THE MASTERS GONE, THEIR MESSAGE MISREAD AND THE MASSES MISLED FOR MILLENIA ... 1
THE BLUNDER OF THE BUDDHISTS
Misinterpretations galore of my posts lends credence to the principle of a like misreading of the message of the spiritual masters by posterity. Disciples ever shift from the original truth preached by the preceptor, their derivatives gaining progressive deviation with every passing generation. So is a truth lost in the realm of philosophy as the principle is perverted from its pristine purity and rendered sterile by puerile prosecution of its intent.
The Buddha bore out the truths of the Spirit in repudiation of the inessential ritualistic parts of the Vedas and affirmation of the knowledge parts, though, not in so many terms. His life of supreme self-abnegation exemplified the most refined renunciation leading to spiritual realisation which is the essence of the utterances of the Upanishads. Yet, his refusal to recognise the Vedas as the supreme spiritual authority led his followers to fall into the delusion that his teachings were antithetical to that of the Upanishads and this led to the grand departure of Buddhism from the principles of the Sanatan Dharma, never in essence in the ultimate analysis, for Truth eventually is one, but in philosophical ratiocination, and this proved to be the historic turning point in the evolution of Asia and, in the larger context, that of the world. And all this through initial misreading of the Master's life and message.
Buddhism went headlong into war with the Vedic Word and the Sanatan Dharma which the Buddha had come to fulfil found in his followers the bitterest rival battling for supremacy and a hold in the minds of the people. Where the Master had come to reform the Vedic Dharma, despite his apparent repudiation of so many of its practices and his refusal to accord sovereign status to the Vedas in matters spiritual, the followers rejected outright everything Vedic and created the great schism in the Sanatan Dharma from which it is still recovering. India, despite all the glories of Buddhism and its global attainments, still suffers from the consequences of collision between these two titanic systems of thought. The Varnashrama Dharma of the Hindus was permanently debilitated by the aberrations of Buddhism and the social fabric fractured along the grains of natural division where earlier it was harmoniously integrated into a synthetic system with a structural solidarity that was unshakeable save by a Buddha gone wrong in the hands of errant followers.
Buddhism posed the first major threat to the physical existence of the Sanatan Dharma among the people of India, its philosophical life being indestructible for it is of the essence of Truth. Buddhism was a proselytising cult and within a thousand years since its inception it succeeded in converting two-thirds of the Indian population to its fold. The Sanatan Dharma has never again faced such a challenge to its survival as that posed by Buddhism then. The Buddha had appeared on earth to democratise the Sanatan Dharma and so he did. But in its wake his followers led the movement into a collision course with the Mother Dharma and caused irreparable damage to both. Both survived but while a millennium and a half later decadent Buddhism was driven out of the country of its birth by the Hindu Acharyas of the South and Hinduism revived through absorption of much of the practices and ritual temple worship of the former, the body-blow which Hinduism had suffered at the hands of Buddhism never allowed it room for respectable recovery, for the Mohammedan invasions had started already, pushing Hinduism into its caste-ridden corner for sheer survival while hordes of Hindus were force-converted to Islam at the edge of the sword. Buddha's followers, thus, have shaped Indian history for the worse in this regard through their misreading of their Master's message.
That the followers of the Buddha made such marked deviations from the Master's message can be traced in part to the Tathagata's own reticence in being more articulate than he chose to be about the philosophical principles underlying his realisations, the deeper intellectual implications that lay beneath the crust of the concrete illustrations cited by him by way of elucidation of his teachings. The Buddha, in avoiding the labyrinth of words that delude, that compound confusion and confound understanding, himself played into the hands of possible future misinterpretation of his thought once his dharma would require philosophical development to combat adversarial combinations against it. He had oversimplified his message, overemphasised its direct application to real life and paid scant attention to problems philosophical that came in the way of its establishment in the teeth of severe intellectual opposition that arose from seasoned scholars of the Sanatan Dharma. During the Buddha's own lifetime his supernal spiritual strength carried the day through but no sooner had he passed away than the citadel began to shake and his followers were at their wit's end as to their future course of spiritual action that would secure them positional permanence in the polity.
