Buddha, Shankara and Vivekananda – Milestones of Indian spirituality

The three great sages of the Indic spiritual tradition, while reacting to the times they lived in, gave expression to the same truth in different ways.

Buddha: The light of Asia

It was a time when the ceremonies and rituals of the Vedas were performed without cognisance of its inner essence. The exalting philosophy of the Upanishads was slipping from the grasp of the common masses and pleasure-seeking materialistic philosophies were gaining ground. It was the 6th century BC, when Siddharth, later known as Gautam Buddha, was born. He developed his own system of thought deriving from common life experiences and taught a simple way to lead a spiritually fulfilling life. Although born to a royal household, he was indifferent to wealth and luxury and at the age of 29 years, he renounced the world, determined to solve the mystery of suffering– its cause and cure. After years of struggle he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, he claimed to have known the root cause all suffering– attachment to worldly desires.

Buddha posited that the world’s existence is conditional. He propounded the theory of dependent origination stating that all our sense experiences, joys, and sorrows depend on certain conditions, the moment the conditions are removed, they cease to exist. Hence, all our feelings and enjoyment in the world are necessarily impermanent. Treating them as permanent and clinging to them, results in suffering. He repeatedly stated that he experienced something profound which cannot be explained in words, nor can be experienced through senses. Attaining that state (nirvana) according to him was the way to end suffering as it would release one from conditional existence. To that end, he developed the eightfold noble path– a practical guide to lead right life. Following that path, one could attain nirvana.

Buddha’s primary concern was to find a solution for human suffering. He never entertained speculative questions, on the nature of the soul, for instance. These are known as avyākatāni in the Buddhist literature. The answers to these questions could not be understood through sense-experiences, so Buddha believed that speculating on them will lead to dogmatism. Therefore he remained silent on them. Further, he disapproved of any human or textual authority. His last message to his disciples was, “Be a light unto yourself”. This position by the Buddha had some unintended consequences.

The later Buddhists ignoring their master’s warning against metaphysical speculation began to find answers for the avyākatāni in the light of their own interpretations of Buddha’s teachings. Differences of opinion in the interpretations led to a split in Buddhism between reformists and conservatives within 70 years of Buddha’s mahaparinirvana. The conservatives criticized reformists as adhammavadins, meaning those who practice and teach wrong things, while the reformists mocked the conservatives as “less qualified disciples” to whom Buddha had not revealed the higher truths. Eventually, persisting differences gave birth to about thirty different schools of Buddhism excluding minor ones.[1]Therefore, it is said that “the nemesis of neglected metaphysics thus overtakes Buddhism soon after the founder’ passing away.”[2] Anyhow, the glory of the Buddha was in taking religious principles to the masses, reviving the quest of inner spiritual growth and preaching in the language of the masses.

Buddhism post the death of Buddha

At the broadest level, Buddhism was split into Hinayana (smaller vehicle) and Mahayana (greater vehicle). The former is orthodox and strictly adheres to the literal teachings of Buddha while the latter follows a liberal interpretation. These two sects were in turn divided into many sub-sects.

[Buddha depicted in Tibetan painting (Mahayana) (Source: Pinterest)]

Both Mahayana and Hinayana accept the theory of dependent origination and its logical extension: theory of momentariness, which states that all existence is momentary. The two sects disagree over the implication of the theory. Hinayanists assert that everything is momentary: the soul is just an unbroken stream of states of consciousness and material objects too are composed of constantly changing flux of atoms. Accordingly, there is no ‘being’, there is only ‘becoming’, that is there is no ‘thing’ which changes but only ceaseless change goes on.[3] The Mahayanists, on the other hand, argue that the theory of momentariness applies only to the empirical world of sense experiences and there is a transcendental state which is free of all the changes or momentariness. Shunyvadins, the most important sect under Mahayana called the ever-changing phenomenal world as svabhava shunya (devoid of any significance) and the transcendental state (shunyata) which is immune to change, as prapancha shunya (beyond verbal description). One more point of difference between the two is that Hinayanists consider Buddha as an ordinary man while Mahayanists have made a deity out of Shakya Muni. Their history is rife with bitter disagreements, as a result of which Buddhism ceased to represent a consistent philosophy.

