Hilarious religious/historical document

[Absinthe]

Someone very recently "fished" this out of a book he was reading and he showed me immediately, oh the laughs we had

For whoever is interested, the letter can be found in Donald S. Lopez Jr's book "Buddhism and Science" (The University of Chicago Press), , under the chapter "Buddhism and the Science of Race", ironically enough, on p.88 (on the PDF, not the book)

On October 27, 1937, the following letter, written in perfect German, arrived in Berlin:

Abbot T’ai-hsü, Monastery Ta-lin Szu
Kuling via Kiu-kiang (Kiangsi)
China

Kuling, 11 August 1937


To the Leader of the German People,
Mr Adolf Hitler.

The scientific civilization of our time is borne by the Aryan race, but
the religious culture of the past has its culmination in Buddhism, whose
founder, Buddha Shakyamuni, was also of Aryan origin.

People in Europe and America today are not happy, obviously because their lives are ordered by science alone, which offers no answers to questions concerning religious issues. They are in need of religion.

Now, most religions stand in contradiction to natural science; only Buddhism has fully absorbed its insights, indeed surpassing them. Thus Buddhism is destined to become the religion of the peoples of Europe and America.

Buddhism has recognized the fundamental truth that there are four primary virtues that man must possess in order to achieve perfection: compassion (for the needs of one’s neighbour), conformity (to the social hierarchy), good works (for improvement), and courage (to break down opposition).

The peoples in India and China possess the first two of these
virtues, but they do not have the last two in sufficient measure. Thus their personality is incomplete and the full extent of the blessing of Buddhism cannot yet reveal itself to them.

I believe that the Germanic people, now united under their Führer, have wondrously developed three characteristics: knowledge, conformity, and courage.

Thus only the Buddhist religion, in which these three characteristics
are primary virtues, can be the religion of the Germanic people. And
only that most excellent scion of ancient Aryan stock, Shakyamuni, the Holy, can be the religious leader of the Germanic people, that most excellent scion of ancient Aryan stock.

If the Führer desires to study the Buddhist religion, which can become so important for Europe and America today and for the Germanic people, I request that he write to me and I will gladly answer to the best of my knowledge.

I wish your government undaunted stability!
[several seals]

Leader of the Buddhists in China

signed T’ai-hsü1

[Klärchen]

OMG!!!

However, some time ago I had already mentioned somewhere that science and religion are not necessarily incompatible:

Matter is not made out of matter

[antonio]

Budism was greatly apreciated in German from first years of XX if not before on Academical environments. But, Nazis failed: Hinduism is what evolved from Aryan religion, not Budism. I'll suppose that Budism seemed them a more developed system and more related to Christian-Neoplatonic European system of beliefs. Although for me is a complete nosense: if we supress ego, just void remains. WTF?

Pd. Closed debate for me. It's just a reply to your comment.

[Klärchen]

Hitler and his followers believed in some mysticism, Germanic mysticism, I suppose, and also in astrology.

[Cail]

Well, Buddhism is indeed WAY better than any of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism/Islam/Christianity et cetera). One of the very few religions that hold any worth in my eyes.

[Klärchen]

At least Buddhists have never tried to convert others by force...

[Agrippa]

Hitler and his followers believed in some mysticism, Germanic mysticism, I suppose, and also in astrology.

Well, talking about that is almost like talking about what the average American Republican believes in. Of course, they have a lot in common, but also many differences and especially in this respect, there were many theories and ideas, from the head, the leadership, down to the simple party member and average German who believed in National Socialism.

One can't generalise that too much, especially if its about the view on rather Esoteric and foreign religious elements. Hitler and others mocked Himmler's view on the past and other cultures at times, yet Himmler was without a doubt quite influential in some circles and again influenced by others...

[Poltergeist]

One wacky Bonze, no big deal. Hitler must have received tons of such letters from different psedo-authority, from all around the world, as long as he was on the height of his power.

[W. R.]

Well, Buddhism is indeed WAY better than any of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism/Islam/Christianity et cetera). One of the very few religions that hold any worth in my eyes.

