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Question
What is the reason that Buddhism was born in India, but
is more widely
practiced outside India?
Answer
The Indian culture is a Vedic culture. Buddhism arose as
a sort of protest
to the Vedic culture of that time. Therefore, Buddhism
doesn’t accept the Vedas
as a
pramäëam
or valid source of knowledge; it dismisses all the Vedic
rituals.
Yet Buddhism is also an offspring of the Vedas and so
the teaching of Buddhism
is not too far removed from that of the Upanishads. It
became a separate
tradition and many were inspired to embrace Buddhism.
Lord Buddha was a
great and inspiring leader and teacher. It said that at
that time, the Vedic culture
had degenerated into too many rituals and sacrificial
offerings of animals with a
lot of violence. Buddhism came up as a protest reaction
to that. Therefore,
Gautama Buddha’s message of compassion appealed to the
people and the new
religion was accepted. Later, however, Buddhism also
suffered decay. Over
time, it became very intellectual and involved a lot of
argumentation, which
resulted in divisions within it. Buddhism was in a bad
state because it was
purely intellectual and dialectical. A better form of
reasoning became necessary
to show up the fallacies of the prevalent Vedic culture.
That was when Ädi
Saìkaräcärya came along.
Even before Çré Saìkaräcärya’s time, a lot of work in
the re-establishment
of Vedic culture had been done. There was Kumärila
Bhatta, a great ritualist,
who also played a significant role in re-establishing
the Vedic culture. Çré
Saìkaräcärya established the tenets of the Upanishadic
teaching. This was
because the people of India basically followed Vedic
precepts and that was a way
it could be brought back. Çré Saìkaräcärya brought about
a lot of reforms in the
practice of rituals as well. Had that not happened, the
Vedic religion itself could
have been wiped out. Unless great leaders come as
reformers, even religions
become degenerate. Unfortunately, Buddhism did not have
the kind of leader
who could subsequently reform it and make it practical
for others to follow or
provide an idea or path for others to follow. What is
practically useful to people
alone will survive and that is why Vedic religion has
survived.
www.AVGsatsang.org 2
Question
Why did Lord Buddha tell the people to ignore the
teachings of the
Vedas?
Answer:
At the time Gautama Buddha appeared on this earth, there
was a lot of
distortion in the interpretation of what the Vedas
prescribe. There was also a lot
of corruption along with the distortion. It seems that
there was a predominance
of animal sacrifice in the performance of Vedic rituals
and thus there was
violence associated with it. Both Gautama Buddha as well
as Vardhamana
Mahavira of the Jain religion appeared in the same
region at about the same time,
and both advocated
ahiàsä.
This was because of the prevalent atmosphere of
hiàsä
or violence as the Vedic rituals were equated to
sacrifice. Therefore, rather
than reforming the Vedic rituals, they did away with it.
The ideal way would
have been to teach
ahiàsä
in the light of the Vedic teaching; to give the people
the
right understanding of the Vedas and remove all the
corruption that had entered
into that. Then the Vedic religion would have been
sustained or reformed and
there would not have been conflict in the minds of the
people. But what
happened was that the two new traditions began as a
protest against the violence
that was associated with the Vedic rituals. The
principle of non-violence is very
noble. Yet I personally wish that this non-violence had
been taught in keeping
with the Vedic teaching. Any tradition that is followed
for a long time is prone
to corruption and distortion. Therefore, we require
spiritual leaders from time to
time who can spot those corruptions or distortions and
set them right.
Ädi Saìkaräcärya was also a great reformer. He was very
traditional, no
doubt, and we would also call him orthodox because he
was faithful to the basic
traditions of the Vedas including the caste system, the
varëäçrama–dharma,
and so
on. At the same time, however, he introduced a lot of
reforms. Even at the time
of Çré Saìkaräcärya, there were many distortions in the
forms of worship, such as
in the worship of the female divinity.
Tantra
is a form of worshiping the mother
goddess. Distortions had entered into this worship,
which had become
associated with the five
ma-käras,
such as
madya
or liquor,
mäàsa
or flesh, etc.
Also, the ferocious form of the Devi was worshipped
through animal sacrifice.
Çré Saìkaräcärya corrected this tradition and instituted
the worship of the benign
form of the Goddess. He installed what we call the Çré-
yantra
in many places
and changed the form of worship from the ferocious form
to the benign forms.
There was also a sort of division amongst Hindus who
worshipped different |
