Re: The Khmer Empire crumbled when it adopted Buddhism
Religion is the very tool in which politics 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, religion is a form of "programs" that was unwittingly 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.
24 October 2011 7:12 AM
-------------------------------------
Anonymous said...
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 religion 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.
24 October 2011 8:24 AM
-------------------------------------
Anonymous said...
It is hard to blame it all on religions for the total success or failure of any 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 survive. Survival is still our main instinct that instruct us to behave in a certain way to make sure that we could survive. Survival is the ultimate machine drive humanity to conquest civilization since the dawn of humanity.
Empire or society in a way they behave just like a man who try to survive in his environment.
For instance, the communist empire collapsed after 70 years of its aggressive rules, without religion to play a part.The Japanese and Koreans are now conquering the world with their success of exports and technological know-how and they are still believing in Buddhism. The Khmer Empire collapsed was no more than the Buddhist Thai neighbour destroying it.
We Khmer have been there and we had been spoiled by wealth, the golden country that have always provided us enough food and gentle climate that makes us sleep. The reason that we lost more than one million square kilometres of land was 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 accept that our planet is a continuing battle field, like one of the Chinese military commander SUN TSU who 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
3 comments:
I diagree that religion is the down fall of the Khmer Empire. Thai is successful against Khmer, correct? They start to take most of Khmer land correct? What religion is Thai follow? I thought Thai n Khmer share the same religion.
We need to stop blame others for own mistake! Be responsible for own actions, this is one approach we need to take to dig ourself out of the mess we are in...
LoveKhmer
24th Oct 8:24 AM
Empires do not come about because of the result of "peace" but the result of "war", check out the history of
empires and how each one of those come about and you will see. And that means blood were shed in huge quantities when one nation rises against another nation. Do you expect that a docile religion of Buddhism, will produce a strong empire? I don't think so. The whole concept of Buddhism is about "cessation of desires" it is about searching for Nirvana or the ultimate release from the cycles of death and rebirth. The whole concept of Buddhism is about abandonment of all kinds of desires pertaining to this earthly life that you are living. That means the desires to be rich, the desires for sexual craving with the opposite sex, the desires for personal glory, the desires to be important, are just a few of the concept being taught. If you are a strict Buddhist follower, you will have to shave your head off and put on a yellow saffron and belong to a monastery. You concern is not about fighting the war of nationalism, neither are you concerned about racism either. But what happened when other race do not live by the same concept that you are following? Where it is ok for them to kill, steal, rob, pillage and do whatever they please. It is not them who is at a disadvantage; but it is you is is that the receiving end of it. They are playing the game by their own rules, you are playing your game by your own rules, the result? You are the "loser". That is what Buddhism in Cambodia had done to it's people. It teaches it subject to be compassionate, to be kind to make peace, to not desire to much riches so that it might stumble you from attaining Nirvana. These are the very things that I am referring to as "negative programming" that is putting the Khmer people at a disadvantage in comparison to that of the Vietnamese, the Koreans, the Japanese and so on. While some of you might reason that Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese are also followers of the same Buddha,but come they can progress further than us Khmer's. The answer to that question is simple: "they have modified their concept of attaining Nirvana to a latter stage". To the Chinese, to the Vietnamese, to the Japanese, attaining riches, and glories is not a sin, so it ok to be rich. Hence, they are programing themselves to win, not to lose like most of us Khmer's.
1:18 AM, It is true that empires were achieved as a result of wars and conquer, but to blame the downfall of an empire on Buddhism is purely fiction. As you pointed out, the Thai (Siamese), the Viet (Annamites), the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese were and are still Buddhists and their countries are very strong militarily, politically and economically. So, we can't say that Buddhism makes a country weak.
Like I said, the downfall of the Khmer Empire was not due to Cambodia adopting Buddhism, but due to the internal fighting between pretenders to the throne and the southward expansion of the Annamites and the T'ai people.
If you attributed Hinduism to the expansion of the Khmer Empire or Budhhism to the downfall of the Khmer Empire, then you must look at the Hindu countries of Nepal, Bali and India itself which was fragmented into small states until the British colonized it and India has only become united after the independence in 1947. Before then, it was controlled by the maharajas as small kingdoms. Nepal is a backward country and Bali has totally been absorbed by the Islamic state of Indonesia.
In this post, you are not blaming Buddhism, but blamed we Khmers on the downfall of the Khmer empire. This what I have stressed from the beginning that the downfall of the Khmer Empire was not due to Cambodia adopting Buddhism, but due to our internal fighting and the T'ai and Viet expansionism. So, do you agree that we have only ourselves to blame for the downfall of our empire, and not Buddhism?
Post a Comment