hinduism-and-other-religions

"The Christian faith, sprung from the wisdom of India, overspreads the old trunk of rude Judaism, a tree of alien growth; the original form must in part remain, but it suffers a complete change and becomes full of life and truth, so that it appears to be the same tree, but is really another."

"When India was explored and the wonderful riches of Indian theological literature found that dispelled once and for all the dream about Christianity being the sole revelation."

"The Christian-dominated parts of India's North-East have witnessed several instances of Hindu-cleansing. Hindu organizations like the Ramakrishna Mission and the RSS have been targeted for elimination from the region through pressure or violence. In the 1990s, tens of thousands of Riang tribals who rejected conversion were expelled from Christian-dominated Mizoram. The death toll of Hindus eliminated by Christian separatists dwarfs that of the much-publicized Hindu violence against Christians, which has killed only a handful since 1947, including in the supposed “wave” of anti-Christian riots in 1998-99. The killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines... was front-page news in the whole world and remains a constant point of reference in the dominant discourse on communalism. By contrast, when shortly after that, four RSS workers were kidnapped by Christian separatists in the North-East and their mutilated bodies were subsequently found, it was hardly reported in the Indian press and not at all in the international media.(...) Indian secularism is systematically dishonest in its assessment of the religions hostile to Hinduism."

"We, on the contrary, now send to the Brahmans English clergymen and evangelical linen-weavers, in order out of sympathy to put them right, and to point out to them that they are created out of nothing, and that they ought to be grateful and pleased about it. But it is Just the same as if we fired a bullet at a cliff. In India, our religions will never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian Wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought."

"That which transcends country, which is greater than country, can only reveal itself through one’s country. God has manifested his one eternal nature in just such a variety of forms... I can assure you that through the open sky of India you will be able to see the sun therefore there is no need to cross the ocean and sit at the window of a Christian church. ... “I have nothing more to say,” answered Gora, “only this much I would add. You must understand that the Hindu religion takes in its lap, like a mother, people of different ideas and opinions, in other words, the Hindu religion looks upon man as man and does not count him as belonging to a particular party. It honours not only the wise but the foolish also and it shows respect not merely to one form of wisdom but to wisdom in all its aspects. Christians do not want to acknowledge diversity; they say that on one side is Christian religion and on the other eternal destruction, and between these two there is no middle path. And because we have studied under these Christians we have become ashamed of the variety that is there in Hinduism. We fail to see that through this diversity Hinduism is coming to realise the oneness of all. Unless we can free ourselves from this whirlpool of Christian teaching we shall not become fit for the glorious truths of Hindu religion.”"

"The books which are called Biblical were an obstacle to the perfection of Christianity and, in terms of truly religious content, they could not even remotely be compared with the sacred books of India, as well as many others from earlier and later times."

"The Christian missionaries who came to India believed they were proclaiming something unheard of to the inhabitants when they taught that the God of the Christians had become man. The latter were not astonished by this; they by no means denied the incarnation of God in Christ, and only found it strange that among the Christians it had happened just once, whereas with them it occurred often and in constant repetition. One cannot deny that they had more understanding of their religion than the Christian missionaries had of theirs."

"The missionaries were sent out to exterminate heathenism in India, not to spread heathen nonsense all over Europe."

"In 1760, Voltaire acquired a copy of Ezourvedam, a forgery of the Jesuits (most probably of Di Nobili). But even this served an unintended purpose. Voltaire with his acumen saw even in this document the voice of an ancient religion. While he praised Brahmins for having "established religion on the basis of universal religion", he also found that India was the home of religion in its oldest and purest form. He described India as a country "on which all other countries had to rely, but which did not rely on anyone else". He also believed that Christianity derived from Hinduism. He wrote to and assured Frederick the Great of Prussia that "our holy Christian religion is solely based upon the ancient religion of Brahma"."

"Disparity of treatment between Hinduism and other Faiths in these textbooks is the key issue here."

