An Essay on their Origins and Interactions
By Lal Mani Joshi,
(Department of Religious Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala, India)
(Reprinted by The Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka. The Wheel Publication No. 150/151. First Edition 1970. Second Impression 1987. BPS Online Edition © (2008) Digital Transcription Source: BPS Transcription Project for free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted and redistributed in any medium. However, any such republication and redistribution is to be made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis, and translations and other derivative works are to be clearly marked as such.)
Dr. Joshi is Professor at the Department of Religious Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala,
India. At present (1969) he is serving the Harvard University as a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. Among other writings, he has to his credit a comprehensive and scholarly work, ‘Studies in the Buddhistic Culture of India’ (New Delhi 1967, Motilal Banarsidass).
Contents:
Foreword – 1 ………………………………………………………………………………….3
Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism and Hinduism …………………………………………………………4
I. Introductory Remarks……………………………………………………………………………….4
II. Current Theories of the Origins of Buddhism …………………………………………….6
III. Criticism of the Current Theory ………………………………………………………………9
IV. Date of the Oldest Upaniṣads…………………………………………………………………13
V. Early Brāhmaṇical Ideals Contrasted with Early Buddhist Ideals ……………….17
VI. Pre-history of Śramaṇism………………………………………………………………………25
VII. Concluding Remarks……………………………………………………………………………33
Foreword – 2
In the essay that follows, Dr. Joshi has set out to reply to certain Indian scholars who have
criticised Buddhism, and others who have put forward the theory that Buddhism is simply a form of Hinduism or an offshoot of it. His thesis broadly falls under five heads, namely:
1. The Buddha was not “born a Hindu” because Hinduism in its present form had not emerged at the time of his birth;
2. Before the time of the Buddha the religion of India was Vedic Brāhmaṇism, but that alongside the Vedic tradition there was an ascetic (Śramaṇa) stream of religious thought and practice having its origin in prehistoric times.
3. That it is to this Śramaṇic culture that Buddhism has its closest affinity;
4. That Hinduism grew out of a fusion of Vedic Brāhmaṇism with Buddhism and other Śramaṇic religious trends;
5. That although Buddhism acknowledges an affinity with the Śramaṇic cults, it is nevertheless a unique product of the Buddha’s direct insight.
Dr. Joshi is not the first to have pointed out the more obvious of these facts; but in his essay he has brought to bear on the subject an impressive erudition, and has supported his arguments with copius notes, the result of much painstaking research. We now believe that few people will be inclined to question his general conclusions.
December 1969. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy
Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism and Hinduism
I. Introductory Remarks
Much modern literature in English, French, German, Hindi and other languages has been
produced on early Buddhism and its relation to Brāhmaṇism and Hinduism. It would appear from the apparently settled posture of modern Buddhist scholarship that those problems are settled beyond all doubt and dispute. However, when we reopen these matters with a view to restating them, we record our disagreement with the current theories of the origins of Buddhism, of its early relations with Brāhmaṇism and of its position with regard to Hinduism.
In India, where the Brāhmaṇical or the traditional standpoint has possessed the scholastic
field for about a millennium now, and has been regarded with reverence not only among
modern Indian historians and national leaders but also among Western Indologists, for about a century and a half, it would appear almost an impertinence on our part to put forth a view which goes against it. However, a student of the history of religious traditions of India will have to rise above artificial conventions set by the writings of others should he find that his suggestions would help a better and clearer understanding of some significant facts of the growth of his country’s central traditions as “heterodox.” This custom is due to our preoccupation with the traditional or Brāhmaṇical point of view. From the Buddhist point of view Brāhmaṇism was a “heresy’; from the Brāhmaṇical point of view Buddhism was a “heresy.” When Dr. S. Rādhakrishnan, broadcasting from All India Radio on the occasion of the 2500th Mahāparinirvāna-day of the Buddha, described Buddhism as “an offshoot of the more ancient faith of the Hindus, perhaps a schism or a heresy.”
(Note 1: He not only repeated a particular view but perhaps also gave an “official”stamp to the Brāhmaṇical standpoint in Indian history. It is no exaggeration to say that whatever has been written on the history of Buddhism in India has been written in modern times largely from this standpoint.)
(Note 2: The conflict between Buddhism and Brāhmaṇism, the transformation of the Buddhist
heritage in India and the disappearance of Buddhism as a living faith from Indian soil during the early mediaeval centuries were largely responsible for the growth of misconceptions about Ancient Indian civilization and also for the propagation of the Brāhmaṇical standpoint during mediaeval up to modern times. The future of Buddhist studies in India will remain quite doubtful so long as Indian scholars continue to study Buddhism as a “heretical system” viewed from the “orthodox” standpoint. Buddhism should be studied from the Buddhist standpoint, and its relations with Brāhmaṇism and Hinduism should be studied from the historical standpoint and on scientific lines. The study of Buddhism from the Hindu view would be a study of Hinduism and not of Buddhism.)
(Note 3: It was an exceptional thing that a noted British antiquarian, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, actively engaged in digging up India’s past, once observed that “it cannot be denied that during the seven centuries between 250 BCE and CE 450 most of the surviving sculpture of the highest quality in India was associated with Buddhism, and it was, above all, Buddhism that during the same period (and particularly the latter part of it) spread Indian art and idiom through the highways and byways of Asia. Archaeologically, at least, we cannot treat Buddhism merely as a heresy against a prevailing Brāhmaṇical orthodoxy, however little its tenets may have affected the routine of village life.”)
