Re: Cambodia was once the richest country on the planet
There are many "Great Empires" in the course of human history. Beginning with Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medes/Persian, Greek, Rome, all were great in their own rights. But empires come and goe, due to fact that many were brought about by the wills of "tyrants" who based their conquests on false beliefs systems. Many of these "leaders" mainly used the concept of a "god-king" concepts to subjugate their subjects for their total sense of loyalties. But just like anything in the world; when such ideas "failed" the whole empires crumbled. The Khmer Empire became great because of it's religious system based on "Hinduism" of a god-king where every level of his subjects must owe their allegiance to; but it crumbled when it adopted Buddhism where kings were no longer regarded as a god-king any longer and its subject doesn't have to display total allegiance any longer. Rome fell when it adopted Christianity as state religion. So were the Mongols and many others who adopted a less aggressive form of religions and following a "rather self-denial" kind of religious concepts. Religious instructions were comparable to "computer programs" that programmed individuals to act in a certain way, i.e. either to fail or to succeed, to win or to lose, to build up empires or to destroy it.
There are many "Great Empires" in the course of human history. Beginning with Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medes/Persian, Greek, Rome, all were great in their own rights. But empires come and goe, due to fact that many were brought about by the wills of "tyrants" who based their conquests on false beliefs systems. Many of these "leaders" mainly used the concept of a "god-king" concepts to subjugate their subjects for their total sense of loyalties. But just like anything in the world; when such ideas "failed" the whole empires crumbled. The Khmer Empire became great because of it's religious system based on "Hinduism" of a god-king where every level of his subjects must owe their allegiance to; but it crumbled when it adopted Buddhism where kings were no longer regarded as a god-king any longer and its subject doesn't have to display total allegiance any longer. Rome fell when it adopted Christianity as state religion. So were the Mongols and many others who adopted a less aggressive form of religions and following a "rather self-denial" kind of religious concepts. Religious instructions were comparable to "computer programs" that programmed individuals to act in a certain way, i.e. either to fail or to succeed, to win or to lose, to build up empires or to destroy it.
5 comments:
i always think that religion have no place in politic to lead but it can only guide you to be wise in making a fair decisions. religions are for moralities in societies and politics are for deviced controlls of individual act.
Khmer Hinduism is an interesting subject to research. Google "Cambodia is cursed by Shiva".
5:06 AM, Religion is the very tools in which politic uses in order to govern. Every rulers in the history of man uses religion to their advantages to a certain degree. All the priests and the all the court magicians, and all the abbots and all the monks were in the palaces of the kings in ancient times (or even today) to advise and educate the public to be subservient to their rulers or kings at their time. They were the ones who wrote the books and the laws to program and the traditions and the customs for general laymen to follows. So, whether you like it or not, religions is a form of "programs" that were unwitting handed down to you through "generations" by the very society in which you are living in (including the very parents and relatives) among you. If "programmed in a positive ways," it will lead the whole nation to progress, but in a "bad way, it will cause the nation to collapse and become losers. A good example is during World War II; every Japanese were indoctrinated to believe that the Japanese Emperor was the descendant of the "Sun God" so it is "an honor" for all Japanese to give their lives to him. The result? Every Japanese would willingly die for their emperor, so it is a "win at all costs" attitude which makes it so hard for anyone to beat. Japanese, became more docile, when the Emperor admitted that "he was not god incarnated, but nothing more than a mere man". However, many felt betrayed by the falsehood, or the lies indoctrinated by their religious system of their days though. So, religion is very much a "mold" that which design to mold you to think in a certain way.
I do not believe that Buddhism was the reason the Khmer Empire crumbled. The fall of the Khmer Empire after the Angkor Period was due to the internal fighting between Khmer rulers, the pretenders to the throne, who fought and killed each other off. When one pretender wanted to take the throne he/she asked for foreign intervention. The other fact was due to the expansion of the T'ai (Thai) people who made a southward movement from southern China in the 13th century, occupying territory of the Khmer Empire in the process. At about this time, the Annamites (Viets) have also begun their southward expansionism.
People must know that Buddhism was an adaptation of Hinduism. The Buddha was a Hindu himself before he founded his own religious called Buddhism. The Buddhist doctrines and tenets are not much different from that of Hinduism. Buddhism believes in peace and non-violence and this is the same with Hinduism. To say that Buddhism was the cause of the downfall of the Khmer Empire is preposterous and erroneous and has done no justice to this religion at all.
It is hard to blame it all to religions for responsible for the total success for failure of many empires or society.Religions do have some roles in shaping humanity to a certain level.
Humanity have been on this planet for more than 5 million years. We all have evolved and changed and adapted to survived. Survival is still our main instinct that instruct us to behave in a certain way to make sure that we could survived.Survival is the ultimate machine drive humanity to conquest civilization since the dawn of humanity.
Empire or society in away they behave just like a man that try to survive in his environment.
For instance the communist empire collapsed after 70 years of its aggressive rules,without religion to play apart.The Japanese and Korean are now conquering the world with their success of exporting and they are still believing in Buddhism?. Khmer empire collased was no more than Buddhist Thai neighbour destroying it.
We Khmer have been there and we had been spoiled by wealth,the golden country that have always provide us enough food and gentle climate that make us sleep. The reason that we lost more than one millions square kilometres of land because our neighbours had been living in far higher pressure,they don't sleep. They see our land and our people are sleeping in a golden country that is why they are here.
We got to wake up if we have to survive.We got to except that our planet is continuing battle field,like one of the Chinese military commander SUN TSU wrote for more than 1500 years ago that IN PEACE WE PREPARE FOR WAR IN WAR WE PREPARE FOR PEACE,if we fail to obey this rule we will be a disappearing nation.
True Khmer
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