The abuses do not begin and end with cracking down on Occupy Movement free speech. The goal is far greater -- even more war and Perkins-style economic assassinations. Apathy means the war machine goes forward. The goal of occupiers is to call attention to the corporate greed and military madness behind our US policy of endless war as Orwell described in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
(RT ) Iran war drumbeat on CrossTalk with Mark Levine and guests
Nov. 14, 2011 - Is the latest IAEA report a case for a war with Iran? Why does the US get to read it first? Is there enough evidence to conclude that Iran's nuclear program goes far beyond peaceful purposes? And why is no-one questioning the credibility of the IAEA?
("Invisible Empire") The military-industrial complex
Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS) (RT) The US will not back down creating a pretext to attack Iran, raising fears IAEA findings will be misused. Israel threatens to attack even without proof. Meanwhile, the mainstream media "reports" that Iran implicitly admits it is pursuing a nuclear bomb program. This is just like the excuses used to invade Iraq. John Glaser, an assistant editor atantiwar.com, says US is constantly pushing Iran to create a nuclear bomb.
By "we" is meant the US military-industrial complex. That is the 1% (one percent) -- Wall Street bankers and Pentagon neocons in charge of the US government since at least the time of Cheney/Bush and their ideal heir Obama.
By "war" is meant endless, corporate-profiteering, Nineteen Eighty-Four style military conflict. (In Orwell's novel, Big Brother was always at war with one of the other blocs, a useful enemy to stir up the population, keep them fearful, and keep them impoverished).
By "total" is meant "full spectrum dominance" of the region -- and that includes invading Iran. Iran is already being softened in the north as Turkey is destabilized by our HAARP weaponry.
Since the people of Iran cannot hope to occupy Tehran -- due to our imposition of military dictators backed by a draconian clandestine force on the people after pulling down (illegally subverting, deposing, and replacing) the Shah in 1979 -- the US military-industrial complex is likely to do it for them.
The fast and furious plot to occupy Iran (AJ) Washington is looking to increase sanctions on Iran as a result of the plot to kill a Saudi ambassador. Iran's supposed "threat" could simply be the US government's way of distracting Americans from problems at home. No one ever lost money betting on the dull predictability of the US government. Just as Occupy Wall Street is firing imaginations all across the spectrum -- piercing the noxious revolving door between government and casino capitalism -- Washington brought us all down to Earth, sensationally advertising an Iranian cum Mexican cartel terror plot straight out of The Fast and the Furious movie franchise. The potential victim: Adel al-Jubeir, the ambassador in the US of that lovely counter-revolutionary Mecca, Saudi Arabia. More Iraq: No Immunity for US War Crimes (b12partners.net)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (ABC) - The prospects of the U.S. keeping a modest [just 40,000 or 50,000 "trainers"] military force in Iraq after the Dec. 31 deadline to withdraw nearly all troops was thrown into question Tuesday when leaders in Baghdad suggested that American soldiers would NO longer have immunity from prosecution [for US war crimes] as of 2012.
Washington has long been working under the assumption that immunity from prosecution was a crucial component of the pact that was signed with Iraq three years ago involving any U.S. soldiers who stay behind to train [the way we "advised" during our war on Vietnam] national forces.
Need to borrow more money on credit for the imperial war machine? Xie-xie!
However, Iraqi leaders, after a meeting with President Jalal Talabani, said that while they would welcome training and military equipment, "there is no need to give immunity for trainers." [So I guess it's on to Iran, an indefinite occupation, and further immunity from our war crimes there.] More
The US War on Iraq was created by Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and Presidents Barry/W/Herbert Bush (dear kitty)
(ICB) Sundance Audience Award winner "Circumstance" -- a wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's dangerous obsession.
Homosexual acting out is common in religions/cultures that strictly segregate boys and girls. The very desire for purity leads to guilt, shame, and makes one wonder if that is not the point. Christianity (Catholicism), so vehemently opposed to gays, seems most famous for this. And Pres. Ahmadinejad seems as in denial about what is going on as an American mom.
