Buddhist Australia?
daksina
Australia New
Hi,
I'm a newbie, non-Buddhist, amateur historian seeking a non-sexual social intercourse. Australia has the Dreaming where time is nothing. Did it also have Damma? There are two Indigenous countries on the east coast with a history of a boat arriving and some of the region's vocabularies have these words.
budjarahm sacred, taboo, spirit, ghost, a Dreamtime story. In Indonesia, Old Java budha (Skt) means 'the planet Mercury'. Indigenous budhu 'stars'. Skt budha 'awaking'. Indigenous_ budhin_ 'sunbeam'. budjar 'morning'. budha 'sandalwood'.
Indonesian Buddhist teachings seem to have Australian application. One of four Vinaya pārājikas for monks forbids stealing (and sexuality, murder, lying about degree of spirituality). Maybe that is connected with the virtue of burning and preventing stealing. A king burned his own body.
Sad-dharma Puṇḍárīka Sūtra. The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law.
Chapter 23 - The Story of the Bodhisattva Medicine King :
https://e-thesis.mcu.ac.th/storage/rsyZ ... 9cRrXJ.pdf p62
The Buddha then addressed the Bodhisattva Star Constellation King Flower: ‘In your opinion what say you, was the Bodhisattva Loveliness some other person? It was indeed the present Medicine King Bodhisattva. His self-sacrifice and gifts were of such countless hundred thousand myriad kotis of nayutas in number as these. Star Constellation King Flower! If anyone with his mind set on and aiming at Perfect Enlightenment is able to burn the fingers of his hand or even a toe of his foot in homage to a buddha's stupa he will surpass him who pays homage with domains, cities, wives, children, and his three-thousand-great thousand-fold land with its mountains, forests, rivers, pools, and all its precious things.’
In Sydney, buduwai may be buddha vanaya, wanaya in Old Javanese language of 800-1300CE.
https://www.academia.edu/26882939/DHARA ... o=download p6
Ritual for preventing children from becoming thieves by scorching their fingers buduwai.
https://www.williamdawes.org/docs/troy_ ... cation.pdf
Language, Mythology and Ceremony.
'ceremony to prevent people becoming thieves—the parent of a child would scorch its fingers so that it will not steal. buduway _'scorch'. _putuwi.'
https://www.williamdawes.org/docs/steele_thesis.pdf
Putuwidyánga wiangáta putuwi 'My mother scorched my fingers (that I should not steal)' .
Then putuwi was the spelling by the early British settlers and is corrected by Indigenous language-speakers to buduway.The expression can be explained as:
ganadyanga 'burning. aches', gana 'burn'. dyánga 'aches', Old Java dhyāna 'concentrate'. Indigenous/ Skt ga 'come' . Indigenous wiangáta 'my mother'.
None of these are words for 'finger, fingernail, hand', so the concept seems to be putuwi / buduway and not just 'burning a finger'.
So a word for 'snatch' yaramadyawiniya seems to contain wanaya. The first part yaramadya appears to mean 'fighting / crab. damage' suggesting stealing and an offence against wanaya. Then hopefully the child will become budyari 'good; well; right; proper'. So then, the children in Sydney were Budyari. As wanya means 'tell lie', then two of the four Winaya are part of the culture.
Adultery and murder are universal offences and probably weren't affected by new teachings. Does the evidence so far seem credible for Damma being brought to Australia?
Comments
I'll have to think some more. Is there any way to get a start onto the point you are explaining, so then easier to find a direction to process/digest?
There is some historical evidence for Buddhist missionaries in the ancient Mediterranean I believe, as well as links between Hume and Buddhist thought via Jesuits. So there was some level of widespread dispersal of the teachings, why not Australia too?!
Hi Jeffrey,
So we start with Indonesia. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780824865474-005/pdf
Bundjalung country is between Grafton in NSW and Brisbane in Queensland on the east coast. https://planetcorroboree.com.au/blogs/culture-country/the-three-brothers
With the three brothers was grandmother Gaminyah who wandered off when the boat landed. Skt गमनाय 'to go'. They came from Ngareenbeil 'overseas islands', Old Java negarane bela 'your beloved countryman' (per Uni Qld, School of Languages). OJ bela 'to lay down one's life, be prepared to die with another person, die for and with another person'.
