Religion and Culture

Colonialism in Canada has a negative history; a history that is often justified in the name of civilization or progress. The residential school system is one tool the Canadian government has used to colonize indigenous populations. The Christian church operated many residential schools to help “civilize the Indians.” It should be noted that there have been Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and apologies to address the injustices toward indigenous peoples. Despite noble intentions at reconciliation between state, church, and indigenous nations, the damage of past relationships still remain. This article examines the historical purpose of residential school systems and the role of the Christian church in Canada and compares them from a fundamentalist perspective on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Subsequently, the research will show that there are similarities between indigenous spirituality and fundamentalist Christian spirituality, which lays the foundation for decolonizing reconciliation and justice as a tool of civilizational progress.

A comparison between King Ezekiel from The Walking Dead with the prophet Ezekiel from the Christian Old Testament.

This chapter is published in James Doan and Barbara Brodman's edited compilation titled: Apocalyptic Chic: Visions of the Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse in Literature in Visual Arts (2017).

This exploration of early paths for Buddhist transmission within and beyond South Asia retraces the footsteps of monks, merchants, and other agents of cross-cultural exchange. A reassessment of literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources reveals historical contexts for the growth of the Buddhist saṅgha from approximately the 5th century BCE to the end of the first millennium CE. Patterns of dynamic Buddhist mobility were closely linked to transregional trade networks extending to the northwestern borderlands and joined to Central Asian silk routes by capillary routes through transit zones in the upper Indus and Tarim Basin. By examining material conditions for Buddhist establishments at nodes along these routes, this book challenges models of gradual diffusion and develops alternative explanations for successful Buddhist movement.
Open Access: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004194588

This study examines the symbiotic relationship between the development of transregional long-distance trade networks and the process of early long-distance transmission of Buddhism from northwestern South Asia through the territory of the Northern Areas of Pakistan to eastern Central Asia and China. Recent discoveries of thousands of graffiti inscriptions written in the Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī scripts and petroglyphs of Buddhist images along ancient capillary routes through the Upper Indus, Gilgit and Hunza valleys illustrate patterns of long-distance travel and cultural contact during the first millennium CE.
Inscriptions and rock drawings are situated in the contexts of the physical environment, religious traditions, languages, literature, and ethnography of or related to northern Pakistan, which was a dynamic multicultural crossroads rather than an isolated enclave. An overview of regional history based on archaeological, epigraphic and literary sources focuses on migrations and political developments during the periods of the Sakas and Kuṣāṇas in the early centuries CE and during the period of the Paṭola Ṣāhis in the seventh to early eighth centuries CE. The broad historical overview demonstrates that control of peripheral frontiers of
northern Pakistan and neighboring areas of Afghanistan and Kashmir has been repeatedly contested.
A survey of graffiti and petroglyph complexes examines Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī inscriptions from Haldeikish and Alam Bridge in detail. Names, titles, dates, and epigraphic formulae reflect the diversity of visitors and local inhabitants who recorded their arrival and sometimes drew auspicious designs. Buddhist images of stūpas, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and jātakas, often labeled “religious offerings” in Brāhmī inscriptions, established the presence of Buddhism at rudimentary shrines in places where actual stūpas or monasteries did not exist.
Graffiti and petroglyphs provide evidence for capillary networks which directly connected the major arteries of the Uttarāpatha and Dakṣiṇāpatha in the Indian subcontinent with the silk routes of eastern Central Asia, which were linked with overland and maritime networks for long-distance trade. High-value/low-volume in precious commodities was closely related to early long-distance transmission of Buddhism through the mountain transit zone of northern Pakistan, where surplus resources for supporting Buddhist institutions were initially unavailable.

In his influential magnum opus, La Vieille Route de l'Inde de Bactres à Taxila (1942-1947), Alfred Foucher proposed that the “Ancient Route“ across the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan was the “grande route” for the diffusion of cultural elements into and out of South Asia. However, petroglyphs and inscriptions in the Upper Indus, Gilgit, and Hunza valleys of northern Pakistan demonstrate that an alternative network of capillary routes provided multiple pathways for early Buddhist transmission directly between Gandhara and eastern Central Asia.