Soon the temple culture emerged and Buddha was made God by his followers who went to the extent of making Hindu gods and goddesses pay obeisance to the Buddha. Thus, Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism separated into the first two major sects with the former remaining true to the Master's message while the latter making marked deviations, deliberate and distinct, that made it grow rapidly to envelope half of the known world then. Subsequent developments show how Middle Eastern Buddhists of the Theraputa sect influenced the birth and growth of Christianity. And all these epochal movements of Buddhism had misinterpretation of the Buddha's message at its fountainhead.
The next neglect of the Buddha was Sanskrit. His preaching in the language of the masses, that is, Pali, popularised his message and democratised fast the dharma but it significantly lowered the national culture from its exquisitely refined state of elitist linguistic attainment to its early proletariat state of unrefined roughshod communication. With erosion in linguistic standards came cultural decline and, with Buddhism gaining ground rapidly, the masses, in the absence of learning in Sanskrit, precipitated the process of the slow degradation of national intellectual culture from which the country has never adequately recovered till date. Buddha's neglect of Sanskrit cost the country dear. Here also, it must be mentioned that the Buddha did not have a disciple of the calibre of Swami Vivekananda who could have correctly interpreted him and left behind his message untarnished and untainted for posterity to profit from. The disciples of the Buddha were bound by their Master's words and could not creatively enough interpret him to continue reforming the Sanatan Dharma in its practical mode instead of running loggerheads with it with ruinous consequences in the long run.
The Buddha had preached, the disciples had misread the message, and the result was their inevitable assault on the Vedas with its corrosive consequence in eviction of the Bauddha Dharma from the very land of its birth. An error at source in apprehension and interpretation thereof, and you have the whole of the citadel of the dharma tumbling down in due course. So it was with Buddhism. Hence, disciples ought to learn clearly what the Master wants of them, what the Master's message is and what lie beneath the preceptor's teachings by way of philosophical profundity. Clear communication will clear confusion and minimise future errors. Better spiritual clarity than confusion confounded owing to the 'Original Sin' of misreading the Master.
Written by Sugata Bose
THE BLUNDER OF THE BUDDHISTS
Misinterpretations galore of my posts lends credence to the principle of a like misreading of the message of the spiritual masters by posterity. Disciples ever shift from the original truth preached by the preceptor, their derivatives gaining progressive deviation with every passing generation. So is a truth lost in the realm of philosophy as the principle is perverted from its pristine purity and rendered sterile by puerile prosecution of its intent.
The Buddha bore out the truths of the Spirit in repudiation of the inessential ritualistic parts of the Vedas and affirmation of the knowledge parts, though, not in so many terms. His life of supreme self-abnegation exemplified the most refined renunciation leading to spiritual realisation which is the essence of the utterances of the Upanishads. Yet, his refusal to recognise the Vedas as the supreme spiritual authority led his followers to fall into the delusion that his teachings were antithetical to that of the Upanishads and this led to the grand departure of Buddhism from the principles of the Sanatan Dharma, never in essence in the ultimate analysis, for Truth eventually is one, but in philosophical ratiocination, and this proved to be the historic turning point in the evolution of Asia and, in the larger context, that of the world. And all this through initial misreading of the Master's life and message.
Buddhism went headlong into war with the Vedic Word and the Sanatan Dharma which the Buddha had come to fulfil found in his followers the bitterest rival battling for supremacy and a hold in the minds of the people. Where the Master had come to reform the Vedic Dharma, despite his apparent repudiation of so many of its practices and his refusal to accord sovereign status to the Vedas in matters spiritual, the followers rejected outright everything Vedic and created the great schism in the Sanatan Dharma from which it is still recovering. India, despite all the glories of Buddhism and its global attainments, still suffers from the consequences of collision between these two titanic systems of thought. The Varnashrama Dharma of the Hindus was permanently debilitated by the aberrations of Buddhism and the social fabric fractured along the grains of natural division where earlier it was harmoniously integrated into a synthetic system with a structural solidarity that was unshakeable save by a Buddha gone wrong in the hands of errant followers.
