Talk:History of Buddhism in India

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 History of Buddhism in India was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: April 15, 2007
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Contents

[edit] sources

Phillip, if you're going to remove the info concerning the decline of Buddhism in India and two unsourced statements (1: the role of absorption of Buddhist concepts into Hinduism and 2: causes within Buddhism as it was practiced at the time), then you'd better also remove the mention of the 'white huns' and 'support of the kings'. Take them all out or leave them all in. Or find some sources to what you want to keep in. Greetings, Sacca 15:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to have both the POVs mentioned as is mandatory for a GA class article. This version was sufficiently sourced except for the begining, which is mentioned in the main article. Tigeroo has provided some more sourced content which should balance the article quite nicely. I'll further introduce sections on patterns of proselytism, which is my original topic of interest here.
Regards, Phillip Rosenthal 21:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Islamic rulers have been known implement a policy on their subjects to either accept conversion to Islam or flee the land under Islamic rule; otherwise punishable by enslavement or even execution.[1] The Mahabodhi Movement in 1890s held the Muslim Rule in India responsible for the decay of Buddhism in India.[2][3][4] Revivalists Anagarika Dharmapala and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar[5] also laid the chief blame for the decline of Buddhism in India at Muslim fanaticism.
I'm moving this here for discussion. If this is in for GA nomination it needs to be accurate:
  1. ) Pipes is not a mainstream academic source. He is POV and his stance is quite clear.
  2. The google scholar quote actually shows that the Mahabodhi stance as well is dated and was dicatated by the politics of the time. I'll reproduce the whole here
     :::Many events of Burmese history can only be properly understood if we putthem against the then (1886-1937) prevailing mood of Hindu-Buddhist brotherhood. The Buddhist renaissance, inaugurated by Anagarika Dharmapal through his Mahabodhi Movement in 1890s, had a conservative character for it made the Muslim Rule in India responsible for the decay of Buddhism in India. Be that as it may, this “conservatism” has to be reinterpreted.
  3. The Mahabodhi society or Ambedkars if necessary need to go in the section dealing with the revival if at all where these characters show up. They are notable because of their particular source. The Buddhism revival is quite a political and POV charged affair. The Mahabodhi quotes are unverifiable at this stage as well, we don't have the details of the book. As far as I can tell it is an organizations member journal that has been in publication for over 120 years. Right now they just repeat information and thereby give undue weight to the role of Muslim conquest. Buddhism was practically dead, during its heyday you could travel to sri lanka passing through Buddhist lands, by the time of the Muslim arrival it had receded all over significantly and fused with Brahmanism, Vedic , Saivite, Tantra, Bhakti, Vashnivite et al. towards the modern form of Hinduism. By the destruction of monasteries fortified by the Sena dynasty they merely finished it off by demolishing the bastions of political refuge that existed. Monasteries in the south had already begun being converted into hindu temples.
  4. Ambedkars quotes are not entirely factually correct from the historical point of view, all those regions turned Muslim when the Chagatai Khanates after conquering Muslim land slowly converted to Islam. Secondly he laid a huge amount of blame on the Brahmins and casteism as well. To quote him “brahmanism beaten and battered by the Muslim invaders could look to the rulers for support and sustenance and get it. Buddhism beaten and battered by the Muslim invaders had no such hope. It was uncared for orphan and it withered in the cold blast of the native rulers and was consumed in the fire lit up by the conquerors.”
  5. Nalanda was still functioning and standing after Khilji's assault so destroyed is wrong.--Tigeroo 19:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Pipes has a PhD in medieval Islamic history from Harvard. I doubt you'd object to quoting Esposito whose stance is equally clear. Arrow740 19:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
The problem with Pipes is not his academic credentials but his peer credentials. He is notable, but for his extreme views and as a "hatemonger" primarily in the political and popular press, not among academics. Yes, he is an alternate view and can be mentioned but place it in the right area and don't give it undue weightage. Plus the quoted sentence was not even about Buddhist/ Muslim interaction in the sub-continent or even about a certain time period but a generic blanket statement yanked in and inserted into the article. When someone claims academia is full of professors who present disinformation in class rooms he is clearly not holding the prevailing view.--Tigeroo 05:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Tigeroo, your conduct is increasingly becoming a matter of concern. Saying that Ambedekar is wrong and removing his quote is objectionable. I've seen your contribs and am inclined to think that you have a POV which is going to damage the article. Kindly refrain from blanking sourced material from figures like Daniel Pipes in future;Wikipedia is a place to observe WP:NPOV, not present a single side and feverishly fight battles to rem the opposing POV. Regards,
