Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

Post by Huseng »

Sherlock wrote: Based on the above, I think that there is little evidence for any significant Mesopotamian influence in the Buddha's immediate background. Any "non-Indo-European" influence is more likely to have come from the non-Indo-Aryan peoples of India, but that will be even harder to identify.
If Malati J. Shendge's theory is correct, the Indus Valley Civilization was Akkadian speaking. In addition, several gods that later became very popular like Shiva had their origins in Mesopotamia.

With respect to the Buddha's immediate background, I imagine the Mesopotamian influences might have been comparable to, say, Hebrew influences in western Europe. It was there, albeit heavily diluted but nevertheless visible (like personal names).
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

Post by Sherlock »

Indrajala wrote:
Sherlock wrote: Based on the above, I think that there is little evidence for any significant Mesopotamian influence in the Buddha's immediate background. Any "non-Indo-European" influence is more likely to have come from the non-Indo-Aryan peoples of India, but that will be even harder to identify.
If Malati J. Shendge's theory is correct, the Indus Valley Civilization was Akkadian speaking. In addition, several gods that later became very popular like Shiva had their origins in Mesopotamia.

With respect to the Buddha's immediate background, I imagine the Mesopotamian influences might have been comparable to, say, Hebrew influences in western Europe. It was there, albeit heavily diluted but nevertheless visible (like personal names).
That's a very big if. There are no traces of Akkadian script in the Indus Valley. What is your source for saying that Shiva originated in Mesopotamia?

The Jews had spread throughout the Roman Empire and Christianity was derived from their scriptures. However, until the Christianization of Northern Europe, any influence they had on the Norse was minimal at best. I think the the Mesopotamian influence in the Central Gangetic plain was likewise minimal.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

Post by Huseng »

Sherlock wrote: That's a very big if. There are no traces of Akkadian script in the Indus Valley. What is your source for saying that Shiva originated in Mesopotamia?
Malati J. Shendge identifies many cognate Sanskrit words in Akkadian. Shiva is one of them.

This isn't so surprising because there are Akkadian loanwords in Vedic Sanskrit.

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=Xb6C ... iv&f=false

I don't think this is certain evidence, but it is evidence suggestive of Mesopotamian origins.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

Post by Sherlock »

From a brief glance through the preview, some of her posited connections between Akkadian and Vedic names of Asuras seem interesting, but her hypothesis on the whole is to refute the idea that there was an Indo-European family at all and that Sanskrit evolved from Akkadian. I know a lot of educated Indians don't believe in the IE theory, but it just doesn't fly in the face of all the data.

Some of her criticisms of the IE theory are justified but others are not. Those that are justified (e.g. proto-Indo-European speakers not being racially homogenous, i.e., genetics and culture not necessarily being tied to language) are taken into account by modern scholars.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Sherlock wrote:From a brief glance through the preview, some of her posited connections between Akkadian and Vedic names of Asuras seem interesting, but her hypothesis on the whole is to refute the idea that there was an Indo-European family at all and that Sanskrit evolved from Akkadian. I know a lot of educated Indians don't believe in the IE theory, but it just doesn't fly in the face of all the data.

Some of her criticisms of the IE theory are justified but others are not. Those that are justified (e.g. proto-Indo-European speakers not being racially homogenous, i.e., genetics and culture not necessarily being tied to language) are taken into account by modern scholars.
I'm less interested in her overarching theory and more interested in the cognates between Sanskrit and Akkadian she identifies.

Again, not surprising given the known Akkadian loanwords in Vedic Sanskrit, plus all the trade contact between the Indian subcontinent and Mesopotamia in the distant past.

The Shape of Ancient Thought explores all this in the first part of the book.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

Post by Huseng »

