Nalanda University reopens after hundreds of years!

[DarkSeid]

Just out of curiosity, Ancient Buddhism which is theravada...isn't it closely related to vedanta? one of many branches of thoughts in hindusim?

I am not very well versed in the Buddhist school of thoughts. To me the Mahayana and Vajrayana seem more close to Vedanta.

A Basic Buddhism Guide: Differences betweenTheravada and Mahayana.

 

[DesiGuy]

Just out of curiosity, Ancient Buddhism which is theravada...isn't it closely related to vedanta? one of many branches of thoughts in hindusim?

I am not very well versed in the Buddhist school of thoughts. To me the Mahayana and Vajrayana seem more close to Vedanta.

Contrarian

any idea?

 

[TejasMk3]

For anyone interested in meditation, this is a pretty awesome documentary that got me into Vipashayana/Vipassana

 

[Soumitra]

I am relay flabbergasted. I have been a half a decade on this forum, never before I had seen a thread with such harmony. Truly PDF sans trolls is a place for intellectuals.

I may be hailed as a troll but here is my take on Hinduism. If it offends you please excuse me. I think our ancestors where great philosophers and thinkers. As rightly said by some one before Hinduism/Buddhism have great ideas but they are too deep to swallow. Now I ask how will a highly educated man pass on his knowledge to common folks ?? He definitely have to water down these ideas to bite sizes for the common joeys. Hence they became avid story tellers. They created heroes and villains. they created avid romantics between those heroes and their loved ones. They created every single aspect that would capture the minds of the common folks.

But they where cleaver in these stories they embedded their years of learning, those lessons that will teach humans to live a full life. But the folks where indeed very crude. Like the audiences of today's movies they started looking up to the actors and forgot the story. Slowly and steadily the fan following started to worship these actors (quite literally) . And look what we have now. We have the actors but we hardly notice the subtle story.

Donn believe me ? Fair enough. The Ramayana is a great example. It portrays how a family should be. What a man should and should not do. What a wife should and should not do. If you look at the story and forget about the actors, one can notice that it teaches us how small things can have grave and great consequences. It tries to teach us by making the actor act mistakes on their behalf and let the audience witness the consequences of those mistakes. There is a boat full of teachings which we can take away from it. But alas a few intellectually challenged minds emphasize on actors and not on what they try to teach us.

Mahabharata takes on a direct approach. It gives us Bhagwat Gita. And I dare not say about it. It has more than enough to question our daily doings.

But if these are not enough ask these questions:-
1. Is it biologically possible to have an elephant head on a human body ?? Or was the narrator of the story trying to tell that there was a boy who had memory (Brain) as big as an elephant ?? Actor in question is our beloved Ganesha.

2. Is it even possible to have a person with 10 heads ?? Or was the narrator of the story trying to describe a person with an intellectual powers of 10 ordinary people ?? Or that person can think in 10 different mind set ?? Actor in question is the wise Ravana.

As for me I am an atheist. But I embrace the ideas of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. I do not blindly follow faith, but question what is said.

I am an Agnostic Hindu. I tend to agree with your premise. Dont look at Geeta/ Mahabharat or Ramayan as a religious text, look at it as a guide to life.

The hon. Supreme court has said that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life

 

[Gibbs]

The Gandhara civilisation (modern day Pakistan) were Buddhists aswell..


View attachment 46297

The Fasting Budhha from Gandhara...
Gandhara Civilization

Apart from that we The ancient Taxila university ..

Ghandara is particularly important because of the western influence in it's Buddhist art.. If you look at Ghandara sculptures they're are distinctly Caucasian in features.. The world should be grateful to Pakistan for preserving it's cultural heritage despite pressures and not going Afghanistan's way

 

[Yogijaat]

I am relay flabbergasted. I have been a half a decade on this forum, never before I had seen a thread with such harmony. Truly PDF sans trolls is a place for intellectuals.

I may be hailed as a troll but here is my take on Hinduism. If it offends you please excuse me. I think our ancestors where great philosophers and thinkers. As rightly said by some one before Hinduism/Buddhism have great ideas but they are too deep to swallow. Now I ask how will a highly educated man pass on his knowledge to common folks ?? He definitely have to water down these ideas to bite sizes for the common joeys. Hence they became avid story tellers. They created heroes and villains. they created avid romantics between those heroes and their loved ones. They created every single aspect that would capture the minds of the common folks.

But they where cleaver in these stories they embedded their years of learning, those lessons that will teach humans to live a full life. But the folks where indeed very crude. Like the audiences of today's movies they started looking up to the actors and forgot the story. Slowly and steadily the fan following started to worship these actors (quite literally) . And look what we have now. We have the actors but we hardly notice the subtle story.