(sff) Meet the Artists: Maryam Keshavarz on her [Iranian lesbian] film "Circumstance" premiering at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
But Buddhism where monasticism is prodded or where monastics deny and prevent the natural affinity of young people to commingle is not immune to this phenomenon. Macho Iran, Afghanistan, and enclaves like the US military and American prisons and seminaries and Republican caucuses (and other segregated environments) are havens for homosexual acting out.
Do Iranians make funny clips of American leaders' hypocrisy?
Hypocrisy comes with high morals.
And we are all in denial, hoodwinked by the hyper-masculinity and poorly veiled misogyny. Maybe eroticizing the issue focusing on Muslim lesbians (surely an oxymoron in Islam as it would be in fundamentalist Christianity) will bring the issue to light. Let gays be gay, but it might be nice to spare non-gays the guilt and shame of youthful indiscretions because they are given precious few alternatives just when their hormones are raging.
American Bacha Bazi (NAMBLA-style B4U-ACT) [Bacha bazi is the Middle Eastern custom of what in the West is regarded as child molestation and pederasty.] Along with venerable child advocate Dr. Judith Reisman, I attended a conference hosted by the American pro-pedophile groupB4U-ACT. Conference highlights: Pedophiles are “unfairly... demonized,” “Children are not inherently unable to consent” to sex with an adult, “in Western culture sex is taken too seriously,” “Anglo-American standard on age of consent is new [and ‘Puritanical’]. In Europe it was always set at 10 or 12. Ages of consent beyond that are relatively new and very strange, especially for boys. They’ve always been able to have sex at any age.” And an adult’s desire to have sex with children is “normative.”
(Military-trained) police go into action stripping, falsely imprisoning, humiliating, (raping?) under color of authority against anyone for any reason, even those who call for help. Stark County Ohio Sheriffs (male and female) attack and forcibly strip an innocent woman [a military and CIA prison technique] then charge her with resisting. (330) 430-3800, 4500 Atlantic Blvd., N.E., Canton, Ohio 44705, strkshrf@raex.com
American Bucha Bazi: Warden David Wise (6:35) would not want to work in a prison without vices that keep the prisoners busy and make control easier for authorities.
The Boy Mir - a decade in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, possibly the real Kapilavastu
Following the international hit "The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan," THE BOY MIR will cover not one year but ten. It will track the cheeky, enthusiastic Mir from a childish 8-year-old to a fully grown adult. Over that decade, it will be a journey into early adulthood in one of the toughest places on Earth, a journey that mirrors the current and vitally important story of Afghanistan.
"A fascinating peek at everyday rural Afghan life" - Denis Harvey, Variety.
"Surprising, fascinating and fulfilling…An unforgettable portrait of a boy and a country" - Ron Sutton, IDA Documentary Magazine
History of Sid Where was the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama from? He was from Kapilavastu. Where is that? No one knows for sure, or they may know but modern politics gets in the way of saying.
What race was he? He was Shakyan. What is that? He lived on the northwestern frontier of ancient India. What race would that be today? No one knows for sure, or they perfectly well know but modern politics gets in the way of saying.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is willing to say. Of course, we only have facts, informed opinions, and the ancient texts to go on. We certainly do not have the support of the Nepal tourist council, corrupt British scholars (now deceased), or popular opinion.
The Buddhas of Bamiyan and the Boy Mir -- rural Afghanistan was once a cosmopolitan crossroads due to travelers along the Silk Road.
It is perhaps best to start with the standard interpretation of the story: Siddhartha Gautama, the Shakyan prince, was born in the Terai of southern Nepal, just outside of India, in a lush park named Lumbini. His mother was on the way to her ancestral home (Devadaha) to give birth as is the custom in India, a few miles from Kapilavastu. But birth pangs arose in the park, and Siddhartha was born under a Sal tree while she stood holding a branch.
