- Have you ever read or heard about the way traditional Buddhists and their scriptures define the Buddha and Buddhism?
- Do you know what is written in authentic Buddhist texts preserved by Buddhists through the centuries?
- Have you talked to a Buddhist teacher from an authentic, unbroken Buddhist tradition?
- Have you verified that the source of your knowledge of Buddhism is an authentic Buddhist source and not a Vedic-Hindu one?
These are some of the questions that people of Nepal and India should be asking but often ignore while studying or discussing Buddhism. These days, people in the Subcontinent rarely find an opportunity to read anything written by authentic Buddhists because, more often than not, articles, books, journals, websites, etc. are replete with ideas and views that are foreign to genuine Buddhist practitioners and are not present in Buddhist scriptures. Since the decline of Buddhism in India around the 12th century, authentic Buddhist views began to give way to interpretations of Buddhism by Vedic Hindu masters, who often misrepresented Buddhist theory and practices. All that you know about Buddhism and the Buddha right now most probably comes from them and not from teachers belonging to authentic and unbroken Buddhist lineages, or from Buddhist books and scriptures. Presented here is a brief introduction to Buddhist traditions, their history of transmission, and the present situation of Buddhism in Nepal and India.
Belonging to the Śramaṇa tradition – an ancient Indian spiritual tradition that was then outside the pale of Vedic teachings – the Buddha and his disciples never accepted the authority of the Vedas as something that would help to achieve the fourth Puruṣāṛtha, i.e. liberation (Mokṣa). Instead, they persistently refuted the contents of the Vedas, their auxiliary traditions, as well as other contemporary Śramaṇa traditions, such as Jains, Carvākas, etc. On account of that, they established a unique system of Darśana, which is called Buddhadharma – the Dharma taught by the Buddhas (Bauddha-darśana). This set of teachings, popularly called Anātmavāda’ (the theory of no-self), is transmitted from a Buddha to his disciples, who in turn become Buddhas and appear in the world to teach the same teachings, but only when all the teachings of the previous Buddha have already disappeared. Buddhist texts posit two things in this regard: the successions of such Buddhas are uninterrupted; and that there have been as many Buddhas in the past as the grains of sand in the river Ganges, and there will be as many in the future.
At the crux of the Buddha’s teachings lies a theory of causality called ‘Pratitya-samutpāda’ (Dependent Arising) that refutes all other philosophical theses, including Vedic Hindu theses such as Ātman/Brahman, Creator God (Iśvara), the First Cause, the Puruṣa of Sāmkhya, and the teachings attributed to gods such as Śiva, Viṣṇu, etc. Anything that can be called ‘existent’ comes under this theory of causality, to the extent that anything that is not within the purview of Dependent Arising doesn’t exist at all in time and space. This is the highest truth in Buddhism. From this perspective, the Vedic-Hindu philosophical theses on the reality of our existence are considered erroneous views (Mithyā-dṛṣṭi). These erroneous views are divided into two main categories in Buddhism: Eternalist View (Sāsvadavāda) and Nihilistic View (Ucchedavāda). Buddhists posit that such views are not in accordance with the truth and consider them as not being conducive to the realization of the ultimate truth as it is (Yathābhūta-jñāna-darśana). Hence, with Dependent Arising Buddhism establishes its own view of reality called the Middle Way (Madhyama-pratipada). Since it is only by seeing the truth as it is that one attains liberation, it is believed in Buddhism that all Vedic-Hindu darśanas are erroneous and do not accurately represent the reality of our existence. Thus we find a huge corpus of Buddhist texts composed with an aim to posit their own thesis and to refute those of Vedic-Hindu schools such as Veda, Pūrva/Uttara-mimāmsa (Vedānta), Sāṃkya-yoga, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, etc. In return, these non-Buddhist schools have also attempted to refute Buddhist views and defend their own philosophical positions. Historical accounts of these exchanges between Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools are available even today, and they demonstrate the fact that the Buddhadharma was a discrete and unique tradition in ancient India.