(Note 4: Occasional Speeches and Writings (October 1952–February. 1959) by S. Rādhakrishna, Publications Division, New Delhi, 1960, pp. 337–346, p. 323; also 2500 Years of Buddhism edited by P V. Bapat, Publications Division, Govt. of India, New Delhi, reprint 1959, Foreword, pp. v-xvi.)
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There are about 1200 rock-cut monuments (caves, monasteries. sanctuaries, temples) of
ancient India; of these 100 belong to Jainism, 200 to Brāhmaṇism and the remaining to
Buddhism. These three-fourths of ancient Indian rock-cut architecture or the unequalled
masterpieces of Buddhist paintings at Ajantā cannot have been due to a heresy. The Ajanta cave temple complex, precision cut from hardest granite, cannot be replicated even today.
In all fields of the culture and civilization of Ancient India, viz. art, literature, language,
ethics, mysticism, philosophy, epistemology, logic, psychology and social thought, the
manifestations of Buddhism in contra-distinction to Brāhmaṇism, were so great, so profound, so lasting and so varied that we are not justified in treating it as a “heterodox” episode in the history of “Hindu civilization.” It will not be far from the truth to say that the history of Ancient Indian Culture and civilization would not have been worth writing or reading about had there been only the Indo-Aryan ideals of the Vedic Saṃhitās and no Buddhism to transform them into the glory that was Ancient India.
Religious harmony is a noble and essential ideal not only for a country like India where many religious communities live together but also for the unity of mankind and peace in the world.
Emperor Asoka had taught three and twenty centuries before, that harmony among different sects is a good thing ……
3.
But this harmony cannot be brought about by mystifying or overlooking the distinctive features or by minimising historical manifestations of Buddhism in contra-distinction to Brāhmaṇism and its later phase of Hinduism. The Brāhmaṇical authors of the Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas did not bring about harmony between Buddhism and Brāhmaṇism by writing that the Buddha was an incarnation of Lord Viṣṇu that came into existence “to seduce
and delude the demons and devils.’
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(Note 1: On the contrary, this policy brought about the ruin of Buddhism and its dissapearance in India. Moreover, propagation of the ideal of religious harmony should not come in the way of historical research in assessing truthful religious history.)
But in modern India it has become a fashion to speak and write that Buddhism is a sect of Hinduism, that the Buddha was a Hindu, that Hinduism is so catholic as to tolerate and worship a heretical and anti-Vedic teacher like the Buddha! The story of the origin and disappearance of Buddhism, told in one sentence, is a matter of street-talk for every grown-up Hindu irrespective of his or her knowledge of ancient Indian religious history and archaeology. The story is repeated whenever they happen to visit museums, which are usually crowded with Buddhist antiquities, or when they come across a pilgrim Bhikṣu or a Lama or hear some news from Buddhist quarters. Just as the Government of India sought to publish all about the history and heritage of Buddhism during the last twenty-five centuries condensed to five hundred pages, so the average modern educated Indian seeks to sum up the history of Buddhism by saying that Buddhism grew as a reaction against and reform of Hinduism and it disappeared from India partly due to its Tāntrika practises and partly due to the glorious “conquests” of Saṃkarācārya. A few educated Hindus, who have specialised in Buddhist studies or studied something of Buddhism or some book on Buddhism, do concede that Buddhism merged into Hinduism, that the Buddha was the greatest Hindu reformer and that the Buddha was the greatest Hindu Master.
(Note 2: R. E. Mortimer Wheeler, Romano-Buddhist Art, and Old Problems Restated, Antiquity, Vol. XXIII, No. 89, London, 1949, p. 5. However, the Buddhist sculpture of the Gandhāra School can scarcely be called ’Romano-Buddhist.’)
(Note 3: Asoka Rock Edict No. XII. Samavāyo eva sādhu.)
(Note 4: See e.g. Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 1.3.24: Kalau saṃpravṛitte saṃmohāya suradviśāṃ / Buddho nāmanā janasutaḥ kikaṭeṣu bhaviṣyāti. Cf. Bhāgavata Purāna, X. 40.22: Namo buddhāya suddhāya daitya-dānava-mohine, Vālmiki, Rāmāyana, II.109.34.
For some similar details see L.M. Joshi, Studies in the Buddhist Culture of India, Delhi, XIII, 1967, pp. 400f.)
(Note 5: This comfortable doctrine has been so thoroughly propagated in India that it will require great efforts and long years of scholarsship and historians to sweep away its illusions and clear the way for the growth of Buddhist studies in India. In the following pages we propose to review and restate the origins of Buddhism, its relations with early Brāhmaṇism and with the mediaeval form of the latter called Hinduism. Hence the title of this essay carries the three words in a chronological order: Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism and Hinduism. The differences between old Brāhmaṇism and Hinduism are more pronounced than those between Theravāda and Mahāyāna Buddhism.)
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II. Current Theories of the Origins of Buddhism
Some scholars, under the influence of the materialist interpretation of history popularised by Karl Marx, have sought to correlate the rise of ascetic and intellectual thought-currents of the age of Śākyamuni (624–544 BCE, but the age of Śākyamuni may be extended to 700–500 BCE as the age of philosophers) to the rise of capitalism and mercantile middle class economy. This theory, however, is entirely speculative. There is no clear evidence to prove the existence of capitalism, in the Marxist sense, nor of a money-economy controlled entirely by an organized middle class of society in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. Moreover, it is impossible to demonstrate that the spiritual ideas of a Bodhisattva are determined by that social consciousness which is consequent on material progress; indeed a materialist interpretation of the origins of Buddhism or of the events of the life of Siddhārtha Gautama is evidence only of the philosophical crudity of the authors of this theory.
