Hinduism vs Buddhism?

In 1867 F. Max Müller, a noted translator of Indian religious texts including some Buddhist texts said, "Hinduism is a decrepit religion, and has not many years to live."  Well, so much for Max Müller’s predictive powers! The word Hinduism first appears in the English lexicon in 1829. It is not a term of Indian origin, it stems from Persian. In Sanskrit it would be “Sindu.”

The term Hindu was invented by British colonialists to describe India's complex religious culture as if it were coherent enough to be construed as a single, systematic religion. In that light, it is a mistake to pit the term “Hinduism" against Buddhism as some modern Western Buddhists are of the bad habit of doing.  Colonialist inventors didn't understand Indian religious culture or its history, moreover, that such diversity could not be homogenized into a single religion.  It should be noted, by the time the colonialists coined their word, there was no Buddhism in India.  It had disappeared or was assimilated.  Also the savage Muslim invasions of India took its toll on both Indian culture and religion.

Despite the fact that Hinduism is a colonialist term that is problematic, it still doesn’t seem to stop Western Buddhists from trying to differentiate Buddhism from so-called Hinduism, especially, when it comes to the notion of atman.  I tend to see Buddhism as very Indian; as part of a long tradition that sheds its light on the central and vital aspects of Brahmanism (the Brahmā cult) from which it can be argued both Jainism and Buddhism emerged.  I should mention that a notable symbol of the Brahma cult was the so-called bodhi-tree (aśvatthava tree).  The Pali Nikayas are also not without a number of references to Brahmā, for example.

I know Brahmā and the world of Brahmā, and the way to the world of Brahmā, and the path of practice whereby the world of Brahmā may be gained (D. i. 249).

Buddhism grew up within Indian religious culture—not outside of it.  The Buddha prior to his awakening was an ardent student of several Indian religious systems and their praxis.  That he attained enlightenment which went beyond the level of his teachers was not a rejection in the sense of being antithetical but, instead, the actual fruition of their path which they had not fully completed.

Comments

[david brainerd]

I've been reading some of your posts about self. And I think the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism is that Hinduism said God is the self, or in other words there is only ONE self in the whole universe, God, and everyone shares it. I think this is why people are so confused on non-self. Like in Samyutta Nikaya 44.10, Buddha explains to Ananda why he didn't answer Vachhota's (a Hindu monk's) questions. There Buddha's answer is in 3 points, or really 3 denials: (1) Buddha denies the Brahman/Hindu doctrine that God is the self. (2) Buddha denies the nihilist doctrine that there is literally no self. (3) Buddha denies the materialist doctrine that the body or some conditioned phenomena is the self. In doing this, he automatically affirms an individual distinct immaterial self, distinct both from the body and from God. The doctrine that the self is distinct from God is the major difference from Hinduism.

[Mr.Nobody]

There's really no dealing with the majority of western practitioners, they see everything in terms of one thing v another thing; one "religion" versus another "religion" though a "religion" is just a concept created regarding the way certain people live life.

There's nothing that can be done short of Buddha coming to teach; Today I saw a post about how the body is all that one "is" and that one that thinks they are more than human has "totally missed the point of buddhism, which is made by humans for humans regarding human problems" lololol what a bunch of conceptualizations, fools cannot see that where thought ends and reality begins.