History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c91.356

v7.c91.356

In these days it has become a fashion to praise Buddha and his doctrines to the skies and to disparage Hinduism by making unfair comparisons between the original doctrines of Buddha with the present practices 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 practices of professed Buddhists on the one hand and modern phases and practices of Hinduism on the other The Upaniṣads had a nobler philosophy than that of Gautama the Buddha, the latter merely based his doctrines on the philosophy of the Upaniṣads If Hinduism decayed in 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 practices 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 Swāmi Vivekānanda's lecture on "The sages of India" (Complete Works, volume III p 248-268, 7th ed. 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 house ... ... These sacrifices were obliterated 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 Brahmanical idolatry. Little do they know that Buddhism created brahmanism 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 discussions 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. 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 264-265)