About this ebook
The image is familiar the world over: the serene face of the Buddha, the great masters of the dharma, the golden lineage of enlightenment. But what if the standard story of where Buddhism came from is incomplete — and its deepest roots reach back through the Dravidian south of India and into the African world that shaped the ancient East?
In The Buddha Was Black, #1 bestselling author Ajarn Shaman Shu (Shri Surya Narayana Swamikal) makes a bold and sweeping case: that the origins of Buddhism trace to a wisdom stream far older and more African than history remembers, and that the Buddha and the masters who carried his teaching belong to a lineage the world was taught to forget.
Inside you'll explore:
The lost origins of Buddhism and the forgotten lineage behind the dharma
Siddhartha, Padmasambhava, Bodhidharma, and Nagarjuna — reconsidered
The Dravidian and Siddha roots beneath the Buddhist tradition
The African and Kemetic threads connecting the ancient spiritual world
How the tantric, timeless wisdom of the East reaches back toward its source
Why this reclamation matters for how we understand Buddhism today
Provocative, sweeping, and grounded in the author's lifelong study, this is spiritual history retold — a reclamation of the origins of one of the world's great traditions, and the return of a Black Buddha.
The lost origins. The forgotten lineage. The Buddha was Black.
OrishaUniversity.com and these books represent the restoration of what was taken from our people. The 256 Odu of Ifa are the original operating system of human consciousness. Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola has done what many generations prayed would one day be done. My full endorsement and blessing from Ile-Ife, the source of all.
— Araba Agbaye, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Àṣẹ.
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About the author
Shri Surya Narayana Swamikal is an initiated master of the Shaiva Siddha and Vaishnava traditions, sacred scientist, and founder of ShivaUniversity.com and Krishna.University — the world's first AI-powered universities for Shaiva and Vaishnava sacred sciences. Also known as Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola (Ifa tradition) and Ajarn Shaman Shu (Thai Buddhist tradition), he is the author of over 70 books spanning Shiva, chakras, Tantra, yoga, Vajrayana Buddhism, and the universal science of consciousness and wealth.
Robert Shumake is the legal name of Shri Surya Narayana Swamikal. Based in Dallas, Texas, he is the founder of Smart Money Media AI — one of the largest independent publishers of African and Eastern sacred sciences — and the owner and publisher of multiple newspapers and digital media properties. He is the author of academic papers and over 70 published books on Ifa, Shaiva philosophy, Buddhist practice, and the science of wealth and consciousness. Learn more at robertshumake.co.
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