Phillip Rosenthal 21:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I have provided multiple and detailed reasons on why the information is inadequate and inappropiate. As for WP:NPOV especially the one one undue weightage, I have not removed any POV. Partisan sources like Pipes need not be removed but "must be treated with caution". I have just changed the sources. Some ARE better than others, also detailed are objection from WP:RS. There is no "battling" on my part, if you think I have a POV please state what that you beleive that might be so we can address it directly. I have moved the disputed content to the talk pages for discussion not blanked it. That is perfectly acceptable behavior. Please respond on the content and refer to WP:CIVIL.--Tigeroo 05:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Tigero was involved in the Decline of Buddhism medcab case and he left. I'll provide quotes and better sources in case anyone requests for them. The sources as pointed out are from noted authorities on Buddhism. Freedom skies| talk  09:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I see,
My response
1) Daniel Pipes is the founder and director of the Middle East Forum and Campus Watch, a former member of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and a regular columnist for the New York Sun and The Jerusalem Post. He contributes regularly to David Horowitz's online publication FrontPageMag.com, and has had his work published by many newspapers across North America, including the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. He is frequently invited to discuss the Middle East on American network television, as well as by universities and think tanks, has appeared on the BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in 25 countries. I have yet to find a more mainstream source than Pipes in this article.
2)The article mentions Ambedekar's opinion and even goes on to quote him. He is one of the pivotal figures in Buddhist history of South Asia and his opinion has enough weightage to find a mention here.
3) In response to There is no "battling" on my part I would put forward these diffs, in which you blanked material and then invited me to talk.
Phillip Rosenthal 12:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
1) I never said Daniel Pipes is not notable. He is indeed all over the popular press and involved in all sorts of political movements and is such quite a public figure. He was a well-documented bias rooted in Israel-Palestine issue among others, which is indeed the focus of Campuswatch (some have called it a McCarthyesque blacklist). We could go on about this, but to put it simply if this is going to be GA nominee it needs to draw from more academic sources. He is not the best of source under [Wp:rs#Aspects_of_reliability]. I am not here to expunge the impact of Muslim conquests upon Buddhism. The the same information can be drawn from more reliable and impartial sources with a more holistic approach to the narrative. To quote him for his own self-declared bias from the same book "Just as fascism was the ultimate enemy in World War II and communism was the ultimate enemy during the cold war, so militant Islam is the ultimate enemy in the war on terrorism." His preface to the 2002 version of the same book acknowledges just how different his analysis is from contemporary views "How has the book stood up since its original publication in 1983?... No subsequent analysis of Islam in history has remotely the same outlook or conclusions as this one;" Furthermore the quote "Islamic rulers have been known implement a policy on their subjects to either accept conversion to Islam or flee the land under Islamic rule; otherwise punishable by enslavement or even execution." is too sweeping a generalization, it does not differentiate in anyway between the Muslim rulers in India vs. those elsewhere among other problems.
2) Ambedkar's view while mired in the peculiar politics of caste, communalism and partition is indeed extermely notable for its influence and would be appropriate if moved to the section a little further along where he is talked about. Same goes for the Mahabodhi quotes, infact reference 15 even ascribes the stances to one based on communal tensions.
3) The diff was labeled moved for discussion. It is not the same as blanking. Anyhow, it seems to be based on a different reading of protocol, lets cool heads and move a discussion along.--Tigeroo 20:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

===Re:sources===--Tigeroo 09:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I would favour retaining Ambedekar's views in the decline section as he is perhaps the most notable reformer in the recent history of Buddhism in South Asia. The mention of the revivalist opinion is especially valuable when a precise quote is at hand, as is the case here.