"Now is the time for the NRI community to choose its leadership carefully. It needs people who are aware of the depth of the problems. Otherwise, it will succumb to the demands of American pluralism. It will waste its energy on irrelevant concerns borrowed from Christianity: ‘Who speaks for Hinduism?’; ‘Who has the authority to represent our religion?’; ‘Should only insiders be allowed to do so?’; ‘What are the true teachings of Hinduism?’ Events like the California textbook controversy indicate that the NRI community is at a crucial juncture: either it will become a driving force behind the rejuvenation of the Indian culture and her traditions; or it will repeat the mistakes of three-hundred years of colonialism. In the last century, we have seen the endpoints of the latter route: a growing fanaticism in Indian society; intellectually superficial movements; the threat of bankruptcy of an entire culture. The other route promises to allow the NRI community to play its role: become a rich and vibrant challenge to American pluralism. Not so that pluralism and tolerance might disappear from the American society but so that a pluralism, worthy of its name and liberated from the biblical straitjacket, might come into existence. Perhaps it is time we explore this route…"

"There is an incessant and even anachronistic dwelling on the negatives of Hinduism, which seems to have been singled out as a religion for unfair treatment, when one reads the contrasting more balanced, even glowing narratives about Abrahamic faiths (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) in these and corresponding texts from other grades. Hindu sacred narratives are referred to as stories or myths, whereas Biblical and Koranic narratives are presented as historical facts. Most textbooks also describe the subtle Karma and rebirth related principles of Indic faiths in a minimal and essentially caricaturist manner (“according to this theory, if you do bad deeds, you will be reborn as an insect”)."

"The structure of American pluralism and the nature of the Hindu traditions give rise to two options. These options present themselves as routes that can be traveled by the NRI community in the coming years. On the one hand, the pagan traditions of India could renounce their true nature and transform themselves into variants of biblical religion. Then they will soon fit in as well in the American model of pluralism as the Jews and Muslims. On the other hand, these pagan traditions can remain true to their nature and explicitly represent themselves as completely different from the religions of the book. Then they will turn into a major challenge to American pluralism: the very structure of this model will require rethinking in order to accommodate the Hindu traditions. Currently, the NRI community is succumbing to the first option. It has accepted the American model of pluralism as the structure to which it should adapt itself. This could be seen very clearly in the California textbook controversy. A limited number of foundations have been appointed (or have appointed themselves) as the representatives of the Hindu traditions in the U.S.: the Hindu American Foundation and the Vedic Foundation are most prominent. These foundations play according to the rules of the notions of church and religion that are intrinsic to American pluralism. They challenge the unfair portrayal of the Hindu traditions in the American educational system. But they do so in a manner which advances the transformation of these traditions into inferior variants of Christianity. They intend to present the true doctrines of Hinduism and do so by making it look respectable to American Protestants. That is, the many devatas are transformed into different ways of worshiping the one true God. Hinduism becomes a proper monotheistic faith. A variety of pagan Indian traditions are excluded because they are embarrassing to the sanitized biblical model of American pluralism. These Hindu foundations have become the representatives of the ‘Hindu church’ in America: they will decide the true nature of the Hindu traditions for the American public. The way they are going, however, they will end up with a secularized variant of the old biblical understanding of the Hindu traditions as false religion."

"During the cold part of 2005-2006, the Hindu community in the USA livd in expectation of a school history textbook reform in which Hinduism would get a fairer deal and no longer be reduced to hateful stereotypes. After all, Christian, Jewish and Muslim lobbies were having a decisive say in the portrayal of their own belief systesm, with the irrational or inhumane points whitewashed or kept out of view. ... A CAPEEM spokesman reported that a lot of evidence of the close cooperation between the court-appointed "experts" and anti-Hindu groups including Evangelical Churches and terrorist groups came to light. But that was not enough for CAPEEM to score a courtroom victory regarding the political issue at stake here, viz. the blatant inequality between the Abrahamic religions and Hinduism, which alone gets to suffer a schoolbook description imposed by its declared enemies."

