PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

Sacred Time In Islam And Judaism – OpEd

 

 January 2, 2023  

By Rabbi Allen S. Maller

Both the Qur’an and the Torah describe two types of time: one is the ordinary mundane human time of days, months and years; the other is the extraordinary Divine time of God’s sacred timeless activities: “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.” (Psalms 90:4)

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. And on the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He ceased from all His work. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it…” (Genesis (2:1-3)

“Indeed, We sent the Qur’an down during the Night of Decree. And what can make you know what is the Night of Decree? The Night of Decree is better than a thousand months. (Qur’an 97:1-3)

“He [God] arranges [each] matter from heaven to earth; then it will ascend to Him in a Day [of Judgement], the extent of which is a thousand years of those which you count.” (Qur’an 32:5) 

“The angels and the Spirit will ascend to Him during a Day the extent of which is fifty thousand years.” (Qur’an 70:4)  

Jewish Kabbalists (mystics) expanded God’s timeframe considerably. Sefer HaTemunah, a very influential Kabbalistic text attributed to Rabbi Ishmael, a 2nd century C.E. sage, which was probably written in the 1270s; connects the Talmud’s (Sanhedrin 97a) statement that: 

“Six thousand years shall the [human historical] world exist, and one thousand, [the seventh] it shall lie fallow” (in peace) to the Torah’s: “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year let it rest and lie fallow, so the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat.” (see Leviticus 25). 
Sefer HaTemunah asserts this 7,000-year cycle is equivalent to one Sabbatical cycle, and because there are seven such cycles per Jubilee, the world [of human history] will exist for 49,000 years [and this year is only 5783].

But Rabbi Isaac ben Samuel of Acre, a 13th-century Kabbalist said; “I, the insignificant Yitzchak of Akko, have written because: “‘For a thousand years in Your eyes are as a fleeting yesterday.’  (Psalm 90:4); so one of our 365 ¼ day years, is a on High 365,250 of our years.”‘

In recent decades Jews began replacing A.D. with CE, then, Muslims and academics in the disciplines of comparative religion and archeology began using CE. In our modern era, using CE, the common era, to stress a more universal, less Christian theological, view of historical time, seems to be growing.

However, while a common non sectarian calendar is very desirable, we can learn some valuable lessons from the differences in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim calendar systems. 

All three religion’s calendars start each year on the same date in their own calendar, but since the Jewish and Muslim calendars are based on a lunar cycle, they move each year in terms of the Christian solar calendar. 

In 638 CE, just six years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, and sixteen years after the Hijra, the escape of Prophet Muhammad and most of the Muslims, from oppression and persecution in the Arabian city of Makkah, Islam’s second caliph, ‘Umar, decided to create a new calendar to govern the affairs of Muslims and the lands newly conquered by them. 

These newly conquered countries used several different calendars. Persia. Syria, Iraq, and Egypt all used a calendar with a different New Year date and a different historical era starting point; even though all four of them were solar calendars with 365 days. An additional problem with the existing calendars for Muslims was that the solar calendars used by the Persians, Syrians, and Egyptians were identified with pagan cultures. 

Umar therefore decided to create a calendar specifically for the Muslim community. It would be lunar only, with 12 months, each with 29 or 30 days. This gives a lunar year of 354 days, 11 days fewer than the solar year. 

The Islamic lunar calendar did not need to be synchronized to the solar seasons because, unlike the Jewish calendar, no Islamic festivals are related to the agricultural cycle. 

‘Umar also decided to choose a new starting date (epoch) for the new Muslim calendar: the Hijra, the escape of Muhammad from Makkah to Medina, where Muslims first attained religious and political autonomy. Thus the Hijra, which occurred on the first day of Muharram was determined to be the year 1 for the Islamic calendar, which was named “hijri” after its epoch. 

The Persians, like the Jews in the Biblical period, dated events by the year of the reigning king. But the Syrians and Iraqis both used the Seleucid era calendar, as did the Jews in post Biblical days. The rabbis used the Seleucid calendar in divorce documents until the 8th or 9th century.  

The Seleucid calendar started its epoch with the establishment of the Greek dominated Syrian government, which in Syria, began in the autumn of 312 BCE, while in Iraq, the epoch began in the spring of 311 BCE, half a year later than in Syria. 

