Author: PK Balachandran
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: June 12, 2006
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7752_1718475,004100180006.htm
In the 1920s, Mahatma Gandhi proclaimed himself
a Buddhist, saying that Buddhism was rooted in Hinduism and represented its
essence.
During his visit to Sri Lanka in 1927, Gandhi
had no hesitation in declaring that he was a "Buddhist" because
he saw Buddhism as cleansed Hinduism.
In his book Gandhiji in Ceylon (S Ganesan,
Publisher, Triplicane, Madras 1928) his Secretary and chronicler Mahadev Desai
quotes Gandhi as saying that the Buddha was a "Hindu of Hindus".
In a speech at the Young Men's Buddhist Association,
Gandhi said: "He (Gautama) was saturated with the spirit of Hinduism,
with the Vedic spirit."
"And so far as I am aware, he never rejected
Hinduism or the message of the Vedas."
What the Buddha did was to introduce a "living
reformation in the petrified faith that surrounded him," Gandhi said.
In a speech delivered at the renowned Buddhist
college, Vidyodaya, in Colombo, Gandhi said that it was his "deliberate
opinion" that the essential parts of the teachings of the Buddha formed
an "integral part of Hinduism."
"By his immense sacrifice, by his great
renunciation and the immaculate purity of his life, he left behind an indelible
impress upon Hinduism," Gandhi said of the Buddha.
"And Hinduism owes an eternal gratitude
to that great teacher," he added.
"It is my fixed opinion that Buddhism
or rather the teachings of the Buddha found its full fruition in India, and
it could not be otherwise, for Gautama was himself a Hindu of Hindus."
"He was saturated with the best that
was in Hinduism, and he gave life to some of the teachings that were buried
in the Vedas and which were overgrown with weeds."
"His great Hindu spirit cut its way through
the forest of words, meaningless words, which had overlaid the golden truth
that was in the Vedas."
"He made some of the words in the Vedas
yield a meaning to which the men of his generation were strangers."
"And he found in India, the most congenial
soil," Gandhi asserted.
"Buddha never rejected Hinduism but broadened
its base. He gave it a new life and a new interpretation," the Father
of the Indian Nation said.
He then went to the extent of saying that
what Hinduism did not take from Buddhism, was not important.
"I would venture to tell you that what
Hinduism did not assimilate of what passes for Buddhism today, was not an
essential part of Buddha's life and teachings."
The Buddha's teaching was, like his heart,
"all expanding and all embracing", which made it survive his own
body and sweep across the face of the earth.
"I claim that this achievement is a triumph
of Hinduism," Gandhi declared.
Lankans urged to study Hinduism
At the Young Men's Buddhist Association, Gandhi
told Sri Lankan Buddhists to study Hinduism too.
"I venture to suggest to you that your
study of Buddhism will be incomplete unless you study the original sources
from which the Master derived his inspiration, that is, unless you study Sanskrit
and Sanskrit scriptures," he said.
Buddhism deep-rooted in India
Gandhi said that India might lack the external
trappings of Buddhism today, but the Buddhist ideology had deep roots in India,
and was pervasive in its influence.
"What passes under the name of Buddhism
now may have been driven out of India, but the life of the Buddha and his
teachings are by no means driven out of India," he said.
And it was "impossible" for Hindu
India to retrace its steps and reject the Buddhistic elements in it, he asserted.
Given his belief that Buddhism was but a cleansed
form of Hinduism and the very essence of Hinduism, Gandhi said he was a Buddhist.
He told the students of Vidyodaya that his
eldest son accused him of being a Buddhist. Some other Indians accused him
of spreading Buddhism under the guise of "Sanatana Hinduism".
But he pleaded guilty to the charge.
"I sympathise with my son's accusations
and the accusations of my Hindu friends. And sometimes I feel even proud of
being accused of being a follower of the Buddha, and I have no hesitation
in declaring in the presence of this audience that I owe a great deal to the
inspiration that I have derived from the life of the Enlightened One,"
he said.
That was what he said to modern Sri Lanka's
foremost Buddhist revivalist, Anagarika Dharmapala, at a function to open
a Buddhist temple in Calcutta.
Calls for reform of present-day Buddhism
However, Gandhi strongly felt that Buddhism,
as practiced in his time, needed reform.
At Vidyodaya, he said though Buddhists outside
had taken in a large measure the teachings of the Buddha, an examination of
their lives, whether in Sri Lanka, Burma, China or Tibet, showed that there
were inconsistencies between Buddhism as he understood it, and Buddhism as
practiced by people in these countries.
Elaborating this theme, Gandhi said that there
was a mistaken notion that Buddhism rejected the concept of God and that the
Buddha did not believe in God.
"In my humble opinion such a belief contradicts
the very central fact of Buddha's teaching," he said.
