Early Buddhist rejection of the Vedas

[Raveen Satkurunathan]

The Independent (London)
November 18, 2000, Saturday

A TINY MOUNTAIN TOWN MAY REVEAL SECRETS OF BUDDHA
David Keys Archaeology Correspondent

THE MYSTERIOUS origins of one of the world's great religions may soon
be revealed.

In a remote area of Nepal, archaeologists - including a British team -
are excavating the remains of Tilaurakot, the home town of Gautama
Siddhartha, the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, followed by 320 million
people worldwide.

The excavations are likely to settle the dispute about when the founder
of the religion lived, and also whether his early followers really did
lead a life of simplicity and poverty or whether that tradition was a later
development. At present, the best historians can say is that Buddha
lived sometime between the seventh and fifth centuries BC. The
archaeologists also hope to unearth the remains of Buddhism's first
monasteries - potentially founded by the Buddha himself. The town, then
known as Kapilavastu, was ruled by his father and it was from there that he
set out on his quest for enlightenment.

So far, the archaeological team, led by Nepal's chief archaeologist,
Kosh Acharya, and the British archaeologist Robin Coningham of Bradford
University, have found iron furnaces, terracotta crucibles, pottery
beads and fragments of very fine painted bowls dating from around the time
of Buddha.

"Seldom has archaeology had such a superb opportunity to uncover the
origins of one of the world's great religions," said Dr Coningham.

It had been known that Tilaurakot was a flourishing town by the second
century BC. Monumental buildings had been discovered from the first two
centuries AD and there was a Hellenistic-style grid layout. But the
recent finds suggest that Kapilavastu was founded in the seventh or eighth
century BC.

It is likely that the town grew up around a shrine dedicated to an holy
man of the Shakya people, the tribe to which Buddha belonged. TheShakya
religion, which may not have had a concept of God, does not appear to
have been Brahmanical like much of the rest of the northern part of the
subcontinent, so Buddha would have grown up in a relatively
unconventional religious and philosophical atmosphere.

The excavations could shed rare light on the cultural, religious,
political and economic forces which helped shape his philosophy. They
should also help settle a historical dispute between India and Nepal over
the precise location of the ancient city where he grew up.

Indian archaeologists have long maintained that the site was at
Pipprahawa in India, 10 miles south of the Nepalese border. On the other
hand, Nepalese archaeologists have always said it was at Tilaurakot, 15
miles north of the border. The new discoveries have swung the balance of
evidence in Nepal's favour. Together with historical evidence from ancient
religious texts in China, the archaeological proof showing that Tilaurakot
was indeed flourishing in Buddha's day has clinched the argument.

The discoveries are likely to have an economic impact on both Nepal and
India. Until now, tourists from the West and Buddhist pilgrims from
Japan, Korea, South-east Asia and Sri Lanka have flocked to Pipprahawa,
where the earliest remains are those of a third- century BC monastery. Now
the focus is likely to shift across the border to Tilaurakot.


On , Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:

> The clearest evidence from the early Buddhist texts for the
>rejection of the Vedas, not just of the caste of the Brahmans or their
>sacrifices, is found in the TevijjaSutta of the Diighanikaaya among other
>sources.

>sniped<
>  Madhav Deshpande