VedicSktPreface.htm
Excerpts from A History of Sanskrit Literature, by
by A. A. Macdonell, 1900,
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AAMacdonell-HistSktLit<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô>
(link chk 200314)
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AAMacdonell-HistSktLit<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô>
- not user friendly
Edited, with additions from Pali sources, by U Kyaw Tun (UKT) (M.S., I.P.S.T., USA) and staff of Tun Institute of Learning (TIL) . Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone. Prepared for students and staff of TIL Research Station, Yangon, MYANMAR : http://www.tuninst.net , www.romabama.blogspot.com
UKT 200405: The English transcription "Rig" of "Rigveda" has been misleading for me. The R is not a consonant. It shows the rhotic pronunciation of vowel /i/. "Rig" is the rhotic version of vowel letter
{I.} इ from the word
{I.þi.} or Rishi. My transcription and translation of "Rigveda" ऋग्वेद «ṛgveda» (= ऋ ग ् व े द) is
{iRRi.} "Knowledge of Rishis}.
UKT's Preface : on Vedic language and
religion
Esoteric nature of the Myanmar akshara
Macdonell's Preface:
-- UKT 130716, ... , 190424, 200314
UKT 190424: This has appeared as a short note in foregoing files since 130716.
Remember a language is composed of speech{sa.ka:}, and script
{sa}.
UKT 200404: I'm following Macdonell's History based on my mental picture of peoples and languages on the Indian subcontinent stretching into Burma. Going back into the geological period of the break-up of the Gondwanna super-continent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana 200404), you'll see that the Indian subcontinent itself had belonged to Africa and had moved and crashed into the Asian land mass. Burma was at that time mostly under water of Teythys Ocean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethys_Ocean 200404). Of course, there were no peoples as we know of them today. But still there might be different kinds of homonids who developed their speech organs differently as they developed into humans. The way they pronounced their vowels and consonants would depend on the way of the muscles were developed. Just as the skin colour, the hair on the skin and the hair on the head developed differently, so would the speech-muscles developed differently.
The subcontinent of India was already populated by brown-skinned peoples speaking various languages of Tibeto-Burman (Tib-Bur) group, when two groups of foreigners slowly infiltrated into the land. One group with fair-skin, rather tall in height and with a preference to sibilant speech were the the speakers of Indo-European (IE) languages. They called themselves the Aryans - the Perfect. They spoke a pre-Sanskrit language which was sibilant and rhotic. They came in from the north-west. Since they had to cross the grasslands at one time they brought in their horses and their wheeled-chariots. They were nomadic in nature and had learned to find their way using celestial navigation on land. They worshipped male gods.
The next group of infiltrators with dark-skin, rather short in height spoke highly rhotic Dravidian languages of the Austro-Asiatic (Aus-Asi) group. They came in from the south, across the ocean. They too had learned to find their way using celestial navigation on ocean. They also worshipped male gods.
Compared to the infiltrating groups, the original inhabitants were sedentary farmers who had not developed the horse drawn carriage but the water-buffalo to pull the plough. They don't have to know the stars well and they only depend on the Moon to time the growing and harvesting seasons. They worshipped Mother-goddesses.
Before I set out on Sanskrit as a speech, after
watching a TV program in Canada on the epic
Mahabharata War, and after going through this
epic on Internet sources, I did not know anything
about Panini
{hsa.ra pa-Ni.ni.} - the Sanskrit
linguist (erroneously dubbed grammarian).
Then I came to know of the difference in pre-Panini
language which was known as Vedic-Sanskrit, and the
post-Panini language which is called the Classical
Sanskrit. I became fascinated with the story of
Mahabharata War, a war between the Pandavas and
Kaurivas -- legal cousins. I will view this war as a war between IE speakers.
One of my interests in this war is because of a character by the name Widura
{wi.Du-ra.
pûN~ði.ta.} -- a minister.
As Buddhists, we are familiar with the name Widura
{wi.Du-ra.
pûN~ði.ta.} -- a minister who became a pawn in
the game of dice between the Pandavas and Kaurivas.
There was probably two Widura -- the one in
the Buddhist Birth stories, and the other in
Mahabharata.
