Okay folks, this is again for Buddhists across the world. A gentleman from Ontario by the name of Michael Jakucinskas,
who is a member of one of the Buddhist groups I am a member of, had asked me to look for and post the where about's of a lost Buddhist country called 'Hastaka Atavika' (sanskrit) or 'Hatthaka Alavaka' (Pali). I obliged because I was myself interested. I chose the Pali version of Hatthaka Alavaka because the Pali words are more Bihar friendly words than sanskrit. Chasing Huen Tsang and deciphering the meanings of ancient words has become an art for me. I manage to do that because these words are simple rural words we still use in our everyday life. 'Hatthika' sounds very similar to a village by the name of Hathidah near me (26 km to the north of my house). It is bang on the southern banks of the Ganges. I used to wonder about its name and the Buddhist world cleared it. According to Buddhist scriptures Hatthaka means passed on from hand to hand. Folks, that is exactly what Hatthidah means. I will break up the word in two parts 'Hathi-dah'. The first four letters 'Hath' means hand just as the Buddhist scriptures say, and the last three letters 'dah' is a short form of the rural word 'daho' which literally means to give or pass on. So Hathidah means to pass on from hand to hand. This is exactly what the Buddhist scriptures say. The second word asked by Mr Michael Jakucinskas is the country of 'Alavi' where Hatthaka (Hathidah) was the son of a king. North of the Ganges I have pin pointed the village of Ulao. This is in the district of Begusarai in the state of Bihar. I had looked for that village because when I read L.A. Wadell's (one of the great British orientals) report, he too was looking for Alavi. According to him Alavi was somewhere to the north of the Ganges. The village of Ulao is exactly on the opposite banks of the Ganges from my ancestral village. My village is on the southern banks while Ulao is on the northern banks. So I know these places well. Alavi is certainly Ulao village because of the name of the local temple. It is the Ankurinath temple. Basically rural villages in Bihar have their local dieties who are regarded as an ancestor. Ankurinath will most probably be the ancestor of this village. Lets break up the word 'Ankuri'- 'nath'. Ankuri will be a short form of Hatthakas (Hathidahs) real name while the last four letters 'Nath' means a king. That means the temple is dedicated to a king (nath) by the short form name of 'Ankuri'. Ankuri does sound similar and a short form of the Buddhist mis-pronounced Atavika or Alavaka. So this temple could be dedicated to Hatthaka because he was the son of the king (Nath). Mr Michael Jakucinskas, I hope I have found the place for you. Thanks for making me search for the place. When I meet the villagers of these places I will proudly tell them their unique history (2400 year old history) and why their villages have such names. So folks, the world now knows where Hathidah (Hatthaka) and Ulao (Alavi) are. You can subscribe to my youtube channel 'Buddha Exhumed' to view many more videos of forgotten Buddhist sites. Heres the link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlZI0dESts8

The four Anand stupas relating to his nirvana and relics

This is again for Buddhists across the world. Today I am posting videos of Anands four stupas. I know there is a controversy between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism on how Anand died. i realize that the Thais don't believe in self attained nirvana which can be called suicide. Why? The answer can be found in India. Scouring satellite pictures for village names I have come across many sanghrammas dedicated to cases of self attained nirvana or suicide. It seems Buddhists with their theory of rebirth forgot the fear of death. This was wrong. I think because of this Buddhists changed the story of Anands death by suicide to dying a natural death. My Buddhism is limited to Huen Tsangs wonderful book so I may be most probably wrong. If I'm wrong forgive me. Anyway, according to Huen Tsang after the Buddhas nirvana Anand was feeling miserable. He was invited by the Lichavis to stay in Vaishali. So he reached the Ganges to cross the river to Vaishali. King Ajatshatru of Magadh heard of this and came with his army beseeching Anand to come back and stay in Magadh. When the Lichavi king heard about this he also came with his army to the northern banks and appealed to Anand to cross over. It was a warlike situation. Anand was disgusted as