Here are some interesting points about how the Hindu yuga cycle uses numbers identical with what is found in ancient Babylon:
  • The Babylonian priest Berossus – who lived in the third century B.C. and is said to have been the last priest of Marduk, the god of the Old Babylonians – presented a chronology in which 432,000 years elapsed between the descent of kingship from the gods and the great flood – that is, between a world-beginning and a world-destruction. Other examples of the decimal-sexagesimal mix include Berossus' list of ten kings who reigns totaled 432,000 and the Hindu Great Year, which is made up of 10 units of 432,000. Berossus gives the first extant explicit definition of the Great Year: It lasts 432,000 human years and ends in fire when all the planets are conjunct in Capricorn (an astronomical definition of the Great Winter).
Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (New Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2008), 76.
  • In this analysis, the Sumero-Babylonian sexagesimal arithmetic, the Sumerian calendar, the Sumerian king lists, and myths found in Greece,India, Babylon, Iceland, and Ireland, all involve numbers derived from the arithmetic of the Precession of the Equinoxes. The Precession, as the vastest of observable temporal cycles – still sometimes known among astronomers as the Great Year, or the Platonic Year – holds sway in myths of cosmic cyclicity. This would seem to account for sexagesimality: It was adopted because it was the most convenient notation for the arithmetic of the Precession of the Equinoxes, which in turn was seen, with a religious feeling, as a Master Code controlling (and, by way of adjusted calendar, uniting) events on earth and in heaven.
Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (New Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2008), 78-79.

The introduction of such numerology into India might postdate the life of the Buddha by a few centuries, though it might not. The Laws of Manu for instance (compiled perhaps between 300 BCE and 300 CE) present the model of cyclical yugas along with sexagesimal numbers.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Not relevant to the numerology, but to Kali Age literature more broadly, is the actual question of: what does it mean? Why does Kali Age literature arise, and what is it's purpose in the Brāhmaṇa state of affairs. It seems clear to me that the Kali Yuga, for Brāhmaṇas, was almost synonymous with the Buddhist era. The rise and flourishing of Buddhism, for the orthodox Brāhmaṇa, meant the decline of the pure varṇāśramadharma (relevant to the thread for the obvious racial connotations too):
Verardi, [i]Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India[/i], 81. wrote:In the alternation of kings and dynasties that followed the downfall of the Mauryas - an issue to which modern historians have attached little importance - we can discern the attempts to translate into terms of political power the antinomial model of society or, from the Brahmanical point of view, the rising and setting up, in successive waves, of the Kali age. The memory of Aśoka, always kept alive in Buddhist countries, was to disappear from the horizon of Indian history not because of an inexplicable refusal or inability of the Brahmanical elites to keep the record of past and present events in chronicals and histories, but because of a targeted hostility to handing down whatever history was not their own.
An example of the Kali age as being distinctive of the Buddhist era, with the Buddhist rejection of varṇā and Yajñas, is exemplified by the Vāyu Purāṇa:
Vāyu Purāṇa, I.58.34-70 wrote:In Kali Yuga, people do not accept the authority of Smṛtis. ... There is danger and fear to people owing to wrong performance of sacrifices, neglect of Vedic studies ... The Brāhmaṇas do not perform Yajñas [Note that a great proportion of Buddhists would come from Brāhmaṇa families] ... Low-bown and insignificant persons have contact with Brāhmaṇas in sharing beds, seats, and food in Kali Age. Kings are mainly śūdras [reference to the Nanda dynasty, sometimes considered Buddhist] propagating hertic ideas. People never hesitate to kill a child in the womb [a common Brāhmaṇa allegory for śramaṇism, where renunciation of family life deprives one's family of rightful children] ... The kings do not belong to the Kṣatriya clan [ironic considering many Brāhmaṇas were fond of taking over kingship themselves]. Vaiśyas maintain themselves with the help of śūdras. The noble Brāhmaṇas perform obeisance to śūdras at the end of the Kali Age. ... In this base Yuga, people will have trading propensity [of course referring to Buddhists, who made up the vast majority of the merchant class]. ... The whole society abounds in heretics of foul conduct and activity with their false appearance. Men will be in a minority and women will be many, when the end of the Kali Yuga is imminent. ... When the close of the Yuga is imminent, śūdras exhibiting their white teeth [relevant to this thread, note the racial connotations here - being darker skinned, their teeth appear whiter], with clean shaven heads and wearing ochre-coloured robes will perform sacred, rites, proclaiming that they have conquered the sense organs. ... The Vedas will be seen in some places and not seen in some places. ... Yajñas are forsaken when Dharma receives a setback. There will be many types of heretics like wearers of ochre-coloured robes (Buddhists), Jainas, and Kāpālikas. ... Heretics antagonistic to the discipline and arrangement of different castes and stages of life will be born. When Kali Yuga sets in, the Vedas will not be studied. śūdras will be experts and authorities in the affairs of Dharma. ... People will kill and destroy children in wombs. ... The Vedas will be seen somewhere and not seen in some places. When Dharma is harassed Yajñas are forsaken.
And the Bhāgavata's Viṣṇudharma Upapurāṇa:
Viṣṇudharma Upapurāṇa in [i]Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism[/i], Eugène Burnouf, 2010, p. 395. wrote:At the time, the vile śūdras, bearing the signs of mendicancy, will not serve the twice-born people, nor will they practice their own dharma. Some will become Utcokas, Saugatas, Mahāyānists, and the heretical Kāpalicas and Bhikṣus, while other wicked śūdras will turn śākyas, śravakas, nirgranthas and siddhaputras in the Kali age. Turning wandering mendicants the villainous śūdras will undergo no physical purification, have crooked nature, and habitually live on food prepared by others.
Also, Asuras are an analogy for Buddhists in many Brāhmaṇa writings and inscriptions, and Viṣṇu and śiva are commonly depicted as emerging IN the Kali Age, for the destruction over Asuras. On P. 224, Verardi shows an inscription where not only are Buddhists referenced as being these Asuras defeated by śiva in the Kali Age, but the associated panel depicts śiva, surrounded by lions (metaphor for killing Buddhists), on top of an elephant head (allegorical Buddhist). There are so many instances of things like this that it because very apparent what the message of "Kali Age" literature is: down with Buddhism, death to the Bauddhas.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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I came across this point in The Shape of Ancient Thought:
  • The Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia that preserves much ancient lore, says the doctrine of reincarnation was introduced into Greece by Pherecydes of Syros, a “bizarre figure” (as one modern figure calls him) whom Porphyry credits with the ability to remember his past incarnations. This tradition is obliquely supported by Cicero's statement (Tusc. I.38) that Pherecydes was the first of the Greeks to teach the immortality of the soul. Pherecydes was one of the semilegendary Seven Sages of the archaic period of Greek culture. He may have lived about 650 B.C. (according to Theopompus) or about a century later (according to Apollodorus). He “was almost certainly a generation younger than Thales,” says a modern scholar, and this later date would locate him in the period when Greece and India were linked by the Persian Empire. He wrote a book called the Theology (An Account of Sacred Things, or Of the Gods), the fragments of which show traces of doctrines found in the Greek poems called the Orphic Theogonies – Zeus, for example, changing into Eros in order to create the world. Pherecydes may have borrowed from books attributed to Orpheus, or he himself, as an author from whom Orphics borrowed, may have contributed to them unwittingly. His sources are variously reported, though it is widely agreed that he imported non-Greek ideas. Josephus said, “Pherecydes and others learned from the Egyptians and Chaldeans.” The Suda says he used the “secret books of the Phoenicians.”
Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (New Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2008), 103-104.

