The definitive answer is yes, Buddhism grew up in what can be described as a Hindu world, or maybe better said, the Buddha and his teaching came from a culture based on Brahmanism. Then why should it be odd to find the Buddha not opposed to “Brahmanism” as some believe that he was? It shouldn't. As proof he said:
“Monks, I am a Brahmin, one to ask a favour 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” (Itivuttaka 101).
There can be no dispute about this claim made by the Buddha that he, is in fact, a Brahmin. According to the Japanese Buddhist scholar, Hajime Nakamura, the Buddha’s family name is "Gotama" which is a Brahmin name. In the Vedas, Gotama is the name of a Rishi who belongs to the āṇgirasa tribe.
If anything, the Buddha understood Brahmanism perhaps better than anyone during his time.
Based upon his awakening, the Buddha’s teaching is set against all kinds of external forms of worship of the absolute, which only acts to personify the absolute thus hiding its true reality behind all-too-human images and concepts. In other words, the Buddha was against turning the unconditioned absolute into something conditioned and personified that, subsequently, could be accessed by prayers which is little more than a kind of selfish bargaining.
Those who argue against Buddhism as being an improved kind Brahminism bring out the differences between Buddhism and Brahminism/ Hinduism when it comes to the ātman. They contend that the Buddha categorically denied the ātman. But where in the old texts of Buddhism is this categorical denial to be found? It only appears in the context of the conditioned five constituents or skandhas which make up our life, namely, corporeality, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness, not one of which is the ātman. This is far from being a categorical denial. What is more, we also learn that these conditioned constituents are to be seen as Mārā, the Buddhist devil. And from the Paṭisambhidāmagga which Buddhaghosa cites in his Visuddhimagga:
[He sees] the five aggregates as impermanent, as painful, as a disease, a boil, a dart, a calamity, an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as a plague, a disaster, a terror, a menace, as fickle, perishable, unenduring, as not protection, no shelter, no refuge, as empty, vain, void, not self, as a danger, as subject to change, as having no core, as the root of calamity, as murderous, as due to be annihilated, as subject to cankers, as formed, as Mara's bait, as connected with the idea of birth, connected with the idea of aging, connected with the idea of illness, connected with the idea of death, connected with the idea of sorrow, connected with the idea of lamentation, connected with the idea of despair, connected with the idea of defilement (Paṭisambhidāmagga II 238).
Two terms that stand out for me, that can’t be sidestepped, are “no-self” (anātman) and “Mara’s bait.” This would explain why the Buddha told his monks not to regard the five constituents as their self. They were to regard each constituent this way:
“Wherefore, monks, whatever is material shape, past, future or present, internal . . . thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self,’ he should see it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling . . . whatever is perception . . . whatever are the habitual tendencies ... whatever is consciousness, past, future or present, internal . . . thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self,’ he should see it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom” (M. iii. 20).
The context of the Buddha’s words fit perfectly within today’s Hinduism and shows, instead, the Buddha to be an upholder of ātman, but in a new and unique way, that is, what you believe to be your self is not your self, namely, the five constituents which are never other than impermanent, suffering and not the ātman. The ātman is thus transcendent and infinite. This is Hinduism at its highest.
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