The founder of Buddhism is the famous Shakyamuni, his real name is Siddhartha Gautama, when he was 30 years old, he felt the sufferings of life, old age, sickness and death in the world, and had an epiphany under the Bodhi tree, and founded Buddhism with global influence.
India and Nepal debated the nationality of Shakyamuni, but it is now recognized that Shakyamuni was born in Nepal.
Surprisingly, however, an expert in Nepal objected, finding that Shakyamuni was likely to be Chinese or after the famous Shennong.
Nepalese experts put forward high arguments
Ancient China poured in a large number of foreign religions, most of which disappeared in the long river of history, and only Buddhism has survived to this day and has a large number of followers.
Many people think that Buddhism can be passed down because of the good localization of Buddhism, for example, during the two Jin and Northern Dynasties, the influence of Buddhism reached its peak.
But at this time it was very different from the religion that was originally popular in India, and in this respect, the founder of Buddhism, Shakyamuni, could not have predicted.
But this does not explain the disappearance of other foreign religions, such as Manichaeism, which apparently also underwent a certain degree of localization, and even Manichaeism evolved into the popular Ming religion, but still did not survive.
The reason for this is that the teachings of Buddhism themselves fit into part of the worldview of the Chinese people, and they can be integrated without obstacles.
Manichaeism that was once all the rage
The reason why it was able to do this also needs to start with its founder, Shakyamuni.
In the last century, there was a debate between India and Nepal about the nationality of Shakyamuni. At that time, India insisted that Shakyamuni was born in India and named him one of the greatest Indians and hyped it up in the international media.
However, the Indian government's arguments aroused strong dissatisfaction from the Nepalese government, and they immediately came out to refute the rumors.
Nepal said that according to Buddhist scriptures, Shakyamuni's birthplace was in the northern Indian kingdom of Kapila.
This ancient country was located in present-day southern Nepal in Tirolakot, so Shakyamuni must have been Nepali.
The Government of Nepal also stressed that the so-called ancient India was only a geographical concept at that time, and the region was not truly unified.
Nepal is located in a region that has never been under the jurisdiction of India, and there is no doubt that Shakyamuni was born in Nepal from any point of view.
Buddhist temples in Nepal
The Nepalese claim has a strong factual basis, so it has become a common opinion in the historiography that the Buddha's birthplace was Lumbini, Nepal.
Even if India is dissatisfied with this, it can only accept it helplessly in the end.
However, after this controversy gradually subsided, a Nepalese historian, Amhansong, after years of research, came up with a surprising "theology".
Amhansson believed that Shakyamuni was not Indian, but that he was a pure Chinese, a descendant of the famous Shennong clan.
Not only that, but Amhansong also posted a lot of evidence to support his views, which quickly gained the approval of many people.
According to Buddhist scriptures, Shakyamuni was undoubtedly a member of the Kapilavi royal family, so why was he considered Chinese?
Critical genetic evidence
In fact, the main reason why Amhansson chose to study the nationality of Shakyamuni was to deny the Indian view.
But when he searched deeply, he found that Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, was inextricably linked to China, and found a lot of decent evidence.
First, Amhansson irrefutably denied the claim that Shakyamuni was an ancient Indian. Because he consulted the literature and found that Shakyamuni was the standard "yellow race", which was widely distributed in eastern and southeastern Asia.
India is not one of them, and the ancient Indians are genetically more similar to the indigenous people of Australia, and they are all standard "brown people".
From this point of view alone, it is unlikely that Shakyamuni was an ancient Indian.
Secondly, there is a portrait of Shakyamuni in the British Museum, which is said to have been well preserved by Buddhism, and the painting depicts the original appearance of the world-honored one.
It is recorded that the painting was accidentally lost after the British colonized South Asia and was eventually included in the British Museum.
According to the content of the portrait, Shakyamuni's appearance has several distinctive features, namely yellow skin, single eyelids, small eyes and high cheekbones, which are completely inconsistent with the appearance characteristics of ancient Indians.
After a comprehensive comparison, it can be found that the ancient Chinese are the most in line with this characteristic. Therefore, Amhansson boldly hypothesized that Shakyamuni's people probably migrated from China.
And he did find relevant evidence in the history books, at the turn of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, there were frequent wars in the Central Plains.