(This detail is important because, as Wisdom Quarterly has pointed out elsewhere, it mirrors or perhaps was the origin of the mythology of the Salabhanjika, the tree beautiful tree nymph of Indian lore). Siddhartha grew up in relative splendor, being prepared to rule the territory of Kapilavastu. He had a white pony named Kanthaka. He was married to his cousin Yasodhara at 16. He liked sports -- archery, horseback riding, and his studies, enjoying the equivalent of a college education fit for a future king, which taught him all the arts, sciences, and agrarian business skills he would need to govern.
He had blue eyes, wavy black hair, was very handsome and relatively tall. He had fair skin, like all the Shakyans, which he described as "golden." Race then is not as it is now. At that time there were three colors of skin: black, brown, and golden.
Race -- a controversial topic today -- has always been a socially constructed category, not the naturally occurring one we imagine. UC Berkeley professor Tim White, like other scientists, dismisses "race" as a useless category that does not signify anything scientifically useful. It is so unreliable a measure -- particularly in terms of phenotypes but also nearly useless in terms of genotypes -- that physical anthropology has no use for it. Dr. White was one of the co-discoverers of humanity's African ancestor Lucy.
Of course, we do consider race extremely important. So cultural anthropology has to recognize it. But what the field recognizes is that various human groups use it differently. Most people on Earth today do not hold the American view of four major races, which are clear and distinct (by color, geographical origin, and of course temperament and innate capacity for such things as intelligence and fitness to rule over others).
In short we are racist; that is, American culture (and the imperial British, German, and European cultures it is based on) is racist. Most Americans would never admit to bias. Indeed, most of us are not aware of our biases or the deep-seated reasons for them.
That's why it's always good to know some racists: Nothing brings out our own small and cumulative bias into the sharp relief of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, Norwegian terrorists, and Southern Christian fundamentalists (to be fair, not all of them).
Most of the rest of the world categorizes one into a race group based on appearance. So full blooded siblings in the same nuclear family (from the same parents) are considered different races as determined by their appearance or phenotype. Americans do this, too, until we have more information -- accent, surname, national origin, religion, creed, what other family members look like...
Brazil and Cuba are excellent examples of cultures that go based on personal appearance. It is not that one in other parts of the world is presumed to be of one "race" until all the information is gathered. One is that race and will continue to be in spite of other mitigating information. Race is fluid, but for us it is very stiff. In the past we Americans were more racist than we are now. Any trace of another race in the bloodline made one that other race.
So being a tall, Nordic blond with 1/16th "Negro" (essentially, non-white since Negroes were not limited to Africans) made one black). We were borderline on the subject of racial "purity," and pedigree was imperative. That is not to say that we were alone in this. Bloodlines have always meant a great deal to the ruling class (royals), as our closeted German forbears attest.
Was the Buddha Caucasian?
What is "white"? The Buddha was Shakyan. What does this mean? It means he was Central Asian. Are Central Asians "white"? No, they are a melding of Asian and Caucasian, sometimes called Eurasian.
What does it mean to be Caucasian? It literally means descended from the peoples of the Caucuses mountain region -- an extraordinary region. It is extraordinary partly because it is part of the Himalayan range but mostly because it separates Asia from Europe.
From an American perspective, many of those people would seem to be white. But clearly their faces have Asiatic features. Their skin, hair, and eye color might get them labelled white, but their heritage and geographical origin would do to the Buddha what was done to Christ: It makes them geopolitically Middle Eastern. (Thanks to the CIA definition of the changing political climate).
BBC documentary: Jesus was Buddhist monk
Jesus was from the Middle East? Jesus was probably black -- from northern Africa, a meeting place of continents, growing up in Egypt and traveling like a Bedouin -- at least according to the Bible, namely, Saint John of Patmos. (But as Bible-loving, Judeo-Christian Americans, we ignore that part of the Book of Revelations, obviously a late inclusion into the canon).
