Celtic Buddhism?

[Kusala]

Hello Dhamma friends. Check out this interesting article. http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/ ... n-pre.html

[Kim O'Hara]

The cross-legged figure has been attributed to the Vikings and used as evidence for Viking Buddhism in a thread here ... maybe a year ago.
The rest? Coincidence, wishful thinking and natural similarities account for 99.9% of it, IMO. Sure, some very slight possibility that there was cultural contact between India and Ireland 2,000 years ago even if it did happen it can now never be proven, much less become useful to us.


Kim

[Reductor]

Even freakier is a suggestion in "Twenty cases suggestive of reincarnation" that buddhist monks found their way to mexico and alaska.

For example, stevenson quoted findings that funeral hymes among the tlingit aboriginals contain chinese words. Also prominent is that the tlingit concept of 'reincarnation' resembles more buddhist 'rebirth', even in thr analogy of candle igniting candle (possibly the most common analogy).

Add an accounting from a buddhist monk of a sea journey where he traveled from island to island until reaching a very large country. These islands, and the description of the journey, resembles a possible route of immigration for peoples along an island chain that stretches across the pacific ocean.

I have since returned the book to the library. Probably I should have noted Stevensons references; although I haven't any means of aquiring the articles anyway. Tsk.

Fun to contemplate, yes.

[Kusala]

The cross-legged figure has been attributed to the Vikings and used as evidence for Viking Buddhism in a thread here ... maybe a year ago.
The rest? Coincidence, wishful thinking and natural similarities account for 99.9% of it, IMO. Sure, some very slight possibility that there was cultural contact between India and Ireland 2,000 years ago even if it did happen it can now never be proven, much less become useful to us.


Kim

Hi Kim. You may or may not find this interesting...all is needed is approximately 4 minutes... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0HCs6PV ... ideo_title

[Kim O'Hara]

Hi Kim. You may or may not find this interesting...all is needed is approximately 4 minutes... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0HCs6PV ... ideo_title

That's a 49 minute lecture, not 4. And from the 4 that I watched, I learned nothing new. Prehistoric migrations? Sure. Indo-European language family? Sure. Probable cultural contact in mediaeval times? Different thing entirely.

Kim

[Nori]

This is a very interesting article. Thanks.

It is interesting to think that Buddhist 'missions' traveled to very far off places in the times immediately following the Buddhas death. Their intentions (to spread the dhamma), I think, was stated somewhere in the Tipitaka.

I noticed that in the Nag Hammadi library, many of the sayings of the 'Savior', in the Gospel of Thomas spoke about things very similar to the Buddha's teachings. I often wonder whether that is because they discovered the same truths or whether the 'Savior' was influenced by the Buddha.