Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 38)

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Parts 1 to 37 were posted earlier. This is part 38. Your comments are welcome... Vivekananda Centre London

 

Earlier postings can be seen at http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 38

 

 

 

c) The Ancient Order of Things Was Overwhelmed by the Buddha

1. The Social Wants at the Time of Buddha

Buddhism was the rebellion of the newly formed kshatriyas against Vedic priestcraft. (20)

The struggle [between the priests and kings] began to be fiercer. Its culminating point came two thousand years after [the Upanishads] in Buddhism. The seed of Buddhism is here, [in] the ordinary struggle between the king and the priest; and [in the struggle] all religion declined. One wanted to sacrifice religion and the other wanted to cling to the sacrifices, the Vedic gods, etc. (21)

[After the lull cause by the reconciliation effected by Sri Krishna], the ambition of the two classes - brahmin and kshatriya - to be the masters of the poor and ignorant was [still] there, and the strife once more became fierce. The meager literature that has come down to us from that period brings to us but faint echoes of that mighty past strife, but at last it broke out as a victory for the kshatriyas, a victory for jnana, for liberty - and ceremonial had to go down, much of it forever. This upheaval is what is known as the Buddhistic reformation. On the religious side, it represented freedom from ceremonial; and on the political side, overthrow of the priesthood by the kshatriyas.

It is a significant fact that the two greatest men ancient India produced were both kshatriyas - Krishna and Buddha - and still more significant that both of these God-men threw open the door of knowledge to everyone, irrespective of birth or sex. (22)

Though tension [in the triangular fight between ceremonials, philosophy and materialism had been toned down for the time being by Krishna’s teaching], it did not satisfy the social wants which were among the causes - the claim of the king-race to stand first in the scale of caste and the popular intolerance of priestly privilege. Krishna had opened the gates of spiritual knowledge and attainment to all, irrespective of sex or caste, but he left undisturbed the same problem on the social side. This again has come down to our own days, in spite of the gigantic struggle of the Buddhists Vaishnavas, etc., to attain social equality for all. (23)

The struggle [was] renewed all along the line in the seventh century before the Christian era and finally in the sixth, overwhelming the ancient order of things under Shakya Muni, the Buddha. (24)

On the one hand there was the political jealousy between the kings and priests, and then these different dissatisfied sects [such as the Jains were] springing up everywhere. And there was the greater problem: the vast multitudes of people wanting the same rights as the Aryans, dying of thirst while the perennial stream of nature went flowing by them, and no right to drink a drop of water….

In India [there are] two great races: one is called the Aryan, the other, the non-Aryan. It is the Aryan race that has the three castes, but the whole of the rest are dubbed with one name - shudras - no caste. They are not Aryans at all. (Many people came from outside India and they found the shudras there, the aborigines of the country.) However it may be, these vast masses of non-Aryan people and the mixed people among them, gradually became civilized, and they began to scheme for the same rights as the Aryans…. And the brahmin priest was the great antagonist of such claims. You see, it is the nature of priests in every country - they are the most conservative people, naturally. So long as it is a trade, it must be; it is to their interest to be conservative. So this tide of murmur outside the Aryan pale the priests were trying to check with all their might. Within the Aryan pale, there was also a tremendous religious ferment, and [it was] mostly led by the military caste. (25)

 

2. Buddhism Combated Not Only Priestcraft and Animal Sacrifice: It was the First to Break Down the Barriers of Caste

The intellectual world was divided before Buddha came. But for a correct understanding of his religion, it is also necessary to speak of the caste then existing.... These different social divisions developed or degenerated into iron-bound castes and an organized and crystallized priestcraft stood upon the necks of the nation. At this time Buddha was born and his religion is therefore the culmination of an attempt at religious and social reformation.

