Post 3/3
To re-post some relevant stuff (on how it was already essentially known/to be guessed that Shourie was a Buddhist/that he was in the conversion phase):
koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/books/wiah/ch11.htm
Why that is relevant becomes apparent from the following:
rediff.com/news/2000/dec/01franc.htm
(IIRC Malhotra dabbles in, among other things, Vipassana also? I could have confused myself about all the modern movements he admitted to be in.)
The above article may explain where Shourie learnt to negate Hindu rituals and practices and praise Buddhist replacements/inculturations/"equivalents" to the sky. It's always amazing how Hindu/other heathen rituals are objectionable only when they exist in Hindu/heathen religion, but the minute they've been transposed/transferred into missionary religions such as being Bauddified into Buddhism or for creating Buddhist likenesses (or christianised into christianism), suddenly such originally-heathen rituals/practices become "proof of missionary religion" (Buddhism/christianism/whatever).
By some magical coincidence, it isn't just Shourie but also Malhotra who attack Hindu acharyas. A la that main Vipassana peddler in India.
Oh, and by the way, Goenka - of the Vipassana movement fame - is a major peddler of Ur-Shramanism (declared that Shramanism was to be recognised as being ancient like Vedic religion). Rather insistent on getting this pet fiction/theory recognised, in fact. (Since he sees how it could help in promoting Buddhism at the direct and deliberate expense of Hindu religion.) And since Shourie - besides Vipassana - seems to be on the same page regarding Hindu rituals and famous Hindu personages (like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa etc), and bats for "Buddhist rituals" [Vipassana] while dismissing Hindu ones,
I'm sure Shourie and other Vipassana practitioners - somewhere along the line - will start mouthing affirmations of belief in ur-Shramanism, unless they're already into that. Don't forget to blindly parrot your "guru" and all. (Many recent alien converts to Buddhism do subscribe to ur-Shramanism. Wonder which brand(s) of Buddhism is propagating this.)
A selection of comments to the VV article pasted 2 posts up follow. Particularly like the ones by DwaadashaakSha (sp?) below:
** An example in print are the statements of the previous Kanchi Shankaracharya, relevant portion reproduced here
Dwadasaksha makes the sort of (excellent, btw) points you never see Hindus make online.
As for the commenter's critique of Elst: Well, Koenraad Elst is just one of many who doesn't know the first thing about the religion he would talk about and which he would especially lecture others about. His following of new-agey aliens and Indians consists of... weird people admittedly, but they are naturally so, since they're the type to consciously choose to imbibe what he - of all people - lectures them about their ancestral Hindu religion. (Since when are Elst types the go-to for expertise on Hindu religion?)
More unsettling, perhaps, is that while Elst is not an ethnic Hindu and (fortunately) not a "convert" either, there are those who have Hindu ancestry who have about the same class of opinions as Elst/same degree ('means') of "knowledge". Not all subversion can be blamed on alien interference. And even in those cases were it can, there would be no subversion had there been no subvertibility. I.e. own fault.
What bothers me is Shourie chooses the mantle of crypto-buddhism - as opposed to open, outright Buddhism - to attack Hindu religion and peddle Buddhism with (he is very much *missionising*, which is what the statement in Pramod's article describes: "he is in a great hurry to damn all religions except Buddhism. Now that he has found some solace through Buddhist philosophy, every other religion is held faulty and all his readers should now find refuge in Buddhism as he did.")
The only reason for Shourie to go the crypto route is to get a Hindu audience that won't immediately recognise and dismiss his overtures as proselytising (although, admittedly, Hindus never recognise even overt Buddhist/Jain attempts at missionising) and which Hindu audience he may therefore hope to exert some influence on. (The Indian audience of his 'guru' Goenka - the audience for Vipassana - is similarly also said to be [99%] Hindu, as per the Gautier article. And which Goenka likewise exerts a missionary influence on: case in point is Shourie.)
He's free to be a Buddhist and free also to attack Hindu religion (and free to stand and take all reverse criticism), but should change the name of his son from Aditya to something Buddhist hereafter. Because No, the Adityas have nothing to do with Buddhism and everything to do with the Vedic religion of the Hindus Onlee. Can't poach on Hindu religion AND attack it, after all, which is something only hypocrites/missionaries (inculturationists) do.