That last point there that Pherecydes learned from the Egyptians and Chaleans while possibly using "secret books of the Phoenicians" is noteworthy.

If we bear in mind that Indo-Aryans -- probably related to those who settled in north India like the Buddha's ancestors -- at one point settled in Mitanni (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni), then quite possibly Mesopotamian beliefs concerning reincarnation might have been absorbed. This is just speculation of course. However, in addition to this, the existence of Akkadian loanwords in Vedic Sanskrit is highly suggestive of deep cultural contacts with Mesopotamia, or possibly Akkadian speakers closer to or even in India.

The more I think about it, the more likely it seems the Buddha's heritage was probably deeply influenced by earlier Mesopotamian elements. If we consider that the second urbanization of India was only unfolding several generations prior to the Buddha's birth, then all things considered Magadha was a relatively young civilization and prone to adopt much from foreign lands consequently. As Thomas McEvilley points out, long before the Buddha there were many trade routes between Mesopotamia and India, even going back to Harappan times.

Even after the Buddha's death there were profound changes to north Indian civilization as a result of the Persian empire collapsing -- refugee artisans from Persia fled to India and contributed greatly to various forms of art like sculpture (the National Museum of India in Delhi details this in the gallery), and possibly contributed to the development of an Indian script. It definitely wasn't immune to strong influences.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Ven. Indrajala; thanks! This is really fascinating. Interestingly Zoroastrianism which is very old has no theory of reincarnation....I was finally able after much study to reify my Buddhist views using pre and post Socratic Greek and Roman philosophy. Pyrrhonism (Madhyamika) Pythagoreanism - transmigration, Heraclitus and more. It's not either or but a shared background.
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Chih-I:
The Tai-ching states "the women in the realms of Mara, Sakra and Brahma all neither abandoned ( their old) bodies nor received (new) bodies. They all received buddhahood with their current bodies (genshin)" Thus these verses state that the dharma nature is like a great ocean. No right or wrong is preached (within it) Ordinary people and sages are equal, without superiority or inferiority
Paul, Groner "The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture"eds. Tanabe p. 58
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

Post by Huseng »

Also neither the Rg Veda nor Homer mention reincarnation.

