I heard about this woman who is a professor specialising in Buddhism. She doesn't know Sanskrit, she doesn't know Pali, she doesn't know Chinese, she doesn't know Tibetan. She knew a little Japanese once but has forgotten about it now.

She is considered my country's foremost scholar on Buddhism and is invited on TV whenever they need a Buddhism expert.

Too generous. This assumes average westerner could even get the scale right.

Not Saruman’s proudest moment.

Bro you can't just let a cube rest unsolved like that. 🫣

Sprinkle in a little bias, a little propaganda, a little mythology, then lose 75% of the information, and you’ve got the Eastern understanding of Asian history.

Same goes for the Western understanding of Caucasian history, of course.

There is no discoverable objective reality when it comes to history. Not even the people in the moment at any given point in history really understand what’s going on. It’s all a construct.