In Egypt, the Christians used a calendar that started from 284 CE, when Diocletian became Roman emperor. This is very strange since Diocletian, in 303 and 304 CE, promulgated four anti-Christian laws which led to brutal repressions against Christians, especially in the eastern part of the empire. 

The Egyptian Christians in later generations began to count their years from the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, their oppressor because they were proud that they had survived his oppression. This epoch is still used by Coptic Christians, who call it the ‘Era of Martyrs’. 

In Europe, the Diocletian epoch was used until the 6th to 7th century. Then the epoch of the Christian Era, which was first used by Dionysius Exiguous in his calculations (in 525 CE) of past and future dates for Easter began to slowly spread. 

The Christian epoch starts with the birth of Jesus, placed in the year 1 CE. But it did not become widespread in Europe until the 9th to 10th  century.
The Jewish epoch calendar, unlike the Christian calendar, does not start with the birth of Abraham, and unlike the Muslim epoch calendar, it does not start from the Exodus from Egypt (the trans-formative experience of the Jewish people). 

The Buddhist epoch calendar, which starts from the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gautama, might offer a parallel to starting the Jewish epoch calendar with the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai (the enlightenment of the Jewish people) but it does not. 

The second century Rabbis who constructed the calendar Jews currently use, chose to begin with Adam and Eve i.e. the beginning of written history and urban civilization. The word Adam in Hebrew means  mankind or Homo Sapiens– the species. The exit of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden symbolizes the transition of humanity from a largely nomadic, stone age society of hunter-gatherers, to a more advanced metalworking bronze age society of farmers and village dwellers. 

By starting the Jewish calendar with a historical transition that would eventually have a universal impact on all of human society, the second century rabbis followed the lead of the Torah, which begins not with Judaism or the Jewish People, but with urban civilization and the recorded history of mankind. 

Rabbi Allen S. Maller

Allen Maller retired in 2006 after 39 years as Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, Calif. He is the author of an introduction to Jewish mysticism. God. Sex and Kabbalah and editor of the Tikun series of High Holy Day prayerbooks.

Etidal, Telegram Remove 15m Items Of Extremist Online Content

The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology can be seen in Riyadh. (Supplied

 January 2, 2023 

By Arab News

The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, and messaging platform Telegram, removed more than 15 million online items of content and closed down 6,824 channels in 2022.

The center, known as Etidal and based in Riyadh, has been collaborating with Telegram on preventing and countering terrorism and violent extremism by reviewing online content posted in Arabic.

Both organizations have agreed to expand their coordination to detect and remove material glorifying terrorism. 

The joint team monitored and removed about 8.5 million items of extreme content by the three terrorist organizations, Al-Qaeda, Daesh, and Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, from September to December last year, broadcast through 3,616 channels.

Almost 4.2 million items of Daesh content were removed and 2,654 channels closed; Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham saw 3.7 million items removed through 703 channels; and Al-Qaeda lost 625,337 items through 259 channels.

On Feb. 21, 2022, Etidal and Telegram announced a deal to step up their joint cooperation on tackling the issue.

The items of content that were removed and channels closed amounted to more than 7.6 million items and 1,676 channels created by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham; 5.4 million items and 4,359 by Daesh; and 1.9 million items and 789 channels by Al-Qaeda.

Among items referred were media files — PDFs, videos, and audio — uploaded by groups on Telegram and public Telegram channels hosting the material.

The cooperation agreement aims to protect the platform’s users from extremist content, ideological influences, and attempts to exploit the space in trading content.

The UN Office of Counter-Terrorism hailed Etidal’s efforts in combating certain ideologies in August, saying that the global center had practical insights into various extremist groups.

Mansour Al-Shammari, secretary-general of Etidal, recently received a high-level delegation in the Saudi capital from the UN.

The two sides discussed ways to develop cooperation in preventing and combating terrorism and violent extremism.

The visiting delegation was briefed on the center’s efforts in defeating extremist ideology, and its societal initiatives.

Arab News is Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1975 by Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company (SRPC), a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).

The Horn Of Africa States: The Inter-Connectivity Gaps – OpEd

Detail of map of Greater Horn of Africa. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

 January 2, 2023

By Dr. Suleiman Walhad

This is the first day of year 2023. It is a good time to welcome it with an article on the inter-connectivity gaps of the Horn of Africa States, highlighting what they have been telling the region to do and what it should actually be doing, if it has to move forward and close the gaps that are apparently obstacles to the region’s further development.

