Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

4/n



Back to the wiki page on Shramana: they're now claiming Yati and Muni too! And the word Tapas too (via Tapasa) - despite admitting that the ancient Brihadaranyaka Upanishad mentions Tapasa. Don't ya just love it? (Never mind that Tapas is known in say the Ramayanam and before. Didn't Vishvamitra and so many another Vedic Rishi do Tapas? But all of this must be disregarded in order to acquire Tapas for the "ur-Shramana" religion.)

There are only two references to the word Sramana in vedic literature.[9] One is in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad where it is placed next to the term 'tapasa', indicating that the Shramana like the tapasa was a class of mendicants.[9] It has been argued renunciation was not common to the Vedic society, with Yatis, Munis, Shramanas quoted amongst earliest renouncers.[10] In the pastoral cultures of Vedic people, the renouncer Munis and Yatis were looked down upon.[11] The renouncers meditated upon death, link between births and death conditioned by attachment to desire. These themes surface in vedic literature for the first time in the Upanishads. After passing through henotheism and pantheism, the anthropomorphism of Vedas entered the period of monotheism in the Upanishadic period.[9]

(Oh no, not "monotheism" <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> - doubly-obvious that non-Hindus/unHindus are writing this stuff.

Plus renunciation is clearly there even in the itihasas not to mention the earlier Vedic texts.)



It is in the Upanishadic period that theories identifiable with Shramanas come in direct contact with brahmanical ideals.[9] According to Ananda Guruge, a renowned Buddhist leader, the Sramana movement impacted Vedic education through the Upanishads, with debate and discussion replacing parrot-like repetition of the Vedas.[12]

Two things to comment on:

1. "It has been argued renunciation was not common to the Vedic society"?

Well, in contrast to this new claim: until recent years at least, the officially-voiced Buddhist complaint against Vedabrahmanas had been that a life of renunciation, i.e. of a sannyasa (which is admitted to have included yoga, which is especially mentioned), was only available to the Brahmanas - but only when these last were actually in that "4th stage of their live". Buddha's supposed revolution was always argued as offering the (note, as admitted: pre-existing) Hindu life of sannyasa to all people.* (But in making the argument, it was also explicitly admitted that not just Buddhism but even the Buddha had been forced to kick out the increasing numbers of those that - though willing - were not yet ready or else unable to comply with the strict demands/expectations, and seriously violated Buddhist monastic norms as a result. Eventually the Buddhist Sangha came up with the notion of a Buddhist laity, and relaxed rules for them. Meanwhile: In Hindu religion, laity following the path that comes natural to them or is familiar to them, while having a similar attitude of renouncing the fruit of their actions, were considered as attaining to the same Moksha as Brahmana and other Vedic ascetics, by means directly within their ken and reach. It's why Hindoo Religion was always the religion of the laity: it neither places impossible demands on them nor censures them as failures for not perfectly complying with such demands, nor denies them the pursuit of happiness in this world. It being an ethnic a.o.t. missionary religion, consequently Vedic society consisted of laity - as seen in Ramayanam, MBh.)



* The point to note was: this bit summarised a confession - in print! - that sannyasa (also repeated there as "monastic life") and Yoga existed in Vedic religion and predated Buddha hence Buddhism.







2. So Buddhism etc via the invented ur-Shramanism - placed backwards into time of course - is now to have influenced the Upanishads...



Since when does "it has been argued" form a statement that constitutes proof? (In that case: it has been argued that the world is flat too... Where do these people learn logic, btw?)

Note the way they draw conclusions/invent 'proof' of their imaginary ur-Shramanism: "It has been argued that renunciation was not common to Vedic society" <-> "Therefore Upanishads - containing highly developed notions pertaining to renunciation and ascetism - are not really Vedic/must have been influenced by the ur-Shramanism"



Christianism is clearly not the *only* religion that believes in claiming things Backwards In Time. Then again, such Buddhist claiming "techniques" have been applied to Daoism for a long time now. Hindus may at last start to feel the pinch. It's only fair after all. Why should such behaviour only impact (injure) other people and not those of India themselves, nah?



But it's always fascinating to see the claimant religions read *themselves* (rather than the general Sanskrit meanings) into Hindu Vedic literature. Their only "proof" of prior existence (in any form) is in *other* religions' literature, by choosing to interpret terms there to refer peculiarly to themselves. Apparently it is in all ways unlikely that others' literature is speaking of those others themselves: that Vedic literature could have been speaking of shramanas (in the general sense) amongst its own kind.

Why can't all these "Shramanic religions" find oral/textual proof of their existence - sorry, of the existence of the ur-Shramanism - in Vedic times? That is, find proof of themselves in their *own* texts/oral traditions of the period (not in later works projecting themselves into antiquity, obviously, nor read their pre-existence into other religions' works)?



