Muslims in Nepal

Katmandu, Rajab 17/Oct 14 (IINA) - Muslims of Nepal speak the Urdu language, and they constitute eight percent of the total population of 14,000,000, . The majority of the Muslims live in the mountainous areas adjacent to the border with India, but their economic situation leaves much to be desired. They are not involved in any commercial or industrial undertakings, and the majority of them are either unskilled laborers or small-scale subsistence farmers, with a sprinkling of some lower-level civil servants.
Thus ignorance and backwardness are rampant among Nepalese Muslims, and this had led to their forfeiture of their human rights in the country.
Even in the faith that they profess, their knowledge of Islamic principles and culture is very meager, and they do need guidance and direction in this respect. Many of them are Muslims in name only, but hardly know anything else about Islam.
In the capital, Katmandu, which is situated in the middle of a mountainous area, there are four mosques, though there also are Islamic schools, such as the Jankbur Daham School, which was set up in 1386 AH in that city. It is used as a center for producing Da’awa activists, as Islamic education and the teaching of the Arabic language are not allowed in government schools.
The Muslims of Nepal are not given the right to practice Islamic personal law, because there are no such laws in the country, though Islam dawned on it in the fifth century of the Hijri calendar, according to existing historical records. It was Arab and Muslim traders who introduced Islam to Nepal.
Sheikh Muhammad Nassir Al-Abboudy, Assistant Secretary General of the Makkah-based Muslim World League (MWL) said that the Muslims of Nepal are incapable of combating their backwardness in social, economic, and political matters, nor are they capable of confronting the missionary activities and their enticements. The missionaries have been able to open schools, clinics, libraries, and other facilities, including cash disbursements. They even send some of the Nepalese converts to their seminaries in Europe and the US, so as to brainwash them even more.
Even Jews, the Chinese, and Indians have their schools, libraries, clinics and other facilities, for their own political agenda and influence.
Nepalese Muslims do, however, get help from such countries as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in the form of scholarships to those who wish to study at the universities of the two countries.

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Philosophical roots

Historically, the roots of Buddhism lie in the religious thought of Ancient India during the second half of the first millennium BC.[116] That was a period of social and religious turmoil, as there was significant discontent with the sacrifices and rituals of Vedic Brahmanism.[117] It was challenged by numerous new ascetic religious and philosophical groups and teachings that broke with the Brahmanic tradition and rejected the authority of the Vedas and the Brahmans.[118][119] These groups, whose members were known as shramanas, were a continuation of a non-Vedic strand of Indian thought distinct from Indo-Aryan Brahmanism.[120][121] Scholars have reasons to believe that ideas such as samsara, karma (in the sense of the influence of morality on rebirth), and moksha originated in the shramanas, and were later adopted by Brahmin orthodoxy.[122][123][124][125][126][127] At the same time, they were influenced by, and in some respects continued, earlier philosophical thought within the Vedic tradition as reflected e.g. in the Upanishads.[128] These movements included, besides Buddhism, various skeptics (such as Sanjaya Belatthiputta), atomists (such as Pakudha Kaccayana), materialists (such as Ajita Kesakambali), antinomians (such as Purana Kassapa); the most important ones in the 5th century BC were the Ajivikas, who emphasized the rule of fate, the Lokayata (materialists), the Ajnanas (agnostics) and the Jains, who stressed that the soul must be freed from matter.[129] Many of these new movements shared the same conceptual vocabulary - atman (“Self"), buddha ("awakened one”), dhamma (“rule” or “law”), karma (“action”), nirvana (“extinguishing”), samsara (“eternal recurrence”) and yoga (“spiritual practice”).[117] The shramanas rejected the Veda, and the authority of the brahmans, who claimed to be in possession of revealed truths not knowable by any ordinary human means; moreover, they declared that the entire Brahmanical system was fraudulent: a conspiracy of the brahmans to enrich themselves by charging exorbitant fees for the performance of bogus rites and the giving of futile advice.[130] A particular criticism of the Buddha's was Vedic animal sacrifice.[131] Their leaders, including Buddha, were often known as śramaas.[132] The Buddha declared that priests reciting the Vedas were like blind leading the blind.[133] According to him, those priests who had memorized the Vedas really knew nothing.[134] He also mocked the Vedic "hymn of the cosmic man".[135] He declared that the primary goal of Upanishadic thought, the Atman, was in fact non-existent,[136], and, having explained that Brahminical attempts to achieve liberation at death were futile, proposed his new idea of liberation in life.[137][138]
At the same time, the traditional Brahminical religion itself gradually underwent profound changes, transforming it into what is recognized as early Hinduism.[117][118][139] In particular, the brahmans thus developed "philosophical systems of their own, meeting the new ideas with adaptations of their doctrines"