Obviously, the region has a long coast, some 4,700 km and it enjoys a vast territory of nearly 2 million square kilometers. This vast territory consists of agricultural spaces and mountains and plains, rivers and lakes, forests and dry lands, almost desertic. It lounges near a major ocean and overlooks one of the main sea-lanes of the world and a narrow strait that is as important as the Suez Canal for international trade. The region is not empty of people, either. It enjoys a youthful population of some 160 million who live in thousands of villages, towns and cities, and/or are scattered nomadic settlements. The region, nevertheless, lacks inter-connectivity among these thousands of villages, towns and cities and these scattered rural populations.

Hence service provisions, transportation of goods, and movement of people in the region are limited at best. Cross capital and investments within the SEED countries of the region are also hampered by lack of the necessary regional investment laws and protective rules and regulations. It would not be easy to manage all of the above drawbacks within a short period of time, but addressing them, however, is a must if the region has to change its status from its currently disparate single unitary states to a co-ordinated collaborative region on all fronts. An awakening to the realization that there is nothing really terrible to prevent this happening is not apparent. Less than two hundred years ago, there was no such man-made constraints, fake nationalisms and/or borders. Anyone in the region could travel and settle anywhere one chose and start to live and trade and invest and/or start a family within the region and there is no reason the region cannot re-invigorate those long-ago connections.

There were corridors like Massawa and its hinterlands and the Assab and its hinterlands and Obock and Tadjora and Zeila and Berbera and Bossaso and Mogadishu and all the way to Ras Kiamboni and their hinterlands. Today we have major cities like Djibouti that have joined the club and many more are to join should the mindset of the people of the region be freed from this absurd selfish attitude that has come to dominate the region. Even clans and not states are claiming lands, coasts, and ports, which naturally would not benefit them if they antagonized all those who could be customers using the services they offer or the products they produce.

We are starting a new year and as any new period represents a rebirth, the region, needs to revisit its priorities not only at the regional level but also at the national levels. Growing economies always need larger markets and public and private authorities should take advantage of the opportunities at their doors – the large regional market of some 160 million where goods and services could be offered and where, hence, money could be made. A regional setting and inter-connectivity would also allow the region to negotiate in block with those beyond the region, not only in terms of costs of goods and services, but also in determining the political outcomes of relations with the outside world. A united front and one voice of such a vast region would be stronger than what a small state can expect to obtain from any negotiation with major powers and other organized regions.

It has become a common phenomenon to see others encouraging, and hence carrying out what they refer to as “capacity building.” It is how they have confused the region, which they have disabled and is no longer able to stand on its own feet. It is one of the issues which the region should grow up from. Enough of thirty-some odd years of capacity building, which has not added one iota to the development of the region. 

The region is confused with a multitude of programs all aimed improving at the lot of the region. But all these programs, first require needs assessments, feasibility studies, communication activities that include not only unnecessary meetings, monitoring and common areas of interest. All end up to nothing when completed and the process that started in the early nineties still remain and continue to mar the region. It is time that the region walked away from any study program presented by non-regional parties and launched its programs on its own. The region would have hiccups and would stumble, maybe many times, but it would learn more from its own practical experiences than any capacity building program of others. All of these capacity building programs serve only the needs of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have ruined the region, so far.

The region got exposed to international financings, which were limited in scope and size, and could not add on to the development of the region. Indeed, many of the financing programs incapacitated the region’s natural developmental processes. These financing programs were not designed to fill in the region’s financing deficits in terms of infrastructure and other areas. A prime example was, clearly, the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which was denied the financing it needed to be built and which, fortunately, the region, on its own financed. Alternative financing collected from the region, and not connected to others would be the best sources of funds for the region.

The region’s inter-connectivity would contribute to the region’s energy, socio-economic, environmental and financial development. Inter-connectivity of the region would be, in essence, paramount to its future development and installation of peace and stability. It would fill-in the gaps that currently provide others, avenues to enmesh themselves in the region and mess it up. 

As we say, in the Horn of Africa States, it is better to have an aching leg than to have an aching spirit. The region should work on closing the inter-connectivity gaps itself and not wait for others to do the job for it.

Dr. Suleiman Walhad writes on the Horn of Africa economies and politics. He can be reached at suleimanwalhad@yahoo.com.

Decry The Merchants Of Death – OpEd

 

Holy Innocents Commemoration Witness at the Pentagon, Dec. 28, 2022. 

