Mythbusting the Buddha having been born a Hindu
Many individuals “know” that that the Buddha “was born a Hindu.” However this, just like the concepts that he was a prince and that he left house after seeing “the 4 sights” can be unfaithful.
The “Hindu Prince”
Writers typically bundle fable of the Buddha having been born a Hindu collectively along with his supposed princely standing. For instance, a web site known as “Sensible Historical past” says:
The person who grew to become referred to as the Buddha was a Hindu prince, named Siddhartha Gautama, who was born within the fifth or sixth century B.C.E. to a royal household—the leaders of the Shakya clan—residing in what’s now Nepal.
This is only one of many locations making this declare. The issue is, as I’ve stated in earlier mythbusting articles, that many writers simply repeat what different writers have stated. They don’t test this data in opposition to the scriptures, that are our earliest and most dependable information to the Buddha’s historical past. And so myths can go unchallenged for hundreds of years.
This presentation of the Buddha as a former Hindu is only a horrible, horrible, no-good, very unhealthy account of historical past.
Brahmanism versus Hinduism
Practitioners of the religious traditions round on the time of the Buddha didn’t essentially give names to their religions. There was nothing known as “Buddhism.” Followers of the Buddha simply stated they had been “followers of the Buddha” or or his Dharma. They didn’t say they had been “Buddhists.”
Brahmins don’t appear to have had a reputation for his or her custom both. Buddhist say they had been Brahmins who had “mastered the Vedas” (vedānaṁ pāragū). Or they describe them as “achieved within the Vedas” (vedasampanno). That could be how they described themselves, too.
These days we name this non secular custom “Brahmanism.” Its not known as “Hinduism,” which is a a lot later time period.
It’s true that Brahmanism was one of many phenomena that, mixed with others, grew to become Hinduism. However it wasn’t Hinduism.
Wikipedia summarizes the present understanding of the connection of Brahmanism and Hinduism by saying: “Brahmanism was one of many main influences that formed modern Hinduism, when it was synthesized with the non-Vedic Indo-Aryan non secular heritage of the jap Ganges plain (which additionally gave rise to Buddhism and Jainism), and with native non secular traditions.” [Emphasis added]
One other Wikipedia article says, “Hinduism developed as a fusion or synthesis of practices and concepts from the traditional Vedic faith and parts and deities from different native Indian traditions.”
Brahmanism was an affect on Hinduism, which emerged later, but it surely was only one affect.
The baffled Hindu time-traveler
Let’s think about you had been to take a contemporary Hindu again to the time of the Buddha. They in all probability wouldn’t settle for that they and the Brahmins again then had been doing the identical factor.
The trendy Hindu would see Brahmins reciting the Vedas, and suppose, “Cool!”
However then they’d see them sacrificing cattle and be shocked.
The trendy Hindu would see no temples within the Buddha’s India. He’d hear Brahmins discuss of an afterlife in heaven or with the ancestors, however no discuss of reincarnation. However he’d hear Buddhists speaking about rebirth on a regular basis. He’d additionally hear Buddhists, however not Brahmins, speaking about samsara.
The trendy Brahmin would see animist cultures worshipping native deities and imagine that this was “Hinduism,” however the Brahmins of the Buddha’s time wouldn’t acknowledge the animists as being a part of their very own non secular custom and the animists would sure not regard themselves as being a part of Brahmanism.
As Bhikkhu Sujato says in a chat on whether or not the Buddha was a Hindu, “what we perceive of as Hinduism immediately didn’t even remotely exist within the time of the Buddha.”
Buddhism is older than Hinduism
One factor that may shock many individuals is that Buddhism is older than Hinduism. The Buddha established the Buddhadharma throughout his lifetime, some 2,500 years in the past. Hinduism is far youthful.
When one thing comes about by a gradual strategy of amalgamation and innovation, it’s onerous to say when precisely it began. The formation of what we now name Hinduism befell from concerning the fifth to the eighth centuries, based on Bhikkhu Sujato, in the identical discuss I simply talked about. This, he says, was the start of Hinduism. Man Welbon, in “Hindu Beginnings” places the important synthesis fairly earlier. He wrote, “It is just at or simply earlier than the start of the Widespread Period that the important thing tendencies, the essential parts that will be encompassed in Hindu traditions, collectively got here collectively.” The disagreement arises just because it’s not doable to pin down exactly the road when a slowly evolving entity stops being one factor and begins being one other.
