Investigations at their best

There is a reason why our ISI have failed to discern the subtle yet bad influence that Buddhism has had on Hinduism. When India’s glorious history was yet unstained by an Islamic invasion–although Ashok had already made the historical blunder of embracing Buddhism–King Mihirkula of the most tolerant state of Magadh (515 AD) banished the Buddhist Order. The standard rule in India was that a religion had to flow either from a king to king or from a priest to priest. Once banished, however, Buddhism travelled worldwide. It did not follow the Indian rules and was propagated from ordinary human beings to ordinary human beings, across all man-made barriers. Gautama himself was to blame for this aberration. Despite being a Kshatriya, he was blasphemous enough to say that he was an ordinary human being! He also made other subversive statements — for instance, he said, nobody is a Brahman or a Kshatriya by birth.

I am not very conversant with the Vedas and the Gita. Let me take you on your word that their teachings implied that violence can sometimes be necessary to defend one’s borders, women and children’. The implication, as I understand, is that the Enemy is necessarily Without, and not Within, like Buddhism would have us believe. Ferengiji, you cannot allege that the feudocracy of Independent India suffers from a lack of will to utilise its birthright of necessary violence. Officially, however, its use in right earnest started with a powerful woman in the 1970s. The kar sewaks of the early 1990s also did not have any Buddhist hang-ups. They kept their trishuls handy to save Mother India’s honour retrospectively.

According to Arnold Toynbee, the visionary-historian, nationalism, communism and fascism have been responsible for most of the violence in the 20th century. These ideologies have legitimised the notion that human beings are just cogs in the wheel for a larger purpose like megalomania. Nationalistic India too believes that the people are for religion. Buddhism, on the other hand, believes that religion is for the people.

Ferengiji, your investigations lead you to believe that the unplanned, polluted, crowded, hideous’ cities of India reflect the subtle but powerful impact of the Buddhist dogma of maya. This is incisive even by ISI standards. Buddhism believes in oneness of self and environment. The filth in Indian cities has increased in direct proportion to urban poverty. The urban environment is however created by the urban rich. From my limited experience of the filth — literal or otherwise — inside these holy places, I can assure you that the filth without is no accident. In many temples, the higher the money that you pay (or the higher you are as a VIP), the better the darshan you get!

By the way, the Buddhists do not blame any one else for their sufferings. It is clear that the people in India do not suffer from any such Buddhist hang-ups. Again, the Buddhist lives with a sacred sense of gratitude to their ancestors. To put it mildly, Indians do not have a sense of gratitude to Ashoka, Akbar and the British, who gave us the entity known as India. Without the compassion and administrative acumen of her past rulers, India would have been divided many times over.

Gautama, Buddha, Ashoka, Gandhi, Tagore and Amartya Sen (you forgot to mention these two Bengali giants!) and Arundhati Roy are some of my biggest inspirations. Now that I have read your piece, let me form an image of my new idols, untainted even subtly by Buddhism. The swayamsewaks spring to mind, both home grown and, especially, of the ferengi variety. Not to mention our representative swayamsewaks visiting firanglands!