So, presumably, it wasn't an original Indo-European belief.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Makes sense to me. Especially Homer, I hadn't thought of that. Interestingly Judaism from the 1st century CE and probably even earlier had a belief in reincarnation - gilgul. Even to this day, though until the current passion for neo- Kabbalah it was never really mainstream nor discussed generally.
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Chih-I:
The Tai-ching states "the women in the realms of Mara, Sakra and Brahma all neither abandoned ( their old) bodies nor received (new) bodies. They all received buddhahood with their current bodies (genshin)" Thus these verses state that the dharma nature is like a great ocean. No right or wrong is preached (within it) Ordinary people and sages are equal, without superiority or inferiority
Paul, Groner "The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture"eds. Tanabe p. 58
https://www.tendai-usa.org/
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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The doctrine of reincarnation seems to be from the āraṇya and śramaṇa period. The first brāhmaṇas to hold the doctrine seem to be the in the common era with the Purāṇas and Bhagavadgītā - when neo-Brāhmaṇism was being formulated in competetive reaction to the rise of Buddhism.

Kabbalists were definitely part of the trans-continental dialogue between gnostic systems, of which śramaṇas would have been the primary, if not only part with regards to India (owing to the fact that ports and commerce around 1st C BC-CE Classical India were almost wholly a domain of Buddhist and Jain affairs). As for what is meant by "gnostic systems," a very difficult term to use in light of the great variety and richness of antinomian texts we have from the Levant in that era, and for it's relationship with India, Verardi has a very useful discussion from pages 71-73 of Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Metempsychosis was said to be part of the Celtic Druids' belief by Caesar. Unless you make the claim that they wereinfluenced by Greek philosophers, which is impossible to prove, that is another IE branch that believes in reincarnation. On the other hand language relation is not exactly a direct indicator of shared culture or genetics anyway.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Well, it is undeniable that the Celts did trade with the eastern Mediterranean, including those who did not live in the western Mediterranean, so indirect discourse with the orient was unavoidable for them. Celts also claimed that metempsychosis was a 49 day process, which is identical to the Indian beliefs (of course the number is how many days there are, on average, from Samhain/Allentide to Solstice). But it is undeniable that most Indo-Europeans did not hold this belief - recall also that our information about Celtic religions is comparatively late, and from the period in which trade with the east was flourishing. I also recall reading years ago that there were Phonecian human sacrifice practices, that found direct analogies in Celtic human sacrifice practices. Of course, human sacrifice definitely is one Indo-European characteristic that was common to East and West, but it may simply be a universal ancient human practice, The Character of Kingship by Declan Quigley makes a good argument that not only this is so, but that most practices of kingship are based upon primaeval human sacrifice rites.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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For an interesting approach to the Indo-Iranian issue, see Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age (Princeton UP, 2009), Appendix A: "The Proto-Indo-Europeans and Their Diaspora." Quoth he:
Avestan looks less like an Iranian language than like a phonologically Iranized Indic language. The many inexplicable problems of Avestan and the culture thought to be represented in the text of the Avesta can be accounted for as an artifact of Iranians having adopted an oral religious text--clearly a heterodox one by comparison with the Vedas--from an Old Indic dialect. As required of Indic religious practitioners, they memorized it exactly, but in the process, or afterward, it underwent specifically Iranian sound shifts in the mouths of the Iranian-speaking oral reciters. As noted above, Avestan is known exclusively as a literary language of the Zoroastrian religion--it is not known where it was spoken or even if it was spoken at all (which seems unlikely)--and it is only attested quite recently. Simple phonological change due to Iranian speakers attempting to preserve an Old Indic dialect text orally over a long period of time would thus explain virtually everything about Avestan.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Sherlock wrote:Metempsychosis was said to be part of the Celtic Druids' belief by Caesar. Unless you make the claim that they wereinfluenced by Greek philosophers, which is impossible to prove, that is another IE branch that believes in reincarnation. On the other hand language relation is not exactly a direct indicator of shared culture or genetics anyway.
However, the Celts had been in direct contact with Roman and Hellenic cultures long before Caesar's time. Also, regular contact with earlier Near Eastern traders was likely. I recall reading somewhere about bronze production often relying on imported metals from as far away as Britain in the late Bronze Age.