"But on Truschke’s own side, the dividing line between bullies and academics is not so neat. Why stoop to street bullying if you have tenure? It is far more effective, then, to resort to academic bullying. Thus, in their intervention in the California Textbook Affair, where Hindu parents had sought to edit blatantly anti-Hindu passages, the explicitly partisan intervening professors even managed to get themselves recognized as arbiters in the matter. This would have been unthinkable if those bullies had not been established academics. (And this I can say eventhough my criticism of the Hindu parents’ positions exists in cold print.) Her focus on street bullies has the effect of misdirecting the reader’s attention, away from the more consequential phenomenon of academic bullying."

"A Muslim or a Christian person is termed a religious fundamentalist if he or she participates in initiatives that advocate or incorporate subversive physical violence or verbal threats. Hindus have it much easier, as demonstrated by the California textbook controversy. All that is required for a Hindu to earn the label “Hindutvawadi “ … is to raise her hand in defense of what she knows and say “Yes, but…”"

"I professed to be an Italian Brahmin who had renounced the world, had studied wisdom at Rome (for a Brahmin means a wise man) and rejected all the pleasures and comforts of this world."

"De Nobili, in fact gives us the key to what was wrong in the Christian approach to the Hindu and shows how the gospel might have been presented to India in such a way as to attract its deepest minds and its most religious men."

"I have come to India for no other purpose than to awaken in a few souls the desire (the passion) to raise up a Christian India... I think the problem is of the same magnitude as the Christianisation, in former times, of Greece... It will take centuries, sacrificed lives, and we shall perhaps die before seeing any realizations... A Christian India, completely Indian and completely Christian, may be and will be something so wonderful. To prepare it from afar, the sacrifice of our lives is not too much to ask... But once Christianised, Greece rejected her ancestral errors; so also, confident in the indefectible guidance of the Church, we hope that India, once baptized to the fullness of her body and soul, will reject her pantheistic tendencies... The Christianisation of Indian civilization is to all intents and purposes a historical undertaking comparable to the Christianisation of Greece."

"Nobili appeared in Madura clad in the saffron robes of a Sadhu with sandal paste on his forehead and the sacred thread on his body from which hung a cross and took his abode in the Brahmin quarters. He thus attracted a large number of people. He gave out that he was a Brahmin from Rome. He showed documentary evidence to prove that he belonged to a clan of the parent stock that had migrated from ancient Aryavart and assured the members of the high castes that by becoming a Christian one did not renounce one’s caste, nobility or usage. (Pages 65-70 Christians and Christianity in India and Pakistan). He learnt Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit, and took up the Brahman style of living. He wrote in Sanskrit a Christian Sandhyavandanam for Brahmin converts. He declared that he was bringing a message which had been taught in India by Indian ascetics of yore and that he was only restoring to Hindus one of their lost sacred books, namely the 5th Veda, called Yeshurveda. It passed for a genuine work until the Protestant Missionaries exposed the fraud about the year 1840. (History of Missions, Richter, Page 57). In five years, from 1607 to 1611, he baptised 87 Brahmins. These conversions, then so marvellous, drew upon De Nobili the eyes of friend and foe alike. A big controversy raged among the Roman Catholic missionaries the world over for a considerable length of time. Much of the opposition could be explained by wounded pride on the Portuguese side. In 1623 Pope Gregory XV gave a bull in favour of De Nobili, declaring thus: We allow the present and future converts to wear the (Brahmin) thread and the tuft of hair as distinctive marks of race, social rank and office, to use sandal wood as ornament and to take ablutions as a matter of hygiene. This Brahman Sanyasi of the ‘Roman Gotra’, Father De Nobili, worked for 40 years and died at the ripe age of 89 in 1656. It is said that he had converted about a lakh of persons but they all melted away after his death."

"I do not believe that there is an easy answer to the question of how religions relate to one another. In my experience most Hindus believe and practise a facile syncretism which simply ignores essential differences. I don't think that anyone, Christian or Hindu, has the final answer. We are all in search. I would be inclined to say that Buddhists tend to be more objective and understanding than most people. But I think we all have to learn how to be true to our own religion while we are critical of its limitations and to be equally true to the values of other religions while we recognize their limitations."