Added:
Some things fundamentally wrong with this comment by one "Ramu" at the VV article:
And The Errors Are... :drumroll: -
* Pretending that the Gods are not something rational and are merely something that appeals to the "heart" (which term is often used as a source of sentiment than sense, especially when contrasted with "mind" as Ramu does above). The Gods are real and all heathenisms correctly treat their Gods as real. That heathens love their Gods is contingent on their being aware of/acknowledging the realness of their Gods.
* In contrast, the multiple Buddhas are a known fiction - their evolution/concoction is easy to follow. (As is the sainting of others' Gods as "bodhisatvas" etc by Buddhism, in order to hijack others' Gods for the purpose of spreading Buddhism). In that case, why pretend Hindu and other heathen religions appeal to the heart and Buddhism to the mind? Hindu and other such religions appeal to people fond of the truth and who are not prone to swear by a sequence of fictional entities like the post-Buddha (and post-early Buddhism) invention of multiple Buddhas.
* The reason that Bauddified laity in Asia turn to their ancestral Gods is because their ancestral Asian Gods are real, whereas turning to the multiple Buddhas results in "unanswered prayers" (for obvious reasons). This is why Guan-Yin as a Goddess remains popular in Buddhism, and Buddhism repeatedly comes to terms with this: the actual Daoist Goddess under the Bauddhified mask is real. Things cease to work out as well when modern Buddhists try to present her as a male since of course the Bodhisatva Guan-Yin is supposed to be a male character.
* Also, Bauddified laity reverting to ancestral and neighbouring Gods is because heathen religions work. And because for centuries much of the so-called 'Buddhist' laity was often not really properly Bauddhicised: they know more about their heathenisms' Gods than they do about Bauddha dharma. Some worshipping the Buddha exclusively do so with Daoist rituals (and Daoist ideals/views about the Gods). It is only in more recent decades where Buddhism - via Buddhist organisations - has started to demand of E Asian laity that these choose between their ancestral Gods and Bauddha Dharma. This last is worse than a lot of the bad blood that has passed before, because confused Bauddhified laity often think they are more Buddhist than Daoist/Shinto merely because their family got stuck with calling itself with the 'Buddhist' label, so they gradually are made to relinquish their ancestral Gods.
[color="#FF0000"]The only stuff worth reading in these last 3 posts was:[/color]
* rajeev2004.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/pramod-kumars-rebuttal-of-arun-shouries.html
* vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=3040
And especially also the 2 comments there by DwaadashaakSha
* And the statement by Elst that "Shourie himself is a practitioner of Buddhist Vipassana meditation"
* rediff.com/news/2000/dec/01franc.htm
Note also that Goenka of the Vipassana movement - who, as per the above, attacks Hindu religion, Gods and acharyas/saints while peddling Buddhism to his masses of Hindu adherents of Vipassana in India - is further also an active proponent of Ur-Shramanism, trying to get "Shramanism" recognised as being as ancient as Vedic religion (meaning he wants to claim an independent origin for Buddhism/modern shramanism in the concocted ur-Shramanism).
To re-post some relevant stuff (on how it was already essentially known/to be guessed that Shourie was a Buddhist/that he was in the conversion phase):
koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/books/wiah/ch11.htm
Quote:One thing in Ambedkarââ¬â¢s career which Shourie has not criticized, is his conversion to Buddhism, except to say that Ambedkar had developed a rather personal version of Buddhism. Shourie himself is a practitioner of Buddhist Vipassana meditation, ...
Why that is relevant becomes apparent from the following:
rediff.com/news/2000/dec/01franc.htm
Quote:Francois Gautier
Buddhism makes a comeback in India
[...]
Today, unobtrusively, Buddhism seems to be making a great comeback in India through the Vipassana movement of Shri Goenka, who learnt the technique in Burma from a great Master and brought it back to India in the late sixties.
The remarkable Vipassana meditation is originally a Vedic technique, which had been lost and which Buddha rediscovered again.
[color="#800080"](OLD COMMENT: Well, various Yoga forms of meditation are still extant and still Hindu Yoga. Don't know anything about Vipassana in particular, though.
NEW INSERT: To add to the above old comment: Official Buddhist sites, Buddhist Vipassana sites, admit Vipassana was a technique that predates the Buddha and that he merely "rediscovered" it. If it pre-existed, then it pre-existed Buddhism, which means... well, the obvious.