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The poet Rabindranāth Tāgore expounded the view that Buddhism and Jainism represented the ideals of the kṣatriyas which conflicted with those of the brāhmaṇas, that the history of ancient India is a record of “the pull of the two opposite principles, that of self-preservation represented by the brāhmaṇa, and that of self-expansion represented by the kṣatriya.” This theory, in spite of its striking character, is largely imaginary and cannot be sustained. It is true and is very well known that kṣatriyas were the founders not only of Buddhism, Jainism and Ājīvikism but also of the ascetic and idealistic thought of the early Upaniṣads. But it will be absurd and fantastic to think that supernal teachers like Kapilamuni, Pārśvanātha, Kāśyapa Buddha, Śākyamuni Buddha, Vardhamāna Mahāvīra or even the royal teachers like Aśvapati Kaikeya, Janaka Videha and Pravāhaṇa Jaivali of the Upaniṣads were inspired by a desire to struggle for the supremacy of their supposed ideal of “self-expansion” against that of the priestly “self-preservation.”
The Buddha emphasised the ideal of self-abnegation and taught the tenet of “not-self” while some of the greatest teachers and followers of Buddhism came from the caste of the brāhmaṇas.
The fact is that, as we shall see below, the history of ancient India is a record of the two opposite ideologies, that of world-affirmation represented by the priestly brāhmaṇas of the Vedic tradition and that of world-denial and world-transcendence represented by the ascetic śramaṇas of non-Vedic tradition. And the conflict antedates the formation of the castes of brāhmaṇas and kṣatriyas. Professor G. C. Pande has summed up his valuable researches concerning the origins of Buddhism in the following words:
“It has been held by many older writers that Buddhism and Jainism arose out of the anti-ritualistic tendency within the religion of the brāhmaṇas. We have however tried to show that the anti-ritualistic tendency within the Vedic fold is itself due to the impact of an asceticism …
(Note 5: Atindranāth Bose, Social and Rural Economy of Northern India,Vol. II. Calcutta, 1945, pp.481f.; D.D. Kosambi, Ancient Kosala and Magadha, JBBRAS, 1951, pp.186f.)
(Note 6: Rabindranāth Tāgore, A Vision of India’s History, Viśvabhārati Publication, 1951.)
P6 .. .. which antedates the Vedas. Jainism represents a continuation of the pre-Vedic stream from which Buddhism also springs, though deeply influenced by Vedic thought. The fashionable view of regarding Buddhism as a Protestant Vedicism and its birth as a Reformation appears to be based on a misreading of later Vedic history caused by the fascination of a historical analogy and the ignorance or neglect of Pre-Vedic-civilization.”
(Note 7: This most important and epoch-making statement in the history of Buddhist studies in India, in spite of the fact that Prof. Pande thinks that Buddhism was “deeply influenced by Vedic thought” in its origins, (a view which is open to doubt and debate), does not seem to have made even the slightest impact on the more recent writings of even the most noted Indologists of India belonging to the traditional approach. The Purāṇic myth still holds ground and flourishes.)
We shall refer to the views of only two most eminent and living Indian scholars who have been awarded India’s highest order of decoration and honour, “Bhārata-ratna,” and who might be considered to represent the prevailing Indian standpoint towards the origins of Buddhism and its relation with Brāhmaṇism and Hinduism.
Dr. S. Rādhakrishnan’s most mature opinion on this point is summarised in the following
statements:
“The Buddha did not feel that he was announcing a new religion. He was born, grew up and died a Hindu. He was re-stating with a new emphasis the ancient ideals of the Indo-Aryan civilization.”
(Note: 8: In support of this statement he quotes a passage from the Saṃyutta Nikāya which will be reproduced below. “Buddhism did not start,” he goes on, “as a new and independent religion. It was an offshoot of the more ancient faith of the Hindus, perhaps a schism or a heresy. While the Buddha agreed with the faith he inherited on the fundamentals of metaphysics and ethics, he protested against certain practises which were in vogue at that time.)
He refused to acquiesce in the Vedic ceremonialism.” Repeating this idea for a third time in the same lecture, Dr. S. Rādhakrishnan goes on to say that “the Buddha utilised the Hindu inheritance to correct some of its expressions.”
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This scholar is known for his enlightened understanding of different religious traditions and his view deserves careful attention.
But as this same view has been reaffirmed with greater emphasis and closer study of Hindu sacred lore by a more recent and very eminent writer, namely Mahāmahopādhyāya Dr. Pandurang Vāman Kane, it will be convenient to examine this view after setting out the observations and arguments of Dr Kane. This scholar has written a chapter on the Causes of the Disappearance of Buddhism from India in the concluding part of a work which deals with the history of “ancient and mediaeval religious and civil law in India” based entirely on the Brāhmaṇical literature.
– A noted critic seems to have rightly doubted the desirability of including this unnecessary chapter which contains “some striking passages on Buddhism”
– and the “protest” and “counterblast” of this National Professor of Indology of India against Buddhism and its modern “encomiasts.”
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We are not concerned here with the causes of the disappearance of Buddhism from India but only with the origins of Buddhism and its relation with Brāhmaṇism. Curiously enough the origins of Buddhism have been discussed under the causes of its disappearance. “The Buddha was,” observes Dr. P V. Kane, “only a great reformer of the Hindu religion as practised in his ….
(Note 7: G. C. Pande, Studies in the Origins of Buddhism, University of Allahabad, 1957, p. 317.)