However, persecution and repression by Vedic Hindu leaders and kings began to weaken Buddhism, and following the destruction in the twelfth century of major Buddhist universities – Nālanda, Vikramaśila, Somapuri, Odantapuri, etc. – by the Islamic invasion, Buddhism went into decline in mainland India and its views were gradually diluted and distorted, leading to its ultimate disappearance from the heart of the Subcontinent, although it continued to thrive in the fringes, in places where the Islamic onslaught had lesser influence, such as the Kathmandu Valley, the Nepalese Himalayan Belt, Sikkim, Bhutan, Ladakh, Sri Lanka and some tribal regions of Bangladesh. However, even after its disappearance it continued to have an influence on Indian thought and became an impetus for further development in the Vedic-Hindu traditions that continued to flourish in the Subcontinent; that is to say, some Buddhist teachings were absorbed into their systems of thought and practice. This had already started to happen during the Purāṇic period (C. 2nd century), when the Buddha was included among the incarnations of Viṣṇu as a move to dilute the influence of Buddhism and co-opt the Buddha within the Vedic fold.
Fortunately, before its disappearance in mainland India, Buddhism had spread to other Asian countries, such as Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka and China, where it continued to flourish based on its own corpus of texts, practice manuals, oral teachings (these continue to be transmitted from teacher to disciple directly) and liturgies that were transmitted to these countries from India by teachers/scholars of living Buddhist traditions. There were three main veins of transmission of Buddhism outside India: One of the Hearers’ (Śrāvaka) schools – now called Theravāda – was transmitted to Sri Lanka by the eldest son of king Aśoka in the mid third century BCE; the second major transmission was around the beginning of the millennium to China via North-western India and the Silk Road; the third major transmission was to Tibet around the seventh century CE under the aegis of masters of Nālanda University. In each case, the existing Buddhist texts, that were in various North Indian languages such Prākrita or Sanskrit, were translated into Pāli, Chinese and Tibetan by competent Buddhist scholars and practitioners who also maintained the uninterrupted practice lineage that came down from the Śākyamuni Buddha. Thanks to them, Buddhism has been well preserved outside the Indian mainland.
As regards Buddhist scriptures (Āgama) and realized (Adhigama) traditions, since the time of the Buddha Buddhists have meticulously maintained their own corpus of scriptures. They have organized several collective recitations (Saṃghāyana or Samgīti) of these in the 2500 years since the Buddha’s passing, since purity and non-dilution of these scriptures have been of primary concern. We know that the Therāvāda tradition has until today organized six collective recitations in order to preserve the purity of their Tripiṭaka. These transmitted texts are mainly divided into two parts: the Buddhavacana – also called Sutta or Sūtra – are the words of the Buddha. Also, his disciples and subsequent teachers of unbroken Buddhist traditions wrote commentaries to clarify his words; these are called Commentaries (Ṭikā/Bhāṣya,Aṭṭhakathā, etc.) or Treatises (Śāstra). Initially these scriptures were maintained via oral transmission but were eventually committed to writing around the beginning of the common era. Buddhists consider them the only authoritative source of their teachings and any Buddhist teaching has to accord with these scriptures. According to traditional historical Buddhist texts, these texts were initially recorded in four major Indic languages – Sanskrit, Prākrita, Paiśāci and Apabhraṃśa. But due to various reasons most of them disappeared in mainland India. Until the modern era, scriptures that survived in the Indian subcontinent were written either in Prākrits such as Pāli, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit or classical Sanskrit. Recently some new manuscripts have been found in Pakistan written in Gāndhāri. In the past these scriptures were also written in other central Asian languages, which shows that they might have been translated into several languages during the course of transmission of the Buddhadharma outside India.
Likewise, Buddhist traditions have maintained the uninterrupted transmission of the realization of No-self within a closed master-disciple tradition (Guru-śisya-paraṃparā) from the time of the Buddha until today. As these unbroken lineages (Śuddha-paraṃparā) have continually produced realized masters, the adjective ‘Realized’ (Siddha) is also added to the term to denote an authentic Buddhist lineage. Anyone who defines or interprets or realizes anything outside of the parameters defined by these two transmissions of scriptures and realization is not considered an authentic Buddhist practitioner or master. This is something that people of Nepal and India are not fully aware of.