Adi Shankaracharya: the saint, poet and philosopher

Around 1500 years had passed since the Buddha’s demise and Buddhism was a widely practiced religion. However, it had degenerated in time; the unqualified practice of Tantra and Vamachara performed by some Buddhists in a distorted way had turned Buddhist monasteries into “nurseries of corruption.”[4] At this point of time, the masses had grown unfamiliar with Vedantic ideas, though they had much in common with Buddha’s teachings. In 8th century CE, India was undergoing a spiritual decadence, which is when Shankara was born. From a very young age, he is said to have surprised everyone by his exceptional intellectual abilities and his deep knowledge of sacred Indian texts. However, unsatisfied by mere book-knowledge and deeply pained to notice that his teachers themselves failed to follow the lofty principles they preached[5], Shankara took up monastic vows and went in search of a Guru. On the banks of river Narmada, he got initiated by Govindapada into the world of Advaita Vedanta, which Govindapada had learnt from his guru Gaudapada. Shankara then travelled across India, gave discourses and debated with several scholars. He defeated their arguments and propagated the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. He also established four mutts in four cardinal directions under the charge of his disciples to keep the knowledge alive through the Guru-Shishya parampara. The mutts have continued to maintain the lineage to this day! 

[Traditional depiction of Adi Shankaracharya]

Advaita Vedanta of Shankara

Shankara defined reality as something that never changes. By that criterion, nothing material in the world can be considered as real. But the fact that we experience the world and its objects, means that it is not non-existent and hence cannot be called unreal. This makes the world real and unreal at the same time. Shankara refers to this paradox as “mithya”.  He also says that the jivatman (individual soul), the pure consciousness of an individual which is the subject of all our experience is eternal and also the same consciousness dwells in all the beings. This consciousness seen from the universal standpoint is called Brahman, it is everywhere in all the beings and being infinite it has no determinate form. However, like the all-pervading space which is divided into different rooms by walls, the Brahman too is apparently divided into jivas (several individual souls) due to avidya(ignorance), which imposes limitations on our perception. This creates all the dualities of good-bad, pleasure-pain etc. and keeps the individual away from his real nature, compelling him to remain engrossed in the feeling of “I and mine” and treating the world as absolutely real. That makes the individual go after pleasures and avoid pain and he goes in search of that which can give him ever-lasting pleasure. This feeling of “I and mine” and the elusive search for permanent pleasure is referred to as maya by Shankara. The way to overcome Maya is to rise above the dualities of the world and to realize the truth, “Brahma satya Jagat mithya, Jeevo brahmaiva na parah” (Brahman alone is real, the world is ultimately false, the individual soul is not different from the Brahman.). Since Brahman alone is eternal (immune to change) it is the only reality and all dualities eventually merge into Brahman, according to Advaita or non-dualism.  

Implications of Advaita Vedanta

The theory of maya is generally misunderstood to mean that the world is an ‘illusion’. Therefore, some people have questioned as to why Shankara built temples if the world is illusory. They further stretch Shankara’s argument to suggest that he implied that “measured scientific conclusions” too are essentially illusory, thus trying to force-fit him in the mould of an anti-science crusader. However, Shankara’s analogy of rope and snake clears this misunderstanding: Just as a person who mistakes a rope for a snake, an individual engrossed in avidya mistakes Brahman for the world. Therefore, until avidya is removed, the world is real for all practical purposes. Nevertheless, one should constantly try to gain knowledge that discriminates reality from “mithya” and should not forget that the world is “ultimately false”. Thus Shankara doesn’t exactly deny the reality of the phenomenal world but grants it a provisional status.

Shankara’s critique of Buddhism

The decline of Buddhism is commonly attributed to Shankara and his attacks on Buddhist theories. Here is a brief overview of Shankara’s criticisms.

 As far as the Hinayana school is concerned, Shankara vehemently criticized their assertion that nothing, including the conscious spirit, is permanent. He rightly pointed out that there must exist a permanent Self which recognizes the momentariness and synthesizes the discrete cognitive inputs into meaningful knowledge.

