Our History Series 6

How did the followers of The Enlightened One fare as time went by will be the subject of Our History Series 6. It was very eventful must be the short answer.

The extreme Left image above is an image cast in silver and comes from Nepal, his native land. As can be seen here, it was very austere while its most prominent feature was its curly locks. Early European scholars mistakenly believed based on this this single piece of evidence that the Buddha was of African descent.

The second image depicts the Buddha from Karnataka, India in its full glory with a crown and four arms as demanded of all Hindu divinities. For well over a millennia, the Buddha has been recognized by the Hindus as one of the ten awatr (avatara) of Bisnu (Visnu) and no eyebrows could be raised but now that it has become a common knowledge that the Buddha was after all a Mongolian Prince from Nepal, brahminic elements may arrive at a different conclusion.

The third picture above shows how the Buddha went westward and began to look more like the Hellenic god Apollo than the Kirati Mongolian Prince that he was. Unfortunately the Western Buddhism died centuries ago and only statuary remains are there to inform us of its glorious past.

Next comes the famous Kanishka Casket now in Peshawar Museum, Pakistan which is signed and dated by its Greek maker Agesilas dated 127 C.E. The casket was found to contain when first opened in 1908, three pieces of bones believed to be that of the Buddha and were sent to Myanmar where they are now. Atop the casket are standing Brahma and Indra worshipping the Buddha seated in between.

The last picture is that of Petra in Jordanian desert discovered by Swiss archeologist Johann Burckhardt in 1912. Lying in obscurity for over a millennium and in absence of any claimants, it was arbitrarily ascribed to a long forgotten biblical tribe Nabateans or Edomites. Petra however, was the epicenter of the Ashokan monk missionaries who had carved out their monastery in the sandstones and every Kirati Mongolian need to lay rightful claims over the Petra Monastery on behalf of our ancestors.

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