Dharma

Actually, the major Indic presence in the middle east were the Mitanni (1500-1200 bce) who ruled a vast empire in the middle east and was the same place where many NUZI laws mentioned in the story of Abraham came from. Also the Indo-Aryans of this branch (who mention Indian Vedic Gods and NOT Iranian Gods) had several daughters married to the Pharoah -- and we must remember that the Torah is also called the "Five Books of Moses" and Moses was a foreign prince in the Egyptian court. So the story of Abraham and the patriarchs is closely associated with the Indians once more...too many coincidences... and oh, yes...Aramaic (to which Hebrew is related) is eventually descended from this hurrian/mitanni branch of people...:huh:

Unfortuneatly, not too much is known about the Mitanni, they were also important in introducing chariot warfare in the middle east. So during 1500 bce they introduced chariot warfare, and 300 bce they introduced elephant warfare to the middle east.

jathar98

I must agree that the finding of a brass Buddha in Norway does not connote Buddhism there, but does refer more to trade. The paper that you are referring to was about trade, not religion. The footnote you are looking for was available from the author, had you asked this being me. One of many of those footnotes is from The Vikings! by Magnus Magnusson, p. 17. It does not say anything about the religion being in Norway but discusses various trade routes and the Buddha being proof of extensive trade.

“the overland trade route that ran through Samarkand and Tashkent to China, and here a great market place had developed controlled by the Bulgar tribes.�[1] Smolensk, like Bulgar, formed a cultural crossroads, where East and West met to trade furs, slaves, silk, honey, ivory, spices, and a plethora of other goods and wares, all of which moved along the waterways.[2]

The waterways that pass through Russia provided a means of transportation and linkages into the political and social structures of the areas. The Swedish Vikings had to secure these waterways in order to control Near Eastern and Mediterranean trade. The waterways allowed many Vikings to reach distant lands as far as Baghdad, carrying trade goods and luxury items. Items found in graves in Scandinavia have included Indian coins from the sixth or seventh century,[3] a brass Buddha, silks, and glass, indicating the far-reaching territories with which trade was accomplished and thus the distances traveled. These items were collected on extended trading expeditions, and it is not unreasonable to infer that others of like kind may have been dispersed along the trade route.

William of Rubeck, a Franciscan missionary in the thirteenth century, mentioned Turkish merchants who trafficked in Russia bringing out ermine and grey-squirrel skins, while those going into Russia took cotton clothes, silks, and spices.[4] “Ships also came to the mouth of the Dnieper to buy dried fish,�[5] he wrote, thus showing, even at that late date, just how crucial the Russian passageways were to trade with the Orient and Byzantium. The Byzantine-Rus treaty of 911, which realized a special treaty of fishery use rights at the mouth of the Dnieper for the Rus, illustrates the kind of economic interactions that were occurring locally. Hence, the political and economic stability of Russia was of vast importance to the Vikings (particularly the Swedes), as well as the Byzantines. Accordingly, the Scandinavians established settlements in strategic locations and created trade, and subjugated or negotiated with the native populations to insure trade stability.

Footnotes:
[1]Campbell, Cultural Atlas p. 197.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Magnusson, Vikings!, p. 17.

[4]H. R. Ellis Davidson, Viking Road to Byzantium (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1976), p. 96.

[5]Ibid., p. 96.

_______________________

This quote “And of course there were Buddhist missionaries in Athens Greece, as it was recorded by them that some Buddhist set himself afire to show the temporal nature of existence.� was not at all in my paper.

This quote “I wouldn't be surprised that some of these missionaries reached the Americas.� I do not think it is good scholarly work to infer that because there is a brass Buddha in a burial in Norway that therefore there is proof for Buddhism reaching the Americas. That is not say that Buddhism didn’t reach American shores, but you’d need some very substantial proof say examples of “Native Americans� who have similar belief systems, art and artifacts etc.
It would make for fascinating research.

Cheers,

Eelia

Clivedurdle

Welcome!

Clivedurdle

Actually, the more likely route of Buddhism getting to America - if it did - is via the Pacific coast - what is the earliest proven Chinese find now on the Pacific coast of N America?

And the so called native american ways of thinking I thought were more to do with earlier shamanistic and similar ideas, so buddhism can be understood as a later formalisation of existing ideas about how to treat one another.

HG Wells Outline of History is very interesting on this change from collective to heirarchical ways of being, that probably happened with the first towns and cities.

yummyfur

Sorry this post is late, I had not paid attention to this thread since it had spiraled into general vague proofs of buddhisms influence in general, away from it's original topic. I hadn't noticed you addressed points I made.

Obviously you didn't actually read the Latin, or you would have said the Latin used is Tuistonem. In fact there are different manuscripts of Tacitus, some have Tuistonem here, some have Tuisconem. Tacitus doesn't say Tuisco is born of a earth goddess, he says he is earth born. By the way, since Tacitus discusses the German Earth goddess, equivalent to the the Roman Terra Mater, as Nerthus, he would have made it clear by either of these titles that Tuisco was born from her.

I don't find the geneolgies very convincing. Saranyu is Tvastr's daughter sure, but Tvastr is architect to the gods and possibly hermaphroditic, I'm not sure he was born from the earth goddess, not that it matters.

What the Hebrew Adam comes from, is a pretty complex question, which I think there have been a thread or two about, but since his name is used for mankind and vice versa it doesn't really matter. I don't think anyone doubts that German is an indo-european language, and that indo-european language based cultures have some commonalities in culture from whenever they split off, but these hardly constitute proof of buddhisms influence.

I'm not sure what the correction is about on the top-knot, my only statement was that a top knot is hardly a unique trait of buddhism or even India. Imagine people figuring out how to tie their hair, without the help of buddhist enlightenment(sarcasm).

Your arguments are much like: birds have wings, butterflys have wings, bats have wings, they all must be closely related.

yummyfur

Thanks for the footnotes, the site originally linked to by Dharma, didn't have any footnotes,when I looked at it, it seems to be down now. Dharma cut and pasted from that site, and you will see his original post has no footnoting. My main interest was in what archeological site the Buddha came from. Thanks again.

here's the link Dharma orginally posted
http://eeliag.netwiz.net/CHAP3.html

It was Dharma who qouted your site and then added his own stuff at the end without making the seperation clear, that made it look like you said the stuff about buddhists in Athens and America. I did realize that, but I was addressing Dharma, and not your site, so I didn't really make that clear. I do realize that you weren't making Dharma's arguments, my only concern was wether we really had a brass Buddha at all, since nothing was cited in the original link Dharma gave. Also was interested in what the archeologists interpretation was.

Toto

The Chinese, who were generally either Confucian or Christians, were imported into nineteenth century California to work on the railways. The Japanese immigrants of 1870 are credited with the earliest Buddhism on the west coast.

The native Americans who came over the land bridge between Siberia and North America have some interesting genetic and cultural similarities with Asian cultures, but this happened well before Buddhist missionaries went from India to either the Roman Empire or Central Asia.

Toto

I believe that this was an Indian who traveled back from India with Alexander's army. I don't think he was a Buddhist or a missionary.

Dharma

No it wasn't, it was long after Alexander the Great, from the same source previously posted from the ChristReview:
I also find it absolutely hilarious that Indians seemed to be far greater world travelers than the Greeks or anyone else in the ancient world:

Dharma

You must be a bit more precise...am I understanding you correctly, the Chinese who were allowed in America were generally "self identified" as Christians (that would make sense since any other religion would be lambasted at the time) or "Confucian"? The Chinese for the most part recognize that their culture is a mixture of"Taoist/Confucian/Buddhist" mix...