There are two other wars that are of interest to me: the war between IE speakers
and Aus-Asi speakers described in Ramayana Epic, and the war between Tib-Bur
speakers and IE speakers (Battle of Ten Kings -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Ten_Kings 200404). For me, this
third war is the most interesting because, I believed it to be the origin of
kings and wars in Burma. Burma was originally peopled with Tib-Bur speakers, the
Pyus
{pyu lu-myo:} who hate war and lived in small communities without one single
ruler who called himself king, and everyone else his servants.
UKT 200316: Now we will go into Vedic and Sanskrit as separate languages. Instead of using clumsy word-combinations like "Vedic-Sanskrit" and "Classical Sanskrit", I will use "Vedic" for the former and "Sanskrit" for the latter. Vedic, itself, we know know nothing. It seems that Original Vedic (Tib-Bur) was slowly changed by IE speakers into different strata. I postulate that the original inhabitants spoke a Tib-Bur pre-Vedic language or languages the remnants of which are still to be found in what may been described as Kirata languages. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirata 200404) They are very simple languages like the colloquial Bur-Myan without inflexions. The language of Magadha was supposed to be so simple that even the higher animals, such as elephants, horses, dogs, and cats can understand it. Then comes the RigVeda Vedic language, which can be split into different strata. See also:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_period 200404
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda 200404
Now what about the religion. Religion should like the language was of two kinds.
The original inhabitants believed in Nature spirits and Mothers (or
Mother-goddesses. It is probably similar to the Bon religion of pre-Buddhist
Tibet. -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon 200404
Incidentally, in Myanmarpré, we have a centre near Yangon known as BaunDawChoap
{paún:tau-hkyoak}, where you will see wild pythons and people coexisting
peacefully. Apart from similarity in names I cannot say whether it has any
connection the Bon religion of Tibet.
My (UKT) interest in Sanskrit has lead me to:
• Glossary of Sanskrit Terms
||संस्कृत शब्दार्थ ||
from
https://sanskritdocuments.org/dict/dictall.html
200316
If you go online, you'll get it on a colored background.
You can copy-paste Devanagari script from it, e.g.
संस्कृत शब्दार्थ
I'm preparing what I'm calling Sanskrit Glossary
for Buddhists and Hindus based on the above.
TOC is according to rows: row#1, velar C1; row#2,
palatal C2; row#3, retroflex C3; row#4, dental C4; ...
-
SktGloss-indx.htm (link chk 200316)
• SpkSkt - Hypertext Spoken Sanskrit
English Dictionary (with Devanagari script) -
go online first:
-
http://www.spokensanskrit.de/ 101106, ... , 200316
I will begin my note with the Vedic or Vedic-Sanskrit as different from Classical Sanskrit of Panini. The following is based on the Substratum in the Vedic-Sanskrit , keeping in mind that I do not consider Vedic to be an IE (Indo-European) language, and therefore I will use the word Vedic instead of Vedic-Sanskrit.
From Wikipedia:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substrata_in_the_Vedic_language 130717, 190428, 200316
UKT 200316: Surprisingly not a word on Tib-Bur languages is in the article.
Vedic has a number of linguistic features which are alien to
most other Indo-European languages. [UKT ¶]
UKT 190428: Why do Westerners and their cohorts always think that everything should come from the West. I hold Vedic, before Puranas were written, to be non-Indo-European. I hold that pre-Puranic Vedic is Tibeto-Burman. Its base was just south of the Himalayas extending into present-day Myanmarpé, and also just north of the high ranges. Remember, Himalayas was under the Tithys Ocean and it is still building up accompanied by earth-quakes.
See Section 08:
• Geography{pa.hta.wi-wín}
- geog-indx (link chk 200316)
• Geology : Geology of Myanmarpré -{Bu-mi.bé-Da.}
- geol-indx (link chk 200316)
Prominent examples include:
¤ phonologically, the introduction of retroflexes, {Ta.}, {HTa.},
{ða.}, {Ða.}, {Na.}, which alternate with
dentals;
¤ morphologically, the formation of
gerunds; and
¤ syntactically, the use of a
quotative
marker (iti).