(Note 8: See the two books cited in note no. 1, pp. 341, 344–45 of the first and pp. ix. xiii, xv (of Foreword) of the second.)
(Note 9: P. V. (Pandurang Vāman) Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, Vol. V. Part II, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, 1962, Chapter XXV, pp. 1003–1030.)
(Note 10: Cf. J. Duncan M. Derrett, review of Kane’s work in the BSOAS, Vol. XXVIII, Part 2, University of London, 1964, p. 461.
(Note 11: Cf. L. M. Joshi, op. cit., pp. 146 and 411.)
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…. time. He did not feel or claim that he was forming a new religion nor did he renounce the Hindu religion and all its practises and beliefs. The Buddha referred to the Vedas and Hindu sages with honour in some of his sermons. He recognised the importance of Yogic practises and meditation. His teaching took over several beliefs current among the Hindus in his day such as the doctrine of Karma and Rebirth and cosmological theories. A substantial portion of the teaching of the Buddha formed part of the tenets of the Upaniṣadic period.
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By the “Hindu religion” the author obviously means the religion of the Vedas, Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads and the argument is based on the theory that the Upaniṣads are older than the Buddha. Therefore, he goes on to say that “It is generally held by all Sanskrit scholars that at least the oldest Upaniṣads like the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and the Chāndogya are earlier than the Buddha, that they do not refer to the Buddha or to his teaching or to the piṭakas. On the other hand, though in dozens of Suttas meetings of brāhmaṇas and the Buddha or his disciples and missionaries are reported, they almost always seem to be marked by courtesy on both sides. No meetings are recorded in the early Pāli Texts or Brāhmaṇical Texts about Śākyans condemning the tenets of ancient brāhmaṇism or about brāhmaṇas censuring the Buddha’s heterodoxy. Besides, in all these meetings and talks, the central Upaniṣad conception of the immanence of Brahma is never attacked by the Buddha or by the early propagators of Buddhism.”
Besides these arguments based on the supposed pre-Buddhist date of the older Upaniṣads,
Dr. Kane seeks to support his thesis by employing a saying of the Buddha. He further observes:
“What the Buddha says may be briefly rendered as follows: “Even so have I seen, O Bhikkhus, an ancient path, an ancient road followed by rightly enlightened persons of former times. And what, O Bhikkhus, is that ancient path, that ancient road, followed by the rightly enlightened ones of former times? Just this very Noble Eightfold Path, viz., right views … …
This, O Bhikkhus, is that ancient path, that ancient road, followed by the rightly enlightened ones of former times. Along that (path) I have gone and while going along that path I have fully come to know old age and death. Having come to know it fully, I have told it to the monks, the nuns, the lay followers, men and women; this brahmacariya is prosperous, flourishing, widespread, widely known, has become popular and made manifest well by gods and men.’”
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This passage is cited by Dr. S. Rādhakrishnan also in support of his view that the Buddha was re-stating the Indo-Aryan ideals. Commenting on this saying of the Buddha, Dr. Kane says, “It will be noticed that the Noble Eightfold Path which the Buddha put forward as the one that would put an end to misery and suffering is here expressly stated to be an ancient path trod by ancient enlightened men. The Buddha does not claim that he was unique but claimed that he was only one of a series of enlightened men and stressed that the moral qualities which he urged men to cultivate belonged to antiquity.
Having apparently established the brāhmaṇical theory of Vedic origin of Buddhism, Dr. P. V. Kane gives expression to his real intention of incorporating a chapter in his work, The Crowning Glory of a Life, at the age of eighty-two years, and makes these remarks, which seem to come from the very bottom of the heart of a staunch Hindu and must be taken to reflect the opinion and attitude of the orthodox majority in contemporary India:
“In these days it has become a fashion to praise the Buddha and his doctrine to the skies and to disparage Hinduism by making unfair comparisons between the original doctrines of the Buddha with the present practises and shortcomings of Hindu society. The present author has to enter a strong protest against this tendency. If a fair comparison is to be made it should be made between the later phases of Buddhism and the present practises of professed Buddhists on the one hand and modern phases and practises of Hinduism on the other. The Upaniṣads had a. …
(Note 12: P. V. Kane, op. cit., p. 1004.)
(Note 13: Ibid pp.1004–1005 and note no.1639.)
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.. nobler philosophy than that of Gautama, the Buddha; the latter merely based his doctrine on the philosophy of the Upaniṣads. If Hinduism decayed in the course of time and exhibited bad tendencies, the same or worse was the case with later Buddhism which gave up the noble but human Buddha, made him a god, worshipped his images and ran wild with such hideous practises as those of Vajrayāna.
As a counterblast to what modern encomiasts often say about Buddhism, the present author will quote a strongly-worded (but not unjust) passage from Swami Vivekānanda’s lecture on The Sages of India (Complete Works, Volume III, pp. 248–268, 7th edition of 1953 published at Māyāvatī, Almora):
“The earlier Buddhists in their rage against the killing of animals
had denounced the sacrifices of the Vedas;
and these sacrifices used to be held in every household …”
These sacrifices were suspended and in their place came gorgeous temples, gorgeous ceremonies and gorgeous priests and all that you see in India in modern times. I smile when I read books written by some modern people who ought to know better, that the Buddha was the destroyer of Brāhmaṇical idolatry. Little do they know that Buddhism created brāhmaṇism and idolatry in India …
Thus, in spite of the preaching of mercy to animals, in spite of the sublime ethical religion, in spite of the hair-splitting discussion about the existence or non-existence of a permanent soul, the whole building of Buddhism tumbled down piecemeal; and the ruin was simply hideous. I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism’s decline. The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism (pp. 264f.).”