Bhikkhu Sujato factors out, “If India has at all times been a Hindu nation, how come for lots of of years within the archaeological report — practically a millennium in actual fact — we discover nothing of Hinduism and loads of issues of Buddhism and Jainism?”
Be aware that this isn’t some trick of language — that “Hinduism” is a brand new time period, whereas the faith itself dates again to the Buddha. No, the faith itself dates from a interval a number of centuries to a millennium after the Buddha. What got here earlier than was a group of totally different non secular traditions that didn’t think about themselves to be doing the identical factor.
Sakya was not Brahmanical
However even when we had been to stretch the definition of Hinduism — means past credibility — in order that it had been to embody the Brahmanical practices of the Buddha’s time, the Buddha’s individuals didn’t even observe mainstream Brahmanical teachings.
I’ve searched the scriptures on the lookout for a single encounter between the Buddha and a Brahmin in his homeland, Sakya, and located nothing. I’ve seen point out of “Brahmin villages” in surrounding territories (these had been lands gifted by kings to Brahmin settlers) however none in Sakya.
Actually the single point out I’ve come throughout of a Brahmin being in Sakya was in a dialog the Buddha had with somebody known as Ambaṭṭha, who recounted to the Buddha how he had as soon as, on the instruction of his trainer, visited the capital, Kapilavatthu, and had been handled with an utter lack of respect. The Sakyans, he stated, giggled at him and wouldn’t even supply him a seat. The Sakyans handled him like an alien curiosity, not as a spiritual trainer. Ambaṭṭha doesn’t discuss having met some other Brahmins in Sakya.
Sakya was not Brahmin-friendly.
Sakya was against Brahmanical beliefs and practices
The Sakyans had a perception system that was at odds with that of the Brahmins. Brahmins had been obsessive about caste, or varṇa, which was a four-fold system of socioreligious purity, with themselves on the high. The Buddha’s individuals noticed themselves as warriors (khattiyas, which accurately means “house owners”). They noticed themselves as superior to the Brahmins.
The Sakyans being khattiyas doesn’t imply that soldiering was essentially their occupation. Sakya didn’t have a standing military. Most males residing there would have been farmers, craft employees, or merchants, though in all probability all males had some martial coaching.
The factor is: the truth that they noticed themselves as superior to the Brahmins completely conflicts with Brahmin perception. To the Brahmins, the fourfold social-religious hierarchy with themselves on the high was ordained by the gods and spelled out of their scriptures. The Sakyans insisting they had been superior to the Brahmins was a rejection of the Brahmin world view, and of their non secular scriptures.
The Sakyans had utterly totally different beliefs of social lessons. To the Brahmins, one’s caste was an intrinsic a part of one’s being, and you could possibly no extra change your caste than you could possibly change your species. One of many Buddha’s arguments in opposition to the Brahmin’s views on social and spiritual hierarchy was that there have been locations — Sakya was one in all them — the place there have been solely two social lessons: masters and servants, and it was doable for a grasp to turn out to be a servant and vice versa. There was nothing intrinsic about one’s social value, and these class distinctions had been simply social conventions. To the Sakyans, caste, within the Brahmanical sense, didn’t actually exist. This can be a big deal. It’s an utter rejection of a key a part of Brahmanical teachings.
The Sakyans’ faith
One of many Buddha’s epithets was Ādiccabandhu, or “Kinsman of the Solar.” Some individuals have steered that the Sakyans had been subsequently sun-worshippers. However there’s no direct proof they had been, and actually there’s no point out within the Buddhist scriptures of any gods the Sakyans might need worshipped. Whoever or no matter they worshipped, they apparently did it with out the assistance of Brahmin monks.
They did appear to treat sure bushes as sacred, and used them as shrines. The oldest recognized shrine in Sakya was a sacred tree on the Buddha’s birthplace, Lumbini. Bushes as particular locations crop up on a regular basis within the Buddhist scriptures. The Buddha was born beneath a tree. He realized that he’d beforehand had a glimpse of the trail to enlightenment whereas he’d been sitting beneath a tree as a boy. He bought enlightened beneath a tree. He taught beneath bushes, inspired individuals to meditate on the foot of bushes, and died beneath a tree.
