Gautama Buddha,Indian or Nepali?

SSDD said:

No, do Nepalese people consider themselves Indian even culturally? Let along politically referring as Indian as India and Nepal are different. But an average Iraqi is as much Arab as an average Saudi Arabian is. But we are foreigner to Nepalese and so they are to us. As Nepal we generally understand mountainous area, but Nepal is not only that, it had some plains too, which were much later incorporated into Nepal.

Did any Indian kingdom or dynasty ever ruled Nepal apart from raids by Bengal's Muslim powers?

The religion that was prevalent during Buddha's time, was surely different, but a religion is bound to be changed, even Buddha's own teaching is changed. From a social reformer he has been changed to a God.

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Nepal cannot consider itself "Indian" precisely because of the political difference of being independent even from the British, a feat worth being proud of. But to claim that Nepal is not a cultural descendant of the Historical Subcontinental culture is factually incorrect. They may have diverged from the mainstream cultural patterns of north India, but then so did south, west and east India, and the difference in Nepali cultural patterns is not greater than the diversion in South India. Why should an "Indian" dynasty have to rule Nepal? Indian dynasties hadn't ruled the Sindh region for over a thousand years, yet until the creation of Pakistan they were most certainly considered Indian. Even Iraq, they may originate as Arabs, but they are as divergent from the Saudi Arab culture as Nepal is from India, so again the example doesn't hold true.

I'm not saying Buddha is not "Indian". Technically he is Sakya, and no one disputes that the Sakya were an Indian confederation, so hence the mental gymnastics wherein his origins are ignored and geography is emphasized to make him "Nepali". As i've said before in the subject, claiming that Buddha is Nepali is like claiming that [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pytheas]Pytheas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] was French and not Greek! But that doesn't mean that Nepal's culture cannot be considered historically Indic. The Divergences are within the cultural patterns of what we classify as Indian cultures, though I suppose some today would prefer the term Subcontinental (a convenient escape to political correctness since there is no other subcontinent in the world, and differentiating between India the polity and India the culture tends to start flame wars),

Buddha was an Indo Aryan whose caste was Kshatriya, modern day Biharis have more claim to him than khasa Nepalis even in regional sense.

Do names like Siddhartha, Yashodhara, Maya and Rahul sound anything less than typical Indian names? Let Nepal be absorbed by China and Buddha will become Chinese, let Nepal be absorbed by Kazakhastan and he will become Kazakh, this is the argument of'Buddha was Nepali' crowd.

SSDD said:

Then it is more evident, Buddha was not Nepali. Because Buddha was not from Mountainous area but from Terai area which was under Indian influence.

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We're debating about the country Nepal and NOT Buddha.

Nepal was originally a Tibetan-Burmese state with the same culture as Bhutan and Tibet.

Indo-Nepalese are late comers to Nepal.

xng said:

We're debating about the country Nepal and NOT Buddha.

Nepal was originally a Tibetan-Burmese state with the same culture as Bhutan and Tibet.

Indo-Nepalese are late comers to Nepal.

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Apologies if I misdirected the thread. Buddha in no way was from Tibetan-Burmese state's culture, if he was, he would not born in Kshatriya varna.

xng said:

We're debating about the country Nepal and NOT Buddha.

Nepal was originally a Tibetan-Burmese state with the same culture as Bhutan and Tibet.

Indo-Nepalese are late comers to Nepal.

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What do you mean you're not debating Buddha? That's in the thread title!

And Indo-Aryans might be "late comers" to the region (though I would love to see source for that) but they were certainly there when Buddha was born, so the point is moot. Buddha wasn't Tibeto-Burma, he was Indo-Aryan. Being Indo-Aryan in a country which has historical retained its Indian culture and Hindi traditions, and as a political entity only emerged centuries later as being distinct, it cannot be asserted that Buddha was a "Nepali". Historically he was Indian, since the Culture he was born into and sought to influence was one associated with India, the historical entity however, not the modern political one.