There are fascinating theories that Jesusand his mysterious forbears were pharoahs. (See Jesus in the House of the Pharoahs, Jesus Last of the Pharoahs). That is certainly not the history we are taught in Sunday School, but then history is a socially-constructed phenomenon, not a hard science. Our favorite theory -- which meets history's gold standard, written documentation -- is that Jesus (called Issa in India and the Islamic world) was a Buddhist monk as suggested by the British Broadcasting Corporation, hardly a biased, Buddhist news source.
Imagine the implications -- the creator of the universe is Black, Buddhist, and ever so compassionate. Of course, these are just human-historical constructs that can be deconstructed. Would humans really bend history to suit themselves? Of course we would. It has been happening to Christianity since at least the Roman Empire got its hands on the Christian Church and its official history-keeping duties. The truth never stood a chance of becoming common knowledge.
Why bring up Jesus? He is regarded as the most famous human who ever lived. The Buddha lived at least five centuries earlier, and has lived on in history five centuries longer. The Buddha was for much of that time the most important human who ever lived. He is called the Prince of Peace and the Light of Asia, but this disguises how influential he was to the Caucasus region of Central Asia. Christians, not to be outdone, call Jesus the Prince of Peace and the Light of the World. If Jesus had studied Buddhism and been ordained a monk in Hemis Gompa, Ladakh, India/Tibet, as is documented in writing by the Buddhist monks in that region, might his teacher not be deserving of more recognition? Long before either the Buddha or the Christ, surely Mithra (another Central Asian figure) was the most famous human who ever lived. And eventually Mohammed will be. If a popularity contest were the equivalent of truth, we vote for another Middle Easterner Gilgamesh/Bilgames (of Sumeria). The shamans, the pharoahs, Krishna, the whole Adamic "race" of humans has had its "most important human" along with its "gods" (devas, asuras, and brahmas). And while there was probably no actual Adam or Eve (and let's not forget Lilith), it's easier to talk about the group through the figurehead of a single man and woman, which has the largely ignored benefit of making us all brothers and sisters, just as Lucy makes us all cousins.
What a place to be from!
It is brilliant that the Bodhisattva (buddha-to-be) was born between continents. And we would extend that same compliment to Jesus. Whereas the Buddha links Asia and Europe, Christ links Africa and Europe. But we see what "Christians" have done in the name of white supremacy. They have taken a black figure and made him white.
If Buddhism continues to enjoy the same widespread influence and adoption in the West that was seen in the East, he too will almost certainly be converted into a "white" man.
He is already considered an Indo-Aryan (not in the sense the Nazis appropriated and made infamous thanks to the history they constructed for themselves using Madame Blavatsky's material, a Russian mystic who understood that the Buddha was essentially if not technically Russian. For the USSR once extended throughout most of Central Asia. Siberia has a long Buddhist history.
Anna Reid traveled the length and breadth of Siberia -- 1/12th of the world’s land surface, larger than the United States and Western Europe combined -- to tell the story of its people. Drawing on sources ranging from folktales to KGB reports, and on interviews with shamans and Buddhist monks [shramans] in The Shaman’s Coat, a unique and intrepid travel chronicle.
Ancient Persia (now Iran, which means Aryan), Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are just a few of the ancient outposts the Dharma reached and influenced, creating the strangest and nicest of all Islamic hybrids, Sufism. But the USSR failed to win its second most important conquest -- the incorporation of Afghanistan -- assuming its most important conquest would have been to conquer the West. But, surely, Russia is the "West," too? Russians are "white," except for the formerly Central Asian colonies that reverted to nonwhite status.
Archeology, history, and Buddhist texts suggest the Buddha was Afghani. Of course, there was no such thing as "Afghanistan." And centuries later when Islamic and Arabian hordes conquered the area, the Dharma that once prospered and meant so much all along the Silk Route was rubbed out of the fabric of daily life.