Photo Credit: Art Laffin, The Progressive

 January 2, 2023  Eurasia Review 

By Kathy Kelly

Peace activists take on the Pentagon and its corporate outposts.

Days after a U.S. warplane bombed a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing forty-two people, twenty-four of them patients, the international president of MSF, Dr. Joanne Liu walked through the wreckage and prepared to deliver condolences to family members of those who had been killed. A brief video, taped in October, 2015, captures her nearly unutterable sadness as she speaks about a family who, the day before the bombing, had been prepared to bring their daughter home. Doctors had helped the young girl recover, but because war was raging outside the hospital, administrators recommended that the family come the next day. “She’s safer here,” they said.

The child was among those killed by the U.S. attacks, which recurred at fifteen minute intervals, for an hour and a half, even though MSF had already issued desperate pleas begging the United States and NATO forces to stop bombing the hospital. 

Dr. Liu’s sad observations seemed to echo in the words of Pope Francis lamenting war’s afflictions. “We live with this diabolic pattern of killing one another out of the desire for power, the desire for security, the desire for many things. But I think of the hidden wars, those no one sees, that are far away from us,” he said. “People speak about peace. The United Nations has done everything possible, but they have not succeeded.” The tireless struggles of numerous world leaders, like Pope Francis and Dr. Joanne Liu, to stop the patterns of war were embraced vigorously by Phil Berrigan, a prophet of our time. 

“Oppose any and all wars,” he urged. “There has never been a just war.”  “Don’t get tired!” he begged people, adding, “I love the Buddhist proverb, ‘I will not kill, but I will prevent others from killing.’ “

People who’ve embraced his message continue meeting at the Pentagon, as happened December 28 when activists commemorated the “Feast of the Holy Innocents.” Christians traditionally dedicate this day to the remembrance of a time when King Herod ordered the massacre of children under two years of age because of a paranoid belief that one of the recently born children in the region would grow up to oust Herod from power and kill him. Activists gathered at the Pentagon held signs decrying the slaughter of innocents in our time. They’ll protest the obscenely bloated military budget which the U.S. Congress just passed as a part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. 

As Norman Stockwell of The Progressive recently noted, “The bill contains nearly $1.7 trillion of funding for FY2023, but of that money, $858 billion is earmarked for the military (‘defense spending’) and an additional $45 billion in ’emergency assistance to Ukraine and our NATO allies.’ This means that more than half ($900 billion out of $1.7 trillion) is not being used for ‘non-defense discretionary programs’—and even that lesser portion includes $118.7 billion for funding of the Veterans Administration, another military-related expense.”

By depleting funds desperately needed to meet human needs, the U.S. “defense” budget doesn’t defend people from pandemics, ecological collapse, and infrastructure decay. Instead it continues a deranged   investment in militarism.  Phil Berrigan’s prophetic intransigency, resisting all wars and weapons manufacturing, is needed now more than ever. 

Outraged by the reckless slaughter of innocent people in wars ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan, Phil Berrigan insisted that weapons manufacturers profiting from endless wars should be held accountable for criminal activity. The weapons corporations rob people, worldwide, of the capacity to meet basic human needs.. 

The appallingly greedy Pentagon budget represents a corporate takeover of the U.S. Congress. As the coffers of weapons manufacturers swell, these military contractors hire legions of highly paid lobbyists tasked with persuading elected officials to earmark even more funds for companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon United, and General Atomics. According to militarists, stockpiles of weapons must be used up, in order to justify more weapons manufacturing. Media complicity is necessary, and can be purchased, in order to frighten U.S. taxpayers into the continued bankrolling of what could become worldwide annihilation. 

Phil Berrigan, who in his lifetime evolved from soldier to scholar to prophetic anti-nuclear activist, astutely linked the racial oppression he opposed as a civil rights activist to the rising oppression caused by militarism. He likened racial injustice to a terrible hydra that contrives a new face for every area of the world. Throughout his life, Phil Berrigan identified with people menaced by the hydra’s new faces of war. Elaborating on this theme in a book called No More Strangers, published in 1965, he wrote that the dispassionate decision of people in the United States to practice racial discrimination made it “not only easy but logical to enlarge our oppressions in the form of international nuclear threats.”

How can we in the United States prevent the killing that goes on, in our name, in multiple wars, exacerbated by weapons made in the U.S.A? How can we resist the growing potential, acute scourge of a nuclear exchange as warring parties continue issuing nuclear threats in Ukraine and Russia?