I have seen a similar thread , if my memory serves right. I believe that some Chinese nationalists push for the factoid that Buddha is a Nepalese indirectly stating that he was of mongoloid race. These Chinese nationalists might be have an inferiority complex that, the chinese in the past followed a non Sinitic religion. So they come up with these sort of explanation. Buddha is Nepalese and the original people of Nepal are from Tibet and Tibetans are mongoloid and finally indirectly they are trying to say Buddha is a Chinese

I read somewhere that the Tibetians crossed the Himalayan ranges and settled in present day Nepal, might be after the arrival of the Indo-Aryan language speaking tribes.

tornada said:

And Indo-Aryans might be "late comers" to the region (though I would love to see source for that)..

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I am sure you know the meaning indigenous, and even the Hindu text mentioned them, so they were early-comers and you Indic people are late-comers.

There are many sources, one is this

People of Nepal, Nepal people, Newar, Brahmin, Chhetri, Gurung, Kiranti, Magar, Sherpa, Tharu

1. The Newars are inhabitants of a Tibeto-Burman origin who speak in Newari as well as Nepali. The Newars are among the largest indigenous groups of Nepal and make up the 7% of the total population.

2. The Kirantis are among the first group of people ruling over Nepal. Ancient Hindu texts like Himvat-Khanda and Mahabharat have mentioned their names. They basically come from eastern Nepal.

3. Brahmins are the priestly class of indo-Aryan origin, also known as Bahuns, occupies the highest position in the Hindu hierarchy. They are said to have come to Nepal from different parts of India

SSDD said:

Historically Indian civilization was in these countries- India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Nepal. Now meanwhile Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are Muslim, Nepal made their own identity. So only India is left.

.

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I was disputing this fact here. The list of countries are correct except for Nepal.

The list should include only India, Pakistan, Bangla, Afghanistan and Iran.

These are countries with the same Indo-Iranian people and similar language.
Adopting a different religion doesn't mean they are no longer Indo-Iranian people.

Nepal should be grouped together with Tibet, Bhutan, Myanmar.


http://books.google.com.my/books?id...#v=onepage&q=kiranti indigenous nepal&f=false

1. The Rai and Kirantis developed their own pan-Kiranti identity around their indigenous religion which they call Kirantism.

2. The Tamang are the most Tibetanised.

xng said:

I am sure you know the meaning indigenous, and even the Hindu text mentioned them, so they were early-comers and you Indic people are late-comers.

There are many sources, one is this

People of Nepal, Nepal people, Newar, Brahmin, Chhetri, Gurung, Kiranti, Magar, Sherpa, Tharu

1. The Newars are inhabitants of a Tibeto-Burman origin who speak in Newari as well as Nepali. The Newars are among the largest indigenous groups of Nepal and make up the 7% of the total population.

2. The Kirantis are among the first group of people ruling over Nepal. Ancient Hindu texts like Himvat-Khanda and Mahabharat have mentioned their names. They basically come from eastern Nepal.

3. Brahmins are the priestly class of indo-Aryan origin, also known as Bahuns, occupies the highest position in the Hindu hierarchy. They are said to have come to Nepal from different parts of India

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Yet by all accounts these groups were present in Nepal from about 600 BCE and likely earlier. What evidence do we have however for a specifically distinct Tibetan cultural group being present prior to this?

Obviously the Indo-Aryan cultural patterns did not originate in the region, even if one doesn't accept the Aryan Migration theory, they had to have come from the Sapta-Sindhu region sometime during the 1st or 2nd Millennium BCE. I'm not insisting there were no indigenous populations prior to the arrival of the IA. My question is different. What evidence do we have that these groups had cultural patterns of uniquely Tibetan characteristics that would allow you to claim that the culture is older than the Indo Aryans and hence makes the Aryans "late comers". Obviously they came, and did not originate there, but what evidence is there to show that there was a previous systematic culture specifically Tibetan in nature already present?

The source given by you provides no information on relative chronologies. Its a tourist website, and gives no details on the time scales involved or the emergence of cultural patterns, so it doesn't really answer my question.

I won't comment on the ethnicity of Buddha, since its meaningless and infact impossible to historically determine in any method close to resembling objectivity. However the Aryanic roots of Buddha's cultural upbringing clearly point to a cultural origins in a community that is part of the Indian supra-cultural identity.

