European scholars used to think even in mid-nineteenth century that the Buddha was of African descent basing their conclusion upon a single piece of evidence, the Buddha's curly locks. It was providential that in 1819, a young maverick named Brian Hodgson was posted as the Post Master and Assistant to British Ambassador in Kathmandu; he was in his late teens, without formal education but filled with insatiable curiosity and indefatigable energy.
Brian Hodgson discovered in Kathmandu that the Buddha was indeed a Mongolian Prince of a small fiefdom in mid-western Nepal. But, handicapped as he was due to lack of formal education, he could never explain what he had actually discovered.
Although, he was being tutored in sanskrit by a Nepalese Buddhist priest, he could never dislodge from his head the first lesson he was taught by pundits at Fort William Calcutta that sanskrit is the language of Hindu gods and only brahmins could learn it. He could never understand how hundreds of volumes of Buddhist literature in manuscripts, written in chaste sanskrit, came to be in possession of his Buddhist priest tutor. All that he was interested in was to send them clandestinely to the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Paris and the Library of East India Company.
Brahminic elements were quick to claim authorship as well as ownership of those priceless manuscripts, but then came a very unexpected denouement from within. In those Buddhist manuscripts of Nepal are portrayed supreme Hindu gods playing subservient roles to Adi Buddha Swayambhunath. Thus, those manuscripts are lying and gathering dust waiting for an opportunity to be studied and it is my belief this is the right time.
Emperor Ashok had journeyed to Kathmandu following his Master’s footsteps and offered worship at the Swayambhunath. Upon his return to Pataliputra, and having ascertained the most central location of his domain, he had the most magnificent replica of Swayambhunath built at Sanchi. However, during the Golden Age of Hinduism, the nation witnessed the sad demise of Buddhism and so the Swayambhunath of Sanchi fell from grace.
Now, read on…..
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