

Sukhi

Piya.