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III. Criticism of the Current Theory
It might be asked whether such a “protest,” “counterblast” and “strongly worded passage” are worthy of the academic spirit? It is for impartial critics to judge whether these passages from the pen of India’s National Professor of Indology will contribute anything to the history of dharmaśāstra or will explain the causes of the disappearance of Buddhism from India or will promote secularism and religious tolerance in India. The writer of this essay was neither shocked nor pained when he read some of the most striking passages, full of animosity and ignorance, in the criticisms of Buddhism by Uddyotakara, Kumārila, Saṃkara and the Purāṇas, because they belonged to the mediaeval ages when religious feelings and controversies determined the fate of communities and countries and religious wars were common. But he was disturbed for a moment when he read this outburst of Dr. Kane, in the History of Dharmaśāstra, because such unjust statements are not expected from so highly respected scholars, especially in twentieth century India, when an enlightened understanding of different faiths is the need of the nation. With due respect to Swāmi Vivekānanda it should be observed that he was neither a scholar of Buddhism nor a historian of the religious history of India. We can only say that it does not give any credit to Dr. Kane’s distinguished scholarship to borrow ill-conceived verbal explosive from a Hindu sectarian laboratory and explode them on the pages of his life-long work, which has no direct connection with Buddhism.
Whether the philosophy of the Upaniṣads was nobler than that of the Buddha is a matter of personal opinion and individual interest. That Buddhist philosophy is nobler and profounder than Brāhmaṇical philosophy is the view of some of the most distinguished philosophers and historians of philosophy. The view that the Buddha based his doctrines on the Upaniṣads, however, cannot be proved because the date even of the oldest of Upaniṣads cannot be fixed ..
(Note 14: Ibid., pp. 1029–1030.)
.. ..before the Buddha with any amount of certainty. Let us therefore examine in some detail the views of Dr. P. V. Kane. To begin with the word “Hindu” and its historical perspective:
The term “Hindu” is foreign coinage, of Persian and Arabic origins. The term “Hinduism” is derived from Persian and Arabic words and stands for the mediaeval forms of Indian and Brāhmaṇical religions. Just as Judaism before the birth of Jesus Christ cannot be properly called Christianity though Christianity is founded on pre-Christian Judaism, likewise we cannot use the word Hinduism for pre-Purāṇic Brāhmaṇism of the Vedic and Upaniṣadic age, though mediaeval Hinduism is based to some extent on the Vedic religion. An historical analysis of the elements of Purāṇic Brāhmaṇism or Hinduism shows that more than half of them are of nonVedic and of post-Buddhist origin.
In modern Hinduism there is so much of Buddhism and Jainism that on the popular level the distinctions between them are blurred. This is not the case with old Brāhmaṇism which was and still is easily and clearly distinguishable from early Buddhism and early Jainism. We shall point out some of these differences in the course of this essay. We shall see below that even before the oldest Upaniṣads came into existence and the Buddha taught his gospel, there had been nonVedic and non-Brāhmaṇic sages (muni) and ascetics (yati) in ancient India. The culture of these non-Vedic sages and ascetics of pre-Vedic origin may be called Śramaṇism for want of a better word. (This Śramaṇism should not be confused with what in modern times is called “Shamanism.”) This pre-Buddhist and non-Vedic Śramaṇic culture was in some ways diametrically opposed to Brāhmaṇism or Vedic-Brāhmaṇic culture.
Although in the older Upaniṣads, due to mutual contact among the upholders of these two seemingly irreconcilable traditions, we find a partial fusion of Brāhmaṇism and Śramaṇ-ism, of sacrificial culture and ascetic culture, of ritual thought and moral thought, yet it took several centuries to bring about this process of mutual contact and fusion. It was left to the Indians of early centuries of the Christian era to transform the old Buddhism into Neo-Buddhism or Mahāyānism and Vedic Brāhmaṇism into Purāṇic Brāhmaṇism or Neo-Brāhmaṇism, so as to give birth, towards the second half of the first millennium of the Christian era (500–1000 CE) to what are now called Tāntrikism and Hinduism.
When we talk of the continuity and antiquity of Hinduism, we should not forget that from the age of Vedicism (1500–500 BCE) to the age of Tantrism and Hinduism (500–1000 CE and to our own days) the Brāhmaṇical tradition has grown with all possible vigour and elasticity and under the powerful influence and pressure of non-Āryan and folk cultures, Buddhist and Jaina cultures, and more than half a dozen streams of non-Indian or foreign cultures, viz. those of the Persians, Greeks, Sakas, Pārthians, Kusānas, Eurasian Christians, Hūnas, Arabs and the Islamic followers.
It was perhaps Alberuni (cir. 1030 CE) who first referred to Indians of non-Islamic faiths as the “Hindus” and he meant Indian “infidels.” Even this Brāhmaṇism of the first millennium before Christ was not known as Hinduism during this time. There is no authority worth the name, not even an iota of evidence, to support the racial or religious or sectarian or communal sense of the term Hindu before Alberuni’s “India.” The occurrence of the word “Hindu” in any ancient Indian archaeological or literary source is yet to be discovered.
The term hidu (hindu), a form of sindhu, was first used by the Persians. It occurs along with the word Gadara, a form of Gandhāra, in an inscription of King Darius of Iran.
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It is used there in a geographical sense and denotes the people or country on the river Sindhu conquered by that monarch. In old Persian “Sa” is pronounced as “Ha’; “Sindhu” is called “Hindu” from which the Greeks further corrupted it into “Sinthos” or “Indos’ from which are derived the .. ..