Liberation

Nirvana (Sanskrit; Pali Nibbana) means "cessation", "extinction" (of craving and ignorance and therefore suffering and the cycle of involuntary rebirths Samsara), "extinguished", "quieted", "calmed";[83] it is also known as "Awakening" or "Enlightenment" in the West. Buddhists believe that anybody who has achieved nirvana is in fact a Buddha.
Bodhi (Pāli and Sanskrit, in devanagari: बॊधि) is a term applied to the experience of Awakening of arahants. Bodhi literally means "awakening", but is more commonly referred to as "enlightenment". In Early Buddhism, bodhi carried a meaning synonymous to nirvana, using only some different metaphors to describe the experience, which implies the extinction of raga (greed, craving),[84] dosa (hate, aversion)[85] and moha (delusion).[86] In the later school of Mahayana Buddhism, the status of nirvana was downgraded in some scriptures, coming to refer only to the extinction of greed and hate, implying that delusion was still present in one who attained nirvana, and that one needed to attain bodhi to eradicate delusion:
An important development in the Mahayana [was] that it came to separate nirvana from bodhi ('awakening' to the truth, Enlightenment), and to put a lower value on the former (Gombrich, 1992d). Originally nirvana and bodhi refer to the same thing; they merely use different metaphors for the experience. But the Mahayana tradition separated them and considered that nirvana referred only to the extinction of craving (passion and hatred), with the resultant escape from the cycle of rebirth. This interpretation ignores the third fire, delusion: the extinction of delusion is of course in the early texts identical with what can be positively expressed as gnosis, Enlightenment.
—Richard F. Gombrich, How Buddhism Began[87]
Therefore, according to Mahayana Buddhism, the arahant has attained only nirvana, thus still being subject to delusion, while the bodhisattva not only achieves nirvana but full liberation from delusion as well. He thus attains bodhi and becomes a buddha. In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi and nirvana carry the same meaning, that of being freed from greed, hate and delusion.
The term parinirvana is also encountered in Buddhism, and this generally refers to the complete nirvana attained by the arhat at the moment of death, when the physical body expires.

Refuge in the Three Jewels

Traditionally, the first step in most Buddhist schools requires taking refuge in the Three Jewels (Sanskrit: tri-ratna, Pāli: ti-ratana)[97] as the foundation of one's religious practice. The practice of taking refuge on behalf of young or even unborn children is mentioned[98] in the Majjhima Nikaya, recognized by most scholars as an early text (cf. Infant baptism). Tibetan Buddhism sometimes adds a fourth refuge, in the lama. In Mahayana, the person who chooses the bodhisattva path makes a vow or pledge, considered the ultimate expression of compassion. In Mahayana, too, the Three Jewels are perceived as possessed of an eternal and unchanging essence and as having an irreversible effect: "The Three Jewels have the quality of excellence. Just as real jewels never change their faculty and goodness, whether praised or reviled, so are the Three Jewels (Refuges), because they have an eternal and immutable essence. These Three Jewels bring a fruition that is changeless, for once one has reached Buddhahood, there is no possibility of falling back to suffering."[99]
The Three Jewels are:
The Buddha. This is a title for those who have attained Nirvana. See also the Tathāgata and Gautama Buddha. The Buddha could also be represented as a concept instead of a specific person: the perfect wisdom that understands Dharma and sees reality in its true form. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha can be viewed as the supreme Refuge: "Buddha is the Unique Absolute Refuge. Buddha is the Imperishable, Eternal, Indestructible and Absolute Refuge."[100]
The Dharma. The teachings or law of nature as expounded by the Gautama Buddha. It can also, especially in Mahayana, connote the ultimate and sustaining Reality which is inseparable from the Buddha.
The Sangha. Those who have attained to any of the Four stages of enlightenment, or simply the congregation of monastic practitioners.
According to the scriptures, Gautama Buddha presented himself as a model. The Dharma offers a refuge by providing guidelines for the alleviation of suffering and the attainment of Nirvana. The Sangha is considered to provide a refuge by preserving the authentic teachings of the Buddha and providing further examples that the truth of the Buddha's teachings is attainable.

Mahayana Sutras

The Mahayana sutras are a very broad genre of Buddhist scriptures that the Mjlahayana Buddhist tradition holds are original teachings of the Buddha. The adherents of Mahayana accept both the early teachings and the Mahayana sutras as authentic teachings of Gautama Buddha, and claim they were designed for different types of persons and different levels of spiritual understanding.
The Mahayana sutras often claim to articulate the Buddha's deeper, more advanced doctrines, reserved for those who follow the bodhisattva path. That path is explained as being built upon the motivation to liberate all living beings from unhappiness. Hence the name Mahāyāna (lit., the Great Vehicle).
According to Mahayana tradition, the Mahayana sutras were transmitted in secret, came from other Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, or were preserved in non-human worlds because human beings at the time couldn't understand them:
Some of our sources maintain the authenticity of certain other texts not found in the canons of these schools (the early schools). These texts are those held genuine by the later school, not one of the eighteen, which arrogated to itself the title of Mahayana, 'Great Vehicle'. According to the Mahayana historians these texts were admittedly unknown to the early schools of Buddhists. However, they had all been promulgated by the Buddha. [The Buddha’s] followers on earth, the sravakas ('pupils'), had not been sufficiently advanced to understand them, and hence were not given them to remember, but they were taught to various supernatural beings and then preserved in such places as the Dragon World.
—Indian Buddhism[196]
Approximately six hundred Mahayana sutras have survived in Sanskrit or in Chinese or Tibetan translations. In addition, East Asian Buddhism recognizes some sutras regarded by scholars to be of Chinese rather than Indian origin.
Generally, scholars conclude that the Mahayana scriptures were composed from the first century CE onwards: "Large numbers of Mahayana sutras were being composed in the period between the beginning of the common era and the fifth century."[197] five centuries after the historical Gautama Buddha, with some of them having their roots in other scriptures, composed in the first century BCE. It was not until after the fifth century CE that the Mahayana sutras started to influence the behavior of mainstream Buddhists in India: "But outside of texts, at least in India, at exactly the same period, very different—in fact seemingly older—ideas and aspirations appear to be motivating actual behavior, and old and established Hinnayana groups appear to be the only ones that are patronized and supported."[197] These texts were apparently not universally accepted among Indian Buddhists when they appeared; the pejorative label 'Hinayana' was applied by Mahayana supporters to those who rejected the Mahayana sutras.
Only the Theravada school does not include the Mahayana scriptures in its canon. As the modern Theravada school is descended from a branch of Buddhism that diverged and established itself in Sri Lanka prior to the emergence of the Mahayana texts, debate exists as to whether the Theravada were historically included in the 'hinayana' designation; in the modern era, this label is seen as in any case derogatory, and generally avoided.