"Here Hindus are asked to take lessons in Advaita from a man whose sole occupation in life was torturing Upanishadic texts into the dogmatic framework of a gross monolatry. It is difficult for a Christian missionary to renounce the role of a teacher even on subjects about which he knows next to nothing. In the case of Henri Le Saux there was an added difficulty: he was a poet. The flow of mellifluous phrases, particularly in his native French, was mistaken by him for mystic experience. One has to read his writings in order to see how he became a victim of his own word-imageries and figures of speech. Silencing of the mind, which is a sine qua non for spiritual experience according to all Hindu scriptures on the subject, remained a discipline which he never learnt. Small wonder that the man ended as a neurotic."

"The most notable pioneer and prime exemplar of Christian inculturation was the Tuscan Jesuit missionary Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), who came to south India in 1608. He proudly documents that he presented himself first as a sadhu (a spiritual man who has renounced worldly dependencies), and when that was found to limit his access to householders, he adopted the guise of a Kshatriya (warrior) in order to win peoples' trust. After a series of false starts and further experimentation, he assumed his most effective role, that of a Brahmin, complete with dhoti and three-stringed thread, which he said represented the Christian Trinity! He assiduously studied Sanskrit and Tamil, publicly adopted the rigorous lifestyle and simplicity of a Brahmin ascetic, and taught the Christian gospel dressed in words and ideas that were Hindu equivalents or approximations to Christianity. He succeeded in converting a large number of Hindus, even from the highest and most learned castes. During his life, the Vatican frequently disapproved of what it considered to be compromises with pure Christianity and closely followed his movements, but today his work is lauded by the Church as a role model for inculturation – even though it involved deception."

"While the Portuguese mission establishment was unanimous in branding the Brahmins as the chief obstacle to the salvation of India, there was some dissent concerning the tactics to be employed against them. Robert de Nobili believed in fraud rather than force. He dressed as a Brahmin, and taught the Yesurveda, a fifth Veda which had been lost in India, but which the emigrant community of Romaka Brahmins had preserved. He seems to have had a few followers, but after his death, nothing remained of his infiltration movement. Recently he has been declared the patron saint of the theology of inculturation,[2] and his method is being actualized and perfected in the Christian ashrams. De Nobili’s approach was one possible application of the Jesuits larger strategy, which aimed at converting the elite in the hope that they would carry the masses with them. This approach had been tried in vain in China, in Japan, and even at the Moghul court (today, it is finally meeting with a measure of success in South Korea). A practical implication of this strategy was that Christianity had to be presented as a noble and elitist religion. This came naturally to the Jesuits, who (unlike, for instance, the Franciscans) styled themselves as an elite order."

"It is useless to tell the missionaries that Hindu sâdhanâ has nothing to do with buying a piece of land, building some stylised houses on it, exhibiting pretentious signboards, putting on a particular type of dress, and performing certain rituals in a particular way. Hindu sâdhanâ has been and remains a far deeper and difficult undertaking. It means being busy with one's own self rather than with saving others. It means clearing the dirt and dross within one's own self rather than calling on others to swear by a totem trotted out as the only saviour. It has no place for abominable superstitions like the atoning death of a so-called chirst. Above all, it is not consistent with double-talk-harbouring one motive in the heart and mouthing another. A counterfeit must remain a counterfeit, howsoever loudly and lavishly advertised. It is a sacrilege that those who are out to cheat and deceive should use the word "sâdhanâ" for their evil exercise."