[1]:79
Philologists attribute such features, as well as the presence of non-Indo-European vocabulary, to a local substratum of languages [primarily the Tib-Bur languages such as Magadhi, Néwari, etc.] encountered by Indo-Aryan peoples in Central Asia and within the Indian subcontinent, including the Dravidian languages, [such as Telugu and Tamil]. [2]
Scholars have identified a substantial body of loanwords in the earliest Indian texts, including clear evidence of Non-Indo-Aryan elements (such as -s- following -u- in Rigvedic busa).
While some loanwords are from Dravidian, and other forms are traceable to Munda [1] :78 or Proto- Burushaski, the bulk have no sensible basis [according to whom? ] in any of these families, suggesting a source in one or more lost languages. The discovery that some loan words from one of these lost sources had also been preserved in the earliest Iranian texts, and also in Tocharian, convinced Michael Witzel and Alexander Lubotsky that the source lay in Central Asia and could be associated with the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). [3] [4] Another lost language is that of the Indus Valley Civilization, which Witzel initially labelled Para-Munda, but later the Kubhā-Vipāś substrate. [5]
That "Vedic has a number of linguistic features which are alien to most other IE languages" makes me claim that Vedic is not IE. It can only mean that it was Tib-Bur.
Prominent examples of linguistic features (phonologically), the introduction of retroflexes, which alternate with dentals [UKT ¶] .
UKT 130716, 190427, 200316: To make my arguments more clear, I will have to refer to different scripts. Asokan script [don't call it Brahmi - it confuses the discussion] is the oldest script found on stone inscriptions on the Indian sub-continent. I hold that Asokan was derived from the Myanmar script. I don't claim that it was invented in area now known as Myanmarpré. The Myanmar script has not been found on any stone inscription that predates Asokan.
Myanmar script is probably the only script in the world based on circularly rounded-circles. It was most probably invented by a lone individual, a Rishi, and a few disciples who were too poor financially to put it on any stone inscriptions.
They must have chosen the circle, and modified it different ways to describe the various POA. It is a scientifically designed script. See Wikipedia:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography 200318
"In linguistics, a phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language."UKT 200318: The above Wikipedia article does not mention anything about the Abugida-Akshara writing systems of the India extending into Myanmarpré and of South-east Asia. Because of this I would have to give it a failing grade.
Those who put up stone inscriptions were kings and the likes who would like to let the world know of their achievements and edicts. Asokan inscriptions were put up by King Asoka. An intermediate script might have been the Pyu script.
Here I must emphasize that the perfect circle is considered to represent Perfection - it must be free from any blemish, such as dents, dots, and openings. The perfect circle is found in the 3rd row of Asokan, and the 6th of Myanmar.
I've no idea which (Asokan or Myanmar) precedes which, but if I were to place the circle as the most unique, I can say that Myanmar stands at the top - because you can derive nine derivatives from it logically. Now, join another circle to the first, and you get more derivatives.
Secondly, it is Bur-Myan
{ta.} that is found in the Georgian script, and not the Asokan.
To describe the human voice completely, we must know the number of types (Points of Articulation - POA), and ways (Manner of Articulation - MOA) which the human mouth must make. I now base my argument on the IPA table (extended for Bur-Myan):
The minimum POA is four: Labial, Dental, Retroflex, Velar.
The minimum MOA is also four: Tenuis voiceless, Voiceless, Voiced, Deep Voice (which I term deep-H)
From these POA and MOA, we can get the Basic consonants of Bur-Myan, from which I'm trying to come up with one for BEPS.
If the Asoka script was the oldest script found on
the Indian subcontinent, and is supposed to be the
parent of all other languages or scripts, it might
be well to study the shapes of
{ka.} क «ka» and
{ta.} त «ta». You might have noticed that Asokan
{ka.}
is based on square form from which you can get a swastika. But
Asokan
{ta.}
is based on triangular form. It is well known that circles may
be derived from triangles, but not from circles. In the pix shown, I've
tried to derive the Myanmar
{ka.} from Asokan: the result is not satisfactory. So I might as well say
Myanmar script is derived from Asokan.
Because there is a 33% similarity between Asokan and Myammar I must say,
Asokan is a derivative of Myanmar.