Buddha is Indian, just as Pytheas is Greek and Claudius is Roman. To call Buddha Nepali would be like calling Pytheas and Claudius French! There's no logical rationality here is there. Sure, they aren't Greek and Roman insofar as the modern political entities are concerned, but just like the terms Greek and Roman are both historically valid terms that cover geographic areas larger than their modern political areas, the term Indian in a historical context is greater than the modern political one. Simply put, in the time period discussed, there is no such thing as Nepal, just as there was no France in the time of Claudius or Pytheas. And Buddha wasn't a Tibetan obviously insofar as his cultural patterns are concerned.

xng said:

I was disputing this fact here. The list of countries are correct except for Nepal.

The list should include only India, Pakistan, Bangla, Afghanistan and Iran.

These are countries with the same Indo-Iranian people and similar language.
Adopting a different religion doesn't mean they are no longer Indo-Iranian people.

Nepal should be grouped together with Tibet, Bhutan, Myanmar.


Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and ... - Google Books

1. The Rai and Kirantis developed their own pan-Kiranti identity around their indigenous religion which they call Kirantism.

2. The Tamang are the most Tibetanised.

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Buddha however was not, and hence is not Tibetan. I don't know enough about Nepal's demographics to determine whether they are more Hindu or something else and historically whether their population had closer affinities to Tibetan Culture or Indian. The thing is that with border cultures, such as Assam or Gandhara, and Sogdiania and Afghanistan, the issue of "affinity" and "identity" often becomes a football for nationalism rather than any actual debate, since there is varying degrees of affinity so making a hard and fast objective determination is difficult. Nepal is in a similar case. I make no comment on the Indianness or Tibetaness of Nepal. What is certain is that those aspects which are Indian in Nepal did not diverge away from the old Indic cultural patterns more than other parts of India did, as such to remove them entirely from the classification of Indian culture is incorrect.

Are they however more Tibetan than Indian? That's not something I can intelligently discuss. However the cultural identity of Buddha is beyond dispute, though what purpose this serves is beyond me. That Buddha was an indian doesn't make him less important to Chinese, Tibetan or even Central Asian and Mongolian Heritage does it?

xng said:

I was disputing this fact here. The list of countries are correct except for Nepal.

The list should include only India, Pakistan, Bangla, Afghanistan and Iran.

These are countries with the same Indo-Iranian people and similar language.
Adopting a different religion doesn't mean they are no longer Indo-Iranian people.

Nepal should be grouped together with Tibet, Bhutan, Myanmar.


Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and ... - Google Books

1. The Rai and Kirantis developed their own pan-Kiranti identity around their indigenous religion which they call Kirantism.

2. The Tamang are the most Tibetanised.

Click to expand...

Iran was never part of Indian civilization.

India's civilization is not ethnicity based, it is Indian religions based because as virtually holy lands of Indian religions are situated in this subcontinent, so these Subcontinent is holiest for any Indian religion's follower. India is not only for Indo-Iranian people, but also for Dravidians, Mongoloids and Australoids.

Average Pakistanis actively deny their Hindu root, they say their ancestors were from Arab, Iran or Central Asia, Pakistan's language is Urdu which is mixed language of Farsi and spoken language of North India perhaps Khariboli, Afghans meanwhile left Indian religions nearly 1000 years ago and picked up Central Asian culture, only Bangladeshis are some what still connected to Indian civilization because of their language, but again Indian civilization is not language based as India does not have a single or most prominent language.

India was a cultural unit binded by Indian religions, if you now leave Indian religions so you have left this.

And Buddha was not Mongoloid, Buddha was from Terai area, have you seen Terai area's people? I have seen, you cant differentiate them from North Indians.

Mongoloid Nepalis perhaps followed than Animism, but as Buddha was Kshatriya and Varna system has no place in Animism, thus Buddha was Indian.

See it-

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhesi_people]Madhesi people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] and this people were incorporated into predominantly mountainous tribe ruled Nepal much later.

Buddha was an australoid belonging to the Magadhan civilization. If I had a penny for every time a Brahmin has called Buddha as a "blackling/......" in the Buddhist Pali canon, I would be a very rich man indeed.