There are numerous mentions of yakkhas (native spirits that inhabited bushes, mountains, and many others.) within the Pāli texts, which can imply that the Sakyans worshiped not the bushes themselves, however the spirits they believed resided in them. To my thoughts it’s extremely probably that the Sakyans had been animists.
I’ve seen no point out of animal sacrifice of formality fires in Sakya, or of formality bathing or different purification rituals, all of which had been essential components of Brahmanical observe. Sakyans buried the cremated stays of their lifeless in burial mounds referred to as stupas. This was not a Brahmanical observe.
So the Buddha’s tribe (presumably together with different tribes in what’s now southern Nepal) appear to have had their very own non secular custom, completely separate from what the Brahmins had been doing.
The thriller of the title “Gautama”
The only strongest argument that the Sakyans had been a part of orthodox Brahmanism is their gotra (clan) title, which was Gautama, or Gotama. That is historically a Brahmin title. Actually it’s the title of a Brahmin seer (rishi), from whom the Sakyans claimed descent. This descent wasn’t genetic, by the way (the rishi was not their ancestor), however cultural and symbolic.
How would non-Brahmins find yourself with a Brahmin title?
Bhikkhu Sujato explains:
Because the brahmins unfold throughout India, one in all their chief duties was to ally with the native kings and supply legitimization for kingship through their rituals and traditions. There have been totally different Brahmanical lineages based on the specifics of how the rituals had been carried out and the texts transmitted, and these are generally raced again to the traditional seers (rishi) who originated the lineage.
For the reason that Sakyans didn’t embrace something like Brahainical orthodoxy, we’d safely assume that this reference to the rishi Gautama was pretty superficial. It could be {that a} monarch who the Sakyans had been vassals of, pressured them to endure some form of ritual blessing by a brahmin of the Gautama lineage. This might be much like the best way during which some pagans, beneath the affect of Christianity, underwent “conversion” however carried on with their outdated methods regardless.
The Sakyans weren’t alone in being recognized with an historic seer. The neighboring Mallas had been known as Vāseṭṭhas, after one other historic rishi, the sage Vāseṭṭha (Skt. Vasiṣṭha). They, too, had been khattiyas (warriors), fairly than Brahmins.
So the Buddha was not a Hindu.
First, Hinduism didn’t exist.
Second, the Sakyan individuals didn’t observe and even agree with Brahmanical practices.
Myths as propaganda
To say that the Buddha had been a “Hindu prince” is horribly inaccurate. It additionally feeds into Hindus’ claims that theirs is “India’s oldest faith” — which is solely propaganda.
Hindus declare that the Buddha was actually a Hindu, and even that he was an incarnation of Vishnu (seen within the illustration above) . The most typical cause given is that the Buddha/Vishnu got here to argue in opposition to animal sacrifice (which has a really historic historical past within the Vedas.)
Hindus typically discuss their faith being very tolerant. However that tolerance can take the type of saying “It doesn’t matter what you suppose, we think about you a part of our faith. And since you’re a part of our faith, we’re in control of you.” For instance, for a very long time, Hindus have claimed possession over the Buddhist holy website of Bodh Gaya. In any case, Buddhism was “a part of Hinduism.” Just lately, Buddhist monks have been on starvation strike to protest the Indian regulation that offers management of a Buddhist website to Hindus.
A courtroom case pressured Hindus to present Buddhists a minority say within the operating of Bodh Gaya, however nonetheless gave Hindus final management over the location. Simply to be clear, it’s a hundred percent a Buddhist website with no historic reference to Hinduism or its predecessor religions. And it’s managed by Hindus.
The parable of the Buddha having been born a Hindu feeds the parable of him having been a “Hindu reformer.” And this offers gasoline for Hindus who wish to applicable Buddhist holy locations.
Hinduism and fascism
Hinduism’s tendency to “tolerantly” take in and exert dominance over Buddhism and different non secular traditions has advanced into what’s known as the “Hindutva” motion, which is a mix of Hinduism with concepts borrowed from European fascism. Hindutva is a “political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the assumption in establishing Hindu hegemony inside India,” based on Wikipedia.
Claims that the Buddha was born a Hindu are propaganda, feeding that unhealthy political pattern. Such claims aren’t simply inaccurate, however are politically dangerous in a means that’s damaging to Buddhism itself.
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