Whether the modern Vipassana movement teaches an authentic, ancient practice or whether the movement is merely "reconstructionist" I haven't bothered to find out. But the latter would imply it's merely new-age. That it appeals to new-agey people certainly implies it, and also its business model of peddling, not to mention Goenka's push for having Hindus acknowledge Ur-Shramanism etc.)[/color]
In the hands of Siddartha Gautama, it became a simple, self-liberation method, accessible to all, regardless of their caste, religion, or social status. Hence its immense success in Buddha's time, when Hinduism had lost some of its appeal because of too much philosophical talk, casteism and rituals.
[color="#0000FF"]Shri Goenka keeps emphasising today that his Vipassana movement is still non-sectarian, open to all, whatever their religion and nationality. But it appears not to have lost some of the anti-Hindu slant that post-Buddha sects adopted (as evident in today's Sinhalese Buddhism). At every sentence of his discourses (meditators usually attend ten days' courses, where at the end of each day, they watch a video tape of Goenkaji, commenting on the technique), Goenka takes a subtle potshot at Hinduism, whether it is the "rites, rituals, Gods, images", or the "priests" (Brahmins), who tried to malign Buddha, or the sadhus "with their beads, matted hair, Shiva marks etc", or Varanasi, "a holy city full of hashish and bhang."[/color] Or else, he riles contemporary Hindu gurus and movements (without naming them openly, but they are easily recognised): Sai Baba "with all these hospitals, schools, etc, with his name inscribed on them"; or Rajneesh/Osho "with this fleet of Rolls Royces"; or the Hare Krishna movement "dancing Hare Krishna this and Hare Krishna that"ââ¬Â¦
[color="#800080"](I don't care for ISKCON myself, so no comment. Osho is Jain I think (?), so his being dismissed by Goenka may be a relic of Buddhist animosity to Jainism?)[/color]
It is rarely mentioned today that Buddhism, like Islam and Christianity has been a proselytising religion, even if it was done peacefully: Emperor Ashoka's missionaries went all over Asia and converted huge chunks of territory. But Buddhism came out of Hinduism and ultimately went back to it, as the millions of Indian Buddhists of the beginning of our era, eventually reverted to Hinduism. This is why Buddhists may have kept a certain resentment against Hinduism.
Shri Goenka's Vipassana meditation technique is today practiced by millions in India, because it is such a simple and effective procedure. But Shri Goenka's greatest fear is, that like after Buddha's demise, when Hinduism started eating back into the core of Buddhism, after his death (Goenkaji is nearing 80), the same thing will happen to the Vipassana movement.
[color="#0000FF"]Hence, at every step, he warns his practitioners, that if they liked the technique, they should, when they go back to the world, use it exclusively "and not revert to rites, rituals, etc" -- meaning that they should become Buddhists (even if he does not say so in so many words) and shun Hinduism.[/color] But what Shri Goenka fails to see is that on the one hand, he is promoting conversion, even if it is not in a blatant manner; and two, that once more, someone is taking advantage of Hinduism's great tolerance and openness.
For of course, 99 per cent of Vipassana meditators in India are Hindus -- I have attended more than a dozen ten days' courses and I have seen only one or two Christian nuns and never a single Muslim. Only Hindus recognise Buddha as an avatar, Muslims consider him as an infidel and indeed erased all traces of Him in India; and Christians tend to think that only Jesus is the true Son of God.
[...]
(IIRC Malhotra dabbles in, among other things, Vipassana also? I could have confused myself about all the modern movements he admitted to be in.)
The above article may explain where Shourie learnt to negate Hindu rituals and practices and praise Buddhist replacements/inculturations/"equivalents" to the sky. It's always amazing how Hindu/other heathen rituals are objectionable only when they exist in Hindu/heathen religion, but the minute they've been transposed/transferred into missionary religions such as being Bauddified into Buddhism or for creating Buddhist likenesses (or christianised into christianism), suddenly such originally-heathen rituals/practices become "proof of missionary religion" (Buddhism/christianism/whatever).
By some magical coincidence, it isn't just Shourie but also Malhotra who attack Hindu acharyas. A la that main Vipassana peddler in India.