"All the efforts made to bring the heathens to Christ had all been in vain. I left no stone unturned to find a way to bring them from their superstition and the worship of idols to the faith of Christ. But my efforts were fruitless, because with a sort of barbarous stolidity they turned away from the manners and customs of the Portuguese and refused to put aside the badges of their ancient nobility." ... "On all sides spread before our eyes fields with ripening harvest, and there is not one to reap them, no one to bring help to these populations, sunk in profound ignorance. ... For so far it is along the Coasts of India that the courage of the Portuguese has brought the torch of faith; the rest of the country, the inland provinces, have not been touched, so that it may rightly be said that the Christian faith can be found only where Portuguese arms are respected." ... Nearly everybody is full of admiration for the Christian religion, very few if any condemn it, many embrace it; but there is one thing which delays conversions; it is the fear of being outcast by their own people, exiled from their country, deprived of their friends, relatives and temporal goods, as will happen if they give up the badges of their caste and the manners and customs of their ancestors.""

"A book entitled L' Ezour Vedam was published in Paris in 1778. A manuscript of this book had reached Voltaire, the famous French thinker, in 1761. He had thought it a genuine work on Hindus religion and philosophy and presented it to the library of the king of France. M. Anquetil Du Perron who had spent many years in India and who "professed a profound knowledge of its religion, antiquities and literature" helped in getting it published. But M. Sonnerat, who saw the publication, inferred that it was the handiwork of Christian missionaries and must have been written in an Indian language. The purpose of the work, pronounced Sonnerat, was "to refute the doctrines of the Puranas and to lead, indirectly, to Christianity". Mr. Ellis was able to "ascertain that the original of this work still exists among the manuscripts in the possession of the Catholic missionaries at Pondicherry, which are understood to have originally belonged to the Society of Jesus". He also found "among the manuscripts, imitations of the other three Vedas"- Rigveda, Samaveda. and Atharvaveda. There was also an Upaveda of the Rigveda composed in "16,128 lines or 8600 stanzas"-a work unknown to any Hindu tradition. Several other forgeries came to his notice. On enquiries made at Pondicherry, "the more respectable native Christians" informed him that "these books were written by Robert De Nobilibus" who had become "well known to both Hindus and Christians under the Sanscrit title of Tattwa-Bodh Swami"."

""The name of Robert de Nobilibus will be lastingly associated with the first spread of Christianity in Southern India. It must be admitted, however, that he, his associates, and successors aimed at high game... With preaching and persuasion, these teachers adopted a questionable policy. They sought for converts among the heaven-born of India; they addressed themselves to the Priesthood-the Brahmins."

"Christianity has again after a long period come in contact with a philosophy which, though it may contain errors-because the Hindu mind is synthetic and speculative-still unquestionably soars higher than her western sister. Shall we, Catholics of India, now have it made their weapon against Christianity or shall we look upon it in the same way as St. Thomas looked upon the Aristotelian system? We are of the opinion that attempts should be made to win over Hindu philosophy to the service of Christianity as Greek philosophy was won over in the Middle Ages." .... "But we have a conviction, and it is growing day by day that the Catholic Church will find it hard to conquer India unless she makes Hindu philosophy hew wood and draw water for her."

"But of all the missions that were established in these distant parts of the globe, none has been more constantly and universally applauded than that of Madura, and none is said to have produced more abundant and permanent fruit. It was undertaken and executed by Robert De Noble, an Italiac Jesuit, who took a very singular method of rendering his ministry successful. Considering, on the one hand, that the Indians beheld with an eye of prejudice and aversion all the Europeans, and on the other, that they held in the highest veneration the order of Brachmans as descended from the gods; and that, impatient of other rulers, they paid an implicit and unlimited obedience to them alone, he assumed the appearance and title of a Brachman, that had come from a far country, and by besmearing his countenance and imitating that most austere and painful method of living that the Sanyasis or penitents observe, he at length persuaded the credulous people that he was in reality a member of that venerable order. .... Nobili, who was looked upon by the Jesuits as the chief apostle of the Indians after Francois Xavier took incredible pains to acquire a knowledge of the religion, customs, and language of Madura, sufficient for the purposes of his ministry. But this was not all: for to stop the mouths of his opposers and particularly of those who treated his character of Brachman as an imposture, he produced an old, dirty parchment in which he had forged, in the ancient Indian characters, a deed, showing that the Brachmans of Rome were of much older date than those of India and that the Jesuits of Rome descended, in a direct line from the god Brama."