The shape of Asokan
{ka.}
resemble a commonly used throwing weapon of two crossed sticks, and the
shape of Asokan
{ta.}
is that of a bola - another throwing implement. From both the cross-sticks
and bola, you can get to spinning discs which could travel far after being
thrown - cutting off the heads of the opponents. The spinning disc was the
favourite weapon of the Hindu god Vishnu.
Myanmar akshara is used for writing many indigenous languages in Myanmarpré, because of which we can say it is the strongest cultural bond between the ethnic groups. Though the basic shape of the glyphs remain the same, some changes are met when used for different speeches.
- UKT: 130717, 140702, 200317
Myanmar akshara is also a
"hidden esoteric" script, used for writing
magico-religious runes, which are feared and
revered by many people in Myanmarpré -- including
the so-called Western-educated moderns.
An example of a rune is the
{sa.Da.ba.wa. ín: } aka
{sa.ma.lé:loän: ín:} inside a 2x2 square matrix.
Instead of the square matrix it can be a right-handed
Swastika. The aksharas have to be written one by one
reciting a specific mantra
{mûn~tûn} with the stylus in continuous touch the
substrate or medium on which it is written.
The whole process must be done by the rune-master
with a fully concentrated mind, which he
has acquired after a period of a day, a week, or
49 weeks of concentration-practice
{þa.ma.hta.} or
{kûm~mûT~HTaan:} while abstaining eating meat,
drinking alcohol, or having sex.
For dictionary meaning of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_meditation 140702, 200317
"In the Theravāda tradition alone, there are over fifty methods for developing mindfulness and forty for developing concentration ..." -- Wiki140702.UKT 200317: Apart from from the well-known
The substrate may be paper, silver foil, or gold
foil for benefic
{ ín:}, or potsherd (usually from a broken monk's
alms-bowl - a consecrated item - or even a
piece of human skull for writing malefic
{ ín:}. They are not graffiti in any sense
nor play-things. Moreover they are not meant to
be understood by the uninitiated: they are not
play-things.
The
{sa.Da.ba.wa. ín: } {sa.Da.ba.wa. ing;} rune tells
the steps that have to be taken by a human-being
to achieve Perfection. Starting from upper left-hand
square with a circle dented on the left. It represents
your emotions: greed, anger, sexual desires, and pride.
You are imperfect in the beginning. With the right
kind of practice -- not necessarily Buddhistic -- you
advance to the next square on the right. You are still
not perfect -- you are still rooted in your love for
sex and sensual desires. The circle is dented in the
bottom. Proceed and get to the next square. Still you
are not perfect -- wrong ideas in your head: the
circle is still dented on top. Practice and now you
can move to the next square -- now you are perfect.
The pix on the right is not a graffiti nor artist's
imagination. It is a rune called "Thigyamin
Sa Ma", It is a powerful rune to impart the power
of Hindu Indra or Buddhist Sakka to the rune master.
See: ¤ Cult of Magus in Folk Elements
in Buddhism
-
flk-ele-indx.htm >
ch05-magus.htm (link chk 200318)
I maintain that such runes are ideographs -- they are not sentences in a language. It is probable that the Indus-valley seals are ideographs which you will not be able to understand.
The Myanmar akshara is also used for writing Mon-Myan speech which has a different phonology. Similarly, expect Asokan akshara to have different phonologies for different peoples in the realm of King Asoka. Though they would not understand the speech of the speech of their ruler - King Asoka - they would understood what the written message meant.
Now let's look into what some in the West are up to:
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_Nazism 200407
"Esoteric Nazism or Esoteric Hitlerism is any of a number of mystical interpretations and adaptations of Nazism in the post–World War II period. After 1945, esoteric elements of the Third Reich were adapted into new völkisch religions of white nationalism and neo-Nazism."Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe 200407
"The Ahnenerbe (German: ancestral heritage) operated as a think tank in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS) established it as an SS appendage devoted to the task of promoting the racial doctrines espoused by Adolf Hitler and his governing Nazi Party, specifically by supporting the idea that the modern Germans descended from an ancient Aryan race seen as biologically superior to other racial groups. The group comprised scholars and scientists from a broad range of academic disciplines."Hitler and the Himalayas : the SS-mission to Tibet 1938-39, by Alex McKay, Spring 2001
- https://tricycle.org/magazine/hitler-and-himalayas-ss-mission-tibet-1938-39/ 200407
"Of all the exotic images that the West has ever projected onto Tibet, that of the Nazi expedition, and its search for the pure remnants of the Aryan race, remains the most bizarre."