Oh, and by the way, Goenka - of the Vipassana movement fame - is a major peddler of Ur-Shramanism (declared that Shramanism was to be recognised as being ancient like Vedic religion). Rather insistent on getting this pet fiction/theory recognised, in fact. (Since he sees how it could help in promoting Buddhism at the direct and deliberate expense of Hindu religion.) And since Shourie - besides Vipassana - seems to be on the same page regarding Hindu rituals and famous Hindu personages (like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa etc), and bats for "Buddhist rituals" [Vipassana] while dismissing Hindu ones,
I'm sure Shourie and other Vipassana practitioners - somewhere along the line - will start mouthing affirmations of belief in ur-Shramanism, unless they're already into that. Don't forget to blindly parrot your "guru" and all. (Many recent alien converts to Buddhism do subscribe to ur-Shramanism. Wonder which brand(s) of Buddhism is propagating this.)
A selection of comments to the VV article pasted 2 posts up follow. Particularly like the ones by DwaadashaakSha (sp?) below:
Quote:The target audience for this article is the English educated Hindu with a confused understanding of Hinduism. Correcting such distortions is also a priority for those who are involved in teaching Hinduism and this cannot be belittled as 'quarreling'. There are many spiritual organizations involved in addressing the needs and suffering of the poor.
Nachiketas
[color="#0000FF"]An important critique, Mr. Pramod. However I think a main point is missed out here. People find Hindu texts as armchair recommendations while Buddhist *meditations* to be solutions: precisely because they *read* Hindu texts while go through some form of practice for other traditions including Buddhism. If you ask Arun Shourie whether he contrasted Buddhist meditation with any of the 32 Upanishadic vidyas, the answer is anyone's guess. The locus standi of comparison is a problem.
Another minor disagreement with this critique is the advaita-dvaita distinction as reason-devotion. It is not so. Jnana marga includes dvaitic and advaitic schools. Similarly bhakti is there in both advaitic and dvaitic schools.
Dwadasaksha[/color]
@Dwadasaksha - Agree with your points.
1. The Dvaita-Advaita reference was an oversimplification for the purpose of condensing the argument, not to be taken literally.
2. There are many practices in Hinduism also such as japam, meditation (yoga sutras, gita). Q is how did Shourie miss all those or why does he choose to ignore them?
Pramod
I read that book in malayalam..can we treat those opinions as opinions of a mentally distressed common man..?
sreehari
[color="#0000FF"]Dear @Pramod,
There is a strange kind of dichotomy in a non-traditionalist scholar's view of Hinduism. The entire range of karma is 'ritualistic' and hence to be shunned as some orthodoxy/superstition/whatever. The umpteen repetitions of acaryas emphasizing the karma as a prerequisite for viveka is ignored with contempt.** On the other hand the "intellectual" aspect of jnana marga is seen in isolation and outside its practicing sphere as if vedanta or jnana marga is not a school of rigorous practice but of some dry philosophizing.
To a lesser extent we can see this in Koenraad Elst's condescension for mantra-devata upasana as something the ritualists hijacked the original "philosophical" idea of yoga with - ignoring how it is a philosophy of practice in the first place.
Arun Shourie is but one visible expression of a wider phenomenon, hence this critique is very important and necessary.
Dwadasaksha[/color]
** An example in print are the statements of the previous Kanchi Shankaracharya, relevant portion reproduced here
Dwadasaksha makes the sort of (excellent, btw) points you never see Hindus make online.
As for the commenter's critique of Elst: Well, Koenraad Elst is just one of many who doesn't know the first thing about the religion he would talk about and which he would especially lecture others about. His following of new-agey aliens and Indians consists of... weird people admittedly, but they are naturally so, since they're the type to consciously choose to imbibe what he - of all people - lectures them about their ancestral Hindu religion. (Since when are Elst types the go-to for expertise on Hindu religion?)
More unsettling, perhaps, is that while Elst is not an ethnic Hindu and (fortunately) not a "convert" either, there are those who have Hindu ancestry who have about the same class of opinions as Elst/same degree ('means') of "knowledge". Not all subversion can be blamed on alien interference. And even in those cases were it can, there would be no subversion had there been no subvertibility. I.e. own fault.
What bothers me is Shourie chooses the mantle of crypto-buddhism - as opposed to open, outright Buddhism - to attack Hindu religion and peddle Buddhism with (he is very much *missionising*, which is what the statement in Pramod's article describes: "he is in a great hurry to damn all religions except Buddhism. Now that he has found some solace through Buddhist philosophy, every other religion is held faulty and all his readers should now find refuge in Buddhism as he did.")