The air was full of the din of discussion: 20,000 blind priests were trying to lead 20,000,000 blind men, fighting amongst themselves. What was more needed at that time than for a Buddha to preach? "Stop quarreling, throw your books aside, and be perfect!" Buddha never fought true castes, for they are nothing but the congregation of those of a particular natural tendency, and they are always valuable. But Buddha fought the degenerated castes with their hereditary privileges, and spoke to the brahmins: " True brahmins are not greedy, nor criminal, nor angry - are you such? If not, do not mimic the genuine, real men. Caste is a state, not an iron-bound class, and everyone who knows and loves God is a true brahmin." And with regard to the sacrifices, he said, "Where do the Vedas say that sacrifices make us pure? They may please, perhaps, the angels, but they make us no better. Hence, let off these mummeries - love God and strive to be perfect."

Original Buddhism... was but an attempt to combat caste and priestcraft; it was the first in the world to stand as champion of dumb animals, the first to break down caste, standing between human beings.(26)

Buddhism... broke the chains of the masses. All castes and creeds alike became equal in a minute.

(27)

Brahmanya power was almost effaced from its field of work in Indian during the Jain and Buddhist revolutions; or, perhaps, was holding its feeble stand by being subservient to the strong, antagonistic religions. (28)

 

3. Buddha Broke the Mental and Spiritual Bonds of Men by Preaching Vedanta to the Whole World

Buddha was the triumph in the struggle that had been going on between the priest and the prophets in India. One thing can be said for these Indian priests - they were not, and never are, intolerant of religion; they never have persecuted religion. Any man was allowed to preach against them. Theirs is such a religion; they never molested any one for his religious views. But they suffered from the peculiar weakness of all priests: they also sought power, they also promulgated rules and regulations and made religion unnecessarily complicated, and thereby undermined the strength of those who followed their religion. (29)

India was full of witchcraft in Buddha's day. There were the masses of the people, and they were debarred from all knowledge. If just a word of the Vedas entered the ears of a man, terrible punishment was visited upon him. The priests had made a secret of the Vedas - the Vedas that contained the spiritual truths discovered by the ancient Hindus!

At last, one man could bear it no more. He had the brain, the power and the heart - a heart as infinite as the broad sky. He felt how the masses were being led by the priests and how the priests were glorying in their power, and he wanted to do something about it. He did not want power over any one, and he wanted to break the mental and spiritual bonds of men. (30)

What Buddha did was to break wide open the gates of that very religion which was confined in the Upanishads and to a particular caste. (31)

Advaita (which gets its whole force on the subjective side of man), was never allowed to come to the people. At first some monks got hold of it and took it to the forests, and so it came to be called the "forest philosophy". By the mercy of the Lord, the Buddha came and preached it to the masses, and the whole nation became Buddhists. (32)

Shakya Muni was himself a monk, and it was his glory that he had the largeheartedness to bring out the truths from the hidden Vedas and throw them broadcast all over the world. (33)

Before the Buddha came, materialism had spread to a fearful extent; and it was of a most hideous kind, not like that of the present day, but of a far worse nature. I am a materialist in a certain sense, because I believe that there is only One. That is what the materialist wants you to believe; only he calls it matter and I call it God. The materialists admit that out of this matter all hope and religion and everything has come. I say all these have come out of Brahman. But the materialism that prevailed before Buddha was that crude sort of materialism which taught, "eat, drink and be merry; there is no God, soul, or heaven; religion is a concoction of wicked priests." It taught the morality that as long as you live, you must try to live happily; eat, though you have to borrow money for the food, and never mind about repaying it. That was the old materialism and that kind of philosophy spread so much that even today it has the name of "popular philosophy". Buddha brought the Vedanta to light, gave it to the people, and saved India. (34)

How much good to the world and its beings came out of Buddha's ["fanaticism"]! How many monasteries and schools and colleges, how many public hospitals and veterinary refuges were established! How developed architecture became! ... What was there in India before Buddha's advent? Only a number of religious principles recorded on bundles of palm leaves - and those, too, known only to a few. It was Lord Buddha who brought them down to the practical field and showed how to apply them in the everyday life of the people. In a sense he was the living embodiment of true Vedanta. (35)

Shakya Muni came not to destroy; he was the fulfillment, the logical conclusion, the logical development of the religion of the Hindus. (36)