One step we can take involves both political and humanitarian efforts to hold accountable the corporations profiting from the U.S. military budget. Drawing on Phil Berrigan’s steadfastness, activists worldwide are planning the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal scheduled to be held November 10 to 13, 2023. The Tribunal intends to collect evidence about crimes against humanity committed by those who develop, store, sell, and use weapons to commit crimes against humanity. Testimony is being sought from people who’ve borne the brunt of modern wars, the survivors of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, and Somalia, to name but a few of the places where U.S. weapons have terrified people who’ve meant us no harm.

“We render you, corporations obsessed with war profiteering, accountable; answerable!,” declares the Reverend Dr. Cornel West on the Tribunal’s website.

On November 10, 2022, organizers of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal and their supporters served a “subpoena” to the directors and corporate offices of weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon United, and General Atomics. The subpoena, which will expire on February 10, 2023, compels them to provide to the Tribunal all documents revealing their complicity in aiding and abetting the United States government in committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, bribery, and theft.

People menaced by the hydra’s new faces of war often have nowhere to flee, nowhere to hide. Thousands upon thousands of the victims are children.

Mindful of the children who are maimed, traumatized, displaced, orphaned, and killed by all of the wars raging today, we must hold ourselves accountable as well. Phil Berrigan’s challenge must become ours:  “Meet me at the Pentagon!” Or at its corporate outposts.

Humanity literally cannot live in complicity with the patterns that lead to bombing hospitals and slaughtering children.

This article is posted at The Progressive.org; a shorter version appears on the World BEYOND War website.

Political Prisoner Maryam Akbari Writes A Letter From Semnan Prison To The People Of Iran – OpEd

Maryam Akbari and her four siblings

 January 2, 2023 

By Maryam Akbari Monfared

This letter is written by the political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared, who has been in prison for 13 years without a single day of leave. She was imprisoned on the charge of being a supporter of the MEK. Her three brothers and one sister, whom she has also mentioned in this letter, were killed by the mullahs’ regime.

Political prisoner Maryam Akbari’s letter from Semnan prison addressed to the people of Iran December 28, 2022

On the eve of my 14th year in prison, this is not just a story you are reading; it is the bloody suffering of only one out of 85 million.

Although for me with 13 years of experience in prison, counting days and months in detention has been and is a reprehensible thing since the very first days, but how could I forget that dark midnight of injustice to me and my family, or its connection to the oppression that the regime has directed against our family since the 1980s.

As of December 29, 2022, thirteen years have passed since I was separated from my 4-year-old Sarah and my two 12-year-old daughters on that winter midnight. Without giving me a chance to say goodbye to my loved ones, they took me to Evin prison to give some explanations and made the ridiculous promise that “you will return to your children in the morning”. Thirteen years have already passed since that day. From December 29, 2009 to December 29, 2022!

It was a breath-taking battle to spend second by second of 13 years. Even counting 13 years day by day (being 4745 days) makes one tired, let alone spending 4745 days one by one in the midst of an unequal war!

This is not a 4,000-page story, but the pure reality of a life under the domination of fascists who imposed it on us while we refused to give in.

Although I wished to be with my children with my every cell of my being — and what mother doesn’t want that — I don’t regret but am determined to continue my path. I have said this every time in every formal and informal interrogation session, and I am happy to repeat it!

I have been away from my children for 13 years, but I witnessed the crime with my own eyes for 13 years and my resolve became stronger. On this side of the bars, in the dark desert of torture and oppression, as far as one can see – even where one cannot see- there is just vileness and brutality! It is a silent documentary of the oppression against women that no one can bear to hear even one of them, let alone live with hundreds of these tortured symbols and feel their pain with heart and soul.

For 13 years, I saw dozens of children and hundreds of teenagers and young people of the same age as my daughters; I caressed them, I talked to them, I gnashed my teeth at their silence and loneliness, and shouted in their defense over everyone in the ranks of oppressors.

I don’t even know what happened to my children in these 13 years! In these 13 years, they dealt with the adversities of life so strongly that I didn’t feel them at all! Every meeting with them became an explosion of energy for me due to the storm of their problems!

If you ask me how I survived amidst the darkness of torture and exhausting time, I will say that it is the blazing flame of faith in my heart that has kept me going.

