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Posted
on 06-Feb-01 12:15 PM
The purpose of this email is to let the Nepali community know what the Nepali Student Organization of America is doing about the misrepresentation of history by Western institutes and publishing houses regarding Buddha’s birthplace, and to let other people and organizations know how they can get involved in our campaign.
The first aspect of our campaign involved the Smithsonian Institution here in Washington, DC. We had become aware that the only official American gallery representing Asian art—the Sackler and Freer Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution—not only neglected Nepal entirely, but also said that Buddha was a “north Indian prince.”
In response to our pressure, the Smithsonian has committed to correcting the historical record. We will be following up to insure that their commitment is kept, as well as expanding our campaign to publishing houses, so that history is represented as truthfully as possible.
Following is the text of the letter we sent to the
Smithsonian:
The Nepali Student Organization of America has been disappointed to discover that the Sackler Gallery informs its visitors that the Buddha, whom we believe to have been born in Nepal, was a North Indian prince. His ancestral Shakya kingdom is also inaccurately characterized as a “republic of northern India.” In spite of the presence in the galleries of such treasures of Nepali Buddhist sculpture as the White Avolokiteshvara, no mention is made of the probable fact that the historic Buddha was born in what is now Nepal. Yet UNESCO recognized Lumbini, Nepal as a World
Heritage Site in 1998 due to widespread scholarly belief that it has the best claim to be the historic
birthplace of the Buddha. A World Buddhist Conference was held in 1998 in Lumbini specifically because of its holy reputation as Buddha’s birthplace. Archeological evidence indicates that a site in Tilaurakot, near Taulihawa in Kapilvastu district, was the palace of the Shakya dynasty.
Time magazine reported “the apparent discovery of Buddha’s birthplace” in its issue of May 26, 1997, writing that a Japanese-financed archeological team had unearthed the most convincing evidence yet of the precise spot. And none of this information is new. The renowned Sri
Lanka-born Buddhist scholar Dr. Walpola Rahula wrote as long ago as 1959 in his classic text, “What the Buddha Taught,” that while Buddha lived largely in north India, “His father, uddhodana, was the ruler of the kingdom of the Sakyas in modern Nepal.” The location of Buddha’s birthplace in Nepal was reported in February, 1897 in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great
Britain and Ireland, which details the evidence but notes the difficulty of gaining further archeological access to Nepal. Long closed to the West, Nepal did not make it easy for scholars to pursue their interests, and it was perhaps in part as a consequence of this that the belief lingered that India was the birthplace of Buddha. Unfortunately, even today, many books continue to repeat the old assumption that Buddha was an Indian prince.
Yet as long ago as the 3rd century B.C. the Indian emperor Ashok clearly believed that Buddha was born in what is now Nepal. He erected pillars in Nepal to mark important events in the Buddha’s early life and married his daughter Charumati to a Nepali prince in order to marry his daughter to the holy land. We have no quarrel with claims that the historic Buddha lived after the age of 29, attained enlightenment, taught, developed his philosophy, and ultimately died in what is now North India. Clearly, the Shakya kingdom of Kapilvastu was culturally linked to a widespread Hindu culture in South Asia that had its heart in what is now India.
But even discounting the fact that no nation by the name of India existed in the 6th century B.C. and thus could hardly have a “prince,” it is disappointing to see the Sackler Gallery repeating an assumption with so little basis in scholarship. There are several descriptions that we believe would
be more accurate, such as, “Many scholars believe that Siddhartha Gautum was born in what is now Nepal.” The Buddha could also be described as a South Asian prince without putting the Sackler Gallery in the position of taking a stance in an ongoing debate that has not been (and may never be) decisively resolved, although current evidence favors Nepal. While it may be common to refer to many aspects of subcontinental culture as “Indian,” this is an ethnocentric and factually inaccurate presentation that marginalizes the people of nations such as Nepal. We hope that in the future the Sackler Gallery, as the national museum of Asian art, will convey information about the life of the Buddha that is more in keeping with contemporary scholarship and gives respectful
weight to Nepal.
Respectfully yours,
Hom Raj Acharya
Kapilvastu, Nepal
President, Nepali Student Organization of America
Washington, D.C.
Hemlal Kafle
Chitwan, Nepal
Vice President, Nepali Student Organization of America
Washington, D.C.
Our next step is to expand this campaign to publishing houses. We are currently gathering information on houses that have incorrectly identified Buddha as an Indian, and hope to involve Nepali students, scholars, citizens, and friends of Nepal in our letter-writing campaign. If you have any information about publishing houses that have conveyed wrong information about the Buddha, please let us know. We’ll share more information with the community at large in future.
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