4 ms·

> This is how Buddhism was decimated by Brahminism in India, co-opting Budhha as their own. It makes no sense what so ever to me. By honoring Buddha, giving hi

by rhuru 3y ago

> This is how Buddhism was decimated by Brahminism in India, co-opting Budhha as their own. It makes no sense what so ever to me. By honoring Buddha, giving him one of the most prominent positions in the Hindu pantheon, extending Buddha's teachings and even internalizing them somehow was "decimated" ? How does reverence look then ? This is how Hinduism evolves and always have been.

iamshs 3y ago
Embrace, Extend and Extinguish is what was followed by Brahmins to decimate Buddhism. If purpose was to absorb his teachings, the caste system is still present. No present day Hindu remembers or honors Buddha or his teachings. That's just laughable excuse to justify Buddhism not present in the land of Budhha. It is a cautionary tale, there's no reverence.
- rhuru 3y ago
  > is what was followed by Brahmins to decimate Buddhism. Looks like you deep rooted anti-semitic hatred for Brahmins more than anything else. > No present day Hindu remembers or honors Buddha or his teachings. Well I do ! In fact some of the greatest Hindu philosophers spent their lifetime studying Buddhism and writing books. Even the Vipassana teachers in USA and everywhere happen to be Hindus not Buddhists. > If purpose was to absorb his teachings, the caste system is still present. Buddha himself was a proponent of basic tenants of caste. Buddha primarily took Brahmins as his disciples. Nearly 40% of his students where Brahmin and nearly all who got popular and wrote about buddhism were Brahmins. Buddha's multiple childhood friends studied at Takshashika a Hindu university that existed before Buddha and later prominent Hindu Brahmins like Aryabhatta studied at Buddhist universities like Nalanda. When the Shakya king decides to disown his wife because she was born to a low caste mother, Buddha stops him, not by citing that "caste is evil" but rather the well established Hindu rules of caste that it is father's caste that should matter and not that of mother. Not to mention Buddha also predicted the future Buddha to be "maitreya" a person born in Brahmin family. Even on the matter of "caste", Buddha is pretty much a Hindu.
  - kapilkaisare 3y ago
    While your phrasing is comprehensible, I don't think one can use the term 'anti-semitic' correctly in this context.
    - rhuru 3y ago
      Anti-semitic is a very deliberate choice here. Anti-semitic implies a highly prejudiced hatred against jewish people. The hatred from Brahmins is exactly the same, to the extent that some of the caste grifters literally use Nazi era propaganda posters and replace the Jew with Tamil Brahmin. (I am not a Tamil Brahmin, I only observe this from outside). See this for example: https://indicworks.org/2023/05/04/sb403-is-hindu-segregation-bill-and-has-anti-semitic-roots/ https://indicworks.org/2023/05/04/sb403-is-hindu-segregation...
  - blueprint 3y ago
    You say you honor his teaching. what is the teaching of Buddha's?
- morbidious 3y ago
  You are making a naive assumption here that there was no religion present in India before Buddha, and that after Buddha established his Dharma everyone should have abandoned their respective religions to take up Buddhism. Ashoka converted to Buddhism and ruled almost the whole of the Indian subcontinent at one point. But that doesn't mean he converted all Hindus to Buddhist. Few Hindus may have converted, but 'land of Buddha' also happens to be the 'land of Sanatana Dharma' where there are several other deities people worshiped and traditions people practiced.
toyg 3y ago
To me it looks similar to how Islam included Jesus: making him one of the most prominent prophets, while at the same time denying the core tenet of Christian doctrine (that he'd be the son of god, unus et trinus). > This is how Hinduism evolves It is indeed how religions evolve - literally by forking. Like Christianity forked Judaism (and was itself forked by Islam), Buddhism forked from Hinduism. Sometimes some patches are retrofitted on the original tree, sometimes trees diverge so much that it's hard to see the common root. Sometimes reformers go back to the original project, once their patches get somewhat accepted (a lot of anglicans after Vatican Council II...); sometimes they don't. Whatever the result, it's important to respect one's choice - if buddhists reject the place that modern Hinduism tries to fit them into, because they think the patch is not enough, that's their call and there is no point insisting otherwise.
- fuzztester 3y ago
  I wonder if they had something better than git.
  - rhuru 3y ago
    Note that none of the key philosophers around that time bothered with the "identity", it is a modern concept primarily driven by politics and exposure to outside religions. So for none of them it was a fork. They all developed on the main branch, in the absence of centralized PR approvers everything gets merged. In India this identity matters even more as the Indian constitution offers different rights to you based on your identity and you get to benefit from "unequal laws" hence everyone deeply gets sentimental about it.
- rhuru 3y ago
  > To me it looks similar to how Islam included Jesus: making him one of the most prominent prophets, while at the same time denying the core tenet of Christian doctrine (that he'd be the son of god, unus et trinus) One has to look how Islam treated the faiths around it when Islam obtained power. It was mostly genocide and iconoclasm at scale not seen before. Even acknowledgement of Jesus in the Koran is more to enable easier conversion into Islam. The concept of conversion for example existed in Islam. Buddhism deals with far subtle and much more complex ideas like nature of reality. You can see a detailed discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAZPWu084m4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAZPWu084m4 (Note that the monk talking here is a Vedantist, talking with great respect and reverence to Buddha/Buddhism and on Buddha's birthday). > Whatever the result, it's important to respect one's choice - if buddhists reject the place that modern Hinduism tries to fit them into, because they think the patch is not enough, that's their call and there is no point insisting otherwise. I think that is a great analogy, but note that Hinduism has not tried to "fit buddhism" into anything, Hinduism only point out that Buddhism's fork is pretty much similar to many other forks of Hinduism which have not been identified as separate from Hinduism. Neither Hindu nor Buddhist philosophy however cares about such distinctions or boxes as they are completely irrelevant to their objective, it is mostly for people to argue. (This is not true for Islam and Christianity, Islam denies you heaven if you havent accepted Islam before death, Christianity does the same, hence it matters deeply whether you are Christian or Muslim, mere believing in the God wont help.) Overall "melting pot" mentality is a good thing and must be encouraged and a good thing. It helps people find common ground and love each other rather than needlessly quarrel and fight.
nuc1e0n 3y ago
I think the Buddha would've not cared to be an object of worship. That's kinda missing the point.
blueprint 3y ago
Please read my comment.. it answers your question fairly well. Though I'm wondering if you really want to know? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37210062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37210062