Are Middle Easterners white? They certainly look like it. But many in Southern Europe have a hard time getting into the exclusive club. Were ancients Greeks white? Was Nefertiti white? "White" has no hard and fast meaning. So the answer is, They are white when it suits the powers that be to call them white in recognition of their magnificent accomplishments.
Ancient Greece -- such as the Indo-Greek empire of Bactria (Balkh) -- was Buddhist before Buddhism caught on in China. But certainly Greece is the fount of the West? Is it only a coincidence that the ancient land of the Shakyans (also spelled Sakyans) is on the map as Sakala, Sakae, and Sakastan (modern Afghanistan, nowhere near Nepal).
Kapisa, Kapilavastu? Sakala, Sakyan territory? Sakastan, the extent of Sakyan territory? Sakae reaching toward Tajikistan? Were the Sakas the Sakyas (pronounced Shakyas) gone unrecognized because British history by Fuhrer says the Sakyas lived in Nepal? The Shakyan clan's rule ended with the conquest of the Buddha's extended family who remained in the world by an angry relative retaliating after finding out he was half-slave, half-Sakyan. The Buddha explained that even his interventions were not enough to overcome the force of a rare instance of collective karma ripening for his father's clan.
Whites and Europeans consider Greece the fountainhead of science, art, empire. Buddhist contributions to our history have not been credited to the Buddha, but to Greek philosophers influenced by Indian travelers and the Dharma that reinvigorated greater India after the ancient Vedic civilizations had fallen into obscurity.
Aryan Invasion theories are another topic entirely, but suffice it to say that who the original Aryans were would surprise many. They were not Nordic tribes coming down from Germany and Austria to teach the subcontinent enlightenment and advanced technology 5,000 years ago as Hitler, Goebbels, and Dr. Mengele might have suggested. (Nazis were adept at spin doctoring, taking parts of spiritualism and mysticism, namely Blavatsky's and the Theosophists, and fashioning them to meet their own ends. It is tantalizing to realize that the Nazis did not lose WW II, as is commonly suggested in the new propaganda that supplanted the old.
The NAZI mentality is alive and well in many of the countries that welcomed war criminals to secretly exploit their scientific advancements in clandestine services, intercontinental rocket technology, the development of nuclear bombs, and space travel. Not only America's now defunct OSS, but NASA, the CIA, Pentagon, Moussad, ISI, KGB, and above all the British Mi6 (SIS), who seem to have been secretly ruling the world since inheriting the empire from Rome.
Afghanistan is Russia's "Vietnam." Or as they say in the former USSR, the Vietnam War is America's Afghanistan. Just as we inherited Vietnam (and secret wars on Laos and Cambodia) from imperial France, we inherited our troubles in Afghanistan from the British (Anglo-Afghan wars) and a longstanding CIA/Russian conflict.
This is strange because now Afghanistan is America's Afghanistan, having lasted longer and cost so much that our society may never recover -- unless the incredible conclusions of the following report are true:
UFO discovered in Afghan cave's time well
It is hard to say what makes Afghanistan so important -- but the fact that it is important, strategic, and intractable is explained by Fitzgerald & Gould (invisblehistory.com). A more remarkable tale comes from the arena of exopolitics and an alleged vimana (ancient Indian spacecraft) caught in a "time well" there.
Why else would the world's leaders go into the Afghan war zone? But is the world ready for "disclosure" about ancient astronauts (Indian devas and Zoroastrian asuras), extraterrestrial weapons systems, and the real history of the planet our rulers have held back? The war in heaven (space) rages on, as explained by Steven Quayle on Coast to Coast.
In conclusion, the Buddha was Central Asian, a frontier Indian. For ancient India was not actually a country with certain borders. It was a collection of 16 maha-janapadas ("great footholds of the tribes" or "territories of powerful family clans"). Kapilavastu was in Afghanistan, in the confluence of Caucasian and South Asian cultures.
Durand or Zero Line border between Afghanistan and Pakistan (in red). The blue area represents the predominant Pashtun and Baloch areas.