(Note 15: Cf. W. Crook, Hinduism in ERE, Vol. VI, ed. by J. Hastings, pp. 686 f.)
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Arabic and Persian words Hindu and Hindustan and the English words Indian and India. In mediaeval India the Arabs and early Muslim travellers referred to western India as “Hind” (i.e. Sindha) and the Turks, Afghans and Mongols used this geographical name, Hindustan, for the whole of the country. The word “Hinduism” began to be used for Indian religious traditions usually with a view to distinguishing them from Christian and Islamic traditions in India. What in modern times is called Hinduism is in fact the sum-total of the entire religious traditions of India excepting of course, Christian and Islamic, which have retained their individual existence despite mutual contacts. It must be added that Jainism also exists as a separate sect. So does Sikhism. It may be that Buddhism will also re-appear again as a distinct faith in the near future.
At the present time, the signs are not encouraging.
We are therefore not justified in using the words Hindu and Hinduism in the historical
context of the age of the Buddha. Vedic Brāhmaṇism presents the pre-history of historic
Brāhmaṇism, and Purāṇic Brāhmaṇism together with Buddhism, have provided the
foundations of mediaeval and modern Hinduism. In ancient India, there was no race, no caste, nor any book which could be referred to by the term, “Hindu.” Therefore the phrase “Hindu religion” in connection with pre-Muslim India is altogether meaningless and misleading. Just as early Buddhism differs from late Lamaism and Vajrayāna, similarly early Brāhmaṇism differsfrom late Purāṇicism or Hinduism, although Lamaistic Buddhism traces its origin to the Buddha’s teachings and Purāṇic Hinduism traces its origin to Vedic doctrines. To describe the religion of the Vedic Saṃhitās, Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads as the “Hindu religion” is both historically anachronistic and doctrinally misleading.
To say that the Buddha was a “Hindu” is wrong. To say that “the Buddha was only a great
reformer of the Hindu religion as practised in his time” is doubly incorrect, since there was no “Hindu religion” in his time but only primitive Brāhmaṇism or Vedicism; and to call the Buddha “only a great reformer” of Vedicism is also incorrect. The Supernal Teacher was a Seer, an Awakened One, who broadcast a teaching so original, so profound and universal as to become the powerful and creative matrix of a distinct civilization which is yet unsurpassed in some respects.
His teachings, no doubt, reformed many of the debased practises of Vedic religion. But he did not claim to be a reformer; neither Hindu scriptures nor Brāhmaṇical texts recognise him as a reformer. The Purāṇas recognise him only as a “seducer.” As for his admission to the rank of “incarnation,” this is no special tribute to the Buddha, because all sorts of beings and beasts, e.g. a fish, a tortoise, a boar, a dwarf, a half-man-and-half-lion etc. are also given that position. Dr. Rādhakrishnan says: “For us, in this country, the Buddha is an outstanding representative of our religious tradition … In a sense the Buddha is a maker of modern Hinduism.”
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But this is a modern and partially enlightened view unknown to Brāhmaṇical antiquity and orthodoxy.
There was a constant struggle between Brāhmaṇism and Buddhism right from the days of the Buddha to the time of the effacement of Buddhism towards the beginning of the second millennium. This struggle is proved by the Pāli Texts, the Sanskrit Buddhist Texts, the Upaniṣads, the Dharma Sūtras of Brāhmaṇas, the Purāṇas, the philosophical treatises of both traditions and it is confirmed in some cases by archaeological evidence and foreign notices. This struggle ended only with the exit of the professed Buddhism from the Indian scene. The rapprochement that began to take place between Brāhmaṇism and Buddhism from the early centuries of the Christian era was in spite of this struggle between the two: “In the two fold process of assimilation and condemnation of Buddhism, the Brāhmaṇical priests sacrificed at the altar … of mythical Viṣṇu even the most historical and over-whelmingly non-brāhmaṇical .. …
(Note 16: Occasional Speeches and Writings (1960), p. 345.)
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… personality of the Buddha and mystified the historical existence of Buddhism as a delusive trick of a Purāṇic God.”
It is only in these Purāṇic tricks and myths that the ninth Avatāra of the Bhāgavata God “was born, grew up, and died a Hindu.” In the history of ancient India, however, the Buddha Śākyamuni lived, taught, and died as a non-Vedic, non-brāhmaṇic and non-theistic “teacher of gods and men” (satthā devamanussānaṃ) though regularly criticised, condemned and insulted by the most noted teachers and texts of the Vedic-Brāhmaṇic tradition.
In the opinion of the most distinguished modern historian of India, Dr. R. C. Majumdār, the admission of the Buddha as an Avatāra of God by the orthodox tradition was a “well-conceived and bold stroke of policy which cut the ground from under the feet of Buddhism which was already steadily losing ground and the ultimate result was the complete effacement of Buddhism from India as a separate sect.”
(It seems to us that it was with a view to destroying the very ground of Buddhism, to overpowering the very crown of Buddhism, the Buddha, that Brāhmaṇical priestly authors of the post-Gupta age went so far as to accept the same Śākyamuni who had been despised as a vasalaka, a muṇḍaka, a śramaṇaka, a nāstika and a śūdra by the brāhmaṇas of the pre-Christian era.)
Two most fundamental elements of pre-Buddhistic Vedic Brāhmaṇism are the doctrine of
sacrifice (yajña) and the doctrine of four castes (varṇas). Dr. Kane ignores the fact that both are criticised and rejected by the Buddha. By rejecting the sanctity and authority of the Vedas, the Buddha rejected all that was in pre-Buddhist Vedic culture. The anti-Vedic and anti-sacrificial ascetic thought of the old Upaniṣads does not belong to Vedic Brāhmaṇism or the Indo-Aryans because it cannot be traced to the early and middle Vedic culture.
