Dear Gunnar,

your historical analysis of the political background of the founding of Buddhism is correct. Unfortunately, we still know very little about Indian history of the antiquity. Little is known about the views of Brahmanism, the dominant religion of the time, on issues like politics and war.

As a hereditary priestly class, Brahmans occupied privileged positions in society, resulting in the rise of the samana movements. Hereditary priesthood is not unique to India, we can see it in ancient civilisations such as Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt. The samana movements allow non-Brahmans to participate in religion in a way not possible before. It is interesting to note the contrasting mendicant/homeless style of the samanas with the family/hereditary style of the brahmans.

The Buddha no doubt enjoyed the patronage of the upper echelon of the Indian society, including both kings of Kosala and Magadha, the two most powerful and advanced kingdoms at that time. However, the Sangha was also a very "people" movement, and included prominent ordained and lay male and female disciples from all castes.

As for your remarks about Christianity, I do not intend to deliberate too much. These biblical accounts of the betrayal of Jesus, his arrest and later hanging on the crossy, modern scholarship sees this as an "internal strife" between the Jews and Jesus. While the Romans executed Jesus, the real bad guys were the Jews who masterminded his arrest. Also, the biblical accounts of those stoning of Jesus' disciples and followers, I understand it mainly happened within the Jewish enclaves too.

I think we should wrap up this discussion. Let's hope that our wise friends in Sri Lanka learn not from the bad examples in history.

metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Gunnar Gallmo wrote:

<This is unlike the situation faced by early Christians who were persecuted and hated by others.>

Not for their beliefs, however, as the churches have later tried to make us think; the first to persecute people for wrong views were the Christians themselves (and their victims mostly were other Christians).

The early Christians were persecuted as scape-goats for their alleged actions, not for their opinions; the "pagan" emperors didn't care about what their subjects believed, as long as they acted according to their will, and the Roman state religion could easily include new gods, same as Hinduism today; but a small, new and un-known sect could easily be accused (probably wrongly) for attempted rebellion, in order to distract the attention of the people from the bad government of the state.

Philosophical discussions in Pre-Christian Greece and Rome were quite free, just as in India. Censorship came later.

Buddhism didn't arise in a centralised empire, but in a region divided between several rather small states (as Kosala and Magadha). The building of the Mauryan empire started after the death of the Buddha. Besides, there was a certain balance of power between Brahmans and Kshatriyas in politics, and between Brahmans and Samanas in religion, so it was natural for the Kshatriya rulers to support the Samana movements to fight the dominance of the Brahmans.