Buddhism posed the first major threat to the physical existence of the Sanatan Dharma among the people of India, its philosophical life being indestructible for it is of the essence of Truth. Buddhism was a proselytising cult and within a thousand years since its inception it succeeded in converting two-thirds of the Indian population to its fold. The Sanatan Dharma has never again faced such a challenge to its survival as that posed by Buddhism then. The Buddha had appeared on earth to democratise the Sanatan Dharma and so he did. But in its wake his followers led the movement into a collision course with the Mother Dharma and caused irreparable damage to both. Both survived but while a millennium and a half later decadent Buddhism was driven out of the country of its birth by the Hindu Acharyas of the South and Hinduism revived through absorption of much of the practices and ritual temple worship of the former, the body-blow which Hinduism had suffered at the hands of Buddhism never allowed it room for respectable recovery, for the Mohammedan invasions had started already, pushing Hinduism into its caste-ridden corner for sheer survival while hordes of Hindus were force-converted to Islam at the edge of the sword. Buddha's followers, thus, have shaped Indian history for the worse in this regard through their misreading of their Master's message.
That the followers of the Buddha made such marked deviations from the Master's message can be traced in part to the Tathagata's own reticence in being more articulate than he chose to be about the philosophical principles underlying his realisations, the deeper intellectual implications that lay beneath the crust of the concrete illustrations cited by him by way of elucidation of his teachings. The Buddha, in avoiding the labyrinth of words that delude, that compound confusion and confound understanding, himself played into the hands of possible future misinterpretation of his thought once his dharma would require philosophical development to combat adversarial combinations against it. He had oversimplified his message, overemphasised its direct application to real life and paid scant attention to problems philosophical that came in the way of its establishment in the teeth of severe intellectual opposition that arose from seasoned scholars of the Sanatan Dharma. During the Buddha's own lifetime his supernal spiritual strength carried the day through but no sooner had he passed away than the citadel began to shake and his followers were at their wit's end as to their future course of spiritual action that would secure them positional permanence in the polity.
Soon the temple culture emerged and Buddha was made God by his followers who went to the extent of making Hindu gods and goddesses pay obeisance to the Buddha. Thus, Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism separated into the first two major sects with the former remaining true to the Master's message while the latter making marked deviations, deliberate and distinct, that made it grow rapidly to envelope half of the known world then. Subsequent developments show how Middle Eastern Buddhists of the Theraputa sect influenced the birth and growth of Christianity. And all these epochal movements of Buddhism had misinterpretation of the Buddha's message at its fountainhead.
The next neglect of the Buddha was Sanskrit. His preaching in the language of the masses, that is, Pali, popularised his message and democratised fast the dharma but it significantly lowered the national culture from its exquisitely refined state of elitist linguistic attainment to its early proletariat state of unrefined roughshod communication. With erosion in linguistic standards came cultural decline and, with Buddhism gaining ground rapidly, the masses, in the absence of learning in Sanskrit, precipitated the process of the slow degradation of national intellectual culture from which the country has never adequately recovered till date. Buddha's neglect of Sanskrit cost the country dear. Here also, it must be mentioned that the Buddha did not have a disciple of the calibre of Swami Vivekananda who could have correctly interpreted him and left behind his message untarnished and untainted for posterity to profit from. The disciples of the Buddha were bound by their Master's words and could not creatively enough interpret him to continue reforming the Sanatan Dharma in its practical mode instead of running loggerheads with it with ruinous consequences in the long run.
The Buddha had preached, the disciples had misread the message, and the result was their inevitable assault on the Vedas with its corrosive consequence in eviction of the Bauddha Dharma from the very land of its birth. An error at source in apprehension and interpretation thereof, and you have the whole of the citadel of the dharma tumbling down in due course. So it was with Buddhism. Hence, disciples ought to learn clearly what the Master wants of them, what the Master's message is and what lie beneath the preceptor's teachings by way of philosophical profundity. Clear communication will clear confusion and minimise future errors. Better spiritual clarity than confusion confounded owing to the 'Original Sin' of misreading the Master.
Written by Sugata Bose
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