[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joanna,
>
> Dan--(my name is Joanna, not Joanne):

I apologize for the typo. Since we have communicated on and off this list 
for a number of years, you know that this was a typo and inadvertent. Still, 
I apologize.


> As usual, you insist on over-kill, while condescendingly assuming
> abysmal confusion on the part of one of the participants in this
> discussion. Doesn't reflect well on you.

Well, the "blunt" question, expressed in the second person, was primarily 
addressed to Andy to slow down the assumption that the text is only 
meaningful when deliteralized. The part of my response about the ask-thrice 
literary figure was the part addressed to you. In future, to avoid such 
confusion, I will not try to economize by including responses to different 
messages within a single message, even if they seem related and were 
piggybacking on each other, but address each separately.

> DeCaroli, Robert. Haunting the Buddha: Indian Popular Religions
> and the Formation of Buddhism. OUP, 2004
>
> Since I had to return the book via ILL, and cannot afford it
> right now,

At $95 who can afford it? Sounds like an interesting work -- perhaps if 
Vajrapani was in the business of subsidizing the book-buying habits of 
underpaid scholars instead of clubbing tongue-tied debaters to smithereens 
we could beseech him to procure a copy for us.

Google books offers a partial preview -- it begins (p. 3) with a quote from 
the Sutta Nipata II.5, in which a yakkha is addressing Buddha, saying:

"I shall ask you a question, ascetic. If you do not answer me, I shall 
either strike down your mind, or split your heart or seize you by the feet 
and throw you over the Ganges."

Buddha replies:

"I do not see anyone, sir, in the world, including the devas, Mara and 
Brahma, among beings including ascetics and brahmans, devas and men, who 
could strike down my mind, or split my heart or seize me by the feet and 
throw me in the Ganges. Nevertheless, ask what you wish."

http://tinyurl.com/33g4xog

Seems on point.

Dan