Publisher's Synopsis
A Chinaman sleeping in the Baladitya vihara in Nalanda has a dream. Manjushri takes him to the roof of the vihara and points at Nalanda burning around him. He signals him to get out of Jambudwipa. Huen Tsang packs his belongings, takes his manuscripts, takes the leave of the king and leaves Jambudwipa, I mean India. He leaves and Jihadists enter. They indulge in wanton killing. As Manjusri predicted Nalanda burned, other cities burned, Buddhists were slaughtered, and scriptures were burnt and done away with. Brahmins went silent on the Buddhist story giving the felling blow to a lovely religion. But far away the Chinaman had stored his Jambudwipa in a temple waiting for a day when his own ghost would be back to grab a non historian, a local, a businessman by the arm and make him search for his lost Jambudwipa. Ashok Kumar Singh rolled out of the closet. The result A rock and roll crazy story of a non Historian challenging the worlds Buddhist and Indian historians on the authenticity of their finds. There never was a place called Kapilavastu, Nalanda, Khushinagar, Lumbini and Sarnath. These were names concocted by Samuel Beal when he translated Huen Tsangs book. This is why these places were never found. British historians simply superimposed these names over the original ones which had nothing to do with Buddhism. The real places were somewhere else. The result was the world failed to see that India was following Indian Buddhism, the real Buddhism the Buddha propagated. India never rejected Buddhism. Only the world, the historians, the Indians themselves couldn't see it. This happened because of the loss of Buddhist scriptures and the creation of two British colonial names. Hinduism and Buddhism. This created two distinctly separate entities. These words never existed in ancient India which caused Indians to scratch their heads and think, "What the hell, what is Buddhism doing in Bihar? How the hell did it happen? We are Hindus." Buddhists in turn yelled and hollered, "The Hindus kicked out Buddhism." Total confusion. Both simply didn't understand each other. The twain didn't meet.Buddhists were searching for Buddhism in India through eyes of their culture. Tibetans were looking for Gomphas and prayer wheels. Others were looking for something else. They failed to see Buddhism through the eyes of Indian culture. The Buddha forbade hurting any living being. He was dead serious on kindness and vegetarianism. This is why most of north India is vegetarian. The Buddha forbade statue worship and worship to himself. This can be seen in temples of village deities all across north India. They have only 3 or 5 or 7 tiny mud stupas connected to a Buddhist name of a disciple. And Brahmins don't pray in most of them. It is the original Indian name and not the mispronounced Buddhist one. The result is both names failed to recognize each other. What went wrong Confusion due to subsequent invasions of India and Sril Lanka was the cause. Muslims burnt Buddhist texts in India, Portuguese burnt Buddhist texts in Sri Lanka.-Result- no written material was left. Written material was scattered across the east with twangy languages mispronouncing Indian words in various twangy ways. At last the savior comes. It was the era that went down famously in history as the rape of the Nile. Grave robbers and historians came to India to try their luck in the Buddhist story. But there were no scriptures. So they collected the mis pronounced scriptures from across the world and tried to make sense of the mispronounced Indian names. They mispronounced them further creating Indian words in the process. A perfect example is Samuel Beals translation of Huen Tsangs book. He failed to decipher the real words and happily created new ones which the world lapped up. The real places are somewhere else. This is what I and Huen Tsang have straightened out. It is a partnership I cherish.
