ronki23
Well-Known Member
I got this information from a youtuber on a Muay Thai documentary,
Original Buddhism is NOT from India, nor it's Indian religion. Buddha was NOT Indian or Nepalese, he was Saka (Skaya), a Persian tribe.
Buddhism has never been a major religion in India, it has never been commonly accepted by Indians.
It's a fact that Buddha was Saka, not Indian or Nepalese.
Buddha was a member of the Scythian steppe nomads, some of whom had been encroaching since the mid-first millennium BCE into the Gandhara region, becoming sedentary in the process, eventually reaching northwest India and founding an empire there in the first century BCE.
A piece of evidence is found in the original Buddhist Pali scripture Digha Nikaya [DN 1.90-95] which tells a story of Buddha's people, the Sakyas/Scythians, as being 'foreign.' In referring to Buddha, the "Scythian-sage" (Sakyamuni), he [DN 3.144] "has blue eyes."
Saka is the name of the group of tribes of which the Scythians were one. The Sakas, ‘people of the stag,’ are associated with the animal symbols of the chakravartin, (universal ‘wheel-turning’ sovereign). Gautama Buddha was the Sakyamuni, the sage of the Sakyas.
The Indian national calendar, sometimes called the Saka calendar, is the official civil calendar in use in India. It is used, alongside the Gregorian calendar, by The Gazette of India, in news broadcasts by All India Radio and in calendars and communications issued by the Government of India. Its structure is like the Persian calendar.
The Saka era started at 78 A.D. in India to celebrate victory of Gautamiputra Satakarni over western satraps, known as Sakas.
The Saka era, also known as the Shalivahana Saka era was adopted by the Indian government as the Indian national calendar. Its year zero begins near the vernal equinox of the year 78. Saka Calendar begins on 22 March every year except in leap years when it starts on 23 March.
Indian astronomer like Varahmihir, Indian mathematician Brahmgupta and Indian historian like Kalhana used Saka era in their celebrated works.
Gurjaras of Bhinmal, Chalukyas of Badami and Rastrkutas of Deccan used the Saka era. In fact Saka era was most widespread over a span of historical times in India and it was one of the main reason for the 'Calendar Reform Committee' decided for Saka era to be the Indian National Calendar.
The Kushana emperor Kanishka is credited with the initiation of the Saka era on his accession to the throne in 78 A D. After the downfall of Kushanas their feudatory, the Sakas of Ujjain continued to use this era.
Kushana Kushan Empire was an empire in India originally formed in the early 1st century AD under Kujula Kadphises in the territories of the former Greco-Bactrian Kingdom around the Oxus River (Amu Darya), and later based near Kabul, Afghanistan.
During the 1st and early 2nd centuries AD, the Kushans expanded across the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares), where inscriptions have been found dating to the era of the Kushan emperor Kanishka, which began about 127 AD. Around 152 AD, Kanishka sent his armies north of the Karakoram mountains - a large mountain range spanning the borders between Pakistan, India and China, located in the regions of Gilgit–Baltistan (Pakistan), Ladakh (India), and Xinjiang region (China). A subrange of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Range.
Sakas (the tribe Buddha belonged) invaded and killed Indians at the time of Buddha to Christ time! Early Indian literature records military alliances between the Aryans, Sakas, Kambojas, Pahlavas and Paradas. Ancient Puranic traditions mention several joint invasions of India by Scythians. The conflict between the Bahu-Sagara of India and the Haihaya-Kamboja-Saka-Pahlava-Parada is well known as the war fought by "five hordes" (panca-ganha).
The Sakas, Yavanas, Tusharas and Kambojas also fought the Kurukshetra war under the command of Sudakshina Kamboja. The Valmiki Ramayana also attests that the Sakas, Kambojas, Pahlavas and Yavanas fought together against the Vedic, Hindu
king Vishwamitra of Kanauj.
