Rider 5 (1903): A deep, contrarian look at India's spiritual history.
Renegade scholars are usually the most productive ones. They dare to pierce the hard shell of existing paradigms to get to the sweet fruit within. Professor David (and his cited wife) is defiantly of this breed. The number of common assumptions about India they convincingly shatter is staggering.
Here is one reader's top ten:
- India’s Caste system is not an ancient practice but a European import (derived from a Portuguese word) to organize India after the 4th century Aryan invasion
- The priestly Brahmin class were not of high birth or rank before aligning with the Aryans along the lines of the European Emperor/Priest model
- India didn’t lack written languages before Buddhism, but chose to require spiritual wisdom to be transmitted orally and memorized by the elect
- The need to more widely share Gautama Buddha’s teachings created the language – Pali – in which it was written
- The “wisdom tree” under which the Buddha received enlightenment almost certainly didn’t exist, but was added later for the early followers who worshipped the wishing tree with roots in heaven as their central practice
- Stupas, the domed, iconically Buddhist memorial temples for Buddha, predate Buddhism by centuries, in fact, the only domed bricked structures in India during those times were burial memorials for thinkers who propounded fresh solutions to the problems of life
- Sanskrit was an artificial language deliberately created to replace – and erase – the vernaculars (“The living language was completely overshadowed by the artificial substitute”)
- The Buddha pre-Nirvana was a self-torturer (tapasa) as his social role – akin to a Catholic penitent
- There is no distinction, historically, between Northern (Mahayana) and Southern (Thereyana) Buddhism; Ceylon was simply the last place left untouched by the Brahmin Hindu takeover (“It is only in Ceylon that we have documents sufficient to follow the continuous development of a vernacular that has been able to hold its own against the depressing influence of the dead language used in the schools.”)
- Buddhists were, in words of Rev. W. T. Wilkins: “so ruthlessly persecuted that all were either slain, exiled, or made to change their faith. There is scarcely a case on record where a religious persecution was so successfully carried out as that by which Buddhism was driven out of India.”
As shocking as, well, all of these sound, Dr. David’s scholarship is utterly convincing. Part justice, part detective, part philologist, he provides if anything too much evidence – certainly a lot more than our skeptical modern age seems to require. He doesn’t even pause in his relentless assault of logic, record, artifact and anecdote to reflect on the implications, spiritual or secular, of such a vast miscomprehension of India’s history. His real quest is to unearth the mystery of the Pali language, an elegant and sophisticated written language that seems only to exist in the teachings of Buddha and his followers.
What’s surprising is how the founder of the Pali Text Society in London doesn’t need to spend much time on an issue that still perplexes the experts. Did Pali come from the North or South? What was it based on? Why was it used for Buddha’s teachings? Why – like so many ancient religious languages – did it disappear? Conventional scholarship is confounded to this day on every single point. But the professor can barely be bothered with these questions. To him the conclusion is simple and logical: Pali was largely the vernacular at hand when it became apparent they had to preserve Buddha’s words in writing. I would argue that the key to this leap into language, as it were, was that Siddhartha Buddha had transitioned sacred knowledge to poetry, and, as such, it needed to be preserved by not just the holy men and women. As to why it “disappeared,” many languages disappeared with the Aryan conquest and its tyranny of Sanskrit - yawn, next question.
But I’ll let Dr. David explain, with three quotes in his inimitable style, what he finds interesting:
“[On the pre-Hindu and -Buddhist beliefs of India] The record of Indian folklore and poetry from the earliest times indicate it involved palmistry, divination of all sorts, auguries drawn from the celestial phenomena and from marks on cloth gnawed by mice, prognostications by interpretation of dreams, oblations of various sorts to Agni (who conferred immortality) and other earlier variants of the Hindu god pantheon, ghost summoning, snake charming, using similar arts on other beasts and birds, astrology, the power of prophecy, incantations, oracles, consulting gods through a girl possessed or by means of mirrors, worshipping the Great One, invoking Siri (the goddess of Luck [before she was turned into the consort of Vishnu]), invoking spells and charms to cause virility or impotence, discovering and consecrating sites, tree (dryad) worship, worship of Nagas (Siren-serpents) and cobras who lived in their ordinary shape like mermen and mermaids beneath the waters in great luxury and wealth.”
“The brahmins had become the sole arbiters in law and social institutions. Their theory of castes had been admitted, and to their own castes was accorded an unquestioned supremacy. Their claim to the exclusive right to teach was practically acknowledged. Of those rajputs who had disputed their authority, the Buddhists and Jains were both reduced to feeble minorities, and the rest had become mostly subservient. All philosophy, except their own pantheistic theosophy, had been driven out of the field. But Vedic rights and Vedic divinities, the Vedic language and Vedic theology, had also gone under in the struggle. The gods of the people received now the homage of the people. Their literature had had to be recast to suit the new worship, to gain the favour and support of those who did not reverence and worship the Vedic gods. And all sense of history had been lost in the necessity of garbling the story of the past so as to make it tally with their own pretensions.”
“The Aryan invasion divided all the world, as they knew it, into four social grades, called Colours (Vanna). At the head were the Kshatriyas, the nobles who claimed descent from the leaders of the Aryan tribes in their invasion of the continent. They were most particular as to the purity of their descent through seven generations, both on the father’s and the mother’s side; and are described as “fair in colour, fine in presence, stately to behold.” Then came the brahmins, claiming descent from the sacrificing priests, and though the majority of them followed then other pursuits, they were equally with the nobles distinguished by clear complexion. Below these were the peasantry, the people, the Vaisyas or Vessas. And last of all came the Sudras, which included the bulk of the people of non-Aryan descent, who worked for hire, were engaged in handicraft or service, and were darker in colour. In a general way this classification corresponded to the actual facts of life. But there were insensible gradations within the borders of each of the four Colours, and the borders themselves were both variable and undefined. None of this was established yet however in Buddha’s time. Not only were castes eating together and intermarriage between tribes accepted, but poor men could become nobles, and the “low born” could become brahmins. We have numerous instances even in the later priestly books which are otherwise under the spell of the caste theory of kings becoming potters, brahmins as hunters and trappers, nobles stepping down in class to become priests.“
From the Poet Tree record: The Stupas at Ku Tho Daw