SSDD said:

Iran was never part of Indian civilization.

India's civilization is not ethnicity based, it is Indian religions based because as virtually holy lands of Indian religions are situated in this subcontinent, so these Subcontinent is holiest for any Indian religion's follower. India is not only for Indo-Iranian people, but also for Dravidians, Mongoloids and Australoids.

Average Pakistanis actively deny their Hindu root, they say their ancestors were from Arab, Iran or Central Asia, Pakistan's language is Urdu which is mixed language of Farsi and spoken language of North India perhaps Khariboli, Afghans meanwhile left Indian religions nearly 1000 years ago and picked up Central Asian culture, only Bangladeshis are some what still connected to Indian civilization because of their language, but again Indian civilization is not language based as India does not have a single or most prominent language.

India was a cultural unit binded by Indian religions, if you now leave Indian religions so you have left this.

And Buddha was not Mongoloid, Buddha was from Terai area, have you seen Terai area's people? I have seen, you cant differentiate them from North Indians.

Mongoloid Nepalis perhaps followed than Animism, but as Buddha was Kshatriya and Varna system has no place in Animism, thus Buddha was Indian.

See it-

Madhesi people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and this people were incorporated into predominantly mountainous tribe ruled Nepal much later.

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afghans didnt picked up central asian culture 1000 years ago they already had an mainly central asian culture mixed with indian elements in pre-islamic times.They were not part of india and india was never a homogeneous cultural unit.Actually only for very short time india was united under empires and even during the rule of this empires india was very decentralized and every region had his own distinct culture and traditions.Indian civilization is based not only on religion but also on language(sanskrit),common identity and shared customs and rituals.So a buddhist is not automatically indian and actually hinduism is not even one religion.It is just a broad term for many different religions and traditions of the indian subcontinent who share some elements

Rakshasa said:

Buddha was an australoid belonging to the Magadhan civilization. If I had a penny for every time a Brahmin has called Buddha as a "blackling/......" in the Buddhist Pali canon, I would be a very rich man indeed.

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What his ethnicity was will likely never be determined. In a lot of Indian literature, negative attributes become associated with dark color, whereas positive attributes become associated with fair colors. Thus we find Buddha variably being described as golden and black, fair and dark. Trying to accurately determine his ethnicity is thus an exercise in futility. We have no surviving descriptions of him, and AFAIK all contemporary descriptions that were supposedly written by his disciples were composed well after his lifetime and aren't really clear on his descriptions, though again IIRC it described him as fair and golden skinned, though ofcourse it may simply have been a positivist description.

Regardless however, what is clear is that the cultural patterns associated with his community are classically Indian. The historical culture known as Nepali simply did not exist at the time, any more than French culture existed in Massilia in the 1st century BCE. Buddha was most certainly not Tibetan in the slightest, and all his cultural practices, ranging from social structures and hierarchies to religion were Indian and not Tibetan. Buddha was thus Indian. Was he Caucasoid or Australoid? I'll let the nationalists and supremacists slug out that particular pointless exercise.

tornada said:

What his ethnicity was will likely never be determined. In a lot of Indian literature, negative attributes become associated with dark color, whereas positive attributes become associated with fair colors. Thus we find Buddha variably being described as golden and black, fair and dark. Trying to accurately determine his ethnicity is thus an exercise in futility. We have no surviving descriptions of him, and AFAIK all contemporary descriptions that were supposedly written by his disciples were composed well after his lifetime and aren't really clear on his descriptions, though again IIRC it described him as fair and golden skinned, though ofcourse it may simply have been a positivist description.

Regardless however, what is clear is that the cultural patterns associated with his community are classically Indian. The historical culture known as Nepali simply did not exist at the time, any more than French culture existed in Massilia in the 1st century BCE. Buddha was most certainly not Tibetan in the slightest, and all his cultural practices, ranging from social structures and hierarchies to religion were Indian and not Tibetan. Buddha was thus Indian. Was he Caucasoid or Australoid? I'll let the nationalists and supremacists slug out that particular pointless exercise.