"Of course, if I held the same view as Father Monchanin, you would be justified in suspecting me of deception. But you must remember that Father Monchanin was writing forty years ago and immense changes have taken place in the Church since then. The Vatican Council introduced a new understanding of the relation of the Church to other religions and all of us have been affected by this. Swami Abhishiktananda (Fr. le Saux) in particular early separated himself from Fr. Monchanin, especially after his profound experience with Raman Maharshi at Tiruvanamalai... you must realise also that the view which I hold is not peculiar to me. It is approved by the authorities of the Church both in India and in Rome. Many Catholics, of course, will not agree with it, but the understanding of the relation of the Church to other religions is only slowly growing and there are many different views in the Church today."

"That same popular preference for polytheism, miracles and myths which destroyed Buddha’s Buddhism finally destroyed, in India, the Buddhism of the Greater Vehicle itself. For—to speak with the hindsight wisdom of the historian—if Buddhism was to take over so much of Hinduism, so many of its legends, its rites and its gods, soon very little would remain to distinguish the two religions; and the one with the deeper roots, the more popular appeal, and the richer economic resources and political support would gradually absorb the other.... The final blow came from without, and was in a sense invited by Buddhism itself. The prestige of the Sangha, or Buddhist Order, had, after Ashoka, drawn the best blood of Magadha into a celibate and pacific clergy; even in Buddha’s time some patriots had complained that “the monk Gautama causes fathers to beget no sons, and families to become extinct.” The growth of Buddhism and monasticism in the first year of our era sapped the manhood of India, and conspired with political division to leave India open to easy conquest. When the Arabs came, pledged to spread a simple and stoic monotheism, they looked with scorn upon the lazy, venal, miracle-mongering Buddhist monks; they smashed the monasteries, killed thousands of monks, and made monasticism unpopular with the cautious. The survivors were re-absorbed into the Hinduism that had begotten them; the ancient orthodoxy received the penitent heresy, and “Brahmanism killed Buddhism by a fraternal embrace.” Brahmanism had always been tolerant; in all the history of the rise and fall of Buddhism and a hundred other sects we find much disputation, but no instance of persecution. On the contrary Brahmanism eased the return of the prodigal by proclaiming Buddha a god (as an avatar of Vishnu), ending animal sacrifice, and accepting into orthodox practice the Buddhist doctrine of the sanctity of all animal life. Quietly and peacefully, after half a thousand years of gradual decay, Buddhism disappeared from India."

"When I say that Buddhism is a part of Hinduism, certain people criticize me. But if I were to say that Hinduism and Buddhism are totally different, it would not be in conformity with truth."

"The exact meaning of the Arabic rendering of Indian terms is ambiguous, starting with the meaning of budh/budd/but. As the Buddhists had been the first big producers of ornate sculptures for veneration, viz. Buddha statues, the word but became the standard Persian term for "idol", so an idol-worshipper was called But-parast, and an idol-breaker But-shikan, even when the idol was not a Buddha statue. Al-Baladhuri says that "the Indians give in general the name of budd to anything considered with their worship or which forms the object of their veneration. So, an idol is called budd.' (...) In the circumstances, is it likely that the freshly arrived Arab chronicler could distinguish a category of "Buddhists" in the general population of Hindus?... At that stage, the Arab-Muslim newcomers simply couldn't distinguish between Brahmins and Buddhist monks, all But-parasts, "idol-worshippers"."

"In comparing Buddhism (the teaching of Gautama, that is) with Brahmanism, we have then to understand and take into account the difference of the problem to be solved. Gautama is concerned with salvation and nothing but salvation: the Brahmans likewise see in that summum bonum the ultimate significance of all existence, but they also take into account the things of relative importance; theirs is a religion both of Eternity and Time, while Gautama looks upon Eternity alone. It is not really fair to Gautama or to the Brahmans to contrast their Dharma; for they do not seek to cover the same ground. We must compare the Buddhist ethical ideal with the (identical) standard of Brahmanhood expected of the Brahman born; we must contrast the Buddhist monastic system with the Brahmanical orders; the doctrine of Anatta with the doctrine of Atman, and here we shall find identity. (...) Buddhism stands for a restricted ideal, which contrasts with Brahmanism as a pars contrasts with the whole."

