Author: A Seshan
Publication: The Times of India
Date: May 7, 2001
THE story of Gautama, the Buddha
(the enlightened one), is well known. He expounded the four noble truths
(Arya Satya) concerning suffering, its cause, its destruction and the way
to the elimination of sorrow. He was against the extremes of both self-indulgence
and self-mortification. A Middle Path was advocated consisting of right
views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood,
right effort, right mindfulness and right contemplation. He rejected the
authority of the Vedas, condemned ritualistic practices, especially animal
sacrifice, and denied the existence of gods. Buddhism flourished for more
than a millennium and spread to foreign lands also. But a decline set in
after the Golden Age of the Guptas (4th to 5th centuries AD).
Foreign historians, with limited
knowledge of Indian philosophical systems, have attributed the decline
of Buddhism in the land of its birth to the advent of Adi Sankara. The
68th Sankaracharya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Math, Shri Chandrasekharendra
Saraswati, has effectively nailed this canard. According to him, Sankara
was more concerned with setting right the errors in Saankhya and Meemaamsa
philosophies of Hinduism which denied the importance of Isvara though basically
subscribing to the Vedas. Even where he specifically dealt with Buddhism,
he condemned only its denial of the existence of God. Then how did the
religion decline? It was because of the vehement opposition to Buddhism
on philosophical and religious grounds by Meemaamsakas and Taarkikas (logicians).
The point is also that, even as
people admired Buddha and turned to his religion, they did not give up
their old beliefs and ritualistic practices. To give a contemporary example,
many call themselves Gandhians but in their lives, official or personal,
they follow a path just the opposite of what he showed! King Ashoka (2nd
century BC) did much to propagate the religion within India and without.
Still in his rock edicts he calls himself as "Devanampiya" or "the beloved
of the gods". There were no gods in Buddhism at his time. So obviously
he was referring to Hindu gods. In other words, he continued to believe
in Hindu religion even as he admired Buddha. Buddhist texts written by
bikshus have a Saraswati stotra in the beginning paying obeisance to the
Hindu goddess of learning. It is not unusual to see an idol of Lord Ganesh
in a Buddhist temple.
Adi Sankara accepted the tenets
of Buddhism at the level of pure consciousness. The ultimate stage in his
philosophy was the giving up of rituals and concentrating the mind on the
infinite. Buddha wanted his followers to take a quantum leap at the initial
stage itself to this ultimate goal, something which is difficult to expect
of ordinary men and women. Sankara advocated abiding by the karmas, as
stipulated by Meemaamsa, to begin with, and proceeding gradually to the
stage envisaged by Buddha of giving them up altogether. However, Buddha
did believe in two cardinal principles of Hinduism, viz. the transmigration
of the soul and the law of karma (that our actions have consequences).
Thus fundamentally there is little difference between the two religions
except that Buddha conceived his as an ethical and secular way of life.
Perhaps the most important reason
for the decline of Buddhism as a separate religion was the absorption of
its founder in the Hindu pantheon of gods - indeed an irony for one who
denied their existence! There are many incarnations of Vishnu of which
the Dasavatar or the ten incarnations are the most well known. In the Southern
tradition they are: matsya (fish), koorma (tortoise), varaha (boar), Narasimha
(the man-lion), Vamana (the dwarf) Parasurama (the angry prince), Rama
(the perfect human), Balarama, his younger brother Krishna (the divine
statesman) and Kalki (the redeemer of righteousness in the kali yuga, who
is yet to appear). In the Northern tradition Balarama is replaced by Buddha
who appears as the ninth avatar after Krishna, his mission being to purify
Hinduism. Srimad Bhagavatam (circa 900 AD, according to Farquhar) takes
the stand that Krishna is the original form of Vishnu and the incarnations
were all his. In its list of Dasavatar, which many consider as the most
authentic, both Baladeva (or Balarama) and Buddha appear. Krishna is not
mentioned because he is the original god. The Dasavatara Stotra of Jayadev
(12th century), parts of which are included in Adi Guru Granth compiled
by Guru Arjun Singh, follows the list of Bhagavatam. In this scheme, Buddhism
was like the reformation movement of Martin Luther in Christianity. Once
Buddha himself became an incarnation of Vishnu there was no need for the
religion to exist separately in this country.
