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 dwelling after seeing “the 4 sights” can also be unfaithful.
The “Hindu Prince”
Writers usually bundle fantasy of the Buddha having been born a Hindu collectively along with his supposed princely standing. For instance, an internet site known as “Sensible Historical past” says:
The person who turned generally known 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 mentioned in earlier mythbusting articles, that many writers simply repeat what different writers have mentioned. They don’t examine this data towards 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 dangerous account of historical past.
Brahmanism versus Hinduism
Practitioners of the non secular 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 mentioned 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 “completed within the Vedas” (vedasampanno). Which may be how they described themselves, too.
These days we name this spiritual 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, turned Hinduism. But it surely 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 spiritual heritage of the jap Ganges plain (which additionally gave rise to Buddhism and Jainism), and with native spiritual 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 fashionable Hindu would see Brahmins reciting the Vedas, and assume, “Cool!”
However then they’d see them sacrificing cattle and be shocked.
The fashionable Hindu would see no temples within the Buddha’s India. He’d hear Brahmins speak of an afterlife in heaven or with the ancestors, however no speak 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 fashionable 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 spiritual 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 way youthful.
When one thing comes about via a gradual strategy of amalgamation and innovation, it’s onerous to say when precisely it began. The formation of what we now name Hinduism occurred from concerning the fifth to the eighth centuries, based on Bhikkhu Sujato, in the identical speak I simply talked about. This, he says, was the delivery of Hinduism. Man Welbon, in “Hindu Beginnings” places the important synthesis quite earlier. He wrote, “It is just at or simply earlier than the start of the Frequent Period that the important thing tendencies, the essential parts that may 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 all the time been a Hindu nation, how come for tons of of years within the archaeological report — practically a millennium actually — we discover nothing of Hinduism and loads of issues of Buddhism and Jainism?”
Word 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 spiritual traditions that didn’t take into account themselves to be doing the identical factor.
Sakya was not Brahmanical
However even when we had been to stretch the definition of Hinduism — method 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.
The truth is 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 mentioned, giggled at him and wouldn’t even provide him a seat. The Sakyans handled him like an alien curiosity, not as a non secular trainer. Ambaṭṭha doesn’t speak about having met every 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 prime. The Buddha’s individuals noticed themselves as warriors (khattiyas, which accurately means “homeowners”). 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 staff, 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 prime 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 spiritual scriptures.
The Sakyans had utterly totally different beliefs of social courses. 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 towards the Brahmin’s views on social and non secular hierarchy was that there have been locations — Sakya was one among them — the place there have been solely two social courses: 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 large 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 prompt that the Sakyans had been due to this fact 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 may 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. Timber 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 obtained enlightened beneath a tree. He taught beneath bushes, inspired individuals to meditate on the foot of bushes, and died beneath a tree.
There are various mentions of yakkhas (native spirits that inhabited bushes, mountains, and so on.) 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 doubtless 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 vital components of Brahmanical observe. Sakyans buried the cremated stays of their useless in burial mounds generally known 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 spiritual custom, fully separate from what the Brahmins had been doing.
The thriller of the identify “Gautama”
The only strongest argument that the Sakyans had been a part of orthodox Brahmanism is their gotra (clan) identify, which was Gautama, or Gotama. That is historically a Brahmin identify. The truth is it’s the identify 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 identify?
Bhikkhu Sujato explains:
Because the brahmins unfold throughout India, one among their chief duties was to ally with the native kings and supply legitimization for kingship by way of 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.
Because the 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, compelled them to endure some sort of ritual blessing by a brahmin of the Gautama lineage. This could be just like the best way through 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), quite 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 towards animal sacrifice (which has a really historic historical past within the Vedas.)
Hindus usually speak about their faith being very tolerant. However that tolerance can take the type of saying “It doesn’t matter what you assume, we take into account you a part of our faith. And since you’re a part of our faith, we’re accountable for you.” For instance, for a very long time, Hindus have claimed possession over the Buddhist holy website of Bodh Gaya. In spite of everything, Buddhism was “a part of Hinduism.” Just lately, Buddhist monks have been on starvation strike to protest the Indian regulation that provides management of a Buddhist website to Hindus.
A courtroom case compelled Hindus to present Buddhists a minority say within the working of Bodh Gaya, however nonetheless gave Hindus final management over the positioning. 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 gives gas for Hindus who need to acceptable Buddhist holy locations.
Hinduism and fascism
Hinduism’s tendency to “tolerantly” take up and exert dominance over Buddhism and different spiritual 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 idea 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 method that’s damaging to Buddhism itself.
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