A Buddha is an awakened one, but not just any awakened one, as are found so often in Indian spirituality. Buddhists define the Buddha’s awakening in a unique way, distinguishing it from other traditions. The Buddha’s awakening is a big topic in itself, but it can be stated briefly in the following way: A Buddha is someone who has removed two types of obscurations – ‘the obscurations that are afflictions’ (Kleśāvaraṇa) and ‘the obscurations in respect to the knowable’ (Jñeyāvaraṇa)’. These two are the results of attaining No-self of person (Pudgala-nairātmya) and No-self of phenomena (Dharma-nairātmya). Furthermore, a Buddha attains four types of Fearlessness (Vaiśāradhya), Ten Powers (Daśabala) and Eighteen Unshared Dharmas (Aṣṭādaśāveṇikadharmā), together with the Three Bodies (Trikāya): Dharmakāya, Saṃbhogakāya and Nirmāṇakāya. The Buddha’s attainments can also be explained from the point of view of defeating four types of Māras: the Māras of Aggregate (Skandha), Death (Mṛtyu), Afflictions (Kleśa) and a god of the Sensuous Realm (Devaputra-Māra), who tried his best to prevent Śiddhārtha from attaining Nirvāṇa. There is also a way to describe his attainments through Six Qualities (Bhaga); it is a result of this that a Buddha is also called Bhagavat, the Blessed One (it is to be noted that the Buddha was the first to be called Bhagavat in Indian spiritual history). These attainments are the results (Phala) of the path he followed for three or four incalculable eons, during which he is said to have encountered more than one hundred and fifty thousand previous Buddhas. This path itself has its unique features, such as the idea of arousing Bodhicitta (The Mind of Bodhi), developing 37 Aspects of Awakening (Bodhipākṣikadharma), realizing the Four Nobles Truths (Catuḥ-ārya-satya), practicing the six Pāramitās (Transcendental Perfections), practices of Samatha (Calm-abiding) and Insight Meditation (Vipaśyanā), etc. Most of these things are unheard of in non-Buddhist traditions and any resemblance to them is either because of an absorption of Buddhist ideas/practices or just superfluous resemblances due to similar terms being employed.
Furthermore, the Buddha is neither a Creator God, a deity, nor any other form of sentient being found in the Three Realms (Tridhātu or Tribhuvana); this means that he was not a human being either. These things have been made very clear in his own teachings. Any sentient being can attain the Proper and Complete Enlightenment (Samyaksaṃbuddha) by learning and practicing with Buddhas or with authorized masters of living Buddhist traditions. Everyone has the right to claim to be a Buddhapuruṣa (Enlightened Being), but that does not make such an enlightenment equal to the awakening of a Buddha as described in Buddhist texts and as understood within Buddhist meditative praxis. It is imperative to connect with an unbroken and enlightened lineage to attain complete Buddhahood. Furthermore, Buddhist scriptures maintain that the chain of such Continuum of Wisdom (Jñānadhārā) of Buddhas continues unbroken until all sentient beings attain Buddhahood (Buddhatā) in the future. All other religions – such as Vedic Hinduism, etc. – are outside this path and this line of awakening.
The misconceptions and misinterpretations of Buddhism prevalent in India and Nepal disregard 2500 years of Buddhist history, the corpus of the texts that Buddhists have kept intact, and the practice tradition that has continued to exist uninterrupted since the time of the Buddha. Needless to say, there cannot be any bigger misconception than the one that states that the Buddha taught something not found in any of the teachings compiled by his own faithful and enlightened students.
Therefore, we hope that the contents of this website will clarify confusions surrounding the origin of the Buddha’s teaching, and will allow the readers – especially in India and Nepal – to understand the unique Buddhist View (Dṛṣtī), Path (Mārga) and Fruit (Phala), distinguished from any Darśanas of Vedic-Hinduism. This is something completely lacking in the present time. Most Hindus in Nepal and India, and even some Buddhists who have lost their real roots, receive Buddhist teachings from inauthentic sources, which only helps to contribute to the confusion regarding Buddhism.
It is a matter of personal taste and prerogative to choose the spiritual tradition you want to pursue. However, if you are reading something about Buddhism, we appeal to you to at least ask one question: Am I reading an authentic Buddhist text?