Until recently, Pakistan was Gandhara, India. The exiting British made it so. They also drew a "zero line" (Durand) separating what we call Afghanistan from what we now call India, whose borders remain in dispute. Neither China, nor Pakistan, nor Tajikistan (prompted byfasura the Kremlin) are ready to yield to India, which was once a superpower.
Gabrielle Niu (Penn Museum) enhanced and updated by Wisdom Quarterly
Afghan archaeologist examines the remains of Buddha statues discovered inside an ancient monastery in Mes Aynak, Logar province, Afghanistan, on Nov. 23, 2010 (AP).
The contemporary perception of Afghanistan is a place of violence and religious extremism. It often goes unremembered that for centuries the area flourished as a cultural crossroads of Buddhism and trade along the Silk Road.
Nineteen miles (30 km) from the Afghan capital of Kabul, under layers of unexcavated earth, lays an ancient [2,600-year-old] Buddhist monastery.
[The fact that May 2011 marks the 2600th anniversary of Buddha's enlightenment suggests that the Buddha's extended family was from this frontier area and converted to Buddhism very early on.]
Mes Aynak ("Little Copper Well") inLogar province is a trove of Buddhist monastery ruins, statues, and reliquaries (stupas) attesting to the prolific role that Afghanistan played in the spread of Buddhism in Central Asia (to Russia) and East Asia (to China).
In the first-century B.C.E., the Yuezhi people were forcibly driven westward from East Central Asia to Ferghana and Bactria in present-day northern Afghanistan. Prior to around 126 BCE, Bactria had been governed by the Indo-Greeks, vestiges of the Alexandrian empire, who promulgated their rule and the Hellenistic culture throughout the region.
The Silk Road with present-day Afghanistan is outlined in green.
Once the Yuezhi took Bactria from the Indo-Greeks, they established the Kushan Empire which played a prominent role in the early periods of the Silk Road.
It was through the Kushans that the woolen textiles, gold, and silver of Rome flowed east; the cotton, spices, and semi-precious stones of India migrated north; the silk of China travelled west; and the rubies and lapis lazuli of Bactria and the Tarim Basin moved outwards (Victor Mair & J.P. Mallory, The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, 2000, p. 94).
Gandhara-style Buddha statue (Norton Simon Museum) exhibiting Greco-Roman influences. [The Buddha came from the northwest frontier of India, had blue eyes, was tall and fair with golden skin. Gandhara art often depicts the future Buddha Maitreya].
The Kushan Empire also played a vital role in the dissemination of Buddhism from India to Central Asia where it eventually found its way to China and then Japan. The Gandharan school of Buddhist art, propagated by the Kushan Empire, shows express evidence of the influences of anthropomorphic Greco-Roman forms and stylized Indian naturalism.
In this way, the Kushan Empire not only directly facilitated the transmission of Buddhism to Central and East Asia, but also left an indelibleeffaceable mark on the ensuing Buddhist artwork of Asia.
While Silk Road trade in the region diminished slightly around the 3rd and 4th centuries when Kushan rule was broken up by the Sassanian Empire, religious eclecticism continued in much of the region.
It was during this time period that many of the artifacts that are being unearthed at the Mes Aynek site were produced. In some places around the monastery, the ground is littered with slag, the blackened waste from the refining and smelting of copper ore, leading archaeologists to believe that the monks once exploited the lucrative copper deposits until deforestation halted their supply of timber fuel.
The archaeological site, Mes Aynak, holds many invaluable relics of Aghanistan's history, but also the promise of billions of dollars of foreign investment.
These copper deposits are what have drawn the Chinese Metallurgical Group Corporation (MGC) to the site. The Chinese government-backed mining company has invested $3.5 billion, Afghanistan’s largest foreign investment, in developing the mining site, and the Afghan government hopes to see $880 million from the project before production even begins (online.wsj.com).