Buddhism and the non-Brāhmaṇic thought of the Upaniṣads belong to a non-Āryan and preVedic Indian cultural tradition. The Buddha referred to the Vedas and Vedic sages with honour
not because he accepted their teachings but because he found some items of value in the faith of even those who did not follow and who opposed his doctrine. He was neither a brāhmin by caste nor a teacher of Brāhmaṇism. He was never recognised as a teacher or seer or reformer in Brāhmaṇism prior to the age of the Purāṇas. The Mahābhārata, for example, was compiled during the period when Buddhism flourished most in India, during cir. 400 BCE to 400 CE and though it is full of Buddhist influence yet its authors carefully avoided the name of the Buddha even from its list of Avatāras.
The present form of the Mahābhārata, with its ethics and philosophy, would have been impossible without Buddhism. Its silence about the Buddha only speaks of the deliberate attempt to disguise the originality of Buddhist tenets and to mythologize the non-Vedic influences. The Rāmāyaṇa (II.109,34) recalls the followers of the Tathāgata only for their atheism and quietly incorporates the fundamentals of Buddhist ethics in its better parts. The entire corpus of Brāhmaṇical literature before the rule of the Gupta Kings (400–500 CE) is clearly against the theory of Drs. Rādhakrishnan and Kane.
The partial similarity between the Buddha’s teachings and the teachings of the older
Upaniṣads cannot by itself prove the assumption that these so called Vedic texts are older than the Buddha. The hypothesis that Buddhism was influenced by the Upaniṣads rests entirely on the belief that the oldest Upaniṣads must be pre-Buddhist in date. In fact neither of these assumptions can be supported by clear evidence. The only evidence is the traditional view that …
(Note 17: L. M. Joshi, op. cit. p. xiii.)
(Note 18: The Cultural Heritage of India, 2nd ed., Vol. IV, Calcutta, 1956, p. 48.
(Note 19: In the Bhagavadgītā, which forms part of the Mahābhārata, it is the Buddhist teaching of the wickedness of warfare which is implicitly opposed. Though Buddhism is not mentioned, Arjuna’s initial objections to war are couched in typically Buddhist terms. The doctrine of the ’imperishable ātman’ is used to combat his scruples— Editor.)
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….. Vedic literature is older than Pāli literature. But Vedic literature includes some texts which were composed long after the age of the Buddha, and so-called Vedic texts continued to be composed down to the beginning of the Christian era. The chronology of the oldest Vedic texts has to be revised in the light of the date of the Indus Valley Civilization. However, the assumption that the older Upaniṣads are earlier in date than the Buddha has been one of the fundamental arguments of the upholders of the theory of a Vedic origin of Buddhism. Let us, therefore, turn our attention to the chronological position of the oldest Upaniṣads.
IV. Date of the Oldest Upaniṣads
There are more than 110 texts called Upaniṣads. Some of these Upaniṣads, e.g. the Allah
Upaniṣads, were written in the reign of the Mughal King Akbar in the 16th Century CE and some even later. About a dozen Upaniṣads seem to have been in existence in the 9th Century CE when Śaṃkara (788 CE) wrote comments on some of them. Sāntirakṣita (800 CE) has critcised the Ātman doctrine of the Upaniṣads. The Bhagavadgītā (200 CE) calls itself an Upaniṣad and contains Upaniṣadic passages from about eight of the oldest Upaniṣads.
It is likely that about one dozen Upaniṣad texts were in existence about the beginning of the Christian era. A. B. Keith has divided the fourteen so called older Upaniṣads into three groups in the following chronological order:
1. First group, oldest Upaniṣads 1. Aitareya 2. Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3. Chāndogya 4. Taittirīya 5.
Kauṣītaki 6. Kena.
2. Second group: 7. Kaṇha 8. Iṣa 9. Śvetāśvatara 10. Muṇḍaka 11. Mahānārayaṇa.
3. Third Group: 12. Praśna 13. Maitrāyaṇīya and 14. Māṇḍūkya.
With regard to the date of the Upaniṣads of the first and oldest group, Keith observes that, “it is wholly impossible to make out any case for dating the oldest even of the extant Upaniṣads beyond the sixth century BCE and the acceptance of an earlier date must rest merely on individual fancy.”
(Note 20: S. N. Dāsgupta, A. A. Macdonell, Max Müller, Winternitz, Jacobi and a few other scholars usually place the older Upaniṣads in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. The Kaṭha, Maitrāyaṇīya and Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣads were placed by E. W. Hopkins in the fourth century BCE. Buddhist and Jaina impact on the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad was demonstrated by J. Hertel. M. Walleser was of the view that the illusion theory of the Upaniṣads was derived from the early Mādhyamika thought and he placed the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad in the sixth century CE.)
According to Dr. Kane the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and the Chāndogya Upaniṣads are generally held to be “earlier than the Buddha.” There is no general agreement on this point. The view entertained by Walleser, Rāhula Sāmkṛtyāyana and others that the Tevijjā Sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya refers to the Aitareya, Chāndogya and Taittirīya Upaniṣads is quite wrong. As Keith said, “the definite use of any particular Upaniṣad by any Buddhist sutta has still to be proved.” Dr. O. H. de A. Wijesekera has observed that “the older Suttas of the Dīgha Nikāya were composed before the end of the Brāhmaṇa period when the Upaniṣads had not come to be regarded as independent texts.”
