Buddhism is reformed Brahmanism

Some modern scholars like Karl Werner and others have argued, and with good reasons, that Buddhism should be treated as “reformed Brahmanism”; not just some new religion on the block of ancient India, but one instead that cut away the heavy overgrowth of vines that for a long time hid the ancient Vedic path to the absolute.  

For those of us who have been frequent readers of the Pali canon there is much to support the theory that Buddhism, in fact, is reformed Brahmanism.  Accepting this theory as plausible, not only does this theory help towards getting a clearer and more accurate picture of Buddhism, but it lays bare or rather makes explicit what is often implicit in Buddhism:  that Buddhism is a path to the transcendent.  This is clear in the last chapter of the Dhammapada, The Brâhmin chapter, consisting of forty-one verses and other places like in the Sutta-Nipata, in particular, the Vasettha Sutta which is about the correct definition of a Brahmin.  In other passages from the Sutta-Nipata we learn that a Brahmin “has transcended the limits of mundane existence” (795) which is exactly what awakened Buddhists do. In the Itivuttaka (IV, i) the Buddha even declares that he is a Brahmin!

"Monks, I am a brahmin, one to ask a favor of, ever clean-handed, wearing my last body, incomparable physician and surgeon.  Ye are my own true sons, born of my mouth, born of dhamma, created by dhamma, my spiritual heirs, not carnal heirs." 

There is much more evidence to support the claim that Buddhism is reformed Brahmanism than I can present in this current blog.  However, I will add this.  The Sanskrit scholar Christian Lindtner, in a journal article entitled "From Brahmanism to Buddhism" (Asian Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1999), argues that canonical Buddhism should be seen as reformed Brahmanism.  The following is from his introduction.

"In earlier as well as later Indian Buddhist sources we can often read, that the sramana Gautama is identified with Brahmâ (m.), or Mahâbrahmâ, that his Dharma is identified with Brahman (n.), that he and his monks—those that follow the true mârga—are the true brahmans, in other words that the ratnatraya of Buddhism is the true form of Brahmanism.  Furthermore, Brahman and Nirvana are used as synonyms (not just in Buddhist texts), the Buddha is said to know the Veda(s), and the purpose of following his teaching about Dharma (dharmadesanâ) is to become one with Brahman.

In a passage in the old Suttanipata (II.7) some wealthy brahmans ask Bhagavat: "Do brahmans now, Gotama, live in conformity with the brahmanical lore of the brahmans of old?"  "No, brahmans, brahmans now do not live in comfort with the brahmanical lore of the brahmans of old."  "Then let the venerable Gotama tell us about the brahmanical lore of the brahmans of old, if it is not too much trouble for him."  "Then listen, brahmans, pay careful attention.  I shall tell you."

There are, of course, numerous scriptural passages to the same effect: that Gautama was considered (and considered himself) an authority on matters of Brahman, that he, in other words, was considered as a Vedic scholar.  The Buddha, in short, is the true Brahmâ, who teaches about the true Brahman to his disciples, the true brahmans.  If this is historically true, one can in this sense claim that ancient Buddhism is reformed Brahmanism."

In the rest of the article, Lindtner goes into quite a bit of detail making his case that the transcendent of Brahmanism and Buddhism are essentially one and the same.  

As with most good reformations, the Buddha’s included, they attempt to bring back into focus what has been lost for various reasons.  Gautama’s reformation did just that, it brought back into focus the transcendent and the path to reach it.  The Buddha in one Sutta tells Ananda that the “Noble Eightfold Path is the designation for the vehicle of Brahma (brahma-yana), for the vehicle of Dhamma” (S. v. 5).

Those who wish to argue to the contrary, that Buddhism was altogether anti-brahmanical really haven’t much evidence on their side when the canon is put under examination.  There is no real evidence to suggest the Buddha was out to stomp down Brahmanism.  He was only out to reform it.

 

Comments

[BuddhaShiva1]

Buddha had many things to say about the Vedas, here is one of them:

"He who attains true knowledge of Dharma or righteousness through the Vedas, attains a steady position. He does not waver." Sutta Nipata 292

[star]

@azanshi. I wonder, my friend, if you aren't confusing the term "ariyan" with "arrogant"? You seem to be mistaking what you imagine to be true (for example, about me) for actual knowledge, as if you are in a dream in which you have the Dhamma Eye opened and now have Psychic Powers but have yet to notice you are still asleep, and are still Powerless. I do not assume that you are stupid, or ignorant, or ill-informed, but I am not getting evidence from your posts that you are not, either. This idle banter could be entertaining, but is empty.

How about carrying on a conversation with me in which we both start from the assumption that each of us has a normal amount of intelligence, has practiced, and that we are on more or less the same path? It may turn out we have more in common in our understanding than has been displayed so far.