The site of future copper mine complex with Chinese funding to extract rare resources (AP)
However, upon the signing of the Chinese contract in 2008, an agreement was reached to halt further mining explorations that would damage the historic site until 2011. As 2010 draws to a close, archaeologists acknowledge that three years may be time enough to document, but not properly preserve all the known artifacts -- a process which may take up to ten years (BBC.co.uk). For the struggling Afghan economy, the MGC project is the country’s single largest foreign investment and a promise for the creation of many jobs.
However, due to governmental corruption, it is not likely that the financial boon of this Chinese investment will be used to address the lack of stable infrastructure, water, electricity, housing, jobs, and medical care and the incredibly low standard of living plaguing many Afghan people.
In an article published by the Wall Street Journal, French archaeologist documenting the site, Phillippe Marquis, stresses that while a copper mine might be profitable for the next 20 to 30 years, the wealth of cultural history that would be unearthed and preserved from Mes Aynak “[is] for everybody…for the future of Afghanistan.”
Nevertheless, while an enduring manifestation of Afghanistan’s rich cultural past would serve well to remind the world of the country’s reputable history, during this time of political and economic instability, it is hard to justify. (Source)
IANS, Wisdom Quarterly, Lama Yeshe Archive, UNESCO, New York Times
KAPILAVASTU, Uttar Pradesh, India (Nepalese border) - The U.P. government may be trying to project itself as a champion of Buddhism, yet the Buddha's original home Kapilavastu, along the India-Nepal border, lies in utter neglect.
[If standard history were to be believed,] back in 563 BCE, Queen Maya Devi comfortably traversed a distance of 6 miles (10 km) from her husband King Suddhodana's kingdom, Kapilavastu, to her parental home [passing through] Lumbini, Nepal [on the way to her parent's home to become a mother according to Indian custom], where she gave birth to Siddhartha, who later became the legendary Buddha Gautama. But that may not be possible today.
Tens of thousands of foreign tourists exploring the "Buddhist circuit" have to take a detour of at least 33 miles (53 km) due to the modern absence of a good road link of 12 miles (20 km) between today's "Kapilvastu" and "Lumbini."
[Sadly, both of these locations are likely not archeologically correct. But they are geo-politicallycorrect. The real sites in India's former Northwest Frontier Province are now war-torn Afghanistan (the real Kapilavastu near Bamiyan) northwest of Kabul (with the real Lumbini likely located in Baluchistan where Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan meet). Of course, setting the exact coordinates is controversial, as Dr. Ranajit Pal well knows and Wisdom Quarterly is finding out.]
"What is worse is that this detour is usually packed with trucks as it is one of the main trade routes between the two countries [India and Nepal]," Shamim Ahmad, a cab driver, told IANS.
"Often, the long wait at the Sonauliborder is so disgusting for foreign tourists that they choose to give up one or two places on the Buddhist circuit," he added.
The exact location of Kapilavastu has become a matter of contention, with some regarding Tilaurakot in Nepal's Rupandehi as the site of the ancient kingdom.
But Nepal has not built a serviceable road from the Indian border at Kakrahwa -- less than a half mile (500 meters) from the Kapilavastu stupa -- to the Buddha's birthplace at Lumbini. Neither have Indian authorities bothered to persuade Kathmandu [capital of Nepal] to facilitate the easy movement of Buddhist pilgrims through the border, many have complained.
It has not struck the Uttar Pradesh state government to build a direct road link between Kapilavastu and Sravasti, both being significant stops along the much talked about Buddhist circuit.
"There is a narrow, dilapidated road connecting Sonauli to Kapilavastu and further down to Sravasti; all that is required to be done is to build it into a proper highway," said Indrajeet Gupta, a local grocer. More
Buddhist circuit by tourist (Myindiatoursntravels blog)
The Buddha on undertaking a pilgrimage Wisdom Quarterly Disciples, after my passing away, if all the sons and daughters of good family with confidence [in the Buddha's enlightenment, the efficacy of the Buddha-Dhar ma to bring one to enlightenment, and the accomplishment of the Noble Sangha], so long as they live, go to four sacred places, they should go and bear in mind:
Here at Lumbini the Enlightened One was born.
