When did the gods become literate? Was: Are the gods literate

[Klaus Karttunen]

>No, not so.  Hinayana was called Southern Buddhism and Mahayana the
>Northern as a polite euphemism by early C20th Westerners are mainly
>reflects the late post-Muslim geographical regions of Buddhism.
>Mahayana and indeed Tantric Buddhism flourished for a while in Sri
etc.
Quite correct, but instead of the early 20th say early 19th (Hodgson,
Burnouf et al.). The Sanskrit texts of Mahayana were then only known from
Nepal and Mahayana in general from Tibet, Mongolia, China and Japan, while
Pali texts and Theravada remained in Sri Lanka and South East Asia.

Regards

Klaus


Klaus Karttunen
Institute for Asian and African Studies
Box 59, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
tel. +358-9-191-22224, fax. +358-9-191-22094