The invasion of India by Saka tribes from Central Asia, often referred to as the Indo-Scythian invasion, played a significant part in the history of South Asia as well as nearby countries. In fact, the Indo-Scythian war is just one chapter in the events triggered by the nomadic flight of Central Asians from conflict with tribes such as the Xiongnu in the 2nd century AD, which had lasting effects on Bactria, Kabul, Parthia and India as well as far-off Rome in
the west.
The Sakas settled in areas of eastern Iran, still called after them Sistan. From there, they progressively expanded into the Indian subcontinent, where
they established various kingdoms, and where they are known as "Indo-Scythians".
in AD 78 the Sakas would again invade Ujjain (central India ) and establish the Saka era, marking the beginning of the long-lived Saka Western Satraps kingdom.
The Western Satraps, Western Kshatrapas, or Kshaharatas (35–405) were Saka rulers of the western and central part of India (Saurashtra and Malwa: modern Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh states).
The Saka (Old Persian: Saka; New Persian; Sanskrit: Saka; Latin: Sacae; Assyrian: Iskuzai/Askuzai) was the term used in Persian and Sanskrit sources for the Scythians, a large group of Eastern Aryan nomadic tribes on the Eurasian Steppe.
According to Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC), the Persians gave the name "Saka" to all Scythians.
The Scythians to the far north of Assyria were also called the Saka suni "Saka or Scythian sons" by the Persians.
The Saka regarded by the Babylonians as synonymous with the Gimirrai; both names are used synonymously on the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in 515 BC on the order of Darius the Great.
Saka tribes were part of a cultural continuum of early nomads across Siberia and the Central Eurasian steppe lands from Xinjiang to the Black Sea.
Like the Scythians whom Herodotus describes in book four of his History (Saka is an Aryan word equivalent to the Greek Scythos, and many scholars
refer to them together as Saka-Scythian), Sakas were Aryan-speaking horse nomads who deployed chariots in battle, sacrificed horses, and buried their dead in barrows or mound tombs called kurgans."
1) Buddhism entered China via the Silk Road from Central Asia (i.e. Persia), not from India, beginning in the 1st or 2nd century CE during the Han Dynasty.
2) The first documented translation efforts by Buddhist monks in China were in the 2nd century CE, possibly as a consequence of the expansion
of the Kushan Empire (Afghanistan) into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Basin (China's Xinjiang region).
3) Yuezhi and Kushans (both Central Asians) were among the first to introduce Buddhism to northern and northeastern Asia, by direct
missionary efforts and the translation of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese.
Major Yuezhi missionaries and translators included Lokaksema (Kushan) and Dharmaraksa (Yuezhi), who went to China and established translation bureaus, thereby being at the center of the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism.
Based on the existing historical texts and the archaeological iconographic materials discovered since the 1980s, particularly the first-century
Buddhist manuscripts recently found in Afghanistan, is that Buddhism started from the Greater Yuezhi of a region now is present-day Afghanistan and
Pakistan and took the land roads to reach Han China.
Prakrit, Pali and Vedic Sanskrit are oldest-known Indo-Aryan languages. Prakrit is a term used to refer to the ancient vernacular Indo-Aryan languages spoken there, upon which more modern Sanskrit have been based. Pali is another ancient Indo-Aryan language, similar to Prakrit but used primarily in writing Buddhist texts.
Pali and Sanskrit are very closely related, the common characteristics of Pali and Sanskrit were always easily recognized by those in India who were familiar with both. Indeed, a very large proportion of Pali and Sanskrit word-stems are identical in form, differing only in details of inflection.
Prakrit is any of several Middle Indo-Aryan vernacular languages and are derived from Old Indo-Aryan languages.
Indo-Aryan peoples are an ethno-linguistic group referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, and is in turn a member of the larger Indo-European language family.
Indo-Aryans (both Indo-Aryans and European Aryans) can be traced back to the Andronovo culture (2nd millennium BCE). The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Bronze Age cultures that flourished ca. 1800–1400 BCE in western Siberia and the west Asiatic steppe.
Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers, the people who later called themselves 'Aryans' in the Rig Veda and the Avesta, originated in the Sintashta-Petrovka culture (northern Eurasian steppe on the borders of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 2100-1750 BCE), in the Tobol and Ishim valleys, east of the Ural Mountains.
It was founded by pastoralist nomads from the Abashevo culture (2500-1900 BCE), ranging from the upper Don-Volga to the Ural Mountains, and the Poltavka culture (2700-2100 BCE), extending from the lower Don-Volga to the Caspian depression.
The Aryan migrations progressed further south across the Hindu Kush. By 1700 BCE, horse-riding pastoralists had penetrated into Balochistan (south-west Pakistan).
The Indus valley succumbed circa 1500 BCE, and the northern and central parts of the Indian subcontinent were taken over by 500 BCE.
Westward migrations led Old Indic Sanskrit speakers riding war chariots to Assyria, where they became the Mitanni rulers from circa 1500 BCE.
The Medes, Parthians and Persians, all Iranian speakers from the Andronovo culture, moved into the Iranian plateau from 800 BCE.
Those that stayed in Central Asia are remembered by history as the Scythians, while the Yamna descendants who remained in the Pontic-Caspian steppe became known as the Sarmatians to the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The Aryan migrations have resulted in high DNA Haplogroup R1a frequencies in southern Central Asia, Iran and the Indian subcontinent.
The highest frequency of R1a (about 65%) is reached in a cluster around Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan.
In India and Pakistan, R1a ranges from 15 to 50% of the population, depending on the region, ethnic group and caste. R1a is generally stronger is the North-West of the subcontinent, and weakest in the Dravidian-speaking South (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh) and from Bengal eastward. Over 70% of the Brahmins (highest caste in Hindusim) belong to R1a1, due to a founder effect.
References:
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Dictionary of Khotan Saka. Cambridge University Press. 1979. 1st Paperback edition 2010. ISBN 978-0-521-14250-2.
The Archaeology and Art of Central Asia. Studies From the Former Soviet Union. New Series. Edited by B. A. Litvinskii and Carol Altman Bromberg. Translation directed by Mary Fleming Zirin. Vol. 8, (1994), pp. 37–46.
"The Wu-sun and Sakas and the Yüeh-chih Migration." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 33 (1970), pp. 154–160.
"The Sakas and Indo-Parthians." In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. Harmatta, János, ed., 1994. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, pp. 191–207.
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A Study of Saka History. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 80. July, 1998. Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania
"Government Holiday Calendar". Govt. of India Official website.
Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History by E.G. Richards (ISBN 0-19-282065-7), 1998, pp. 184–185.
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"Ancient Indian Inscriptions" Kusumanjali Book World, Jodhpur (India), 2005.
India: A History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3797-0.
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History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. Paris, UNESCO Publishing.
"The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West". London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05101-1..
Kharoshthi Inscriptions with Exception of those of Asoka. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. II, Part I. Reprint: Indological Book House, Varanasi, 1969.
The flame and the lotus: Indian and Southeast Asian art from the Kronos collections. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0-87099-374-7.
"Migration and Settlement of the Yuezhi-Kushan: Interaction and Interdependence of Nomadic and Sedentary Societies." Journal of World History, Volume 12, No. 2, Fall 2001. University of Hawaii Press, pp. 261–292.
The Golden Hoard of Bactria: From the Tillya-tepe Excavations in Northern Afghanistan. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York.
"Further notes on the Bactrian inscription of Rabatak, with an Appendix on the names of Kujula Kadphises and Vima Taktu in Chinese." Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies Part 1: Old and Middle Iranian Studies. Edited by Nicholas Sims-Williams. Wiesbaden. 1998, pp. 79–93.
"The Yüeh-chih and Kani?ka in the Chinese sources." Papers on the Date of Kani?ka. Basham, A. L., ed., 1968. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 346–393.
Kushan dynasty in Encyclopædia Britannica
, who was sent to Rangoon by the British after the 1857 Mutiny and died there. 'Zafar' was his pseudo-nym in poetry) great-grandson, offers a 400 Rupee ($8) a month state pension as evidence.