For comparing, Asokan to Myanmar, we will concentrate
on the tenuis-voiceless and ordinary-voiceless of the
{wag}-consonants -- consonants which can be classified
phonologically according to the POA (Place of
Articulation - as rows) in the human mouth: (exterior)
labial, dental, retroflex, palatal, velar (interior).
The columns give the manner of articulation:
tenuis-voiceless, voiceless, voiced, deep-H, nasal. The
aksharas must be represented in a matrix -- a
representation that precedes the International Phonetic
Alphabet by thousands of years.
• velar: r1c1, r1c2 
compare Asoka + {ka.}, Swastika, Rune,
and Myanmar
{ka.}
• palatal: r2c1, r2c2
a striking feature is the single-circle &
double-circle
• retroflex: r3c1, r3c2
perfect circle (perfection)
of Asoka, and open circles on pedestals
(respect) of Myanmar
• dental: r4c1, r4c2
compare r3c2 (perfection} & r4c2 (blemish)
• labial: r5c1, r5c2
the loop on the right-hand side of the glyph
is common
The approximants, rows #6 & #7,
{la.} &
{ha.} because of the angular motions as in the Swastika shows
{la.} to be left-handed, and
{ha.} to be right-handed. It gives a clue as to their POAs (positions of
articulation) in making sounds. In fact
{la.} is pronounced in the outermost part of the mouth, whilst
{ha.} is pronounced far back in the mouth. Here contrastive rotation
indicates highly contrastive sounds.
Just as we were made to write out the perfect circle, we as children were
told to pronounce each akshara as clearly and as distinctly as possible.
Emphasis is put on the POA and the manner of articulation. Each akshara,
because it is representing a syllable is considered alive, and in order to
make it mute, a killer -- a viram aka
{a.þût} -- must be applied to it.
As young children, we were told that each akshara is a god
{Bu.ra:} in itself and we
were made to kowtow a book written in aksharas if we happened to step
on it.
The instrument of 'killing' the consonant
is known as the virama in Sanskrit and
{a.þût} in Burmese.
[Prominent examples also include: ] morphologically, the formation of gerunds; and syntactically, the use of a quotative marker ("iti"). [1] Such features, as well as the presence of non-Indo-European vocabulary, are attributed to a local substratum of languages encountered by Indo-Aryan peoples in Central Asia and within the Indian subcontinent.
UKT 130717: Bur-Myan - a Tibeto-Burman language -- is totally uninflected. See: Burmese Grammar and Grammatical Analysis by A. W. Lonsdale, Education Department, Burma, British Burma Press, Rangoon, 1899. In Preface, Lonsdale writes -- ch00.htm (link chk 150714)
• The Burmese language is constructed on scientific principles, and there is no reason why its grammar should not be dealt with also from a scientific standpoint. But it may be safely said that Burmese grammar as a science has not received that attention it deserves.
• With regard to the grammatical treatises by native writers, it is no exaggeration to say that there is not one which can be properly called a Burmese grammar. These writers, not content with merely borrowing the grammatical nomenclature of the Pali language, also attempted to assimilate the grammatical principles of the uninflected Burmese to those of the inflected Pali; so that they produced, not Burmese grammars, but modified Pali grammars in Burmese dress. The servile veneration in which they held Pali, the language they had adopted as the classic, is, no doubt, directly responsible for the composition of such works. In their endeavour to conform strictly to Pali methods, they often introduced unnecessary terms and misapplied them, ignoring those grammatical points in Burmese for which they could find no parallel in Pali. How futile their attempts were may be judged by the numerous difficulties and anomalies they created, from some of which even now teachers of the language have not quite extricated themselves - take, for instance, the case-inflexions.
