Millions are wrong: the Buddha wasn’t a brahmin-hater or an atman-hater

Buddhism is sometimes incorrectly assumed to be a religious movement against Brahmanism which believed in the ātman.  This is incorrect for a number of reasons.  First of all, the Buddha’s family name was Gautama a name derived from one of the ancient families of ṛṣi or seers of Vedic times.  The Buddha in the Itivuttaka (IV, i) told his monks that he was a brahmin.  According to the Buddha a brahmin as one who puts aside evil and unwholesome things (D. iii. 93).  In another  place the Buddha tells his monks that brahminhood is the Noble Eightfold Path (S. v. 25).  Chapter twenty-six of the Dhammapada is dedicated to the brahmin which rings positive.

So why the rush to insinuate that Buddhism is somehow opposed to Brahmanism without first examining the evidence in the Pali Nikayas?  Where are the explicit references by the Buddha made against Brahmanism as a whole in the Pali Nikayas?  Yes, I will admit that brahmins came to challenge the Buddha whom he generally converted (Japanese scholar Iwamoto Yutaka claims that over 50 percent of the Buddha’s disciples were of Brahmanic origin and over 25 percent were of Ksatriya origin).  But this is not enough evidence to prove that the Buddha was on the warpath against Brahmanism. Still, most modern Buddhists don’t see it this way.  They are stuck somewhere in the 19th century with the German Indologist Albrecht Weber (1825–1901) who had this to say:

Buddhism is the work of a single man, Buddha, who in the beginning of the 6th century B. C., in Eastern India, rose up against the Brahmanical hierarchy, and, thanks to the simplicity and ethical force of His Teaching, provoked a complete rupture of Indian people with their past.

If anything the Buddha merely wanted to reform Brahmanism—not rise up against it in order to overthrow it.  Also, let us not forget that it was Brahma Sahampati who soon after the great awakening descends from his divine abode and beseeches the newly awakened Buddha to teach his Dharma to the world.  It should be obvious that Brahma Sahampati believed the Buddha had something worthy and profound to teach the gods and humankind.  Nor should we assume that the Dharma the Buddha taught was against the notion of Ātman which is somewhat akin to a soul, but more precisely it is the animative principle.

The Buddha taught that we should not identify as our ātman that which is not ātman (anātman) such as material shape, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness.  He also taught that we cannot reject the ātman which would then make Buddhism a form of annihilationism.  The Buddha was against various views of ātman and the world which only led to confusion. Such views the Buddha said are not the ātman (cp. M. i. 40).  In the Dhammapada he taught that a wise man should cleanse the ātman from the impurities of the mind (88). He taught, too, in the Dhammapada, that foolish people devoid of wisdom go about with the ātman that is truly an enemy (66).  Elsewhere the Buddha taught one beholds the ātman as liberated (vimuttamattānam) from unskilled states (M. i. 283).  He also taught that one attains nirvana in the very ātman (M. i. 255–56).

Comments

[mathesis]

To us it seems that Buddhism hangs on one truth (just as the counterfeit dharma hangs on its negation): that the aggregates can be transcended. The transcending of the aggregates is as something to be seen, gained and tasted, not discussed. It is beyond all conception, beyond the concept of self or non-self; it is: the aggregates are transcended, there is this, this thus, passed over and beyond (tathagata), the ultimate goal that is reached.

[Alex Bunardzic]

The Buddha was not a hater of anything. Nor was he intolerant of any other religions or spiritual teachings.

The only thing the Buddha taught is the danger of believing in a dogma. Dogma has many manifestations and many names. None of those manifestations are useful to humans. As a matter of fact, the Buddha taught that any manifestation of a dogma is harmful to people. But if some religion or spiritual teaching is free of any dogma, then the Buddha would not have any issue with it..

[bernie]

"Elsewhere the Buddha taught one beholds the ātman as liberated (vimuttamattānam) from unskilled states (M. i. 283). He also taught that one attains nirvana in the very ātman (M. i. 255–56)."

Hi, could you link to an online translation of those passages? Thanks.

[David Brainerd]

"The Buddha taught that we should not identify as our ātman that which is not ātman (anātman) such as material shape, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness."

I wonder about the translation of these terms. For example, with respect to the 5 aggregates, the one being translated "consciousness" is explained as eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, etc. i.e. the 5 senses and the 6th sense "consciousness" which is the conglomeration of the 5 senses together. Wouldn't it make more sense and be less confusing to translate this as "sensory-perception" rather than "consciousness"? It seems translating it "consciousness" helps to push the no-self/no-soul theory, because it creates the possibility/likelihood that people will confuse the sci-fi "consciousness" that one can download to a computer or clone in movies (i.e. some kind of immaterial self, like an atheist-materialist version of a soul) with this "sensory-perception" that is being translated "consciousness" and is one of the aggregates. Thus people become deluded into thinking that "consciousness" in the sense of the personality/self is one of the aggregates, when in reality "consciousness" in the aggregates refers to "sensory-perception", the 5 senses and their aggregation.

The next term I would wonder about is "volitional formations." Is it "volitional formations" or "mental formations"? By rendering it "volitional formations" they seem to be attacking the possibility of any kind of volitional self outside the aggregates by making volition an aggregate. It seems to be another translation trick of the no-soul pushers.