This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mahaabaala (talk | contribs) at 12:35, 9 March 2004. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 12:35, 9 March 2004 by Mahaabaala (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Shouldn't this page be unified with Tibetan Buddhism and Lamaism? -- Error 00:17 May 10, 2003 (UTC)
- I'm no expert on this school as it doesn't particularly interest me at present, however I've just started working on some related projects (Himalayan studies) so should be able to shed some light in the near future! Just noticed from your link here that Lamaism was very disjointed, so I kind of hacked it back together. As for Vajrayana / Tibetan Buddhism, I think the former is a subset of the latter but I don't know if it warrants a seperate wiki. -- prat
- No! It should not be unified with Tibetan Buddhism. Vajrayana Buddhism is Indian in origin even though this is not brought out in the article. Tibetan Buddhism just happens to be the best known variation on the Vajrayana, but Shingon Buddhism in Japan is equally Vajrayana (and they would say a purer form of it). mahābāla 12:35, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- BTW Lamaism is a very archaic and now abandoned way of referring to Tibetan Buddhism. It is an example of western 'orientalism' at it's worst, because inherent in the term is the assumption that Tibetan Buddhism is not a form of Buddhism at all. This was informed by a western (mostly academic) bias which saw Theravada as the standard of orthodoxy.mahābāla 12:35, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Suggestion(s) on what should go on what pages
I've just moved a lot of detail on Tibetan Buddhism from the Vajrayana page to the Tibetan Buddhism page. If no one objects I will do the same thing with the Shingon section in a few days -- right now it contains more and better info on Shingon than the Shingon Buddhism page itself which seems odd. The Vajrayana page will then be fairly brief -- where it fits in Buddhism, what is unique about it and then a short description of Tibetan and Shingon Buddhism with links to them -- that's about it. But others may have a different view -- any comments? technopilgrim 18:52, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)