"So, in spite of an intellectual misunderstanding concerning the notion of Self, the substance of the Upanishadic and Buddhist spiritual paths remains essentially the same. The central point of agreement is the value and discipline of non-attachment: "Implicit in Brahman thought from an early period (...) and forming the most marked features of later Indian mysticism-achieved also in the Mahayana, but with greater difficulty-is the conviction that ignorance is maintained only by attachment, and not by such actions as are void of purpose and self-reference; and the thought that This and That world, Becoming and Being, are seen to be one by those in whom ignorance is destroyed. In this identification there is effected a reconciliation of religion with the world, which remained beyond the grasp of Theravada Buddhists. The distinctions between early Buddhism and Upanishadic Brahmanism, however practically important, are thus merely temperamental; fundamentally there is absolute agreement that bondage consists in the thought of I and Mine, and that this bondage may be broken only for those in whom all craving is extinct. In all essentials Buddhism and Brahmanism form a single system.'"

"Ananda Coomaraswamy concedes that Buddhism developed a more satisfactory systematization of certain Upanishadic ideas than the Upanishads themselves: "Gautama repudiates the two extreme views, that everything is, and that everything is not, and substitutes the thought that there is only a Becoming. (cfr. Samyutta Nikaya, xxii:90:16) it is due to Gautama to say that the abstract concept of causality as the fundamental principle of the phenomenal world is by him far more firmly grasped and more clearly emphasized than we find it in the early Upanishads; nevertheless the thought and the word 'Becoming' are common to both, and both are in agreement that this Becoming is the order of the world, the mark of organic existence, from which Nibbana, or the Brahman (according to their respective phraseology) alone is free.'"

"The Japanese-Buddhist Goddess Benzai-ten is none other than Saraswati, the Chinese-Buddhist God Shui-tian is Vedic Varuna, etc., all imported by Buddhism without the help of a single (non-Buddhist) Brahmin. As D.D. Kosambi notes: 'Pali records started by making Indra and Brahma respectful hearers of the original Buddhist discourses. The Mahayana admitted a whole new pantheon of gods including Ganesha, Shiva and Vishnu, all subordinated to the Buddha.'... But in Japanese Buddhism too, we find many practices that are not traditionally Japanese nor Buddhist in the strictest sense, but that have been carried along by Buddhism as a part of its Hindu heritage, e.g. the fire ceremony of the Shingon sect which, like the Vedic sacrifice, is called 'feeding the Gods'.... The inclusion of Vedic and other Gods in the Mahayana Buddhist pantheon is well-attested."

"There had never existed a 'Buddhist India' that was not as much and at the same time and in the same area a Hindu India."

"The more superficially one studies Buddhism, the more it seems to differ from the Brahmanism in which it originated; the more profound our study, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish Buddhism from Brahmanism, or to say in what respects, if any, Buddhism is really unorthodox. The outstanding distinction lies in the fact that Buddhist doctrine is propounded by an apparently historical founder, understood to have lived and taught in the sixth century B.C. Beyond this there are only broad distinctions of emphasis. It is taken almost for granted that one must have abandoned the world if the Way is to be followed and the doctrine understood.... but nothing could be described as a 'social reform' or as a protest against the caste system. The repeated distinction of the 'true Brahman' from the mere Brahman by birth is one that had already been drawn again and again in the Brahmanical books."