The interrogators want to steal this warm and blazing flame from the prisoner, in the midst of loneliness with empty hands, from the first moment of their arrest… so that their beings freeze and surrender… But for 13 years, I kept it burning with holy rage at the tortures I witnessed and hurt my soul! I smiled and proliferated the smile to be able to resist, because resistance is our heart.

Faith in the path that my brothers and sisters died for, faith in the path that I stepped on, and faith in the clenched fists and firm steps of the youth who are standing in the streets sacrificing their lives against the dictatorship. Faith in the innocence of my brothers and sisters, whom I never considered dead… They were and are the most alive for me. They held my hand in my every moment in prison… and now I find them on the streets of Iran… I saw Alireza, who was executed in 1981, in the clenched fists of that young man in Naziabad. I see Ruqiyeh, who was executed in Evin prison in the summer of 1988, fearless and in the front line against repressive IRGC guards. And I heard the voice of Abdolreza, who was executed in Gohardasht prison in the summer of 1988, in the continuous cry for freedom of his peers. I find Gholamreza, who was martyred under the torture of IRGC guards in Evin prison in 1985, among the young people who are martyred under torture.

They wanted to bury them anonymously, but now we see how this brave generation continues the path of the same young people who did not bow down to Khomeini.

They thought that if they kill our loved ones, their rule will be eternal! But what an absurd thought they had because our martyrs rose in the middle of flames in the streets during the uprising… the wind scattered their ashes in the pavements of this city so that fearless men and women have grown! Brave girls and boys who feel the dream of life in the sun and rain in a bright tomorrow and show the most rebellious anger against the perpetrators of 43 years of oppression and tyranny… they fight and the darkness is afraid of their presence! And my faith increases from their presence!

With the news of every protest and every uprising, and with the sparks of this rebellious flame, the hearts of women whose only hope of freedom is to break these iron gates are filled with hope.

To my daughters and sons, who are bravely on the streets and I long to be by their side at every moment, I say: if you are arrested, do not trust the interrogators even an iota. They are not of our kind! The enemy is the enemy at any moment! Increase your faith in your path as much as possible. Only this helps in solitary confinement.

I say to the families of prisoners: do not count on promises, intimidation and threats. You can only save your children’s lives by encouraging people to repeat their names! No interrogator would help you. Don’t be silent, shout!

To the grieving families, to every mother who sacrificed her loved one in this way, to all the brothers and sisters who lost a loved one while paying homage to their martyrs – I say that I share in their grief too… I hold their hands from here and stand shoulder to shoulder with them, stronger than before, for justice.

I was talking about 13 years of non-stop battle. But in short, I say: “One day I will sing the hymn of victory from the top of a mountain like the sun.”

Tomorrow is ours!

Aging Dalai Lama Attracts Huge Crowds To Buddhist Sacred Site

Frail Dalai Lama being supported by two monks.

 Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne

 January 2, 2023 

By IDN

By Kalinga Seneviratne

The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, has just concluded a three-day speaking engagement here at Bodhgaya, known as the ‘land of enlightenment’ that has attracted over 100,000 mainly Tibetans from across the world. This huge response surprised the organizers, as the event coincided with the Indian media talking about a new wave of Covid sweeping the country.

Covid was far from the mind of pilgrims and devotees—even though many wore face masks as requested by the local government authorities. According to police estimates, about 100,000 people converged at a large open field next to the sacred Mahabodhi Temple, where the Bo tree under which Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment is located.

Tibetan writer and activist Tenzin Tsundue, who has lived in Dharamsala, the home of the Dalai Lama, for the past four decades, followed him to Bodhgaya. He thinks the main reason for the large crowds is that “Covid has suppressed people’s aspirations”, and this is an opportunity to get back to spiritual and family bonding.

“Not everybody can go to Dharmsala. But this space attracts you because you not only get to see the Dalai Lama and get his blessing; there is also the Bodhgaya temple. And it is surrounded by so many pilgrimage sites,” he said.

“Pilgrimage is like a mela (festival) for a Tibetan, and it has become a culture in the Tibetan community to bring entire families. He explained that Tibetans from India, Nepal, and Bhutan, have organized to meet their relatives from as far away as Seattle, Washington, Australia, or Europe here in Bodhgaya. They come here; in the presence of the Dalai Lama, go to see the temple and go on a pilgrimage. So, it’s a big family gathering.”

