[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[L.S. Cousins]

Artur Karp wrote:

> "Buddhist Warfare", Jerryson, Intro. p. 3:
>
> <<In Sri Lanka, for instance, members of the Buddhist political party
> Janatha Vimukthi
> Peramuna (JVP) were alleged to have blurred the lines between sacred
> duty and murder; they
> traced their justifications back to the Sinhalese mytho-historical
> chronicle called the Mahāvamsa.
> In this work, the Buddhist King Dhutthagamani wages a sacred war
> against foreign invaders led
> by Tamil King Elara in the second century B.C.E. In their view, the
> killing of Tamil heathens did
> not constitute murder, since the Tamil warriors were neither
> meritorious nor, more importantly,
> Buddhist.>>
>
The JVP are an ultra-left group which carried out an armed insurrection 
in the 1970s. Their views would be representative of Buddhists in much 
the same way that the Communist Party of America might be considered to 
represent American Christians.
>
>
> In the Mahāvamsa (XXV, 109-110), the Tamils are - ultimately -
> dehumanized. According to the text Duṭṭhagāmaṇī (101-77 BC) has no
> reason to feel guilty for mass-killing his enemies. They are pasusamā
> - "like cattle" (Geiger has 'beasts").
>
> What I miss there is the famous mantra: "Gott mit uns".
>
It is amazing how often this is cited. We should note that this was 
written six to eight hundred years after the events in question (which 
are probably mythical). We don't know the context in which it was 
written or if the author thought it had any contemporary reference. It 
is certainly a very unusual passage. It is not clear if it had any 
influence before modern times. We should note that elsewhere in the same 
text the Tamil king Eḷāra is described very positively.

Lance