he felt that Buddha had recently died and the people had already stopped following the good law. He was in a barge in the middle of the river so he told his followers he was attaining nirvana. And after his nirvana his followers were to burn him and give half the relics to Magadh and the other half to Vaishali. He set fire to himself. The disciples then deposited half of his body relics south of the Ganges and the other half on the northern banks. The Lichavi king collected the relics and built a stupa to mark the spot naming it Anand Golwa which is the name today. The Magadh king took his share of the relics and made a stupa to mark the spot where it had been deposited. Today the places name is Athmal Gola (which literally means the lower half portion or the bottom). From here he took the relics to Rajgir and enshrined them in a stupa called Dumri (which again means the bottom) next to Ajatshatrus original Buddha relic stupa called Chakra. The Lichavi king of Vaishali took his share of relics to Vaishali and enshrined them in a stupa named Nandpur Saroop (literally means the dead form of Anand). Today villages have settled on the stupas and kept the names alive. From these names we realize that Vaishali got the upper portion of the relics causing them to use the name Anand for the stupas. Magadh got the bottom portion. The naming of the stupas show how systematic people were 2400 years ago. The stupas were named in such a manner that a pilgrim paying homage knew what part of Anands anatomy they were paying homage to. Video number (1) is satellite pictures showing the location of the four stupas north and south of the Ganges. Video number (2) is of Athmal Gola where the disciples of Anand deposited Magadhs share of relics south of the Ganges. Video number (3) is of 'Nandpur Saroop' village which is the half body Anand stupa of the Lichavis in Vaishali/Pidhauli. Video number (4) is Magadhs half body Anand stupa in Rajgir. I failed to upload the Anand Golwa stupa where the followers of Anand deposited the Lichavi share of relics south of the Ganges because the server was too low. It took me three days to upload these videos. Twice I had to cancel uploading because of low server. I will be showing you Anand Golwa in another post. As a side note, it was Huen Tsangs accurate bearings and directions that took me to these villages. Folks enjoy the videos and thank Huen Tsang. And don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel "Buddha Exhumed" for more videos of holy Buddhist sites.

Heres the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVj6KYcXQh4

Vaishali/Pidhauli, the place where Vimalakirti preached when he was sick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omJwbJeOpBc

This is very important for Buddhists across the world who have been wondering how and why Buddhism was wiped out of India where it took birth. People living in the real Vaishali, in the real Pataliputra, the real birth place of the Buddha, the real death place of the Buddha and where he first preached don't know their villages lovely history. I have been chasing Huen Tsang across the north Indian plains for the last one year and have imbibed enough of Buddhism and Buddhist stories to realize one thing. Buddhism is too good a religion for people to shun INDIA NEVER CONVERTED TO HINDUISM. THEY WERE DUPED INTO IT. BUDDHISM NEVER LEFT INDIA AND IS STILL HERE IN ITS PUREST FORM. What happened? This is my take on what happened. When I preach Buddhism to a Hindu here, he at once reacts, "Don't talk about Buddhism. They are frauds. (1) The Buddha forbade meat eating and preached kindness to animals. The Buddhists happily kill and maim all sorts of animals and chomp away. (2) The Buddha forbade statue worship and Buddhists happily pray to statues." I WAS STUNNED. It is a fact that the entire north Indian plains is strictly vegetarian. This seems to have come from our Buddhist past. (2) Each village has a village diety which is called house of spirits and has three little stupas in the room. It is the Kul Devata or the guardian of the village. That was where Buddhism was. NO STATUES IN THAT ROOM JUST AS THE BUDDHA SAID. What happened. It is simple. Before the Islamic invasion India was open to all sorts of religious ideas. Inter religious debates were common. Two major competing religious strands were Vaishnavism and Shaivism. Shaivism was an understanding between the Rajput and present day Brahmins. Vaishnavism was led by Brahmins who had revolted against Brahmanism and backed