A substantial body of loanwords has been identified in the earliest Indian texts. Non-Indo-Aryan elements (such as -s- following -u- in Rigvedic busa) are clearly in evidence. While some loanwords are from Dravidian, and other forms are traceable to Munda [2] or Proto- Burushaski, the bulk have no sensible basis in any of these families, suggesting source in one or more lost languages. [UKT ¶]
UKT 130717: What is Burushasski language? Sounds Russian - but is not. It is a language with three dialects named after the main valleys: Hunza, Nagar, and Yasin (also called Werchikwār). Yasin dialect is the most divergent and is the least affected by contact with neighboring languages. All three dialects are mutually intelligible.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burushaski 130717Geographically, the area lies in the extreme north-west of the present-day Pakistan. The name of valley of Hunza which sounds very Bur-Myan is intriguing. We have a town in northern Myanmarpré with the same name. Of course, the name of another valley Nagar also sounds Bur-Myan. The names Yasin and the Bur-Myan town of
{ra.mæÑ:þín:} are also intruding. Could they be the furthest-reaches of Tibeto-Burman languages?
Western linguists, and their followers in Myanmarpré, should stop their study using the bias of inflexions. Burmese, a language free from inflexions has been studied by from the point of view of inflexions with disastrous results. The above Wikipedia article has an interesting footnote on phoneme /j/ :
" This phoneme has various pronunciations, all of which are rare sounds cross-linguistically. Descriptions include: "a voiced retroflex sibilant with simultaneous dorso-palatal narrowing" (apparently [ʐʲ] ) (Berger 1998); "a fricative r, pronounced with the tongue in the retroflex ('cerebral') position" (apparently [ɻ̝]/[ʐ̞], a sound which also occurs in Standard Chinese, written r in Pinyin) (Morgenstierne 1945); and "a curious sound whose phonetic realizations vary from a retroflex, spirantized glide to a retroflex velarized spirant" (Anderson forthcoming). In any case, it does not occur in the Yasin dialect, and in Hunza and Nager it does not occur at the beginning of words. "
The discovery that some loan words from one of these lost sources had also been preserved in the earliest Iranian texts, and also in Tocharian convinced Michael Witzel and Alexander Lubotsky that the source lay in Central Asia and could be associated with the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). [3] [UKT ¶]
UKT 130717: The area designated above as BMAC, -- the area of bronze-age civilization ca. 2300–1700 BCE located in present-day Afghanistan, eastern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikstan centered on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus River) -- should be compared to our Pyu bronze-age civilization. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria–Margiana_Archaeological_Complex 130717.
The area of ancient Pyus in northern Myanmarpré was the source of copper and zinc ores used for making brass an alloy of copper and zinc. Remember, the ancient art of handing of molten metals to be cast into huge objects such as the world's biggest functioning bell, the Mingun Bell is indigenous. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingun_Bell 130717
Another lost language is that of the Indus Valley Civilization, which Witzel initially labelled Para-Munda, but later the Kubhā-Vipāś substrate. [4]
UKT: More in the Wikipedia article.
UKT 030717: If you look for Vedic religion
on the Internet, you will be given only what the
Hindu Brahmana-poannas
{brah~ma.Na. poaN~Na:}, having been claiming as
theirs. If you go by my assertion that Vedic
language was not IE and was quite different
from Classical Sanskrit of Panini, you will have
to look into the pre-Buddhistic and
pre-Hinduistic religions of the Tib-Bur
(Tibeto-Burman) speakers who had lived along the
southern foothills of Himalayas extending from
the present-day Afghanistan in the west, to
Myanmarpré in the east, a possible candidate is
the ancient Bon
{baung:} religion of Tibet. See Wikipedia:
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon 130717.
Compare it to the Right-hand Path of
{waiz~za} and
{zau-gyi}, practiced under the umbrella of Theravada
Buddhism in present-day Myanmarpré. The opposite of
the Right-hand Path is, of course, the Left-Hand
Path of
{ka.wé} and
{soan:}. Both Right-hand adapts and Left-hand adapts
are humans with supernatural powers. Both
{waiz~za} and
{ka.wé} cults has their respective cults of Runes.
