--- In [email protected], "claudiouk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IILUHZcE510
This is actually a pretty good documentary, and a good introduction to Buddha and his teachings for those who don't know much about either. When they present some of the far-fetched legends about his birth and life, they do so *while* mentioning that these were quite possibly "tacked on" to his story by later followers who were trying to "pedestalize" him. And the documentary does a very good job of describing the context of the times in which the Buddha lived, and the characteristics of the Brahmin religion that was prevalent in the times, with its inherent elitism, based on keeping the "power pyramid" of the caste system firmly in place and the caste at the top of that pyramid firmly in charge of all the power and privilege that they had become used to. Buddha was in his way a real Will Rogers Populist, committed to the same *non*-privileged classes as was Jesus, 500 years after him. For those who are interested in the antipathy we see here on FFL sometimes towards Buddhism, this documentary gives a cursory overview of where that antipathy *came* from. The privileged Brahmin classes, who passed their power and their ability to collect money from the *non*- privileged classes from father to son, were NOT HAPPY about this upstart prince who went around preaching that no one *needed* priests and pujas and knowledge from the Vedas -- purchased at a price, always at a price. He, like Jesus after him, taught that caste/class had nothing whatsoever to do with evolution and how "close" one's enlightenment was. And he, like Jesus after him, was badrapped and persecuted by those whose livelihood his heretical teachings threatened. In my opinion, that was the whole basis of the Hindu/Brahmin dislike for Buddha and Buddhism during his lifetime, and that is the basis of their continuing dislike for Buddhism today. Buddha was a *rebel*, and the privileged classes have *always* hated rebels. The visuals in the documentary are stunning, and will be appreciated as much by those whose "feel" for India and its history is "Hindu-flavored" as those whose "feel" for them are "Buddhist-flavored." It's an hour of watching television that you will not later regret.