Perhaps we could talk about, for example, why the Buddha preached, since what he preached seems dangerous territory for us to try to travel together.

[azanshi]

@star

While the aryan operates from a dynamic paradigm of genuine gnosis, the puthujana operates from a mere collection of self-empty ideas. However well spoken, literate or "politically" correct in a group of like-minded peers, the latter still remains a puthujana and hence vulnerable to a multitude of errors, by mixing his own agnosis with past, present and future conditions of an everchanging matrix (samsara).

Sorry, but with your current standpoints in matters of the buddhadharma, you are basically fucked. Don´t worry my american friend, time will soon enough tell you why.

[star]

@azanshi: You seem to be starching up a colorful and dramatic dress and standing it in a lecturing pose so that I can imagine a finger waggling at me, but so little is actually coming from the direction of the empty dress that am puzzled at why I am continuing to look in the direction of your runway show.

The content is missing from your posts. No amount of pretty or garish word froth is going to impress me. It's so easy to say -"It's too mystical to describe, it cannot come through understanding"-, and yet zenmar does a pretty good job of describing it, and he must have some sense that words can help to convey it or he wouldn't still be here writing.

It would be great if we could talk in a way that gave us a chance to see what ideas we share and where we depart, but your tone doesn't seem to indicate any interest in communicating your understanding, much less any willingness to try to understand anyone else's point of view. The only thing I'm getting from your posts are mystical frills on that empty dress, and a few almost entertaining insults addressed to some person you are imagining who bears very little relation to me.

I'm not sure why it seems necessary to assume that someone who disagrees with one's understanding is necessarily stupid, ignorant, or ill-informed. Isn't there just the slightest possibility that one might not have a corner on the truth, that just maybe everyone who disagrees not an idiot?

[azanshi]

Star wrote; "The need to find something special in us is very strong and that is what this "transcendent" "spirit" is all about. But it's not what the Buddha taught."

Another inept comment from this closet nihilist. Having visited your blog and having read some of your material I cannot but laugh at the initial headline on the top of your blog. You write "
Suffering from a passion for words, and to understand what the Buddha taught, and why "

One cannot "understand" what "Buddha taught". One doesnt wake up from the bed one day and exclaim; ah! Now i see what he meant!" In the light of the awesome nature found in the first true revelation/recollection of ones Buddhanature, any conceptual analysis, deductive reasoning, or other logical attempt to isolate this nature Buddha speaks of so many times in all his discourses, it is not his words that will enlighten you however many times you try to understand them, but his spiritual message preceding the words. That message is crystal clear, everflowing, right there before your eyes as what I can best describe as ethereal substance of infinite dynamics. It is solid, yet swifter than any thought, thus the creator of thought. It is permanent, unchanging, beginningless and thus pure nirvana because change corruption suffering and pain cannot touch it.

All great zen masters have testified about this wonderful Mind, so has the author in his own special way and of course all future mind masters will do the same because all see the same Mind in their spirit, once enlightenment of their true nature is achieved.

Now when a simpleton like you open your gob and quack platitudes from a conditioned study of what you percieve to be the real dharma, most lay buddhists and newbies might listen to you and even follow your confused thought patterns, all born from avidya and not vidya.

But the price for such is that you deprive yourself from Buddhas awakening because you seem to love to ride the waves of this fickle sea of semantics and failed logical deductions of what initself is super logical (supra-positional). You have obviously yet to see that the real entrance into the stream that is the Unborn Mind, demands a mind and spirit, so pure and free from any binding to the aggregates that only a firm cut with manjusris sword will save you from any regenrative formation whenever you even for an instant fail to see and affirm this true nature of the Buddhadharma.

The Chan masters offered this sword in the form of koans and once entrance into the stream was achieved, directions and proper practise in navigating to the other shore, until full enlightenment was achieved.

So buddy, wake up and smell stench of your own ignorance. It is a scent you will have to live with many, many lifetimes ahead. After all you you are such an understanding guy that seeks to understand what cannot possibly be understood with this grey lump you call brain which is your initial mistake.

You americans. You are truly the pinnacle of humanity´s spiritual corruption in its most depraved forms. Even the Buddhadharma suffers a lowpoint in the black waters of your quasi intellectual excursions. The battle the author does in his brave defence of what remains of the original dharma will eventually dissappear as he one day soon will leave this world. The Buddha predicted the dharma ending age. Nothing can change that. You are but one of those myriad dharma corruptors that karmically are predestined to enable this ending with your need to spread you confused agnostic insights of this great light-maker instead of keeping your mouth shut and your eyes and ears alert to what really takes place before your brain distorts this living miracle known as the Buddhadharma.