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CHAPTER NO 3 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON BUDDHISM After discussing Vivekananda’s conception of religion and universal religion we are going to know his conception of Buddha and Buddhism. At first it should be noted that he has made distinction between Buddha and Buddhism and has given justification for this kind of distinction. Though Vivekananda’s justification regarding this distinction is scattered throughout his work, still we can have its coherent picture. The kind of distinction Vivekananda makes regarding Buddha and Buddhism is rarely found in any Indian thinker before him. Though after Vivekananda it is normally found. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, R. D. Ranade, Lokmanya Tilak, C.D. Sharma and some more philosophers have discussed the relation between Buddha and Buddhism. Justifying this kind of justification Vivekananda claims that Buddhism is misinterpretation of Buddha’s thoughts. Buddha’s thoughts are misinterpreted and mispresented by his followers. Vivekananda claims that Buddha’s followers couldn’t grasp his ideas rightly and presented his ideas in wrong way. This has given birth to new kind of religion i.e. Buddhism. Though Buddha kept silence on some fundamental philosophical issues still his followers misinterpreted this silence. That’s why Vivekananda has repeated many times that he accepts Buddha but not the Buddhism. Despite 85 this fact, on many occasions Vivekananda takes pride in saying that no any religious personality is closer to him than the Buddha. Vivekananda calls himself as servant of the servant of the servant of Buddha! xxxvii His love for Buddha equals his love for Ramakrishna. Sister Nivedita has noted that in Ramakrishna he saw Buddha and in Buddha he saw Ramakrishna. Vivekananda has given many reasons why Buddha appeals him. He calls Buddha as the first person in the history of the World to propose and follow perfect moral system, propagate universal religion, bring equality among people and who always rejected any kind of religious orthodoxies. Going beyond this, he goes up to saying that Buddha is perfect example of Practical Vedantin. As per Vivekananda’s understanding, Buddha came not for destruction of Vedic religion but came for reformation of it. So, Buddhism is not a new religion. It is only a new sect within a Hinduism. Vivekananda calls Buddha as rebel child of Hinduism. He says Buddha rebelled against Hinduism not as a revolutionary but as a reformer. Vivekananda claims that Buddha never intended to establish a new religion.xxxviii He purified the orthodox elements in Hindu religion i.e. Vedic religion. Vedic religion in Buddha’s time was becoming corrupt and rigid. It was caught in the web of priesthood. This led to neglect of masses. Priests class became dominant and they made priest craft as tool to get and maintain power. They used this power for exploitation. Buddha reacted to this situation and tried to liberate 86 religion from the cage of priesthood. He in this way rebelled against Vedic religion. As per Vivekananda, Buddha’s critique of Vedic system wasn’t critique for destruction but for a reconstruction of Hinduism. Though Vivekananda appreciates Buddha’s great contribution in reforming the Vedic religion still he has differences with Buddha on some issues. Vivekananda has seen Buddha into two ways- one as a person and another as a philosopher. He has unquestionable respect for Buddha as a person but he has sometime criticised philosopher Buddha. As philosopher Vivekananda has rejected Buddha’s philosophical theories of reality i.e. momentariness, non-soul theory etc. In addition to this Buddha denies Vedic metaphysical principles, ritualistic violence, and discrimination based on Varna/caste system. Buddha denies metaphysical entity like Soul and God which whole Vedic system is based on. xxxix Here we should note that as a practitioner of Advaita Vedanta Vivekananda is never ready to accept these Anityata and Anatmata principles proposed by Buddha. In spite of this Vivekananda calls Buddha as practical Vedantin.xl First practical Vedantin! Calling Buddha as practical Vedantin seems contradictory in terms. Vivekananda accepts on one hand Buddha and rejects him on the other. He gives reasons for this acceptance and rejection. Vivekananda accepts Buddha due to his liberal and human nature mentioning that Buddha is the only religious person who had no external intention to do good. Buddha’s compassion, loving nature and strict adherence to moral action appeal to him 87 a lot. Vivekananda praised Buddha’s approach of believing in oneself than believing in any external deity or spiritual entity. Though as a non-believer in Buddha’s metaphysical philosophy still Vivekananda believed in Buddha’s way of being moral. Throughout his life we see in Vivekananda a tendency to harmonise all religious faiths. In previous chapter we have discussed his tendency of harmonisation in detail. Vivekananda realised that morality is the only harmonising force in respect. Rajendra Prasad, while evaluating