by rhuru 3y ago

iamshs 3y ago

Embrace, Extend and Extinguish is what was followed by Brahmins to decimate Buddhism. If purpose was to absorb his teachings, the caste system is still present. No present day Hindu remembers or honors Buddha or his teachings. That's just laughable excuse to justify Buddhism not present in the land of Budhha. It is a cautionary tale, there's no reverence.

rhuru 3y ago
> is what was followed by Brahmins to decimate Buddhism. Looks like you deep rooted anti-semitic hatred for Brahmins more than anything else. > No present day Hindu remembers or honors Buddha or his teachings. Well I do ! In fact some of the greatest Hindu philosophers spent their lifetime studying Buddhism and writing books. Even the Vipassana teachers in USA and everywhere happen to be Hindus not Buddhists. > If purpose was to absorb his teachings, the caste system is still present. Buddha himself was a proponent of basic tenants of caste. Buddha primarily took Brahmins as his disciples. Nearly 40% of his students where Brahmin and nearly all who got popular and wrote about buddhism were Brahmins. Buddha's multiple childhood friends studied at Takshashika a Hindu university that existed before Buddha and later prominent Hindu Brahmins like Aryabhatta studied at Buddhist universities like Nalanda. When the Shakya king decides to disown his wife because she was born to a low caste mother, Buddha stops him, not by citing that "caste is evil" but rather the well established Hindu rules of caste that it is father's caste that should matter and not that of mother. Not to mention Buddha also predicted the future Buddha to be "maitreya" a person born in Brahmin family. Even on the matter of "caste", Buddha is pretty much a Hindu.
- kapilkaisare 3y ago
  While your phrasing is comprehensible, I don't think one can use the term 'anti-semitic' correctly in this context.
  - rhuru 3y ago
    Anti-semitic is a very deliberate choice here. Anti-semitic implies a highly prejudiced hatred against jewish people. The hatred from Brahmins is exactly the same, to the extent that some of the caste grifters literally use Nazi era propaganda posters and replace the Jew with Tamil Brahmin. (I am not a Tamil Brahmin, I only observe this from outside). See this for example: https://indicworks.org/2023/05/04/sb403-is-hindu-segregation-bill-and-has-anti-semitic-roots/ https://indicworks.org/2023/05/04/sb403-is-hindu-segregation...
- blueprint 3y ago
  You say you honor his teaching. what is the teaching of Buddha's?
morbidious 3y ago
You are making a naive assumption here that there was no religion present in India before Buddha, and that after Buddha established his Dharma everyone should have abandoned their respective religions to take up Buddhism. Ashoka converted to Buddhism and ruled almost the whole of the Indian subcontinent at one point. But that doesn't mean he converted all Hindus to Buddhist. Few Hindus may have converted, but 'land of Buddha' also happens to be the 'land of Sanatana Dharma' where there are several other deities people worshiped and traditions people practiced.

