Was Buddhism ever predominant in Tamil Nadu? Which Buddhism? And when?
After my last post on the disappearance of Buddhism from South India, I received two emails of readers pointing to the fact that Buddhism must have been prosperous in Tamil Nadu, given that Dharmakīrti himself was born in Tamil Nadu and that the Maṇimēkalai (a Buddhist literary text in Tamil, datable perhaps to the 5th–7th c.) presupposes a Buddhist community and reuses materials from Śaṅkarasvāmin’s Nyāyapraveśa.
…should go to hell together with those who sell the Vedas or write it down!”
What determines the likelihood of textual reuse to occur? The genre, the time, the personality of the author? And what are the reasons for not naming one’s source?
Yesterday was the day of our panel (meaning the panel on intertextuality within Buddhist literature organised by Cathy Cantwell, Jowita Kramer and me), which means that I spent most of the day there. The final discussion has been especially challenging and interesting, since