Bhuddha as an AvathAram ?

August 1, 2005

Dear BhakthAs :

A Member had asked earlier about BuddhA as an avathAram

among DasAvathArams . Buddhism is considered as

an avaidhika or Veda Baahya Mathams in our traditions .

Hence , Gautama Buddha can not be an avathAram of

VishNu . For us Vedam is PramANam . BhuddhA rejects

the authority of Vedam . Buddhism became extinct in India .

Sri Seshan in a 2001 article provides below some reasons as to

why it became extinct .

All of our AzhwArs , AchArya RaamAnuja and Swamy Desikan

have extensively criticized the inadequacy of Buddhism

with elaborate use of Tarka Saasthram and other means .

They have rejected Buddhism as inappropriate for MOksham

at many levels .

In Para Matha Bhangam and SarvArTa Siddhi , Swamy Desikan

has soundly defeated the doctrines of four kinds of Bhuddhism

and has shown their hollowness.

adiyEn's detailed write up on Swamy Desikan's Para Matha Bhangam

that includes the Four kinds of Bhuddhism can be accessed at the URL: :

http://www.malolan.org/trk37.htm

Srimath Azhagiya Singar ThiruvadigaLE SaraNam ,

V.Sadagopan

The Buddha as an Avatar of Vishnu

Author: A Seshan Publication: The Times of India May 7, 2001 THE

story of Gautama, the Buddha (the enlightened one), is well known. He

expounded the four noble truths (Arya Satya) concerning suffering,

its cause, its destruction and the way to the elimination of sorrow.

He was against the extremes of both self-indulgence and

self-mortification. A Middle Path was advocated consisting of right

views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right

livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right contemplation.

He rejected the authority of the Vedas, condemned ritualistic

practices, especially animal sacrifice, and denied the existence of

gods. Buddhism flourished for more than a millennium and spread to

foreign lands also. But a decline set in after the Golden Age of the

Guptas (4th to 5th centuries AD). Foreign historians, with limited

knowledge of Indian philosophical systems, have attributed the

decline of Buddhism in the land of its birth to the advent of Adi

Sankara. The 68th Sankaracharya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Math, Shri

Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, has effectively nailed this canard.

According to him, Sankara was more concerned with setting right the

errors in Saankhya and Meemaamsa philosophies of Hinduism which

denied the importance of Isvara though basically subscribing to the

Vedas. Even where he specifically dealt with Buddhism, he condemned

only its denial of the existence of God. Then how did the religion

decline? It was because of the vehement opposition to Buddhism on

philosophical and religious grounds by Meemaamsakas and Taarkikas

(logicians). The point is also that, even as people admired Buddha

and turned to his religion, they did not give up their old beliefs

and ritualistic practices. To give a contemporary example, many call

themselves Gandhians but in their lives, official or personal, they

follow a path just the opposite of what he showed! King Ashoka (2nd

century BC) did much to propagate the religion within India and

without. Still in his rock edicts he calls himself as "Devanampiya"

or "the beloved of the gods". There were no gods in Buddhism at his

time. So obviously he was referring to Hindu gods. In other words, he

continued to believe in Hindu religion even as he admired Buddha.

Buddhist texts written by bikshus have a Saraswati stotra in the

beginning paying obeisance to the Hindu goddess of learning. It is

not unusual to see an idol of Lord Ganesh in a Buddhist temple. Adi

Sankara accepted the tenets of Buddhism at the level of pure

consciousness. The ultimate stage in his philosophy was the giving up

of rituals and concentrating the mind on the infinite. Buddha wanted

his followers to take a quantum leap at the initial stage itself to

this ultimate goal, something which is difficult to expect of

ordinary men and women. Sankara advocated abiding by the karmas, as

stipulated by Meemaamsa, to begin with, and proceeding gradually to

the stage envisaged by Buddha of giving them up altogether. However,

Buddha did believe in two cardinal principles of Hinduism, viz. the

transmigration of the soul and the law of karma (that our actions

have consequences). Thus fundamentally there is little difference

between the two religions except that Buddha conceived his as an

ethical and secular way of life. Perhaps the most important reason

for the decline of Buddhism as a separate religion was the absorption

of its founder in the Hindu pantheon of gods - indeed an irony for one

who denied their existence! There are many incarnations of Vishnu of

which the Dasavatar or the ten incarnations are the most well known.

In the Southern tradition they are: matsya (fish), koorma (tortoise),

varaha (boar), Narasimha (the man-lion), Vamana (the dwarf) Parasurama

(the angry prince), Rama (the perfect human), Balarama, his younger

brother Krishna (the divine statesman) and Kalki (the redeemer of

righteousness in the kali yuga, who is yet to appear). In the

Northern tradition Balarama is replaced by Buddha who appears as the

ninth avatar after Krishna, his mission being to purify Hinduism.

Srimad Bhagavatam (circa 900 AD, according to Farquhar) takes the

stand that Krishna is the original form of Vishnu and the

incarnations were all his. In its list of Dasavatar, which many

consider as the most authentic, both Baladeva (or Balarama) and

Buddha appear. Krishna is not mentioned because he is the original

god. The Dasavatara Stotra of Jayadev (12th century), parts of which

are included in Adi Guru Granth compiled by Guru Arjun Singh, follows

the list of Bhagavatam. In this scheme, Buddhism was like the

reformation movement of Martin Luther in Christianity. Once Buddha

himself became an incarnation of Vishnu there was no need for the

religion to exist separately in this country.

August 2, 2005

The Buddha who is considered as an avathara of Sriman

Narayana is NOT THE SAME AS the historical Buddha. In

the Vishnu Purana, there is the description of the

Buddha Avathara which was taken to teach a 'wrong

doctrine' to the wives of the asuras. It is this

Buddha that is referred to as an incarnation in texts.

The historical Buddha who preached Buddhism is not an

avathara.

For those who have heard Annmacharyas Sankirtana

"Dolayam" ....there is reference to 'Daaruna

Buddha'...

and by this the puranic Buddha is being identified.In

other sankirtanas, he mentions of Vishnu having

"incarnated to teach the wives of the asuras"...and

again he is referring to the 'Purainc' Buddha.

The doctrine preached by the historical Buddha is

undoubtedly antivedic....called as 'Sunyavada' and has

been elaborately rejected in the Sree Bhashya.

Please correct me if i am wrong.

_____

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August 2, 2005

Dear SrEvaishNavites,

Kindly reer to the vyAkyanam-s for

"kaLLa vEdathai koNdu pOi purm pukka vARum,,," thiru-voi-mozhi 5-10- and

"pundhiyil-samanar, buthar enRivargaL othana pEasavum.." 9-8-9 of Periya thirumozhi.

"

dAsan

vanamamalai padmanabhan