The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c10.s4: Buddhist Institutions and Ideals vis-à-vis Vedic Complex
The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c10.s4
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Buddhist Institutions and Ideals vis-à-vis Vedic Complex
c10.s4.1
The Śākyan milieu is, in the first place, semi-Vedic or semi-Brāhmaṇic, representing the phases of culture-contacts between the so-called Aryans or Brāhmaṇized Indians and non-Aryans (or non-Brāhmaṇized Indians)⁷ as well as, to a certain extent, the continuations of perhaps neglected aspects of Vedic culture. In Śākya's life and thought as well as in those of the Śākyan missionaries and householders Vedic ideology cannot therefore be entirely overlooked.
c10.s4.2
⁷ J. W. Hauer: *Der Vratya* (Stuttgart 1927), pp. 5-6, 55, 60, 308-310, B. Saletore: *The Wild Tribes in Indian History* (Lahore 1935); De la Vallée Poussin: *Indo-Européens et Indo-Iraniens: L'Inde vers jusque 300 av. J.* (Paris 1924), pp. 312-314; E. J. Rapson: "Peoples and Languages" (*Cambridge History of India*, Vol. I, 1922, pp. 40-56); A. Hillebrandt: *Ritualliteratur* (*Grundriss der indoarischen Philologie und Altertumskunde*, III. Band, 2. Heft).
c10.s4.3
De la Vallée Poussin is, generally speaking, right in his estimate to the effect that Śākyaism arose in a profound Brāhmaṇized region where the influence of Brahmā was preponderant. The religious like of the Śākyan is called *Brahmacharya*. The Śākyan saint is the "true *Brāhmaṇa*." Śākyan saints are the "*Āryas*." The four Śākyan truths are the "*Ārya* truths."
c10.s4.4
In the age of the *Upaniṣads* and Śākyaism, says he, the different systems exploited, each in its own manner, a certain common fund which was very rich but of which our knowledge is incomplete.
c10.s4.5
In the second place, the Śākyan *milieu* is somewhat anti-Vedic or anti-Brāhmaṇic in ideology and institutions too. To this extent the life and thought of Śākya and the Śākyans embody distinctively new aspects of culture and are therefore to be appraised as "supplements" to Vedic ideology and institutions. So far as these aspects are concerned, the Vedic and the anti-Vedic together constitute one Indian culture-complex. The place of Śākyan institutions and theories in a comprehensive study of Hindu politics, economics and sociology is therefore profound. The Buddhist (Śākyan) texts in Pali consequently have to be placed alongside of the Brāhmaṇical texts for an adequate survey of "Hindu" socio-political literature.
c10.s4.6
Thirdly, for later periods, say, from Aśvaghoṣa downwards the Buddhist *milieu* and the Brāhmaṇic-Hindu *milieu* almost approach each other in many details.
c10.s4.7
Still later, the common ground of *Mahāyāna-cum-Tantrism* and Purāṇic-Hinduism is quite extensive. These aspects of Buddhism may be called semi-“Hindu,” as has been done in my *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* and *Folk-Element in Hindu Culture* (London 1917). Altogether, no study of “Hindu” culture in any of its phases of evolution can pretend to be fair which does not devote simultaneous attention to Buddhist and non-Buddhist sources.