Before the coronavirus pandemic, about half a million pilgrims were visiting Bodhgaya to pay homage to the scared bo-tree that gave shelter for the Buddha to attain enlightenment. The Mahabodhi temple was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002, and it is the most sacred site of pilgrimage for Buddhists from across the world, like the Vatican is for Catholics or Mecca is for Muslims.  

Around the Mahabodhi temple complex are many temples depicting the diverse culture and architecture of Buddhist countries and communities, such as those from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bhutan, Mongolia, China, Tibet, Nepal, Japan and Laos. Without a local Buddhist community in Bodhgaya (most of the population here are Hindu and Muslim), the monasteries here are dependent on foreign pilgrims for their upkeep.

The Dalai Lama’s visit has provided a much-needed fillip to pilgrim tourism here. Most of the monasteries were closed to visitors for almost two years, Nangzey Dorjee, secretary of the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee (BTMC), told IDN.

The Bihar state government of India constituted a committee to step in to help the monasteries. “Main source of income (for monasteries) is a donation. Donation from the devotees this was their sole maintenance income. Other than now and then, there is no provision of funding from the government side,” he said.

“All temples function on the basis of the devotees’ offerings (so) there were deadly problems (and in addition) local people had no work. All other temples depend on this temple,” added Dorji.

The large number of pilgrims visiting here does not mean the local temples get most of their donations. There are also rows of donation booths for monasteries and other Tibetan Buddhist institutions across India, Nepal, Bhutan, lining up the street opposite Mahabodhi Temple.

“Whenever there is any prayer gathering like this, donations are natural because people think this is a way to contribute from their hard-earned money, to contribute towards monasteries where young children who study Buddhism are being nurtured. So, you see, it’s always a generous effort by people to contribute to Buddhist education and nurturing of young monks,” explained Tsundue.

People were giving generously at many of the stalls, with volunteers issuing receipts for each donation. “Every family would make sure that they split 1000 or 10,000 or one lakh rupees into small changes,” Tsundue said.

Hence, local vendors were doing brisk business selling bundles of 10-, -20-, or -50-rupee notes to devotees in exchange for those of larger denominations. This enabled pilgrims to make even smaller donations.

Built around the monasteries is a typical pilgrim tourism town with hundreds of hotels, cafes, souvenirs and other shops, heaps of street vendors and a huge number of beggars who are attracted to Bodhgaya because of the compassionate mindset of the pilgrims visiting here.

Souvenir shop owner Lolu who was doing brisk business, told IDN, “during the pandemic, my shop was closed (and) I even didn’t have enough money to eat”, and added with a smile “Dalai Lama has brought good karma for me”.

“Dalai Lama has been coming here often (before Covid),” said Dorje. “He is one of the rare figures and not only for Buddhism; he is also a world figure, he is exceptional.”

Dalai Lama, now 87, arrived at the grounds in a golf cart and had to be assisted by two monks to walk to the stage and be seated. However, his mind seems alert, and so is his thinking faculty. He delivered a lecture of more than an hour each day without any hesitancies or stammering.

At the back of the minds of many of the Tibetan devotees here seemed to be for how long they could hear his teachings and be in the vicinity of his charismatic personality.

Reflecting on the global attraction of Tibetan Buddhism and culture today and the fact that there were many non-Tibetans here, such as westerners, Vietnamese, Thais and many ethnic Chinese from Southeast Asia, Professor Geshe Ngawang Samten, vice chancellor of the Central Tibetan University in Sarnath in India, told IDN that it is because of Tibetans not having a home of their own that its Buddhist traditions have spread far and wide.

Professor Samten also pointed to a special quality of Dalai Lama’s teachings that elicits worldwide appeal and admiration. “He attracts (attention) because he is very rational; his mind is very scientific,” he said. “The way he addresses the issues either in individual life or in social life, (he does it) through understanding the situation and providing a tool or solution that can be implemented through the transformation of a person (or) the transformation of a social system (or) through the transformation of the education system.”

“That is what people appreciate. He is not in favor of propaganda and propagation of Buddhism,” said Professor Samten. “Always he advises that don’t propagate it, do not convert other communities and people who are already within a religious kind of system. So that is his kind of attitude.”

IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses and viewpoints on topics that impact the world and its peoples. IDN-InDepthNews serves as flagship of the International Press Syndicate Group, partner of the Global Cooperation Council.