Other sources that deal directly with the role of military force other means during the spread of Islam in South Asia are given below. Some of these deal directly with Buddhism.

1) Wink, Andre (July 2002) "Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th Centuries (Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World)." Brill Academic Publishers.

The temples, with their incumbent images, rather than being turned into mosques directly, most often appear to have been destroyed, after their portable wealth was taken, and then replaced with mosques or muslim shrines built from the rubble.

On the first discovery, temples and icons would immidiately be stripped of their valuable parts, gold or red gold, silver, precious stones, the eyes made of jewels picked out first. Temples were destroyed with nafta and fire (nafta wa-l-diram), and with the aid of elephants. The greatest statues, like the one at Somnath, which was almost five meters in height, were first mutilated by the sultan himself with a mace, and then destroyed -- like any temple -- by lighting fire around it so it would burst into pieces.

2) Eaton, Richard M. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1993 1993.

The oldest theory of Islamization in India, which I shall call the Religion of the Sword thesis, stresses the role of military force in the diffusion of Islam in India and elsewhere.

In the Begumpur mosque in Delhi (ca. 1343). Clues to the circumstances surrounding the construction (or restoration) of the mosque are found in its dedicatory inscription:

Zafar Khan, the lion of lions, has appeared
By conquering the towns of India in every expedition, and by restoring the decayed charitable institutions.
And he has destroyed the obdurate among infidels with his sword and spear, and lavished the treasures of his wealth in (helping) the miserable.
Zafar Khan’s claims to have destroyed “the obdurate among infidels” gains some credence from the mosque’s inscription tablet, itself carved from materials of old ruined Hindu temples, while the mutilated figures of Hindu deities are found in the stone used in the monument proper.

3) George F. Nafziger and Mark W. Walton(August 30, 2003). "Islam at War: A History" . Praeger Publishers (August 30, 2003).

Aurangzeb reimposed on the newly ordained dhimmis the hated jiyza that his predecessor Akbar the Great has wisely abolished early in his reign. The ruler's aim was to curb the infidels and demonstrate the distinction between the Dar ul-Islam (the land of Islam) and the Dar ul-Harb (The land of warfare and infidels). With that decision he brought warfare to the Dar ul-Harb to make the distinction clear for all to behold. Concurrent with the war on Hinduism, the muslim invaders of India waged war against the Buddhists.

4) Levy, Robert I. Mesocosm: Hinduism and the Organization of a Traditional Newar City in Nepal. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1990 1990.

It was, of course, Islam that was the particular variant of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic world revolution which made the first great iconoclastic invasion into South Asia, one of its furthest raids touching Bhaktapur itself in the fourteenth century.

5) Getting To Know Buddhism (Sunthorn Plamintr, Ph.D)

With the Moslem invasion of Sind in 710 AD, and especially when they gained more control over India in the 11th and 12th centuries, Buddhism suffered a great loss at the hands of Moslem fanatics. Buddhist monks were killed by the thousands, people were forced en masse to embrace Islam, and Buddhist monasteries were destroyed.

I am of the opinion that the sources as they stand now in the article are just fine and the section can do without an expansion of the muslim invasion.

