Monday, September 25, 2017

The Buddha was a Scythian / Shakyian (video)

British Museum; Bettany Hughes (twitter); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Buddhism took off in the Buddha's home, Scythia, a few years after launching in Varanasi


Scythians: the alternative lifestyle of antiquity
The Scythians wandered from Siberia in the north throughout Central Asia.

Curator St John Simpson explains how the nomadic Scythians [what the Greeks called the Sakas, Shakyas, Shakyians of Central Asia whose territories extended from the northwest frontier of India up into the Ukraine and Siberia of North Asia] may not have lived in permanent cities, but they still had the skill and desire to live the good life.

The exhibition Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia runs from September 14, 2017 through January 14, 2018 (#Scythians) with support from the capitalist corporation BP.
Scythians: nomads of Central and North Asia
More than 2,500 years ago, groups of formidable [male and female] "warriors" [Sanskrit kshatriyas] roamed the vast open plains of Siberia. Feared, loathed, admired -- but over time forgotten… Until now.

This major exhibition explores the story of the Scythians -- nomadic tribes and masters of horse-mounted warfare, who flourished between 900 and 200 BC.

Warrior Queen Tomyris was also a Scythian
Their encounters with the Greeks, Assyrians, and Persians were written into history but for centuries all trace of their culture was lost -- buried beneath the ice.

Shakyamuni, the "Sage of the Scythian (Shakyian) Clan, the historical Buddha (born Warrior Prince Siddhartha Gautama) was was not born in Nepal.

He was born and raised in Ancient Scythia, Central Asia, in and around modern Bamiyan, Mes Aynak, and Kabul (Ancient Kapilavastu), Afghanistan. See details at RanajitPal.com.
 


Siberia is part of Scythian Central Asia
Wiki edited by Wisdom Quarterly
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The borders of Central Asia are subject to at least three definitions, with Siberia included in the common one. 

The idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was only introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt.

Historically, political geography and geoculture are two significant borders widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia (Mehmet Akif Okur, "Classical Texts Of the Geopolitics and the "Heart Of Eurasia", Journal of Turkish World Studies, XIV/2, pp.74-75).

The most limited definition was the official one of the Soviet Union (USSR), which defined Middle Asia as consisting solely of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

However, the Russian culture has two distinct terms, Средняя Азия (Srednyaya Aziya or "Middle Asia," the narrower definition, which includes only those traditionally non-Slavic, Central Asian lands that were incorporated within those borders of historical Russia) and Центральная Азия (Tsentralnaya Aziya or "Central Asia," the wider definition, which includes Central Asian lands that have never been part of historical Russia).

Soon after independence, the leaders of the four former Soviet Central Asian Republics met in Tashkent and declared that the definition of Central Asia should include Kazakhstan as well as the original four included by the Soviets. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia.

The UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. According to it, Central Asia includes Mongolia, Tibet, northeast Iran (Golestan, North Khorasan, and Razavi provinces), central-east Russia south of the Taiga, large parts of China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the former Central Asian Soviet republics (the five "Stans" of the former Soviet Union).

An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity, and in particular, areas populated by Eastern Turkic, Eastern Iranian, or Mongolian peoples. These areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan and the Kashmir Valley of India may also be included. The Tibetans and Ladakhi Buddhists are also included. Insofar, most of the mentioned peoples are considered the "indigenous" peoples of the vast region. More

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