The only reason for Shourie to go the crypto route is to get a Hindu audience that won't immediately recognise and dismiss his overtures as proselytising (although, admittedly, Hindus never recognise even overt Buddhist/Jain attempts at missionising) and which Hindu audience he may therefore hope to exert some influence on. (The Indian audience of his 'guru' Goenka - the audience for Vipassana - is similarly also said to be [99%] Hindu, as per the Gautier article. And which Goenka likewise exerts a missionary influence on: case in point is Shourie.)
He's free to be a Buddhist and free also to attack Hindu religion (and free to stand and take all reverse criticism), but should change the name of his son from Aditya to something Buddhist hereafter. Because No, the Adityas have nothing to do with Buddhism and everything to do with the Vedic religion of the Hindus Onlee. Can't poach on Hindu religion AND attack it, after all, which is something only hypocrites/missionaries (inculturationists) do.
Added:
Some things fundamentally wrong with this comment by one "Ramu" at the VV article:
Quote:[...]
There would be many who would disagree with his read on Buddhism. Many consider Buddhism to be over intellectual, sterile and dry for a crisis beset human being. While robust on the level of though, it is also alleged to be overly philosophic. A religion has to appeal to the heart and not just the mind. Buddhists in Japan turn to Shinto deities for solace. Buddhists in China turn to Taoist divinities for help. Buddhists in Thailand and Burma turn to the spirits for help. Buddhists in Nepal and Sri Lanka turn to the Hindu Gods when faced with an existential crisis. Now, what does this tell you about Buddhism? It obviously does not meet a core need of man for its adherants to routinely look outside for solace and help. There is more to life than Nirvana.
[...]
And The Errors Are... :drumroll: -
* Pretending that the Gods are not something rational and are merely something that appeals to the "heart" (which term is often used as a source of sentiment than sense, especially when contrasted with "mind" as Ramu does above). The Gods are real and all heathenisms correctly treat their Gods as real. That heathens love their Gods is contingent on their being aware of/acknowledging the realness of their Gods.
* In contrast, the multiple Buddhas are a known fiction - their evolution/concoction is easy to follow. (As is the sainting of others' Gods as "bodhisatvas" etc by Buddhism, in order to hijack others' Gods for the purpose of spreading Buddhism). In that case, why pretend Hindu and other heathen religions appeal to the heart and Buddhism to the mind? Hindu and other such religions appeal to people fond of the truth and who are not prone to swear by a sequence of fictional entities like the post-Buddha (and post-early Buddhism) invention of multiple Buddhas.
* The reason that Bauddified laity in Asia turn to their ancestral Gods is because their ancestral Asian Gods are real, whereas turning to the multiple Buddhas results in "unanswered prayers" (for obvious reasons). This is why Guan-Yin as a Goddess remains popular in Buddhism, and Buddhism repeatedly comes to terms with this: the actual Daoist Goddess under the Bauddhified mask is real. Things cease to work out as well when modern Buddhists try to present her as a male since of course the Bodhisatva Guan-Yin is supposed to be a male character.
* Also, Bauddified laity reverting to ancestral and neighbouring Gods is because heathen religions work. And because for centuries much of the so-called 'Buddhist' laity was often not really properly Bauddhicised: they know more about their heathenisms' Gods than they do about Bauddha dharma. Some worshipping the Buddha exclusively do so with Daoist rituals (and Daoist ideals/views about the Gods). It is only in more recent decades where Buddhism - via Buddhist organisations - has started to demand of E Asian laity that these choose between their ancestral Gods and Bauddha Dharma. This last is worse than a lot of the bad blood that has passed before, because confused Bauddhified laity often think they are more Buddhist than Daoist/Shinto merely because their family got stuck with calling itself with the 'Buddhist' label, so they gradually are made to relinquish their ancestral Gods.
[color="#FF0000"]The only stuff worth reading in these last 3 posts was:[/color]
* rajeev2004.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/pramod-kumars-rebuttal-of-arun-shouries.html
* vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=3040
And especially also the 2 comments there by DwaadashaakSha
* And the statement by Elst that "Shourie himself is a practitioner of Buddhist Vipassana meditation"
* rediff.com/news/2000/dec/01franc.htm
Note also that Goenka of the Vipassana movement - who, as per the above, attacks Hindu religion, Gods and acharyas/saints while peddling Buddhism to his masses of Hindu adherents of Vipassana in India - is further also an active proponent of Ur-Shramanism, trying to get "Shramanism" recognised as being as ancient as Vedic religion (meaning he wants to claim an independent origin for Buddhism/modern shramanism in the concocted ur-Shramanism).