Vivekananda’s religious work, claims that Vivekananda has given priority to morality in his thought and action. Here we propose that Vivekananda’s attitude of giving morality upper hand is the lead taken from Buddha. So, Vivekananda’s rejection of Buddha’s metaphysical theory isn’t hindrance for recognising Buddha’s greatness. It seems that moralisation of all religions has inspired Vivekananda to form a conception of Universal religion. And it should be noted that Vivekananda’s conception of Advaita Vedanta combined with Buddha’s morality gave birth to the concept of Universal religion. He believes that the goal of both, Advaita Vedanta and Buddhist ethics, is harmonisation of all religious practices. Vivekananda has combined Advaita Vedanta with Buddhist morality to form his concept of practical Vedanta. As a Darsana, Advaita Vedanta was supposed to be practical because apart from being a metaphysics it had been a way of life. But in Buddha’s time due to dominance of priesthood, over-ceremonial practices and 88 discrimination based on Varna and caste its pure nature got polluted. To highlight the ideal of practical Vedanta Vivekananda claimed that there is no other perfect role model than Buddha! As per Vivekananda’s explanation traditional, theoretical and orthodox Advaita Vedanta is dry in nature.xli It created and advocated hierarchical structure. He cites example of Shankara as an advocate of orthodox hierarchical system. Vivekananda has criticised him for lacking of sympathy towards masses of low Varna class or caste. He cites Shankara’s comment from Bramhasutrabhasya which supports only privileged class. That’s why Vivekananda insists on the need of combining of Sankara’s brain with Buddha’s heart. This combination retains Vivekananda not only have blindness to Buddha’s heart but it also shows Shankara’s orthodox tendency. But at the same time, we should note Vivekananda never used phrase ‘Buddha’s brain with Sankara’s heart’. Reason is that he never accepted Buddha’s metaphysical views. He opines that though Sankara’s work regarding systematisation and revival of Advaita Vedanta is great still he was very orthodox in nature. It means that Vivekananda wants to keep Advaita Vedanta as his preferred doctrine but proposes that it should be understood and realised through with Buddha’s way. Why Buddha’s way? Because Buddha was never an orthodox in nature. He was open-minded, liberal and humane. According to Vivekananda these qualities are required for harmonisation of religion. His conception of practical Vedanta and Universal religion proposes these qualities. Unlike 89 traditional Advaita Vedantin who is ideal only in thought and not in practice, Vivekananda is always remains liberal in his attitude. This liberal attitude is an inspiration from Buddha and not Shankara. This can be understood by considering Vivekananda’s conception of true Karma-yogi. True Karma- yogi, according to Vivekananda, is always ready to serve all human beings. This idea of true Karma-yogi was fully developed in Vivekananda’s conception of Universal religion. And Buddha is role model for him to practice universal religion and true Karmayoga. As discussed in last chapter Universal religion is a way of life where every religion is respected. xliiIt doesn’t aim at constitute any particular religion as such but rather to cultivate cultivation attitude of maintaining harmony in all religions. Vivekananda accepts all religions as being true and proposes that everyone should follow religion as per his wish. And for doing this he has a role model in front of him – the Buddha! Because ‘Be good and do good’ is motto of Buddha and Vivekananda adheres to it. In Vivekananda’s universal religion there is freedom for everyone to follow any religious practice. It is interesting to note that once he said that there should be as many religions as many people. This view has a similarity with Buddha’s insistence that one should follow once own way. Vivekananda, like Buddha, focuses on ethical action. He understood that metaphysical differences will remain there because of diversity of religious practices. Different metaphysics beget differences and lead to discrimination. So, he 90 thought that better way is to focus of moral side of religions rather than metaphysical one for the sake of harmonisation. It doesn’t matter to which metaphysics one belongs to but what matters is how he/she acts morally immorally. his moral action. Definitely Vivekananda follows the footsteps of Buddha in this regard. So, he thought that it can be said that Buddha’s personality and thoughts have tremendous influence on Vivekananda’s which led him to practical Vedanta. His conception of universal religion is a combination of Advaita metaphysics with Buddha’s moral action. Philosophically Buddha’s metaphysics is totally different from Vedantic metaphysics. So, it would be wrong to call him practical Vedantin as Vivekananda did. For Vivekananda it is not problematic because he considers that Buddha is continuation of Vedantic tradition with its revised version.

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