Evolution and Spread of Buddhism

Evolution and Spread of Buddhism

Before, coming to nuts and bolts of Dhamma, let me state few historical facts, some related to geography and some to language.

Word of Buddha reached China 700 years after Parinibbhana and was memorised in Sanskrit.

It reached Burma and Thailand 1000 or more years later, probably by sea route and was memorized in Pali,

Nepal or the Magada State is landlocked and Buddhism did not reach Tibet until 1200 years or more.

One should assume that all these countries had some form of a belief system and were not conducive, if not antagonistic to imported or foreign ideas.

China is a good example.

Things were recorded in Matale, Aluvihara in Ceylon 1700 years later, after the passing away of Buddha.

My point here is, with passing away of time and cultural influence and errors in memory chain, nothing called Pure Dhamma existed but colossal literature, that include Dhammapada, which gives an insight, to the Teaching of Buddha.

What excited me was that the discussion on the Beauty of the Mind and its Behaviour.

Every volitional action is related to the Mind and many years of me studying Medicine did not prepare me to understand the Mysterious Nature of Mind.

Prudently, I postponed digging into Dhamma in my young years.

I bought a huge dictionary of Buddhism and it had more than 10 pages on the word Dhamma.       

From the very beginning, I knew, most of  the English and French translators got it wrong somewhere down the line, having not studied Pali in depth.

By the way, Buddhaghosha who translated Dhamma is an Indian scholar that translated Dhamma from the vernacular language is Ceylon, thought to be closed to current Sinhala.

There is a Bogus guy with Indian sounding name may be a Tamil in origin distorting facts of History of Ceylon and please DO NOT listen to his antics.