They respect the Astrologer because of his or her
knowledge of the Planets and residents of the Heaven
above us. All, in their own ways respect the Gautama
Buddha, and have to promise not to harm fellow humans
who are not out to destroy them. They are patriots
and have a great love for their mother-land -
Myanmarpré - where Buddhism is flourishing. Both
camps claim they are always guarding the country in
their own ways.
Historically, invading armies during the Chinese incursions during the Pagan and Myinsaing periods, Colonial British and Indian troops during Anglo-Burmese wars, British and American troops during WWII, suffered more from various diseases, and leeches and mosquitoes, than from arms.
Maybe, we have esoteric armies of
Zawgyi
{zau-gyi} "disembodied humans who still enjoy
and having sex", under the various generals
- the Weikza
{waiz~za} and Kawé
{ka.wé} guarding their mother-land - unseen. Maybe
our disease-causing viruses, blood sucking leaches,
blood-sucking mosquitoes, and poisonous-wasps, are
Zawgyi soldiers doing the actual fighting. I
personally know people who claim they are in contact
with Weikza and Kawé and my above account is not
fabrication.
Once, I met a retired Myanmar army captain who told me of soldiers-in-red who scared off the Burmese Communists and their allies the Chinese Communists 1959-60s. The Myanmar forces were stationed on a hill-top the Shan states. The captain recounted how his army friends stationed on a hill top knew for certain they would be defeated, killed and taken prisoner the morning haze cleared. To their surprise the Communists withdrew without a fight. Later the Myanmar forces learned how the Communists saw a large force of red-uniformed soldiers coming to relieve the Myanmar forces. Foreigners beware!
Lastly, look into the cult of Nat
{nût}
"dis-embodied spirits of lower status than
Zawgyi" which may be comparable to the worship
of Me'nes in pre-Christian Rome.
Now, you should also look into the
See Folk Elements of Buddhism, by Dr. Htin Aung,
and my work on it.
-
flk-ele-indx.htm .
(MacH-roman05)
It is undoubted a surprising fact that down to
the present time no history of Sanskrit
literature as a whole has been written in English.
For not only does that literature possess much
intrinsic merit, but the light it sheds on the life
and thought of the population of our Indian
Empire [which had included British Burma] ought
to have a peculiar interest for the British nation.
Owing chiefly to the lack of an adequate account of
the subject, few, even of the young men who leave
these shores every year to be its future rulers,
possess any connected information about the literature
in which the civilization of Modern India can be
traced to its sources, and without which that
civilization can be fully understood. ...
(MacH-roman06)
... ... The only book accessible to the English reader on (MacH-roman06-end-
07bgin) the history of Sanskrit literature in general has hitherto been
the translation of Professor Weber's Academical Lectures on Indian Literature,
as delivered nearly half a century ago at Berlin. The numerous and often very
lengthy notes in this work supply the results of research during the next
twenty-five years ; but as these notes often modify, or even cancel, the
statements of the unaltered original text of 1852, the result is bewildering to
the student. Much new light has been thrown on various branches of Sanskrit
literature since 1878, when the last notes were added to this translation,
which, moreover, is not in any way adapted to the wants of the general reader. [UKT
¶]
The only work on the subject appealing to the latter is the late Sir M. Monier-Williams's Indian Wisdom. That book, however, although it furnishes, in addition to the translated specimens, some account of the chief departments of Sanskrit literature, is not a history. ...
(MacH-roman07)
In writing this history of Sanskrit literature, I
have dwelt more on the life and thought of Ancient
India which that literature embodies, than would
perhaps have appeared necessary in the case of a
European literature. [UKT¶]
UKT 190424: Remember Ancient India, particularly the areas just south of the Himalayas and Burma had extensive cultural exchange due to the lengthy land boundaries. This exchange can be traced back even to the geological ages, as the Himalayas was growing, and as modern Man was evolving. See Section 08:
• Geography
• Geology -{Bu-mi.bé-Da.} - geol-indx - update 2018May
This I have done partly because Sanskrit literature, as representing an independent civilisation entirely different from that of the West, requires more explanations than most others; and partly because, owing to the remarkable continuity of Indian culture, the religious and social institutions of Modern India are constantly illustrated by those of the past.
[UKT 200404: The rest of Preface which ends on p.roman08 is not relevant to my work.]
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