Post by Please Delete on Oct 2, 2010 0:38:58 GMT -5
(Breaking this out, since the original thread is about a different topic, really. Original thread is linked at the bottom):
While I never said anything about Buddhism, I did say something about Indian religious practices. If you look at a map showing the building of temples in Japan, they do not occur in time from south to north as with everything else. The suddenly appeared in central Japan and then spread both directions. That fact alone tells you that this was not a case of cultural diffusion from the coast, but a punctuated colonization. Add to that the fact that some other concepts were not found in China, but only in the place of origin and the point of destination and there is little to argue about. Specific results can be debated.
I'm interested to hear more on what you claim are not found in China, but only in India and Japan, and what are you trying to point out regarding the temples? Are you claiming that there was an Indian colony in Japan in the early ?? century? I remember you made a claim about the idea of a Vedic colony some time ago, but I can't find the thread to reexamine it at this time.
There were Indians in Japan early on. The monk that opened the eyes of the Daibutsu in Nara was, as I recall, an Indian monk who had traveled there via China. However, Japan was hardly alone here. The kingdom(s) of Gaya on the Korean penninsula claimed their royal lineage included a princess of Ayutthaya, drawing on the perfect Indian kingdom of the Ramayana to promote their own legitimacy. (Bunhwangsa, in Gyeongju, founded in 634, shows definite Indian influence. Later Korean "histories" actually pointed to sacred Indian places being in Korea, in order to, again, legitimize their position as superior to their neighbors.
So what is the contention about Indian influences in Japan that are found nowhere else in between? If you want to go later, btw, there was a Chola period temple in Guangzhou and the Chola and Song dynasties had extensive diplomatic ties, when they weren't being played against each other by Srivijaya. However, claiming that a significant Chola merchant group created a "colony" in Japan seems to be stretching the available facts. There were extensive facilities in modern Fukuoka (Hakata Bay) for foreigners, mostly Chinese merchants, and there was probably some Indian influence there as well. Possibly even Arab and SE Asian, though I don't recall seeing much of either at the time we were there.
To claim that the jingasa comes from the vedic shield, when it was not used that way in iconography (occasional lone warriors, but they are also shown wielding i-go boards, straw hats, and anything they can get their hands on), and I know of no jingasa that has an appropriate handle to imitate a vedic shield. In addition, my study of the statuary in the museums of New Delhi and Mumbai did not in any way indicate the shields used in India conformed to the jingasa: I don't recall a single instance of one in a cone shape, and they were much smaller, strapped to the arm in a typical fashion for a round-shield (the center-grip round as a weapon of war seems to be an exception, not the rule, militarily).
Regarding the idea of a centralized spread of temples being evidence for some kind of Indian colony, I would like to recommend a few books that show how culture began to spread from a point in central Japan vice the south-north creep of the earlier Kofun, Yayoi, and Jomon Periods:
*Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan: The Tenmu Dynasty, 650-800 -- Ooms' work on the Temmu dynasty's deliberate assumption of mainland symbolism to promote their version of a ritualized state and legitimize their hegemony.
*The Four Great Temples:Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan -- Donald F. McCallum looks at the first temples in Japan--or what remains of them--and puts them together in an historical context. He shows the links between the temples in Korea and the temples in Japan.
Even the Nihon Shoki describes hows and whys of the centralized origin of most Buddhist temples, including the influx of Korean immigrants numerous enough to form their own uji (several of them, in fact).
Regarding Indian influences on Japanese martial arts, I have to again ask again, what evidence? If it is a belief in the historical/legendary teachings of a particular martial art, then I can no more gainsay your opinion any more than a religious belief. However, just as I can't use the Bible as a source of middle eastern history without corroboration, I can't take a school's legends (even my own) as historical fact without historical evidence to back it up.
I tend to give credence to the idea of Indian techniques infiltrating the martial arts of East Asia--whether through Buddhism or other tantric practices--but you see it most widespread on the continent, vice Japan, as you would expect, given Japan's isolation. Thus I would question any story that has all of the martial arts of Japan being seriously influenced by a single vedic source in the 1100s. I could see individual traditions, but it is hard to take seriously any claims that I have so far seen of a ryuha going back that far as anything more than a strict hereditary lineage; not that it couldn't happen, but that I just don't see any evidence that techniques from that era were codified and maintained throughout Japan's history into the modern day, especially considering the drastic changes that warfare and martial arts underwent between the Mongol invasions, the Sengoku period, the Pax Tokugawa, and the even more drastic Meiji period, when many arts were lost because of the death throes of the shogunate and the strict edicts to eliminate the "samurai" caste in the Meiji reformations.
Finally, there are numerous ritual implements found in Japan, such as the vajra, which are drawn directly from Indian iconography, but which are equally (or more) present on the mainland.
So please, what am I missing? You claim that evidence is abundant, but in all of my trips to Japan, in all my training, and in my journeys across Asia, I have yet to encounter the evidence you believe is prolific; I would love to see what I am missing, or perhaps I am just misunderstanding your argument.