Here at Bodhgaya he attained enlightenment.
Here at Sarnath he set rolling the wheel of wheel of Dharma.
Here at Kushinagar he entered parinirvana.
Disciple, after my final passing away there will be customary marks of respect such as circumambulation of these places and prostration to them.
Thus it should be told: For those who have confidence in my deeds and awareness of their own will travel to higher states.
After my final passing away, the new monastics who come and ask about the Doctrine should be told of these four places and advised that a pilgrimage [due to focusing on the good and overcoming hardship] to them will help purify [outweigh, frustrate, mitigate, replace] their previously accumulated negative karma, even [it is said] the five heinous actions.
Golden face of the Buddha passing into final nirvana, Thailand (reuters.com)
China plans to help Nepal develop Buddha’s birthplace at Lumbini
(Reuters) A Chinese-backed foundation and Nepal’s government plan to transform the Buddha’s birthplace in southern Nepal into a magnet for Buddhists the same way Mecca is to Muslims and the Vatican is for Catholics.
[Never mind that they might be going to the wrong place, because this is about spiritual tourism, and the U.S. is destroying the real place -- in its longest running war -- while China plans to strip its archeological treasures and history by mining metals there.]
The Asia Pacific Exchange and Cooperation Foundation plans to raise $3 billion at home and abroad to build temples, an airport, a highway, hotels, convention centers, and a Buddhist university in the town of Lumbini, about 107 miles (171 km) southwest of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.
The foundation, blessed by the Chinese government, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nepalese government last month to jointly develop and operate Lumbini, where the Buddha was [said to be] born Prince Siddhartha Gautama about 2,600 years ago. The foundation also pledged to bring communications, water, and electricity to Lumbini.
Buddhism was virtually wiped out in China during the chaotic 1966-76 [Communist/officially atheist] Cultural Revolution when temples were shut, Buddhist statues smashed, scriptures burned, and monks and nuns [killed or] forced to return to secular life and marry. In recent years, China has become more tolerant of Buddhism, which is considered “traditional culture” alongside Taoism and Confucianism.
Bodhi tree and the Mayadevi pond in Lumbini, Nepal, Nov. 2006 (Reuters/Bpilgrim)
“Lumbini will transcend religion, ideology, and race. We hope to rejuvenate the spirit of Lord Buddha,” said Xiao Wunan, a devout Buddhist who is executive vice president of the foundation. The development of Lumbini will... More
The Real Lumbini
Dr. Ranajit Pal
Nepal is a beautiful country, but a Gautama [Pali, Gotama] of Nepal is a [archeological] fraud. Nothing in the art, archaeology, history, or literature of early Nepal has the faintest hint of Buddhism.
R. Thapar affirms that Gautama was from the Nepal area, but this has no archaeological basis. Wikipedia pays lip service to archaeology and heedlessly places Gautama at Lumbini, thereby reducing history into a caricature. C. Humphreys laments over the stark ground reality,
"The Lumbini gardens, where Gotama was born, lie in the difficult Nepal Terai, and Kusinara, where the Buddha passed away, has little to show.'"
The way out of the chaos is shown by the British scholar T. Phelps who has exposed the dreadful forgeries of Führer who moved pillars and faked inscriptions and relics to falsely locate Lumbini. More
PHOTO: Buddhist lay practitioners in Mahayana temple attire venerate a statue of the Bodhisattva during the annual Phi Ta Khon Festival at a temple in Suining, Sichuan province, China, May 2, 2009 (Reuters/Stringer).
The abuses do not begin and end with cracking down on Occupy Movement free speech. The goal is far greater -- even more war and Perkins-style economic assassinations. Apathy means the war machine goes forward. The goal of occupiers is to call attention to the corporate greed and military madness behind our US policy of endless war as Orwell described in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
