rks@princeton.edu (Ramesh Sitaraman) (12/31/90)
First of all, I must apologise to David who construed my comments
on a "western distortion"of Indian history to mean him in particular.
On the contrary, I quite admire his erudition.
Let me summarise the points I was trying to make:
Suppose I were to give you the 9 or so philsophical schools of India,
including Vedanta and Buddhism, WITHOUT the surrounding cultural
baggage and the assumptions that people, especially westerners, seem
to make. A classification based only on the philosphical standpoint
would be very very different from classifications such as "Hindu",
"Buddhist", "Brahminical" etc etc, which in fact have no historical
precedence in India itself !
A broad classification by doctrine would see a continous stream of
thought starting at the upanishads (the metaphysical portions of the
Vedas) flowing through Buddhist teachers like Buddha and Nagarjuna
and to Vedantic ("Hindu") teachers like Sankara and Ramanuja.
A different stream will connect up the schools of Sankya (Hindu) and
Yoga (Hindu). Jainism would form a unique stream on its own, a tradition
dating as far back as the Vedas themselves. The ritualistic part of
the Vedas would flow and culminate in the Mimamsa school.
Besides all this, one has the Tantric schools which flow right
across and has many "Buddhist" as well as "Hindu" variations.
That the Buddha did not refer to the Upanishads (Vedas) as
a source book has been overplayed to the extent that some even
say that he rejected it !!! The reasons are ofcourse purely
pragmatic and perhaps cultural. Buddha's teachings were for the
common man in the common man's language (not Sanskrit!!).
And there is no real need to reference abstract metaphysical works
for what must really be felt. Even in this Buddha is not different
from other "Hindu" teachers. The most recent example is ofcourse
Ramana Maharishi who taught in the common man's language and in
his own words. It is said that he later realised on enlightenment
that what he felt has indeed been given a name in the hoary past
in the Upanishads !!
That the Buddha rejected animal sacrifice and the zillion ritualistic
practices of the Brahmins of his time. The non-metaphysical part
of the Vedas do in fact prescribe sacrifices and rituals. So is this
going against the Vedas ? Actually, yes. But one must remember that
Sankara (a Hindu teacher) condemned every one of those ritualistic
sacrifices as well !! Reverence to the Vedas are to a great extent
a cultural aspect of India among the Brahmins. This has seldom implied
any constraint on what philosphical stands one could take up at
any point of time. In fact it would even be simply impossible
to "follow" the Vedas in its entirety since there is NO single
view of life espoused by it, NO single author, NO single philosophy.
It has polytheism, monotheism, Vedantic monism, ritualism all in one.
It is to a great extent a cultural record of India around 1500 BC !!
Many scholars would agree that the teachings of the Buddha can be
thought of as logical extensions of the Upanishads. To give a couple
of quick examples, consider Mayavada (the world as illusory) of the
Buddha. Or the "not this, not this" (neti neti) argument of Nagarjuna.
Or the conversation between Milinda and Nagasena (Milindapanha).
All of these analyses and concepts can be seen in the upanishads (1300 BC)
and could infact have been written by later day Vedantic teachers !!
Ramesh Sitaraman
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