-Ii
PS: For those interested in the thread I'm responding to:
* Did the Japanese Use Shields?
PPS: I recall that there was a Vedic colony thread that I tried to get back to, now that I have more experience, but it seems to have dropped off the face of the Net.
I'm interested to hear more on what you claim are not found in China, but only in India and Japan, and what are you trying to point out regarding the temples? Are you claiming that there was an Indian colony in Japan in the early ?? century? I remember you made a claim about the idea of a Vedic colony some time ago, but I can't find the thread to reexamine it at this time.
There were Indians in Japan early on. The monk that opened the eyes of the Daibutsu in Nara was, as I recall, an Indian monk who had traveled there via China. However, Japan was hardly alone here. The kingdom(s) of Gaya on the Korean penninsula claimed their royal lineage included a princess of Ayutthaya, drawing on the perfect Indian kingdom of the Ramayana to promote their own legitimacy. (Bunhwangsa, in Gyeongju, founded in 634, shows definite Indian influence. Later Korean "histories" actually pointed to sacred Indian places being in Korea, in order to, again, legitimize their position as superior to their neighbors.
So what is the contention about Indian influences in Japan that are found nowhere else in between? If you want to go later, btw, there was a Chola period temple in Guangzhou and the Chola and Song dynasties had extensive diplomatic ties, when they weren't being played against each other by Srivijaya. However, claiming that a significant Chola merchant group created a "colony" in Japan seems to be stretching the available facts. There were extensive facilities in modern Fukuoka (Hakata Bay) for foreigners, mostly Chinese merchants, and there was probably some Indian influence there as well. Possibly even Arab and SE Asian, though I don't recall seeing much of either at the time we were there.
To claim that the jingasa comes from the vedic shield, when it was not used that way in iconography (occasional lone warriors, but they are also shown wielding i-go boards, straw hats, and anything they can get their hands on), and I know of no jingasa that has an appropriate handle to imitate a vedic shield. In addition, my study of the statuary in the museums of New Delhi and Mumbai did not in any way indicate the shields used in India conformed to the jingasa: I don't recall a single instance of one in a cone shape, and they were much smaller, strapped to the arm in a typical fashion for a round-shield (the center-grip round as a weapon of war seems to be an exception, not the rule, militarily).
Regarding the idea of a centralized spread of temples being evidence for some kind of Indian colony, I would like to recommend a few books that show how culture began to spread from a point in central Japan vice the south-north creep of the earlier Kofun, Yayoi, and Jomon Periods:
*Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan: The Tenmu Dynasty, 650-800 -- Ooms' work on the Temmu dynasty's deliberate assumption of mainland symbolism to promote their version of a ritualized state and legitimize their hegemony.
*The Four Great Temples:Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan -- Donald F. McCallum looks at the first temples in Japan--or what remains of them--and puts them together in an historical context. He shows the links between the temples in Korea and the temples in Japan.
Even the Nihon Shoki describes hows and whys of the centralized origin of most Buddhist temples, including the influx of Korean immigrants numerous enough to form their own uji (several of them, in fact).
Regarding Indian influences on Japanese martial arts, I have to again ask again, what evidence? If it is a belief in the historical/legendary teachings of a particular martial art, then I can no more gainsay your opinion any more than a religious belief. However, just as I can't use the Bible as a source of middle eastern history without corroboration, I can't take a school's legends (even my own) as historical fact without historical evidence to back it up.
I tend to give credence to the idea of Indian techniques infiltrating the martial arts of East Asia--whether through Buddhism or other tantric practices--but you see it most widespread on the continent, vice Japan, as you would expect, given Japan's isolation. Thus I would question any story that has all of the martial arts of Japan being seriously influenced by a single vedic source in the 1100s. I could see individual traditions, but it is hard to take seriously any claims that I have so far seen of a ryuha going back that far as anything more than a strict hereditary lineage; not that it couldn't happen, but that I just don't see any evidence that techniques from that era were codified and maintained throughout Japan's history into the modern day, especially considering the drastic changes that warfare and martial arts underwent between the Mongol invasions, the Sengoku period, the Pax Tokugawa, and the even more drastic Meiji period, when many arts were lost because of the death throes of the shogunate and the strict edicts to eliminate the "samurai" caste in the Meiji reformations.
Finally, there are numerous ritual implements found in Japan, such as the vajra, which are drawn directly from Indian iconography, but which are equally (or more) present on the mainland.
So please, what am I missing? You claim that evidence is abundant, but in all of my trips to Japan, in all my training, and in my journeys across Asia, I have yet to encounter the evidence you believe is prolific; I would love to see what I am missing, or perhaps I am just misunderstanding your argument.
-Ii
PS: For those interested in the thread I'm responding to:
* Did the Japanese Use Shields?
PPS: I recall that there was a Vedic colony thread that I tried to get back to, now that I have more experience, but it seems to have dropped off the face of the Net.