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(Note 21:A. B. Keith, Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upaniṣads, Vols. I–II, HOS, Vols. 31–32, 1925, pp. 498–502. Ibid., pp. 501–503; S. N. Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, London, 1957, (reprint) p. 28; A. A. Macdonell, History of Sanskrit Literature, (1899, reprint 1962, Delhi) pp. 171 f.)
(Note 22: O. H. de A, Wijesekera, “A Pāli Reference to Brāhmaṇacaraṇas,” Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol. XX, 1956, pp, 254 f.)
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The Brāhmaṇa period of the Vedic age came to an end towards the third century BCE. This is true especially of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa of which Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad forms the concluding part. According to Pāṇini and Kātyāyana, the Brāhmaṇa texts of the Vājasaneyins or Yājñavalkyas were contemporary with them.
Pāṇini has been placed in the 5th century BCE by some and in the 4th. century BCE by others. Kātyāyana should belong to the fourth or even to the third century BCE.
The only argument for placing the oldest Upaniṣads in the 6th. century B. C. is the archaic
character of their language. But their language can be compared only with the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, which are very late composite compilations, or with the language of Pāṇini and the Bṛhad-devatā which have been placed in the fourth and third centuries BCE. There is thus no sound linguistic evidence to consider the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya Upaniṣads as preBuddhist in origin. The Tevijjā Sutta does not know the way of the Upaniṣads. But it refers to the Brāhmaṇa-caraṇas such as those of Adhvaryu, Taittirīya, Chāndogya, and Bahuvṛca Brāhmaṇas.
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T. W. Rhys Davids and George Buhler were of the view that the oldest Pāli Suttas
are “good evidence, certainly for the fifth, probably for the sixth century BCE.”
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In our opinion, the bulk of the oldest Upaniṣads including the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and the Chāndogya should be placed between the age of the Buddha and that of Aśoka. None of the Upaniṣads can be dated before the age of the Buddha (624–544 BCE).
There is strong evidence of Buddhist influence in the language as well as in the doctrines of the oldest Upaniṣads. Doctrines characteristic of early Buddhism, which are quite foreign to preUpaniṣadic Vedicism, are found in the Upaniṣads. This point needs emphasis because it at once establishes the heterogeneous character and hybrid origin of these texts and their doctrines. It will be absurd to hold that any of these Upaniṣads was composed at one time or by one person. They are compilations and represent many contradictory doctrines. R. E. Hume has discussed some Buddhist impact on the older Upaniṣads in the following words: “Evidence of Buddhist influences are not wanting in them.”
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In Bṛh 3.2.13 it is stated that after death the different parts of a person return to the different parts of Nature from whence they came, that even his soul (ātman) goes into space and that only his karma, or effect of work, remains over. This is a clear reflection of the Buddhist doctrine.
Connections in the point of dialect may also be shown. Sarvāvat is “a word which as yet has not been discovered in the whole range of Sanskṛit literature, except in Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 14.7. 1. 10 (= Bṛh 43. 9) and in Northern Buddhist writings” (Kern, SBE, 21, p xvii). Its Pāli equivalent is sabbavā. In Bṛh 4.3 to 2.6 r is changed to l, i. e. paly-ayate for pary-ayate—a change which is regularly made in the Pāli dialect in which the books of Southern Buddhism are written. It may be that this is not direct influence of the Pāli upon the Sanskṛit, but at least it is the same tendency which exhibits itself in Pāli, and here the two languages are close enough together to warrant the assumption of contact and synchronous origin.
Somewhat more certain evidence, however, is the use of the second person plural ending tha for tā.
Müller pointed out in connection with the word ācaratha (Muṇḍ 1. 2.1) that this irregularity looks suspiciously Buddhistic. There are, however, four other similar instances. The word saṃvatsyatha (Praśna 1.2) might be explained as a future indicative (not an imperative), serving as a mild future imperative. But pṛcchatha (Praśna 1.2), āpadyatha (Praśna 1.2.3 jānatha and vimuñcatha (Muṇḍ 2.2.5) are evidently meant as imperatives, and as such are formed with the Pāli instead of with the regular Sanskrit ending. It has long been suspected that the later Śiva .. ..
(Note 23: Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, (1960) p.363.
(Note 24: DN 13.10/Dīgha Nikāya, Vol. I 237.
(Note 25: T.W. Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, Part I (SBB Vol. II, reprint 1950) p. xx.)
(Note 26: R. E. Hume, The Thirteen Principal Upaniṣads, 2nd edition, OUP, 1958 (reprint) pp. 6–7.)
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… sects, which recognised the Atharva-Veda as their chief scripture, were closely connected with the Buddhistic sects. Perhaps in this way the Buddhistic influence was transmitted to the Praśna and Muṇḍaka Upaniṣads of the Atharva Veda. This alone shows that the Upaniṣads are not unaffected by outside influences. Even irrespective of these, their inner structure reveals that they are heterogeneous in their material and compound in their composition. Keith’s criticism of Hume’s view is not convincing. Some names of Vedic persons mentioned in the Āraṇyakas, Sūtras and Upaniṣads are known to the Pāli Suttas, where they are mentioned as contemporaries of the Buddha.
The Sāṃkhyāyana or Kauṣītaki Āraṇyaka mentions Guṇākhya Sāṃkhyāyana as a pupil of
Kahola Kauṣītaki.
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This Sāṃkhyāyana was a contemporary of Āśvalāyana as is clear from the fact that Āśvalāyan
Re-submited by R.O.S