"It seems to me the confusion has arisen
over his rejection of all the base things that passed in his generation under
the name of God ."
"His whole soul rose in mighty indignation
against the belief that a being called God required for his satisfaction the
living blood of animals in order that he might be pleased -- animals which
were his own creation."
"He therefore reinstated God in the right
place and dethroned the usurper who for the time being seemed to occupy that
White Throne.'
"He emphasised and re-declared the eternal
and unalterable existence of the moral government of this universe. He unhesitatingly
said that the Law was God himself."
"God's laws are eternal and unalterable
and not separable from God himself. It is an indispensable condition of his
very protection," Gandhi said.
The confusion over God had blurred the true
meaning of the term Nirvana he said.
"Nirvana is not utter extinction after
death."
"Nirvana is the utter extinction of all
that is base in us, all that is vicious in us. Nirvana is not like the black,
dead peace of the grave, but the living peace, the living happiness of a soul
which is conscious of itself and conscious of having found its own abode in
the heart of the Eternal," Gandhi said.
Need to respect sanctity of life
Gandhi was very much disturbed by the lack
of respect for the sanctity of life in Buddhist countries as well as India
where Buddha lived and preached.
Buddha's greatest attribute was the "exacting
regard" he gave to all forms life, including the lowliest, he said.
The Buddha considered the lives of even the
smallest creature on earth to be as precious as his own.
"It is an arrogant assumption to say
that human beings are lords and masters
of the lower creations. On the contrary, being endowed with the greater things
in life, they are trustees of the lower animal kingdom."
"And the greatest sage lived that truth
in his own life," Gandhi said as he went on to relate how the Buddha
clutched a lamb and would not give it to a set of "arrogant and ignorant
Brahmins" who were planning to perform a sacrifice with it.
Plea to adopt vegetarianism
Gandhi said that he did not know what the
position in Sri Lanka was, but he knew that in Burma, the Burmese Buddhists
would not themselves kill animals, but did not mind others killing the animals
for the table.
He used the strong word "carcasses"
for meat at the table.
He decried the pervasive drinking habit in
Sri Lanka, especially among the poor, and said that it was opposed to the
spirit of all religions, "most decidedly" Buddhism.
In a speech in Badulla on November 19, 1927,
Gandhi said that he was "pained" to hear that even some Buddhists
observed the "curse of untouchability" and that untouchable women
were forbidden to wear upper garments.
"If you believe in untouchability you
totally deny the teaching of the Buddha," he said.
Communalism is a "blight"
In a talk at the premier nationalistic organization,
the Ceylon National Congress on June 22, 1927, Gandhi deplored the way communalism
was being promoted in Sri Lanka, and described the phenomenon as a "blight".
"I read casually only today, something
in praise of communalism. In India also we have this blight -- we call it
a blight, we don't praise it."
"In India we have to deal with 300 million
people. But you have to deal with such a small mass of men and women that
it is a matter of pain and surprise for me to find a defence -- an energetic
defence -- of this communalism."
Communalism, he cautioned, was "totally
opposed to nationalism."
Gandhi said that Sri Lanka would never get
genuine self government unless all the communities speak with one voice and
not merely as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sinhalese, Tamils and
Malays.
Westernisation as a divider
Gandhi was disturbed by the deep rooted Westernisation
that he saw in Sri Lanka, and said that it should be eschewed because it created
divisions among the people.
Rebuking Sri Lankans who were going in for
"all kinds of fashions and styles," Gandhi said: " Do not for
the sake of your country ape the manners and customs of others which can only
do harm to you, and for heaven's sake, do not wish to be what everyone of
the people of Ceylon cannot be."
Sri Lanka was called Ceylon prior to 1972.
Gandhi hailed the movement to teach Sri Lankan
children through their mother tongue.
In a speech at Mahinda Collge at Galle in
the deep south of the island, he said: " I am certain that the children
of the nation who receive instruction in a tongue other than their own commit
suicide. It robs them of their birth right."
"A foreign medium means an undue strain
upon the youngsters and isolates them from their home. I regard therefore
such a thing as a national tragedy of first importance."
But Gandhi urged the learning of Sanskrit
in Sri Lanka, since the Buddha himself, who he described as the "Indian
of Indians" had "derived his inspiration from Sanskrit writings."
Wanted Lanka to set an example to India
Gandhi described Sri Lanka as a "fragrant
pearl dropped from the nose ring of India."
In a speech delivered at a meeting of Indians
in Jaffna on November 27, he said that he wished Sri Lanka would be an improved
version of India, which had fallen on bad times.
Sri Lanka should be the model for India, its
"glorious edition" as he put it.
"Why should not the people of Lanka who
have inherited and adopted the teachings of the great Master do better than
the children of the motherland?" Gandhi asked.
PK Balachandran is Special Correspondent of
Hindustan Times in Sri Lanka)
