India has its own 'soft power' - Buddhism

jul 5th, 2007

i have always found asia times to be a garbage website run with a
distinct "china-is-the-be-all-and-end-all-of-asia" perspective. i am
sure it's run by some chinese thai, with generous amounts of funding
from the chinese government.

i also find the indian writers there to be generally execrable. i used
to read it a few years it ago when it first came out, but its
china-centrism was too much, so i gave up. i haven't bothered to look
at it for some time.

but i was quite amused by this sudha ramachandran's casual theory about nalanda:

i quote --

"An ancient seat of learning, Nalanda University was primarily a
center of Buddhist studies, but it also imparted training in fine
arts, astronomy, politics and languages. The university died a slow
death around the 12th century AD."

end quote.

no, sudha, it did not die a slow death. it was burned to the ground
and all the scholars beheaded by a mohammedan king named khilji in
1192 CE. the few who managed to run away created tibetan buddhism.
after killing them all and burning the library, khilji wondered, "what
was in all those books?". they couldn't find a *single* person to
answer, because they had all been beheaded. this tragedy was one of
the greatest crimes against humanity and knowledge in history, bigger
than the burning of the library of alexandria by christist bishop
theophilus.

also, the university taught hindu topics, and the language of
instruction was sanskrit, if i am not mistaken. these facts are
ignored by the communists.

sudha, why on earth do you communist types find that so hard to spit
out, that mohammedans wiped out buddhism in india?

of course, the new nalanda university will be a chinese entity, full
of chinese moles, even more than JNU. to ensure that, the UPA have put
the execrable amartya sen in charge of it.

sudha ramachandran is a JNU product.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: AH Venkitesh

India has its own 'soft power' - Buddhism
By Sudha Ramachandran
www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IG04Df02.html

BANGALORE - As the Sino-Indian battle for influence in East and
Southeast Asia intensifies, India is backing its political and
economic diplomacy with soft-power diplomacy. To counter China's
efforts to keep India out of the region on the grounds that it is an
"outsider", India is drawing attention to its solid Buddhist
credentials.

...
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.