Bundjalung has the word budjarbalahgan 'spirit-being.' Skt can form buddhya-. At Wollongong, south of Sydney, a boat arrived. https://library.kiama.nsw.gov.au/History/First-Nations-Kiama Dharawal 'palm-tree' in OJ is daru-wala 'timber. in every respect'. Skt दारु Hindi दरख़्त वाला 'tree-like'. In Urdu, 'eminent tree'. (and in Welsh derwen wyl 'holy oak'). The boat was a barangga. https://www.gujaga.org.au/stories/voices-heard-but-not-understood 3rd paragraph. Barangay boats took Malay settlers to the Philippines in the twelfth century.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balangay 'This word appears as either balangay or barangay, with the same meaning, in all the major languages of the Philippines'.
Barangay are the local government units in Philippines and beranga means 'where we come from' in Dharug Sydney.https://dharug.dalang.com.au/plugin_wiki/page/In_Greeting 4th paragraph.
A skull with sword-cut was excavated in NSW and dated to the 1200s.https://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/toorale-man-murder-mystery/11015900 Aboriginals had no metals and hardwood has a lower compression strength than skull-bone. Tests show that mulga wood buckles when a sharp-edge is forced onto cattle-bone at human arm-strength, 4kNewtons. A cattle scapula-bone is a proxy for skull. Wood can't slice cleanly through cortical skull-bone.https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/15/science/15TB-boomerang2/15TB-boomerang2-jumbo.jpg New York Times says wood cuts bone which means the steel industry is obsolete.
Hi person,
A Buddha figure was excavated from an early Sweden site.
http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/12/the-helgo-treasure-a-viking-age-buddha/
Maybe the Celtic queen Boudicca in Britain had Buddhist links. Skt bramaniya 'praise' seems to be in Swedish bram- words meaning 'noble, high'.
Buddhist teachings are vacana, OJ wacana (Skt) 'speech, words; teaching'. Skt vaca means 'parrot. speak', OJ waca is to 'speak'. The NSW town of Wagga Wagga is either from waaga 'crow's sound' or waganna a 'dance with song'. A waganna at Dubbo NSW in 1835 had a song given by Baiame, with gudthi and mudthirra. https://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:1448 p 851.
‘I can only say that if those are true etymologies, then certainly mudrā (hand gesture) is a tantric practice although gāthas (songs) are pan-Indic, and vacana, sentence, sound, is a term used in tantric traditions, which talk a lot about mantras and the power of the word. Tantric traditions were all pervasive in medieval South-East Asia, so I suppose some influence on Australian traditions is possible. _Professor Gavin Flood FBA, Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion, Oxford University.'
The ritual resembles this description:
'The same is true even of Buddhist monks during certain ceremonies and dances. The phurba appear in different rituals concerning divination and healing. In the middle of these rituals the jhankri takes hold of his ritual dagger and starts to dance furiously directing the phurba towards all the places where an evil presence could be lodged. To heal his patient he vigorously touches the part of the body where he is suffering with the triangular blade of his wooden knife'.
Kovacs J 2012. Ritual Daggers of the Lamas and Shamans of the Himalayas. The Phurba and a hypothesis on its origin.Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia : Le Toit du monde.
https://www.letoitdumonde.net/images/pdf/phurba.pdf [ last page ].
This is quite interesting @daksina but a lot to digest.
I too live in Australia.
When are you suggesting the Dhamma May have been brought to Australia?
Hi Bunks,
Well, Old Java language was used 800-1300. The skull in https://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/toorale-man-murder-mystery/11015900
is dated to 1200s.
At that time, king Kertajaya of Kadiri Java escaped a murderous rebellion in 1222 and 'disappeared without trace' _ Coedes 1968. He was a Tantric Buddhist.
The Majapahit kingdom then developed and had a large navy and overseas trading interests. Javanese gold-miners were in the 'Philippines' in the 1300s so gold-exploring in Oz was possible.