Meanwhile, the Vedic materials show the internal derivation of ideas: the discussion and development and ponderings which concretised somewhat in the later Astika schools (the famous 6). All that the contenders positing the extraneous entity "Shramanism" can do - since they lack early evidence for earlier versions of themselves - is claim that anything in Vedic religion that they want for themselves "must therefore have been" derived from their posited ur-Shramanism instead. Circular "logic", of a specific type already familiar to Hindus in another famous matter of appropriation (one I was told I had no right to speak on, so I won't mention it). Hint: the positing of an entity, the claiming of existing elements A, B, C etc for that entity and then using the existence of A, B, C (etc) to prove that "therefore the entity is real". Then again, I suppose if the logic is allowed to hold for one, then every other mercenary opportunist would reasonably figure it to hold for them too. Makes for a nice pillage fest.





What has happened to important historical southern Hindu characters and their Hindu works is now spreading to consume all-Indian Hindu and even core Vedic material. Some years ago people were posting excerpts by Hindus invoking Patanjali's work to prove that Tiruvalluvar/Tirukurral were Hindu: that Tiruvalluvar's Tirukkural was parroting what was there in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Now that Patanjali's Yoga Sutras have essentially been donated to the Shramanic religions (in terms of "influence" at the very least). I predict there will definitely be Jain voices who will see the opportunity to reverse that argument - if they haven't done so already: to claim that "since Patanjali('s work) is 'obviously' Shramanic, this only further underscores that Tiruvalluvar/Tirukkural is too (and hence is Jain)!" Like I said, circular reasoning. And Hindus can't say anything about it, since everything is claimed from the intangible *ur*-Shramanism down. No proof of existence for the ur-Shramanism need be given - no proof of any ancient literary works or anything - and yet it can be used to claim all. A most handy device for appropriation.

(BTW, Patanjali is also famous for stipulating and instituting the Vedic (incl. Yoga-related) rites at Chidambaram Kovil which sets this mandiram apart from many of the other ancient Hindu Kovils of the region which are based on the Hindu Agama Shastras instead. <- The smallish implication in that statement was that Patanjali was doubly identifiable as a Vedic Hindoo (since Agamic Kovils are specifically of the Vedic religion themselves). But no doubt the Chidambaram Kovil's references to Patanjali will be dismissed as "but late Hindu tradition" about him - as so many other things are - in order to make it all "originally Shramanic" and "not really Hindu in essence".)





Oh it's getting better and better - so entertaining! (Well, until you remember these guys mean business - and that the world is full of Ready Believers not to mention Applauders who lap this stuff up):

The heterogenous nature of Upanishads shows infusions of both social and philosophical elements, pointing to evolution of new doctrines from non-brahmanical sources.[9] While the Upanishadic doctrines of Brahman and Atman can be traced back to the Vedas and Brahmanas, the doctrines of Transmigration (as punarjanma), Karma (as action), and Emancipation (as moksha) do not follow with consistency from vedic traditions, and are fundamental to the Shramana religions.[9]



Several śramaṇa movements are known to have existed in India, even before the 6th century BCE, and these influenced both the Astika and the Nastika traditions of Indian philosophy. It was as a Shramana that the Buddha left his father's palace and practised austerities.[14] The Brahmajāla Sutta mentions many śramaṇas with whom Buddha disagreed.[15] Some scholars [b]opine Sramanas of Jaina tradition were widespread in the Indus Valley, with the relics of Indus Valley civilization representing Jaina culture, like the standing nude male figures (Jaina Kayotsarga), idols in Padmasana and images with serpent-heads, and the Bull symbol of Vrshabadeva.[16][17][18][19][/b] However, other scholars opine the Sramana cultures arose and flourished in the Gangetic areas, rather than the Indus Valley.[12] Additionally, some scholars opine the term Shramana appears in texts of the Brahmanas as a religious order other than the Vedic (ie., Astika) traditions,[17]. (*Later* texts of Hindus do refer to non-lay adherents of the then-known nastika Jain, Buddhist, Ajeevika type religions as "Shramanas" - capital S sense - in distinction to those of the Vedic religion. But in such cases it was not used in a general sense anymore but the specific one it had gained by that time. But in ancient Hindu scriptures from Vedic texts to Ramayanam and Mahabharata, it is used in the general sense, as was also argued for the Ramayanam case at that link to its translation.)

The Shramana tradition of the Jaina religion is considered the oldest of the non-Aryan group, as an independent pre-Buddhist religion (Bhaskar, 1972), and is suggested to have existed before the brahmin cult.[20] From rock edicts, it is found that both Brahmans as well as Shramana Buddhist ascetics enjoyed equal sanctity.[21]

And they went and claimed the Padmasana too! But when they claim all of Yoga as "actually" theirs, what's one more asana, right?



Apparently they've not noticed the obvious, but the Vrishabha is very Vedic: the Bull is [Vedic] Dharma (the way Garuda is the vedam, and I think the Hamsa is - among other things - the parabrahmam and gnyanam). Not just in language (Samskritam!) It's the very name of Indra - repeat: he is known as the "Bull (the very Dharma) of the Vedas". It's also the name of many another Hindoo God incl. Shiva, Vishnu blablabla. So too it's the Dharma-embodied Vrishabha that Shiva significantly rides on. And this makes sense in the trio vahanas of the Hindus' trimUrti (vahanas hence also represented with Gayatri Devi): vR^iShabha, garuDa, haMsa.





Will return to the line highlighted in blue and bold later.