Buddhism, one of the most philosophical religions in the world, spread all through the populace, the common people of India. What a wonderful culture there must have been among the Aryans twenty-five hundred years ago, to be able to grasp such ideas! (37)

Buddha cut through all the excrescences [of rules and regulations promulgated by the priests]. He preached the most tremendous truths. He taught the very gist of the philosophy of the Vedas to one and all without distinction; he taught it to the world at Large, because one of his great messages was the equality of humanity. Human beings are all equal. No concession there to anybody! Buddha was the great preacher of equality. Every man and woman has the same right to attain spirituality - that was his teaching. The difference between the priests and the other castes he abolished. Even the lowest were entitles to the highest attainments; he opened the door to nirvana to one and all. His teaching was bold, even for India. No amount of preaching can ever shock the Indian soul, but it was hard for India to swallow Buddha's doctrine. (38)

 

d) The Reasons Why Buddhism Had to Die a Natural Death in India

a) To Break the Tyranny of Priestcraft Buddhism Swept Away the Idea of the Personal God

The aim of Buddhism was reform of the Vedic religion, by standing against ceremonials requiring offerings of animals, against hereditary caste and exclusive priesthood, and against belief in permanent souls. It never attempted to destroy that religion, or to overturn the social order. It introduced a vigorous method by Organizing a class of sannyasins into a strong monastic brotherhood and the brahmavadinis into a body of nuns - by introducing images of saints in the place of altar fires….

In their reaction against the privileged priesthood, Buddhists swept off almost every bit of the old ritual of the Vedas, subordinated the gods of the Vedas to the position of servants to their own, human saints, and declared the "Creator and Supreme Ruler" as an invention of priestcraft and superstition. (39)

Tyranny and priestcraft have prevailed wherever the idea [of the personal God] existed, and until the lie is knocked on the head, say the Buddhists, tyranny will not cease. So long as man thinks he has to cower before a supernatural being, so long will there be priests to claim rights and privileges to make men cower before them, while these poor men will continue to ask some priest to act as interceder for them. You may do away with the brahmin; but, mark me, those who do so will put themselves in his place and be worse, because the brahmin has a certain amount of generosity in him, but these upstarts are always the worst of tyrannizers. If a beggar gets wealth, he thinks the whole world is a bit of straw. So these priests there must be so long as this personal God idea persists; and it will be impossible to think of any great morality in society. (40)

The result of Buddha's constant inveighing against a personal God was the introduction of idols into India. In the Vedas they knew them not, because they saw God everywhere; but the reaction against the loss of God as creator and friend was to make idols, and Buddha became an idol. (41)

 

2. Buddha's Rejection of All Religious Forms Was an Impossible Ideal Which Could Only Be Carried Out through Monasticism

Buddha is said to have denied the Vedas because there was so much killing. (42)

Buddha wanted to make truth shine as truth. No softening, no compromise, no pandering to the priests, the powerful, the kings. No bowing before superstitious traditions, however hoary; no respect for forms and books just because they came down from the distant past. He rejected all scriptures, all forms of religious practice. Even the very language, Sanskrit, in which religions had traditionally been taught in India, he rejected, so that his followers would not have any chance to imbibe the superstitions that were associated with it. (43)

Buddha made the fatal mistake of thinking that the whole world could be lifted to the height of the Upanishads. And self-interest spoilt all. Krishna was wiser, because he was more politic. But Buddha would have no compromise. (44)

The great point of contrast between Buddhism and Hinduism lies in the fact that Buddhism said, "Realize all this as illusion", while Hinduism said, "Realize that within the illusion is the Real." Of how this was to be done, Hindus never presumed to enunciate any rigid law. The Buddhist command could only be carried out through monasticism; the Hindu might be fulfilled through any state of life. All alike were roads to the one Real.... Thus Buddhism became the religion of a monastic order, but Hinduism, in spite of its exaltation of monasticism, remains ever the religion of faithfulness to daily duty, whatever it be, as the path by which man may attain God. (45)