Monsoon wrote:A rummage around on the internet reveals that the earliest mention of Dao Yin occurs between 200 BC and 8 BC. This is after Buddha and not much older as stated in the above post. Most of the stuff I have read suggest that Daoism as a coherent system draws on practices and ideas from the Warring States period (i.e. post-Buddha), although it could be tentatively argued that some of the practices may well date from earlier in much the same way that I can say my practice of walking dates back to when our ancestors descended from the trees.Earliest mention of something is not origination, but publication, many things predate their first recorded origins, however I respect your intellectual approach here and commend the idea that you should not just accept claims without evidence, I certainly don't.I have every respect (at a distance) for your passion on this subject, but it is unreasonable to expect me to believe your (or David's) statements without references that extend beyond what I can find in an online literature search.
I agree in general however I have read numerous things that cannot be found or obtained online, and or are incredibly hard to find. One example or topic is temple architecture development over thousands of years across India and Asia, and the art of these temples. This is a topic that has been addressed somewhat here, and can be further, but this thread is not the place. I will say that for myself the evidence and references I have collected over years of study are the basis of my present opinion.The point that Yoga pre-dates Buddhism is well taken and accepted, as with many ancient Indocentric practices.
For the sake of discussion of the topic I would like to note that Yoga has a martial side to it, and was practiced for health and self defense purposes long ago and that some of what we now call martial arts originate in this practice.
I do not believe that one can get very far relying upon the work of scholars and publications. I focus primarily upon ancient art work, temples and extant practices, but do study the scholar research as well and find it convoluted and speculative. If I do not publish what i had for breakfast, the scholar approach is to deny I even ate breakfast, this gets far too much respect as an intellectual method. One thing that is noteworthy is that regions in some countries with orgal traditions going back to an undetermined amount of time, but regions that were likewise separated by significant time and space, had identical oral traditions indicating that even after hundreds of years of more, that there was a high degree of conservation, to the point that the oral traditions when recorded were word for word exact... the point is that unwritten records can be as reliable as those published, and also those published can be as unreliable as those unwritten. add to this that there is a nationalistic taint to most sinology, an outright agenda, and then the problem becomes even more clear.
For further reading:
http://academia.edu/3218910/Joseph_Camp ... sks_of_God
I can provide more materials and references but many of the books I employ are not in print and or not found online.
For me Daoism in China hails from Vedic traditions, for me this is obvious and undeniable, but nobody should take my word for it. The few that I have discussed this matter fully with and have presented evidence to have agreed with me that this is the only tenable answer to the question of where it came from, however I have not made any formal presentation for online study, nor will I ever, though i may publish eventually.
(note I had some issues with editing the tags so must leave the post as is)