25 centuries ago, on a rubbish heap outside Rājagaha, a newborn was left in a basket to die.
In those days, abandoned infants rarely survived the dogs and the crows.
But a young prince named Abhaya, passing by, saw that the child was still moving.
"Is he alive?"
"He lives, my lord."
"Then he shall be called Jīvaka." The one who lives.
He would learn medicine from a world famous physician in Takṣaśilā, 1,500+ KMs away across rivers, forests and bandit country. He left without even telling his foster father. He walked.
There he studied for 7 years. Then came the final exam.
"Take a spade. Search a yojana in every direction around Takṣaśilā. Bring me any plant that is not medicinal."
Jīvaka dug through meadows, riverbanks and rocky hills. He came back with an empty basket.
"Master, I could not find a single plant that was useless."
The teacher declared him finished.
It was a test of vision.
Back in Rājagaha, a wealthy merchant had suffered a headache for few years. Every healer had given up.
Jīvaka made him an odd request: could he lie on his right side for 7 months, then on his left for 7 months, then on his back for 7 more?
The merchant agreed.
So Jīvaka bound him to the couch, cut the scalp, opened the suture of the skull, and drew out two living creatures. He showed them to the astonished crowd, sealed the wound, sewed the skin and applied ointment.
After just 7 days, the patient cried out that he could not go on.
Then Jīvaka confessed. He had always known recovery would take 3x seven days. He had named an impossible stretch of time so the man would hold perfectly still long enough to live.
Modern readers can only guess what those creatures were: worms, or something else. But the Pāli text itself describes a skull being opened and the patient surviving.
Then came a summons from the feared King Pajjota of Ujjen��, sick with jaundice. The only cure was ghee, which the king loathed so much that he would kill anyone who made him swallow it.
So Jīvaka cooked the ghee with medicines until it looked, smelled and tasted like a bitter, astringent decoction. The king drank it. Then Jīvaka, knowing what would come when the king found out, escaped the city on the king's own swift she-elephant, Bhaddavatikā.
The king recovered. His rage cooled, and he sent gifts.
Jīvaka became physician to King Bimbisāra and to the Buddha and his monks. In gratitude, he gave them his own mango grove, Jīvakambavana.
Today, in Rājgīr, Bihār, you can still walk among the ruins identified as that grove, below the hill of Gijjhakūṭa. The stones are worn and the grass grows through them. Most visitors never know whose land they stand on.
The child the crows might have claimed became the doctor of kings and the healer of the Buddha.
And the lesson he carried out of Takṣaśilā is the one that stays with me: he searched every hill and field around a whole city and found no plant that was useless.
So here is the question his story leaves behind: if a man can search every hill around a city and find nothing without a purpose, what are we walking past every day? 🙏
P.S. These episodes come from the Pāli Vinaya (Mahāvagga VIII), a Buddhist monastic text compiled long after the events, so history and legend are interwoven. The text does not name Jīvaka's teacher. The name Ātreya comes from later tradition. The skull operation is a story in the text.
1947: Indian Christians say they want Partition because they don't think Christians will be safe in Hindu majority India. They say Muslim majority Pakistan will take better care of Christians as both are "People of the Book."
Modern reality:
Pakistani Christian Saba Mehboob rejected repeated unwanted advances from her Muslim neighbour, Adnan Butt. On September 3, Butt entered her home at gunpoint, slapped her, and shot her dead while forcing her 16-year-old brother, Anoosh, to watch. He then abducted Anoosh, threatening him into silence or a false confession. Anoosh was later released and placed in protective custody with his father. No arrests will ever happen. It is so easy to kill a kafir in Pakistan.
@RahulGandhi preaches about 'smashing patriarchy', yet he’s in formal alliance with the Muslim League, whose clerics publicly dictate that women should stay confined to their homes. He remains completely silent. Why not smash patriarchy in Keralam?(15/🧵)
#RahulGandhiExposed #PoliticsOfLies #CongressPoliticsOfCorruption
Oh really? Teesta Setalvad was about to be arrested. She ran to the Supreme Court. A two judge bench heard her the same day. Verdict was split. News reached Chief Justice. He stepped out of a dance concert and ordered a three judge bench. Bench sat at 10 pm and stayed her arrest.
Pakistani schoolbooks still teach children to see Hindus as “kafirs” and enemies of humanity.
Hindu students from Sindh say in this video that they were told in class that a kafir is someone who worships ghosts, and that they were asked why they had not become Muslim. One student holds up Mutala-e-Pakistan, the Class 11–12 textbook, and reads a passage that calls Hindus and Sikhs “enemies of humanity” who killed and dishonoured women, children and the elderly. Students also say classmates told them to “go back where you came from,” as if Pakistan’s Hindus were outsiders in their own country.
Hindus described as cruel, traitorous, or eternal enemies of Islam in Pakistani textbooks.
Full video: BBC URDU.
This dumbass post by Dipke got 2.1 m views, while Narendra Modi video call with Smit Machchhar hasn’t even crossed 2.5 million views, despite the video being quoted by hundreds of people worldwide.
Western platforms are intentionally suppressing content related to the Modi Govt.
This Diwali remember On 10 November 1989, Khalistanis entered a hostel at Thapar Engineering College in Patiala before dawn and shot sleeping students in their rooms. Nineteen died. They were not local militants or politicians. They were visitors, mostly from Kurukshetra and Kanpur, in town for a youth festival. They were not woken up to ask if they supported Congress. They were just sleeping Hindu boys.
According to Yazidi cultural tradition, the community had survived 73 massacres (historically referred to as fermans) prior to the 2014 genocide by ISIS.
In Yazidi culture, a campaign of mass violence, forced conversion, or attempted annihilation is called a ferman—a term that originally referred to an official Ottoman imperial decree or edict.
Because these historical decrees frequently authorized military campaigns against the Yazidis, the word became synonymous with massacre or genocide in their collective memory.
Consequently, there have been at least 74 campaigns of mass violence against the Yazidis since the seventh century.
This latest genocide remains ongoing in Iraq, as mass graves are still being unearthed and many Yazidi women and children abducted by ISIS remain missing.
“Buddha is a form of Vishnu.”
Remember Thailand was never colonized.
Remember how the Indian Left turned it into different antagonistic religions, following the colonial template.
Then Ambedkarites manufactured an Abrahamic Neo-Buddhism which railed against Hindu deities.
@grok@Meowfiaclub The fact is he did invoke Hindu gods and btw, for Hindus there ia no external being that is a god. So, therw is complete continuity in prior Bindu though and Budhdha.
Islam is fundamentally based on the principle of supremacy and unequal rights.
A kaffir's rights are subordinate to a Muslim.
A slaves rights to their (Muslim) owner.
And a women's rights to Muslim men.
It takes a level of ideological lobotomy to label this "egalitarian."
@grok@Meowfiaclub Idiotic comment. Who decides "exceptional"?
No priest can since different scriptures differ on ethics though there is coherence in "how to find the ethical way/dharma".