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Buddha was specifically called dark in Buddhist Sutta. IN Agganna Sutta, the Brahmin even clearly mentioned that only Brahmins are fair all other castes are dark. This was recorded by the likes of Patanjali also. In this sense the color did not reflect attributes - it was to be taken literally. For example, no Brahmin has described that Greeks as dark, although they have often been termed as barbarians. Even if I were to agree that "dark" was a reference to negative attributes not literally to the skin color, even then if this lie is repeated a thousand, or zillion times - as it has been since Buddha's time - in common people's perception the color black will automatically be associated with "lowliness". Thus, even if the ancients did not mean it, the people will eventually consider anyone who is dark or black to be lower than someone who is white. And you probably know very well this is indeed the case in India. It hardly matters if dark color was associated with negativity or negativity was associated with dark color; eventually both have become equivalent.



Buddha considered Kuru-Panschala, the country of Indo-Aryans, to be a "foreign" country and rarely ventured there - this may be because he only faced criticism from the Brahmins.

Lol.. I wasn't aware that civilizations are defined by the skin colour..... Panchali a pure Arya .... by any standard and epitome of Beauty was described as having dark complexion. So was the Krishna. I assume these people must be the part of this "Magadhan civilization", too.

tornada said:

What his ethnicity was will likely never be determined. In a lot of Indian literature, negative attributes become associated with dark color, whereas positive attributes become associated with fair colors. Thus we find Buddha variably being described as golden and black, fair and dark. Trying to accurately determine his ethnicity is thus an exercise in futility. We have no surviving descriptions of him, and AFAIK all contemporary descriptions that were supposedly written by his disciples were composed well after his lifetime and aren't really clear on his descriptions, though again IIRC it described him as fair and golden skinned, though ofcourse it may simply have been a positivist description.

Regardless however, what is clear is that the cultural patterns associated with his community are classically Indian. The historical culture known as Nepali simply did not exist at the time, any more than French culture existed in Massilia in the 1st century BCE. Buddha was most certainly not Tibetan in the slightest, and all his cultural practices, ranging from social structures and hierarchies to religion were Indian and not Tibetan. Buddha was thus Indian. Was he Caucasoid or Australoid? I'll let the nationalists and supremacists slug out that particular pointless exercise.

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Nonsense, ethnicity is equal to mother tongue, religion and caste rank in any society, it has nothing to do with physical features of a human being.
We know all about Buddha, we know his caste was kshatriya, we know his mother tongue was a form of eastern dialect of IA , we know that his religion was Vedic one.

BTW, though I consider race as irrelevant, we also know Buddha's race, he was caucasoid, had golden color and most probably looked like many Indians of NW.

Viraspa said:

afghans didnt picked up central asian culture 1000 years ago they already had an mainly central asian culture mixed with indian elements in pre-islamic times.They were not part of india and india was never a homogeneous cultural unit.Actually only for very short time india was united under empires and even during the rule of this empires india was very decentralized and every region had his own distinct culture and traditions.Indian civilization is based not only on religion but also on language(sanskrit),common identity and shared customs and rituals.So a buddhist is not automatically indian and actually hinduism is not even one religion.It is just a broad term for many different religions and traditions of the indian subcontinent who share some elements

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IA languages, sanskrit as common elite language, Chaturvarna in pure or watered down form, Arya religions constitute a complex known as Indian civilization.
A buddhist is not automatically Indian nor is a Hindu but an Indo aryan is automatically Indian except some mountainous dards.

This man is as much Indo Aryan



as this



Time for guys to look what Indo Aryan means. Just as a Muslim can be a black, white, Midldle easterner, mongoloid and australoid, an IA can be same as neither IA nor Muslim is a term to denote races. Muslim simply means follower of islam, Indo Aryan means one whose mother tongue is IA language. I do not know how you use terms like'all are Indians, aryans, mongolods, australoids etc.' The term aryan is an ethno linguistic one not racial one.

Rakshasa said:

Buddha was an australoid belonging to the Magadhan civilization. If I had a penny for every time a Brahmin has called Buddha as a "blackling/......" in the Buddhist Pali canon, I would be a very rich man indeed.

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If I get a penny everytime I see 'australoid' in your posts, I would also be as rich.