Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

9/n



I wondered how wackypedians would explain away the derivation of anatman, but found more memorable stuff instead: on this next page it does not claim all Upanishads yet (it not having been brought to speed with the developments on wacky's Shramanism page, I suspect. Besides: that the formulation of anatman necessarily succeeds the Hindus' atman concept is a fact that can't be denied). However, the page does specifically mention one Upanishad by name as being "post-Buddhist" and "therefore" - via conjectures using "possibly" - influenced by Buddhism:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta

While the pre-Buddhist Upanishads link the Self to the attitude "I am," others like the post-Buddhist Maitri Upanishad hold that only the defiled individual self, rather than the universal self, thinks "this is I" or "this is mine". According to Peter Harvey,



This is very reminiscent of Buddhism, and may well have been influenced by it to divorce the universal Self from such egocentric associations.[40]

Negations of what Is Not the Brahman/Self/whatever, as well as affirmations of the totality indeed being Brahman/Self/... is typically Upanishadic. And the negation of possessiveness ("mine") is another common Hindu notion - underpins renunciation in general of frugal Hindus and of cultivating a renunciatory attitude toward, say, the phalam accruing to oneself from performing Vedic rites. Also: IIRC the Gita also makes a difference between the real Self and being misled by thoughts of "mine", and misidentifying the self with those things that are not self (the latter fits with typically Samkhyan distinctions between what is and is not the purusha).





And then the Wacky page on this upanishad:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitrayaniya_Upanishad

The Maitrayaniya Upanishad (Sanskrit: मैत्रायणीय उपनिषद्, Maitrāyaṇīya Upaniṣad) or the Maitri Upanishad (Sanskrit: मैत्री उपनिषद्, Maitrī Upaniṣad) belongs to the Maitri or Maitrayaniya shakha (branch) of the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda, though some texts assign it to the Sāmaveda. It figures as number 24 in the Muktika canon of 108 Upanishads under the name of the Maitrāyaṇi Upanishad, which is included there as a Sāmānya Upanishad, associated with the Samaveda. The Dīpikā, a notable commentary on this text was written by Rāmatirtha.



Rhys Davis (n.d.: unpaginated) holds that within the manuscripts of this text is the earliest documented Sanskrit literary usage of the term 'samadhi' (Sanskrit). It was first found in the Tipitaka in Pali [1]

(I hope they don't intend that last as some argument for earliest antiquity:

Just because manuscripts of the Buddhist Tipitaka have been better preserved - and for that reason feature the now oldest *remaining* written reference to Samadhi, does not mean that the Tripitaka - or even Buddhism - predates the Hindus' usage of it.... Moreover, the Vedam - including the Upanishad portions - have been oral tradition since ages before they have been available in written form. So the presence of this statement in the page means nothing.)



The Upanishad is post-Ashokan, and shows signs of Buddhist influence.[2][3]

Interesting to note how Buddhism etc keep insinuating themselves into Wacky pages on Hindu matter. Rather like how they derailed Wacky's page on either Patanjali or his Yogasutras into being all about Jainism and Buddhism in the end. They sound very desperate to pretend they are the authors (backwards in time of course) of everything in Hindus' Vedic religion.



However, I'm surprised the Buddhists (or else the various ur-Shramanism-peddlers) didn't first pounce on say the Shvetasvatara Upanishad since it mentions Yoga and Samkhya. Is it an oversight? Then again, according to a Hindoo book from the mid 80s, a shloka from the Shvetashvatara is quoted by the Gita and hence makes it older than the Gita. (The author was also inclined to think that, since the SU repeated statements from a couple of Upanishads known to be ancient but presumably not from Upanishads considered later, this does not preclude the possibility of the SU being even contemporaneous with those earlier Upanishads which it chimed in with.)





Oh but this next in a comment to an article by Elst is another timely find. Looks to contain a crucial reason why Buddhism would have moved swiftly in order to claim this Upanishad was necessarily "influenced" by Buddhism: Yoga-related stuff.

The stuff in the comment appears to contain indicators concerning chronology of the Buddha/Buddhism with respect to the same Maitri Upanishad (though referred to here by its other name) and some apparently Yoga-type practices alluded to in the MU. The sentence structure looks to imply chronology, in specific that the Buddha came *after* this Upanishad's allusion to a Yoga-practice that allows the Muni state to be attained:



koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2010/08/origins-of-hatha-yoga.html

Harish said...

"The khecharI mudra is a yogic practice of great antiquity emerging in late vedic stratum first represented in the maitrayaNIyopaniShad the only surviving portion of the maitrAyaNIya brAhmaNa in both manuscript and a precarious oral tradition. In this text the khecharI mudra is expounded by shAkAyanya to the magadhan king bR^ihadratha along with proto-“kuNDalini” yoga (MaiU 6.20-21). The khecharI mudra here is described as the great practice by which one has the experience of brahmaivAhamasmi, a key teaching of vedAnta. The practice was incorporated into the early classical yoga of epic period. Subsequently, it was acknowledged by the tathAgata as a means of achieving the state of a muni. It is clear that in one his sutta-s known as the nAlaka sutta (verse 38), in the mahAvagga of the suttanipAta, the tathAgata expounds the khecharI mudra just as in the upaniShad as the means of achieve the state of knowledge i.e. that of the muni.



manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/some-notes-on-khechari-mudra/"

So not a "post-Buddhist" (let alone "post-Ashokan") Upanishad "influenced by Buddhism" after all? (Or at the very least not where the described Yoga practice is concerned - and which was exactly the sort of thing which enticed all and sundry into claiming such Upanishads' contents for themselves in the first place.) Oh well, too bad: Buddhism/Shramanism/whatever, Try Try Again tomorrow. No doubt they'll next argue that "the great antiquity (of this yogic practice)" implies it was of the "Shramana Religion" originally, and that its emergence in only "the late vedic stratum of the M-Upanishad" implies the direction of borrowing from the hypothesised ur-Shramanism *into* Vedic religion <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />





Gave the main article by Elst a brief glance and it promises to be rather amusing: it appears he wants to donate Kundalini Yoga to Daoism? The attempt certainly marks a change from the numerous western books on "eastern religions" from the 80s and 90s which sought to absurdly donate this, that and the other core Daoist thing to *Hindu* (naturally not Buddhist) religion - including even the Qi, btw.* So I guess western writers on eastern religions will keep dilly-dallying on this from one double-decade to the other, depending on who they want to strike at. Aliens are such experts on heathen religions of the east after all, knowing it first-hand and all, that theirs are *surely* the books that must be read in order for native heathens to learn about heathenisms - including even heathens' own. atire: (Am I wrong?)



* Guess why they did it, what was in it for the aliens.





There's one more important thing that is being encroached on - a start has certainly been made and I suspect it will develop further since it's too much of an opportunity for missionary opportunists to miss out on. But best to wait and see if I'm right first before bringing it up. Hint: the looney fringe had already made noises about this - but quite self-inconsistent ones. When/if it will travel into the publicly visible and frequented spaces (like wackypedia), I don't know. But if it does, it will only doubly underline how it's all about stealing The Hindoo Laity for themselves. I.e. nothing more than mercenary opportunism on their part. Some will do anything to acquire converts, after all.