It is of course possible the Celts developed such a belief in metempsychosis on their own without foreign influences, though given that their neighboring cultures often did have such beliefs and that other Indo-European cultures did not at least initially, it seems likely it was an imported idea.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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It's more helpful to think that there aren't 'celts' per se there are Celtic speakers with a shared culture. In the ancient world Celtic culture was all over Europe; France, Belgium, Germany, the Celtic tribes invaded the Balkans and Thrace around 300 BCE and then Galatia in Turkey, that name means 'Gaul.' The inhabitants of Galatia were called 'galli' Gauls by the Romans. Interestingly the eunuch transvestite priests of Magna Mater, Cybele (Kubaba) are called 'galli'. The ancient cult of Cybele revolves around the myth of Attis dying and being reincarnated. Kingship in the Middle East. The king mates with the priestess who is the stand in for the goddess, to ensure the fertility of the lands..The 'shepherd' imagery of the Hebrew bible comes from this notion of kingship.

Just to make things clear, Christianity doesn't come from Judaism, it's a late syncretic religion, they use the Hebrew Scriptures to give them antiquity, but the entire thesis: trinity, dying for the people's sins, god's son is totally alien to Judaism, which is why there were few Jewish followers.

Also David Rankin in "Celts and the Classical World" says we shouldn't assume celtic beliefs of survival after death were like Indic and pythagorean notions of transmigration rather more like the writer Lucan suggests "for the Celts 'death is the middle of a long life.'" They had no notion of punshiment or retribution after death, Pythagoras taught otherwise.

Just some ideas of how geographically widespread the Celtic tribes were in the ancient world, and the Phoenicians were as far as Cadiz (Gades) Spain and Carthage in North Africa.
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Chih-I:
The Tai-ching states "the women in the realms of Mara, Sakra and Brahma all neither abandoned ( their old) bodies nor received (new) bodies. They all received buddhahood with their current bodies (genshin)" Thus these verses state that the dharma nature is like a great ocean. No right or wrong is preached (within it) Ordinary people and sages are equal, without superiority or inferiority
Paul, Groner "The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture"eds. Tanabe p. 58
https://www.tendai-usa.org/
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

Post by Sherlock »

Yes that is a good point about the geographical rangeof the Celts. Just because there were Celts in Anatolia does nothowever indicate that Greek and Anatolian ideas penetrated the Celtic heartland in and near Britain. Likewise Mitanni displaying signs of a small Indo-Aryan superstrate does not indicate that Mitanni influenced people in India.

The point about Avestan being an Iranized dialect of Indo-Aryan is interesting though
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

Post by Huseng »

Sherlock wrote: The point about Avestan being an Iranized dialect of Indo-Aryan is interesting though
Some Avestan hymns are almost identical to ones found in Sanskrit:
  • yo vo apo vasvish yajate asuranish asurasya vashishthabyo hotrabhyo
    (Sanskrit)

    yo vo apo vanguhish yazaite ahuranish ahurahe vahishtabyo zaothrabyo
    (Avestan)


    He who worships you, the good waters, the Ahurian wives of Ahura, with best
    libations.
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Re: Śākyamuni's non-Indo-European heritage.

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Sherlock; you have a common but mistaken notion of Ireland and Britain as the Celtic heartland. The Celtic people originated in Central Europe, there is the idea due to linguistic similiarities that they may have been related to the Thracians. David Rankin in the "Celt and the Classical World" points out that by 600 BCE the Phoenicians had colonized the south of France and Greeks established Massilia modern Marseilles where the Celtic tribes were. The great Roman scholar Varro said the languages spoken in Marseilles were Latin, Greek and Celtic. Now Gaul if you are thinkind Druids was a heartland of Druidism.

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Chih-I:
The Tai-ching states "the women in the realms of Mara, Sakra and Brahma all neither abandoned ( their old) bodies nor received (new) bodies. They all received buddhahood with their current bodies (genshin)" Thus these verses state that the dharma nature is like a great ocean. No right or wrong is preached (within it) Ordinary people and sages are equal, without superiority or inferiority
Paul, Groner "The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture"eds. Tanabe p. 58
https://www.tendai-usa.org/
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