the Buddha to the hilt. Shiva worshippers were meat eaters which is why you have animal sacrifice. The Vaishnavs were strictly vegetarian but was a castless society and a free for all. Anyone could become a Brahmin. vaishnavism/Buddhism flourished because of this with popular preachers going to foreign lands to preach. Kings and Emperors were generous in their gifts so most of the Buddhist MONASTERIES were landed. But despite the high education in sanghrammas etc the killing instinct was missing because of the cult of kindness which made them easy targets for marauding Jihadists. Jihadists attacked and their main target was the Buddhists. Buddhists Brahmins were slaughtered and raped resulting in a mass migration from villages. The Jihadists smashed all the viharas and sanghrammas resulting in a loss of the entire scriptures. These sanghrammas and viharas controlled all the rural monasteries where the Buddha was prayed to according to the deed he did in that area (In India it is disrespectful to take an elders name. He is called Baba. So the Buddha had different names in different villages with Baba added to it according to his deeds. He had several names. With the sanghrammas, gone the Buddhist became a rudderless society. During the 400 year rule of the Delhi sultanate they moved around like vagabonds who had been evicted from their lands. Finally a lenient non Jihadist Muslim ruller called Akbar became the emperor. He was lenient and married a Shaivite/rajput woman. It seems this smart move allied the entire Shaivite/Rajput community with the Muslims. So the Shaivite Brahmins became royal Brahmins of the royal Shaivite/Rajput Queen. They were now in the good books of the Muslim emperor who respected them. It was during this time that Tulsidas rewrote the Ramayan in which the God was a Rajput God named Rama. It was during this period there was a mass migration of Buddhist Brahmins back to the villages. But this time they came with a Sahivite Brahmin in tow. it seems the Shaivite Brahmin got permission from Muslim rulers for them and the Buddhists to return. The Shaivite Brahmin like a guardian angel settled down alongside the Buddhist Brahmins who were rich in land. They re-christened Vaishnav Brahmins as Bhumihar Brahmin or the Brahmin who was the owner or tiller of the land.They gave back the broken battered Buddhists the title of Brahmin but didn't allow them to conduct prayers because they weren't pure Brahmins. They were a mixture. During the period of Buddhism they allowed other casts to amalgamate into them as Buddhism was a castless society. It seems the battered Buddhist Brahmins accepted Shaivic Brahmin superiority but didn't allow them to pray to their local village diety or what Huen Tsang called "the house of spirits." The Shaivic Brahmin didn't or couldn't enter that house but started preaching the Ramayana and Mahabharata in the sidelines. They became moral advisors and kept pen and paper to themselves. So Buddhist Brahmins became totally illiterate and ignorant. Shaivite Brahmins slyly went silent on the Buddhist story. The house of spirit or village diety was worshipped by a villager who is today called a Bhakta which means believer. This is exactly what Huen Tsang calls the Buddhist of that time. The Bhakta/believer was highly educated but with the sanghrammas and viharas gone the entire village became uneducated. The sanghrammas were Buddhisms command and control which had simply snapped. All over north India a well oiled Buddhist society became disconnected and the Buddha became simply a village diety of a tiny village in a far flung area. After a couple of hundred years of un-education the bhakta became an illiterate joker doing all sorts of silly things in the different spirit houses. Meanwhile the Brahmin smartly continued his braiwashing and hammering the holy books in daily village meets. But the Buddhists were strict in one aspect. They never allowed a Brahmin to pray in a house of spirits which was the village diety. It is maintained till today with the Brahmins still trying to make an entry. In a few cases they have succeeded.But it is rare. Hinduism is a word concocted by the British. So is Buddhism. The Muslims entered India via the Hindu Kush mountains so they called the locals Hindus. They didn't bother to differentiate between Vaishnavism and Shaivism. The British took over and everything became official. They brought in systematic governance and made everything official. So the local populace got the official name "Hindu." This was the final blow to the thin difference or dividing factor that remained between Vaishnavs and Shaivs. This difference disappeared resulting in everyone calling themselves Hindus. This helped the Brahmins amalgamate the two. But still the Brahmins weren't allowed to enter the house of spirits. The British then coined the word Buddhist for people who prayed to the Buddha in foreign countries some of which were their colonies. It seems Buddhist kings requested and payed British army men to search for their holy spots in India. The great search by Christian orientals for Buddhism began while a thoroughly Hindufied population who called themselves Hindus wondered what a japanese, Thai, Tibetan, Korean God called the Buddha had been doing in their midst in India. Buddhism became a boring historical subject. But Huen Tsangs lovely book has turned the tables. He has opened our eyes. When I visited the spots Huen Tsang had visited, I realized what the "house of spirits were." The crazy combination of the illiterate Bhaktas and the Brahmanical silence has caused the history of that spirit house to be properly obliterated. Despite that the Buddhist Brahmins held on to their spirit houses. Most villages don't have a Ram or Krishna temple. They all have ancient spirit houses which are still being encroached by Shaivite Brahmins. Only the name of the spirit in that spirit house gives the game away. Like in the real Vaishali. The Buddha walked around begging. Most of the spirit houses in the surrounding villages pray to the "Beggar Baba." The Buddhas relic stupa is a village called "Teai" which means sacrifice. A lot of the surrounding villages pray to the "Tyaagi Baba" or the Baba who sacrificed himself. Where the Buddha was born, the entire area today prays to a female diety called "Samay mata" sitting on a white elephant. No one knows her history. I realized she was Maya the Buddhas mother sitting on a white elephant. People cannot take a mothers name so she is called Samay Mata. In my area it is Padmasambhava and Mandarva. My village diety is Mandarva herself while Padmasambhava is prayed to in several manifestations in my neighborhood. One is Gobind Baba and another is "Jakhraj baba" which is the rainbow body. Most bizarre is the Muslims praying to the Buddha as the Dargah Baba or the Baba of the mosque. Basically both Huen Tsang and Fa Hein had visited this place and called it the pidgeon monastery. Following Huen Tsang I landed up there and realized Muslims have made a mosque on an Ashokan stupa Huen Tsang described. They repeat ditto the same story Huen Tsang narrated. But they attribute that story to the Dargah Baba or the Baba of the mosque. So basically Buddhism and Buddhist saints are still prayed to though their stories have been lost. In the Padmasambhava case a Bhutanese delegation (my school friends) came to check. They found all the places in the story. My area with my help got back the story of our village diety or our "House of spirits." So a small effort of Buddhists to visit the original spots where Huen Tsang visited and where the Buddhist story unfolded will get the local populace thinking. People like me can point out who their village diety is. They will get the history of their village diety back and Buddhists will get their holy spots. AND THERE WILL BE A MASSIVE RELIGIOUS UPHEAVAL. It will be a home coming for us. Buddhism attracts people. i was attracted so will other Hindus. Hindus will realize how they were duped all these years. Below is the video of the house of spirits of the real Vaishali. Huen Tsang had visited this place and led me to it. He had rightly called it the house of spirits. When he visited it was simply a pile of bricks which is the case of a few other village dieties. But the craze to marble up Hindu temples has converted this temple into a marble one. You will notice no statues in it. Only a couple of small stupas. Hindus have recently put in a few Hindu pictures. According to Huen Tsang Vimalakirti (of the famous Vimalakirti sutra of Vaishali) who was a rich house holder in Vaishali preached here when he was sick and dying. So most probably this "house of spirits" houses Vimalakirtis spirit. Of course the locals don't know who Vimalakirti was because this area today is dominated by Shaiv Brahmins who led the fight against Vaishnav Brahmins and made successful use of the Buddhist lack of killer instinct to make the Vaishnavite Brahmins bite the dust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omJwbJeOpBc