Friday, July 28, 2023

Theosophy, Olcott and Buddhism

Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri is the Professor of History.

He has good understanding of politics.

But, I am at variance with him on his views about Dhamma (not Buddhism).

First he does not believe in Rebirth.
He is entitled to his belief.
The second feature of Buddhism is Kamma or cause and effect.

He who does not believe in Kamma and Rebirth  should be a critic of Buddhism (he should not talked about Dhamma or Pure Buddhism) not a follower.

He is entitled to talk about Henry Olcott at length.

There is no doubt that Olcott was instrumental in reviving Buddhism in Ceylon.

He contributed financially to founding of the Theosophical Society in USA and Madras India. There is branch in Ceylon which is practically defunct.

Theosophical Society was founded by Henry Felt, Henry Stevon Olcott and H.P. Blavatsky.

The object of theosophical society was to study of science, philosophy and comparative religion.
They believed all religions originated from Wisdom of God.
There is no Olcott Buddhism.

By the way, Dhamma does not believe in God or God Wisdom.

Buddha was a prefect human being who outlined principles of Dhamma based on Rebirth and Kamma.

Let me say something about Theosophical Society in Madras in India.

Theosophical society has its head quartets in India.

Theosophy is an inquiry into science, religion and philosophy.

There was a lady called Helena Blavosky, a Russian aristocratic women who believed in mythology and magic. She came to Ceylon and became a Buddhist convert, later.

Having heard about her antics in Madras Sir Henry Olcott came to India and Ceylon.

He was a scholar and did not like mystics of Helena and later dissociated with her.

He helped to form 3 big schools in Ceylon.

His interet was to encourage discussion on all three fields, science, religion and philosophy (including god's wisdom).

He did not favour any of the three disciplines but became a practising Buddhist.

I admire him for his openness to inquiry.

There is nothing called Olcott Buddhism as pointed out by Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri.

Regarding Nalin De Silva I have my own opinion.
He is a racist by conviction.

He was ousted from Peradeniya University on disciplinary grounds and I do not think he has a PhD from Peradeniya.

How he entered the Kelaniya University as a don I have no idea but I totally oppose his Jathika Chinthanaya which was a political instrument  created to benefit for MR/GR.

He openly opposes Tamils and he is worse than JRJ.

It is a form of paranoid disease.

Tamils have a history both in Ceylon and India and they are our citizens.

I do not support Prabhakaran ideology.

Bringing hatred is opposed to Dhamma and on that ground alone he cannot be classified as a True Buddhist.

That is true for Prabhakaran, too.

I have no problem of, his claim as a pure Sinhala Guy.

But a guy (with poor academic skills)in my time did an ethnic study in Ceylon and in his analysis, the so called Sinhala guys had almost 30% Tamil blood genomically.

I did not know how he distinguished Tamils from Sinhala.

That was the end of his original thesis about pure Sinhala blood.

He did not publish those data but did changed his thesis to say Ceylonese come from an area close to Bengal-Bangladesh (not even Madras).

Let us not talk about European blood in pure Sinhala guys.

I leave it at that.


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