Regards,

Phillip Rosenthal 10:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes I am quite familiar with the works of Wink/ Eaton and numerous others. All of them do talk about looting, raiding, iconoclasm, jizya etc. circumstances varied by age and ruler. Yet they also add that it was limited to opponents encountered during war and not carried out over those who were already subjects. I agree with the issues, but none of them lay it down to the decline of Buddhism. Just go back and read the conclusions of those books if you want to verify. Infact they lay the spread of Islam to multiple factors such as a prolonged process over centuries due more to economic reasons of joining the global Islamic trade-network, syncretic prolestyzation of Sufi's, that it was generally an urban phenomenon etc. etc. Like you notice Eaton say the "oldest", he in-fact talks of three distinct theories before offering his own in that book. They all talk about a general detheoficization of the ruling regimes. All this is covered without getting into the "debate of the details" by the sentence "A continuing decline occurred after the fall of the Pala dynasty in the 12th century CE, continuing with the later destruction of monasteries by Muslim conquerors[12] and their attempts to convert the region to Islam.[13]" The Daniel Pipes sentence is wrong, because if stands then it is concommitant that other POV on the theories of Islamization also be also gotten into. I don't think we want to do this in this articl. Similary I wouldn't mind leaving in the other two sentence eithers but then they must also paint a bigger picture, because both the Maha Bodhi and Ambedkar laid a huge deal of grief on hinduism, the caste system and Brahmis in particular as well, and as reference [15] points out their views were based on political-social dynamics of the time. This is much more easily done in the revival section, though it could also works well as it is if their opinions on the decline were more comepletely mentioned. The very next section is about revivalists anyway.
Summary of my Intent: Generally I think right now only one theory of Islamization is being used to account for Islam's impact on the decline of Buddhism in this section. Instead I beleive that for the scope of this section it only requisite that for this article and section we only mention that Islamization was a factor and let the sub-article explore the details. I didn't really want to expand this section much in this article to address POV balancing issues that I see with it, but maybe a couple of sentences are in order. Ofcourse the other problem with this approach is also that none of this will be specific to the Buddhist experience.--Tigeroo 16:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
These sources seem quite good, and perhaps we should let them speak for themselves in this article. Arrow740 04:24, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I have done some minor expansion using a few academic sources. Phillip Rosenthal 16:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Made a minor expansion myself with some context and moved your addition into the narrative flow.--Tigeroo 09:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Failing GA

I am removing this article from the GA candidates page for the following reasons:

  • Lead is too short. See WP:LEAD.
  • Inconsistent dating (mixture of Christian and secularized dating systems). The 12th century probably does not need a date suffix.
  • Poor formatting. The pictures leave large white spaces, and several of the subsections are very, very short. Many of the paragraphs should probably be combined for better flow. The terms being explained by bullet points should be highlighted.
  • Mahayana's and Vajrayana's See Also links need to be standardized.
  • Some of the text needs copyediting; there are spelling and punctuation errors, and some sentences are short and awkward.
  • Further sourcing needed for why Hinayana is controversial, S. N. Goenka's statement, the early history sections, etc.
  • There are POV problems with this page, for instance in the "decline of Buddhism" section, and I'm not surprised to find that the main article is currently under mediation. The conversation being held on this page is evidence of its current instability, which makes it ineligible for GA status until the POV problems can be sorted out.

Chubbles 05:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the very insightful review, I'll take steps to enforce those recommendations. Phillip Rosenthal 16:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phillip Rosenthal

Checkuser has identified Phillip Rosenthal as a likely sockpuppet of Freedom skies. JFD 06:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Phillip Rosenthal has been permanently blocked as a sockpuppet. JFD 00:27, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy

There's a fair amount of suspicious material here: what I suspect is out-of-date scholarship or just legend. I've corrected a few points, but it could do with looking at by people with differentareas of expertise. Peter jackson 10:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


Vajrayana section was somewhat degrading and uninformed. I changed the date from 7th to 4th century AD to conform to the main article on Vajrayana. Also the claim that Vajrayana was merely a mix of Buddhism and local popular practices was quite inaccurate. I corrected that to show how Vajrayana came from the forest meditation traditions (which are at least as equally valid and old as any monastic tradition). Furthermore, the remaining description of Vajrayana is still unsatisfactory and in need of attention. Dutaguna 01:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Reliable sources for the term dharmic religions?

Where are the reliable sources that use the term dharmic religions in the context of this article? Dharmic religions is a now deleted obscure neologism and should not be used throughout Wikipedia. Andries 15:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I propose to use the alternative phrase Indian religions. The number of google scholar results for "Indian religions"+"Indian religion" is (45.600 + 84.200) while it is only (492+475) for "dharmic religions" +"dharmic religion". See Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_September_8. Andries 19:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)