In order to escape the war, some of the descendants of Yan and Huang chose to leave the land of right and wrong and moved to live on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
But because of the harsh environment on the Tibetan Plateau, some of them crossed the towering mountains to the more comfortable climate of South Asia, and some of them settled in Nepal.
And these people are all descendants of the Yandi Shennong clan. That's why Amhansong would say that Shakyamuni was a descendant of Shennong.
In fact, Nepalese officials have published a study that confirms that ancient Nepalis are genetically Tibeto-Burman. From this point of view, the possibility that ancient Nepalese and Chinese are of the same origin is indeed relatively high.
This statement strongly supports Amhansson's point of view, after all, genetic testing is still very recognized by historians today.
Finally, Amhansson emphasized that ancient India was a territorial concept, and that even if it was briefly unified, its monarch did not control the region of Nepal.
In ancient times, Nepal was only a vassal state of one country, and that was China, which is clearly recorded in the history books of the mainland.
And since very early times, Nepal has been an important transit point for China's maritime trade, so there have been many Chinese and Miao people living here.
After synthesizing this evidence, Amu Hansong suggested that Shakyamuni was most likely Chinese, and even further suggested that he was a descendant of the Shennong family.
Remains of an ancient dynasty in Nepal
Two other important bases for Amukhansson
In addition to the key evidence of genes and physical characteristics, Amhansson also presented some circumstantial evidence after studying Buddhist scriptures in order to prove his theory.
For example, Amukhansson once saw such a record in an ancient Buddhist scripture in which Shakyamuni, while chatting with his disciples, once mentioned that his ancestors came from the far east.
According to the geographical location of Nepal, it can be speculated that this far east is most likely ancient China, and there is no other possibility.
Perhaps in the eyes of the Chinese people, the study of history should be rigorous, and it seems nondescript to look for arguments from the scriptures.
But this is quite normal in India and Nepal, where there has been a lack of historical information, especially when it comes to more than 2,000 years ago.
In fact, other historians in India and Nepal have also studied Buddhist scriptures when analyzing the origin of Shakyamuni.
Therefore, although this evidence is not 100% correct, it also has a certain reference value.
Secondly, after an in-depth analysis of the teachings and contents of Buddhism, Amu Hansong believes that there are many shadows of Chinese civilization in it.
He found that some of the Buddhist scriptures were difficult to find in India, but in China they were able to find a lot of counterparts.
Amhansson believes that these records just show that Shakyamuni inadvertently talked about things in his hometown when communicating with his disciples, giving the Buddhist scriptures a little shadow of Chinese civilization.
Because of this, it is very much in line with the values of the Chinese. That's why Buddhism was introduced to China and then quickly integrated in a way that no other religion could do.
At the same time, the spread of Buddhism in India was very limited, its influence in ancient India has been small, and the common people have little interest in it.
The influence of this powerful religion, which swept through East and Southeast Asia, was very weak in its earliest spread, and its transmission was almost severed.
Ancient India was more Hindu
Amhansson believes that in addition to the influence of Hinduism, there is also a possibility that Buddhism itself is alienated from Indian culture, which is why it cannot be accepted.
Finally, after the excavation of the Sanxingdui site in recent years, many cultural relics have been unearthed. Several of the bronze statues are similar in shape and design to the early Buddha statues.
It was the appearance of these bronze statues that made Amu Hansong more and more convinced that the birth of Buddhism must have been influenced by Chinese civilization.
Amuhansson believes that it is very likely that the rudiments of Buddhism appeared in ancient China before Shakyamuni, but it had not yet been formally formed as a religion.
These contents accompanied the migration of Shennong's descendants to Nepal, and finally completed the combing of them in Shakyamuni, based on which Buddhism was founded, and gradually spread to Asia, becoming one of the three major religions in the world today.
epilogue
Although Amhanson's views sound a bit of "strange theories", they have been recognized by many people because they have a complete theoretical basis. After all, there are no complete historical materials in ancient India and Nepal, and the existing mainstream historiographical views may not be irrefutable.
Of course, in the final analysis, this is still the opinion of Amu Hansong's family, and the authenticity is doubtful, so so far, the mainland historiography circles do not recognize this statement. Perhaps in the future, when more convincing information is discovered, Amuhansson's inference can be thoroughly proved or refuted.
Reference:
Shakyamuni's Nation, Race and Its State
- Lv Jianfu
Nepal and China
—Niranjan Bataray