toyg 3y ago

To me it looks similar to how Islam included Jesus: making him one of the most prominent prophets, while at the same time denying the core tenet of Christian doctrine (that he'd be the son of god, unus et trinus). > This is how Hinduism evolves It is indeed how religions evolve - literally by forking. Like Christianity forked Judaism (and was itself forked by Islam), Buddhism forked from Hinduism. Sometimes some patches are retrofitted on the original tree, sometimes trees diverge so much that it's hard to see the common root. Sometimes reformers go back to the original project, once their patches get somewhat accepted (a lot of anglicans after Vatican Council II...); sometimes they don't. Whatever the result, it's important to respect one's choice - if buddhists reject the place that modern Hinduism tries to fit them into, because they think the patch is not enough, that's their call and there is no point insisting otherwise.

fuzztester 3y ago
I wonder if they had something better than git.
- rhuru 3y ago
  Note that none of the key philosophers around that time bothered with the "identity", it is a modern concept primarily driven by politics and exposure to outside religions. So for none of them it was a fork. They all developed on the main branch, in the absence of centralized PR approvers everything gets merged. In India this identity matters even more as the Indian constitution offers different rights to you based on your identity and you get to benefit from "unequal laws" hence everyone deeply gets sentimental about it.
rhuru 3y ago
> To me it looks similar to how Islam included Jesus: making him one of the most prominent prophets, while at the same time denying the core tenet of Christian doctrine (that he'd be the son of god, unus et trinus) One has to look how Islam treated the faiths around it when Islam obtained power. It was mostly genocide and iconoclasm at scale not seen before. Even acknowledgement of Jesus in the Koran is more to enable easier conversion into Islam. The concept of conversion for example existed in Islam. Buddhism deals with far subtle and much more complex ideas like nature of reality. You can see a detailed discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAZPWu084m4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAZPWu084m4 (Note that the monk talking here is a Vedantist, talking with great respect and reverence to Buddha/Buddhism and on Buddha's birthday). > Whatever the result, it's important to respect one's choice - if buddhists reject the place that modern Hinduism tries to fit them into, because they think the patch is not enough, that's their call and there is no point insisting otherwise. I think that is a great analogy, but note that Hinduism has not tried to "fit buddhism" into anything, Hinduism only point out that Buddhism's fork is pretty much similar to many other forks of Hinduism which have not been identified as separate from Hinduism. Neither Hindu nor Buddhist philosophy however cares about such distinctions or boxes as they are completely irrelevant to their objective, it is mostly for people to argue. (This is not true for Islam and Christianity, Islam denies you heaven if you havent accepted Islam before death, Christianity does the same, hence it matters deeply whether you are Christian or Muslim, mere believing in the God wont help.) Overall "melting pot" mentality is a good thing and must be encouraged and a good thing. It helps people find common ground and love each other rather than needlessly quarrel and fight.

nuc1e0n 3y ago

I think the Buddha would've not cared to be an object of worship. That's kinda missing the point.

blueprint 3y ago

Please read my comment.. it answers your question fairly well. Though I'm wondering if you really want to know? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37210062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37210062