Buddha at Kamakura

At Kamakura, I listened with the help of a brilliant interpreter to a Zen monk in Kenchoji temple and to the head priest of the Hachimangu Shinto shrine. It seemed to me that the Buddhist sanghas that went abroad profited by their experience in Tenjigu 8216;Heavenly Place8217;, Japan8217;s old name for Bharat. In Japan, they found a strong local religion firmly in place that resembled Sanatana Dharma: Shinto. It had a plethora of deities, including Benten aka Sarasvati, with hereditary priests as ritualists and custodians of learning. So the sanghas kept a low profile. Eventually they won over many people through sheer example, because they settled down to applying the Eightfold Path to their own lives, rather than going about evangelising.

Gradually, as Buddhism took hold, it blended with Shinto practices. I was told that the two co-exist for most Japanese people as a 8216;8216;way of life8217;8217;. But their worldviews differ. Shinto, like pre-Buddhist Sanatana Dharma, appreciates life as a gift and propitiates many deities for safety and success. Buddhists consider life and rebirth a curse, from which moksha or liberation is the goal. In effect, the Buddha was 8216;co-opted8217; in Japan as a deity to be prayed to for salvation, like Sanatana Dharma slotted him as the ninth avatar of Vishnu.

Staring up at the Daibutsu8217;s enormous calm face, this verse from Kipling8217;s poem, addressed to the Victorian English, made cruel sense even a century later, thinking of caste and communal politics and of Bamiyan. 8216;8216;Yet Brahmans rule Benares still/Buddh-Gaya8217;s ruins pit the hill/And beef-fed zealots threaten ill/To Buddha and Kamakura8217;8217;. However, as a hopeful modern Indian trying to understand her complicated past, it was this verse that seemed to augur best for the future: 8216;8216;And whoso will, from Pride released/ Contemning neither creed nor priest/ May feel the soul of all the East/ About him at Kamakura8217;8217;.