Punjabi Buddhists

[Premi5]

How many are there?

When I was at Uni, there was a British Indian with surname Chahal. 

He said his family was from Delhi, and they were all Buddhist

[BhForce]

On 4/7/2018 at 3:49 PM, Premi5 said:

How many are there?

When I was at Uni, there was a British Indian with surname Chahal. 

He said his family was from Delhi, and they were all Buddhist

Hmm, Chahal is a Jat surname. Extremely strange to see a Jat as a Buddhist. They are usually Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh. Or maybe it was an Ambedkar follower who worked for a Chahal family and adopted the name when they had to get a passport.

[Premi5]

On 4/13/2018 at 12:09 AM, BhForce said:

Hmm, Chahal is a Jat surname. Extremely strange to see a Jat as a Buddhist. They are usually Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh. Or maybe it was an Ambedkar follower who worked for a Chahal family and adopted the name when they had to get a passport.

I have no idea. He looked typical Panjabi

[Guest GuestSingh]

Used to know someone with the surname Randhawa and from a Sikh background whose dad then family converted to Buddhism so not easy to know just from surname. There must be more than we think but not too many, in my opinion.

[Guest]

What the hell!

My family surname is Chahal lol.

Caste of the surname is Jatt.

[BhForce]

On 4/24/2018 at 9:15 PM, GuestSingh said:

Used to know someone with the surname Randhawa and from a Sikh background whose dad then family converted to Buddhism so not easy to know just from surname. There must be more than we think but not too many, in my opinion.

I see. I think the exceedingly small number of Jatt, Ramgarhia, Khatri or other such Buddhists must be the overly educated rich Delhi/Mumbai dwelling-type who have never had the fortune of being exposed to the real Sikhi, and instead have the misimpression that Sikhi  is simply about swinging swords around or some such and there is no spirituality in it.

They are exposed to a whiff of spirituality from some Buddhist that they meet in the big city, and they think, "I've found it. Real spirituality. Never would have experienced this in the small-time provincial atmosphere of Punjab. I'm becoming a Buddhist."

Whereas if we had gotten off our butts and preached the real meaning of our faith, we wouldn't have this problem.

[CharhdiKala]

15 hours ago, BhForce said:

I see. I think the exceedingly small number of Jatt, Ramgarhia, Khatri or other such Buddhists must be the overly educated rich Delhi/Mumbai dwelling-type who have never had the fortune of being exposed to the real Sikhi, and instead have the misimpression that Sikhi  is simply about swinging swords around or some such and there is no spirituality in it.

They are exposed to a whiff of spirituality from some Buddhist that they meet in the big city, and they think, "I've found it. Real spirituality. Never would have experienced this in the small-time provincial atmosphere of Punjab. I'm becoming a Buddhist."

Whereas if we had gotten off our butts and preached the real meaning of our faith, we wouldn't have this problem.

You're right in someways. One of the biggest things in Sikhi is meditation and chanting the Waheguru mantra but I don't think even the majority of Sikhs know this. Sikhi is just seen as some 'warrior' religion that provides langar by a lot of people.

[CanadianSingh]

On 4/12/2018 at 5:09 PM, BhForce said:

Hmm, Chahal is a Jat surname. Extremely strange to see a Jat as a Buddhist. They are usually Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh. Or maybe it was an Ambedkar follower who worked for a Chahal family and adopted the name when they had to get a passport.

Us Sikh's don't believe in caste.

[CanadianSingh]

I think I know why most Punjabi Buddhists are indeed Buddhists, well due to the fact of caste discrimination in our Sikhi. In Sikhism you would think we are advanced, but the issue is that culture is tangled up with Sikhi, and due to the promotion by the British that some certain castes were martial races this caused an Ego with certain Sikhs. As a result there was caste discrimination on our fellow Sikhs who, forgive me for saying it lower castes. Which is why Ambedkar wanted Buddhism, actually he was interested in our religion since we were against it, but he realized he would be a second class Sikh due to the fact of caste discrimination. If our fellow Sikh's would've actually followed the Guru Granth Sahib, and treated our fellows with respect, then perhaps Ambedkar would've been a Sardar.

[BhForce]

21 minutes ago, CanadianSingh said:

Us Sikh's don't believe in caste.

Well, yeah, but not in the way you replied to my statement. It is no more controversial to state that Chahal is a Jatt surname than to say that Anand is a Khatri surname or Smith is an English surname or O'Reilly is an Irish surname.

We don't "believe" in devtas, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. We just don't place our faith in them.

Similarly, we don't believe that any one racial group is inherently better than another.