A Buddhist garland for The Jagadguru

[Guest guest]

Namami Sankaraachaaryam, sarvalokaika Poojitham

 

With permission blessings and grace from HH Swamy Vijeyendra

Saraswathi garu of Shri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham Paramacharya and

miracles

 

A Buddhist garland for The Jagadguru

Marco Pallis

It was with not a little surprise, couples with a strong sense of

occasion, that I read the letter inviting me to the contribute to the

Souvenir collection marking the 76th birthday of His Holiness of

Kanchi, an auspicious occasion indeed! The contribution is made with

all the greater willingness since its author is a Buddhist by

traditional participation and intends to speak from that angle.

But is this proper, some may ask, for, how can a professing Buddhist

presume to write in honour of one who bears Sri Sankaracharya's

august title, associated as this has been in the past with the

turning back of the Buddhism in India? Is not such a person

disqualified from doing so, or alternatively, is he not in a sense

betraying the tradition of the Lord Buddha to which he himself is

dharmically attached? In either case such an action is blameworthy,

so these critics will argue.

To which I will answer that not only is it proper for a Buddhist to

act in this manner now, but also that there a particular value in his

doing so, both for his own sake and also for the sake of others as

much as he will be enabled thereby to bring out certain aspects of

truth too often over looked.

First of all, it is important to point out, quoting one whose name is

well known among the friends of Kanchi Kamakoti, namely, Frithjof

Schuon, that the inhibitive part played by the Adi Sankaracharya

versus the Buddhist of his time is no wise implies an inability on

his part to grasp the essence of Buddha's teaching at its own level.

The Master of Advaita Vedanta quite obviously was capable of

situating any knowledge regardless of the formal limits attaching to

its dialectical expression. It was indeed no accident that certain

Hindus belonging to other schools accused him of uttering a doctrine

that was but a disguised form of Buddhism; however outrageous such a

statement may appear at first sight, it does nevertheless harbour a

truth pertaining to a more those who offered the above criticism.

This interior view of the matter, discoverable " beyond forms " , does

not affect the nature of Sri Sankaracharya's specific function of

appointed restorer and illuminator of the Hindu Dharma. In

discharging this function, as Frithjof Schuon has also pointed out,

the great Vedantic sage had no particular call to spare another

traditional form which, though essentially true, did not fit in with

the characteristic exigencies of Hinduism. Had Buddhism done so, it

would have become yet another Hindu darsana, but such in fact was not

its dharmic destiny.

All this is perfectly intelligible to a Buddhist viewing the matter

in a spirit of non-attachment, just as, on the other hand, a Hindu

similarly motivated is able to see that the Lord Buddha did not set

out to " reform " Hinduism and that his teaching represented

spontaneous manifestation of the Spirit at that " cyclic moment " which

rendered it opportune. There could be no question here of human

contrivance.

Judging after the event, it is also evident that the Buddhist

revelation was, among other things, a means of rendering the Indian

wisdom accessible to non-Indian races to whose mentality this

presentation was perfectly suited. The marvelous flowering of the

Mahayana in China, Japan and Tibet is a living proof that such was

the case; for this result to become possible, however, a certain

departure from the specifically Hindu norms was necessary. All this

goes to show that such a conflict does not only have a negative

function, it also has a providential, therefore positive, function in

regard to those sections of humanity respectively concerned in it.

There is no occasion now to recapitulate the arguments formerly put

forward by the sages and saints who acted as spokesmen of the two

traditions in the course of their debates with one another. Some of

the arguments bore fruit in ways that much exceeded their temporary

purpose, as when Sri Sankaracharya used his controversy with the

Buddhists as a means of giving point to his masterly exposition of

the doctrine of Atma, by which Jnanically-minded men are still

illuminated today just as they were in his own time. We can all thank

God that this same light still shines in Kanchi Kamakoti and that the

voice of Dharma has never been silenced in that hallowed place.

By way of special tribute on this joyful occasion of the 76th

birthday of His Holiness of Kanchi the present writer wishes to draw

attention to a formula belonging to the Semitic wisdom, as

illustrating in a most remarkable way the metaphysical reciprocity

between the Vedantic teaching about the Self and the Buddhist theory

of anatma which many people have regarded as marking irreconcilable

positions. This formula is the Shahadah or `Testimony' of Islam in

which the Advaitic doctrine is summed up with miraculous conciseness.

A moment's glance will show that the Arabic words La ilaha' illa

lah; " There is no divinity (or reality, or self) outside the divinity

(or Reality, or Self) " enshrines at one and the same time the truth

of the Buddhist anatma and the Vedantic Atma; like Buddhism

it " annihilates " any belief in the reality of the world and its

contents in order to make way for the only intrinsic Reality, the

Divine Suchness of Self. Need anything be added to prove that Vedanta

and Buddhism have a common link between them? To look in the mirror

of a tradition other than one's own tradition with all the greater

certainty!

On the auspicious day of Vaisaka Anuraadha this garland is laid, in

deepest reverence, at the lotus feet of His Holiness the Jagadguru of

Kanchi Kamakoti Pitha by the hand of Munishastra Dhara.