In this there lies the proper difference between the two weltanschauungs; the fact that the first one, occidental one is manly, is a matter-of-course dogma even among refractors of this civilisation, while we, sympathizers of Buddhism in general, have an ingrained incapability to understand this. Anatole France, flirting with powers, which are the threat of decline for this civilisation (and because of this they are so popular among us), even he stops in fear of Buddhism; he refuses to acknowledge the capability of this religion to save anyone, of the religion, which teaches, that “all our miseries are the consequence of our wishes”; which teaches “to be without pride, sweet, without passions, without hatred, tolerate the intolerant... to enter the blessed comfort” [236] . About the kind of degeneration which is the consequence of this teaching Hippolyte Taine speaks, who says that in its logical development this “doctrine goes as far as forbidding not only an annexationist war, but also a defensive war (so far goes our native Buddhism as well); that by this doctrine an alien is treated as friend” (compare our Buddhists’ struggle against the Ukrainian “chauvinism” and for the solidarity of “workers of all the nations”); that they believe that “it is better to honour father and mother than to serve the gods of heavens and earth”.

What a great difference from the courageous and full of beautiful idealism philosophy of the West, the beginning to which was the militant Christianity, that exactly required to leave father and mother in the name of the great ideal! [237] . <...> “Is Buddhism not a reaction”, asks the researcher [Schopenhauer], “a riot of the non-Aryan races against Aryans?” [238] It largely is, and the philosophy of our Buddhism is the reaction to the philosophy of the strong; the reaction of the “weak creatures” who are afraid or unable to adopt this philosophy and who want to corrupt it by grafting it their moral values.

Dmytro Dontsov, “Nationalism”

В цьому лежить властива різниця між обома світоглядами, що перший, окцидентальний, – мужеський, є догмою самозрозумілою навіть у рефрактерів цієї цивілізації, а в нас, в сторонників буддаїзму взагалі – є органічна нездібність цього зрозуміння. Анатоль Франс, кокетуючи сили, що грозять загибеллю цій цивілізації (і тому так в моді в нас), і той зупинягться в страху перед буддаїзмом; він відмовляється признати спасенність цієї релігії, яка вчить, що “ зсі наші нещастя ідуть від пожадань”; яка вчить “бути без гордости, солодкими, без пристрастей, без ненависти, толерантними з нетолерантними... увійти в благословенний спокій” [236] . До якого виродження іде ця наука, свідчить Гіполіт Тен, який оповідає, що в своїм логічнім розвитку ця “доктрина йде аж до заборони не лише завойовницької війни, але й оборонної (до чого догово-рюється і наш рідний буддаїзм); що цією доктриною “чужинець трактується як свій” (пор. боротьбу наших буддаїстів проти українського “шовінізму” і за солідарність “працюючих всіх народів”); що в них “ліпше шанувати батька і матір, як служити богам небесним і земним”.

Яка різниця від відважної та повної чудового ідеалізму філософії Заходу, започаткованої воюючим християнством, що власне казало, в ім’я великого ідеалу, кинути батька і матір! [237] . <...> Чи буддизм не є реакцією – питається дослідник, бунтом неарійських рас проти арійців?” [238] . Це у великій мірі так, і філософія нашого буддизму це реакція проти філософії сильних; реакція “слабих тварин”, які бояться або не вміють засвоїти собі цю філософію і які хочуть розкласти її прищепленням своїх моральних вартостей.

Дмитро Донцов, “Націоналізм”

Sorry. I just love this book.

[Óttar]

Buddhism indeed evolved in the Ganges plain, a crowded merchant center with various different ethnic groups comingling far from the Indus valley of earlier Vedic times. Ever since the move from the Indus to the Ganges when the Brahmanas were first being written, a wide, sparsely populated land where horseback riding Vedic warriors roamed far and free has dominated the mental life of Hindus.

I personally think it would be great if Europe and America became Buddhist. They would tolerate Hindus and "pagans", after all Buddhists aren't Abrahamic and who has ever heard of a Buddhist holy war, except for one isolated incident in Tibet between rival sects?

My only problem with Buddhism is the one mentioned above, the sort of ascetic "life denial" which Nietzsche points out. This tendency has even sullied many strains of modern Hinduism, and it is indeed the pitfall of all major world religions, this sharp dichotomy between Spirit and Matter such that it verges on the neurotic.

Who all of a sudden decided that feasting, drinking and enjoying good company was not in itself capable of letting someone experience the numinous? Even these simple daily events, eating, drinking, conversation, making art and playing music, can be imbued with a spiritual quality.

Popular Buddhism maintains earlier "pagan" indigenous traditions, and does not attempt to ruthlessly stamp them out unlike some other religions. Hellenistic statues of the Buddha were found as far west as Gaul, and so I think it has the potential to blend well with the Occidental weltanschauung.

As to the National Socialists, many top NS officials and scientists were enthralled by Tibet, staying and studying there for a long time. The Dalai Lama at the time even wrote a letter of friendship to Hitler beginning his letter with "To Hitler, King of the Germans." I remember hearing that at least one NS official had the Bardo Thodol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead) read at his funeral.