"There is no true opposition of Buddhism and Brahmanism, but from the beginning one general movement, or many closely related movements. The integrity of Indian thought, moreover, would not be broken if every specifically Buddhist element were omitted; we should only have to say that certain details had been less adequately elaborated or less emphasized. (...) [The Buddha] in a majority of fundamentals does not differ from the Atmanists, although he gives a far clearer statement of the law of causality as the essential mark of the world of Becoming. The greater part of his polemic, however, is wasted in a misunderstanding. (...) At first sight nothing can appear more definite than the opposition of the Buddhist An-atta, 'no-Atman', and the Brahman Atman, the sole reality. But in using the same term, Atta or Atman, Buddhist and Brahman are talking of different things, and when this is realized, it will be seen that the Buddhist disputations on this point lose nearly all their value."

"The application of the Hindu Code to Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains was a historical development, and it would be too late, sociologically, to object to it. When the Buddha differed from the Vedic Brahmins, he did so only in matters of creed, but left the Hindu legal framework intact. He did not propound a separate law for his followers. The same was the case with Mahavir and the ten Sikh Gurus"

"It may readily be granted that Buddhist thought is far more consistent than the thought of the Upanishads. The Upanishads are the work of many hands and extend over many centuries; amongst their authors are both poets and philosophers. The Buddhist Dhamma claims to be the pronouncement of a single rationalist, and to have but one flavour. Gautama propounds a creed and a system, and it is largely to this fact that the success of his missionary activities was due. (...) No one will assert that the Upanishads exhibit a consistent creed. But the explanation of their inconsistencies is historical and leaves the truth of their ultimate conclusions quite untouched. (...) we find in point of fact that the essential thought of the Upanishads is never grasped by the Early Buddhists, and, is sometimes but obscurely apprehended by modern exponents."

"[Buddhism is] a Hindu phenomenon, a natural product, so to speak, of the age and social circle that witnessed its birth. When we attempt to reconstruct its primitive doctrine and early history, we come upon something so akin to what we meet in the most ancient Upanishads and in the legends of Brahmanism, that it is not always easy to determine what features belong peculiarly to it."

"It is my deliberate opinion that the essential part of the teachings of the Buddha now forms an integral part of Hinduism. It is impossible for Hindu India today to retrace her steps and go behind the great reformation that Gautama effected in Hinduism. ... What Hinduism did not assimilate of what passes as Buddhism today was not an essential part of the Buddha's life and his teachings. It is my fixed opinion that the teaching of Buddha found its full fruition in India, and it could not be otherwise, for Gautama was himself a Hindu of Hindus. He was saturated with the best that was in Hinduism, and he gave life to some of the teachings that were buried in the Vedas and which were overgrown with weeds. ... Buddha never rejected Hinduism, but he broadened its base. He gave it a new life and a new interpretation."

"There are then based on this common foundation three main religions, Brahmanism, Buddhism and Jainism. Of the second, a great and universal faith, it has been said that, with each fresh acquirement of knowledge, it seems more difficult to separate it from the Hinduism out of which it emerged and into which (in Northern Buddhism) it relapsed. This is of course not to say that there are no differences between the two, but that they share in certain general and common principles as their base."

"We yield to none in our love, admiration and respect for the Buddha-the Dharma-the Sangha. They are all ours. Their glories are ours and ours their failures."

"Many differences are only due... to the difference of the label ‘Hindu’ and ‘Buddhist’. For the follower of any of these traditions,the issue is not such labels, but where he received his teaching and through what kind of immediate transmission (parampara). The teachings may originate from his natural surroundings(i.e. family, community, or village) or from a teacher (guru parampara). Such immediate transmission is the only identifiable feature of what we tend to call ‘religious affiliation’. However, many such transmissions taken together may not constitute a meaningful unit. The term religious affiliation is therefore a misnomer.It reflects labels that are attached primarily by outsiders.”"

"I will choose only the least harmful way for the country. And that is the greatest benefit I am conferring on the country by embracing Buddhism; for Buddhism is a part and parcel of Bhâratîya culture. I have taken care that my conversion will not harm the tradition of the culture and history of this land.'"

"There is reason to believe that his spiritual experience was wholly in the Vedantic tradition. This conclusion is inescapable as one studies Buddha's teachings. Buddha himself claims no more. He only claims to have "seen an ancient way, an ancient road followed by the wholly awakened ones of olden times"."