Donn believe me ? Fair enough. The Ramayana is a great example. It portrays how a family should be. What a man should and should not do. What a wife should and should not do. If you look at the story and forget about the actors, one can notice that it teaches us how small things can have grave and great consequences. It tries to teach us by making the actor act mistakes on their behalf and let the audience witness the consequences of those mistakes. There is a boat full of teachings which we can take away from it. But alas a few intellectually challenged minds emphasize on actors and not on what they try to teach us.

Mahabharata takes on a direct approach. It gives us Bhagwat Gita. And I dare not say about it. It has more than enough to question our daily doings.

But if these are not enough ask these questions:-
1. Is it biologically possible to have an elephant head on a human body ?? Or was the narrator of the story trying to tell that there was a boy who had memory (Brain) as big as an elephant ?? Actor in question is our beloved Ganesha.

2. Is it even possible to have a person with 10 heads ?? Or was the narrator of the story trying to describe a person with an intellectual powers of 10 ordinary people ?? Or that person can think in 10 different mind set ?? Actor in question is the wise Ravana.

As for me I am an atheist. But I embrace the ideas of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. I do not blindly follow faith, but question what is said.

I think you are agnostic.

 

[luckych]

Nalanda University's Photos - Nalanda University | Facebook

 

[Indrani]

A Basic Buddhism Guide: Differences betweenTheravada and Mahayana.

I just saw some minor differences. Nothing major except for the acceptance and popularity of contemporary Buddhas in Mahayana.

 

[sree45]

A thread with more than 200 replies and no trolling.

This thread has to be in PDF hall of fame.. great going guys.. keep it up..

 

[Bang Galore]

@Bang Galore WRT Caste and Buddha
I've heard many people arguing back and forth about this, here was one of the articles used to show he did not attack the caste system
Koenraad Elst: The Buddha and Caste
What you guys think?
And wiki mentions castes for buddhists in India Tibet

Not incorrect. Buddha certainly didn't spend a lot of time attacking the caste system. He was also very conscious of his own origins and very proud of being a Sakya demonstrating often a sort of "race" consciousness. The Sakyas themselves were notorious for their views of superiority & beliefs of racial purity, something that would eventually lead to their complete annihilation by Virudhaka on the basis of a slight.

 

[DarkSeid]

View attachment 46306
Nalanda University's Photos - Nalanda University | Facebook

Isn't there any Sri Lankan involvement here? appreciated.

 

[scorpionx]

All. If you were to go through @Bang Galore posts, he seems more interested in talking about how Buddha hated Brahmins and despised Vedas. The Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib school of thought wove these stories that Hindus were the killers and destroyers of Buddhism in India.

I am not sure if Habib or Thapar had said anywhere that Hindus were killers and destroyers of Buddhists but there are plenty of evidences of Buddhist-Hindu disharmony in 17th and 18th century Tibetan texts and Buddhists monks like Taranath had pointed out antagonism between Tirthikas and Sramanas several times in his History of Buddhism in India. They may not have been at each others throat but they were definitely not in their best of terms either.

 

[SarthakGanguly]

Islamabad .Loll
In wikipedia and officially it is Anantnag .that is all we need.
Bro are you still there ? or shifted to some other places during crisis time?.

We are still here... We never left.

 

[Indrani]

I am an Agnostic Hindu. I tend to agree with your premise. Dont look at Geeta/ Mahabharat or Ramayan as a religious text, look at it as a guide to life.

The hon. Supreme court has said that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life

@kṣamā Without the central figures there is no story. The attributes people want to emulate is because they are epitomized in those characters. How will you take inspiration from Ramayana without Rama? Also as to your questions whether there can be an Elephant headed god or a 10-headed demon you must consider that the perception of what is reality is not the same to all living beings. The Rose may look like a red colored flower to you, does it look the same to the bees who are color blind? Does it look same to the bats who cannot see? How does the world look like to the chameleons with its widely uncoordinated eyes.

What we consider as solid is not even solid. Take the table you are sitting at or the phone you are carrying to access PDF. Those objects are made up of atoms which are made up of subatomic particles spinning at the lighting speed and basically huge unoccupied spaces. Go beyond that subatomic cloud and there is nothing there. So what we consider as hard matter of this world is non-hard. What is physical is nonphysical.

 

[Soumitra]

Buddha temple in my hometown. A must see place if any of you ever come to Dehradun

This is one in clementown Near Graphic Era ?