Shankara took the word shunya in its popular sense which means emptiness and summarily dismissed it as the equivalent of nihilism. But the Buddhists claim that by shunya they do not actually mean emptiness but only the indescribable nature of the transcendental state or transitory nature of the phenomenal world. However, nirvana which is supposed to take one to the transcendental state literally means “to blow out”. Just as a blown out lamp leads to darkness, blowing out of life (after attaining parinirvana) is interpreted by Shankara to mean the extinction of all existence and therefore emptiness. Therefore, according to Shankara, the Shunyavadins reject the reality of the world and by not acknowledging any higher reality, they turn out to be nihilists.

Was Shankara a crypto-Buddhist?

Dvaitins and Vishishta-advaitins, who took offense to Shankara’s view of the complete identity of jivatman (individual Self) with brahman (supreme Self), called him a crypto-Buddhist on the grounds that the atheistic Buddhist philosophy is similar to Shankara’s notion of formless, impersonal God– Brahman. Many other philosophers also argue that Shankara’s concept of Brahman comes from the very shunyata that he criticized.  But they fail to see the subtle differences between the two.

As shown in Shankara’s rope-snake analogy, the world is wrongly superimposed (adhyasa) on Brahman, in the same way as snake is imagined in the place of rope. Thus Brahman is the ground of all the worldly appearance. Further, Shankara describes the nature of Brahman as existence-consciousness-bliss. Shunayavadins neither ascribe any relation between the phenomenal world and Shunyata nor do they explicitly say whether Shunyata corresponds to any ontological reality. Moreover, the point to be noted is that Shankara based his teaching on the Upanishads. Whether tat twam asi or aham brahmasmi– the basis of his non-dualistic philosophy – they are all Upanishadic phrases (Mahavakyas).

Above all, Buddhism and Upanishads have in common some important concepts like the theory of karma, the impermanence of the world and the need for liberation. Upanishads are replete with ideas about the impermanent nature of the world albeit in a poetic or symbolic form[6]. For instance, Nachiketa in Katha Upanishad rejects the offer of wealth, long life, etc saying that they perish with time and insists on knowing the mystery of death and immortality, the two birds story of Mundaka Upanishad too gives a similar message. Also, the way Kena Upanishad describes the Brahman (“there the eyes cannot reach nor speech nor mind”) is strikingly similar to how Buddha talks about his “profound experience” that is inexpressible by words, nor accessible to senses. Due to these similarities, some have called Shankara a crypto-Buddhist while others say that “The lamp of Dharma bequeathed by the Buddha to his disciples was borrowed from the Upanishads.”[7] Nevertheless, the Buddha’s teaching was more direct and unambiguous, while Upanishads were poetic and allegorical, which is why it required commentators like Shankara to make them understandable. Thus, calling Adi Shankaracharya a crypto-Buddhist is a misleading statement.

Did Shankara “hate” the Buddha?

An article in The Indian Express speaking about Shankara’s view on Buddha wrote:  “In Sharirika Bhashya, [Shankara] wrote that The Buddha was “either fond of making contradictory statements, or his hatred of people made him teach three contradictory doctrines so that people may be utterly confused and deluded… All persons who desire the Good should at once reject Buddhism.” ” The article, however, makes no mention of the context of this remark and thereby does a grave injustice to Shankara’s legacy.

It is a fact that different sects of Buddhism came up with contradictory theories and fought among themselves. Each of them claimed their theories alone as true to Buddha’s teaching. Above all, several Buddhists themselves believe that the Buddha adjusted his teachings according to the capacity of the disciples (upayakaushalya). Given the lack of consensus among later Buddhist sects, it becomes plain why Shankara made the above criticism.

The cited article also claims that “Sankara was extremely caustic about Buddhist philosophers, and equated their ideas with “a well in the sand that has no foundation”…” This again is coarse and disingenuous. All that Shankara said was clearly in reference to the mutually contradictory doctrines of Buddhist sects. In hindsight, it is easy to pass a judgement that such impolite comments were avoidable but considering the intellectual climate of the times, Shankara was only retorting to the Buddhists in their own language. The following quotes of some Buddhists of the time about Vedic thinkers aptly demonstrate the same:

“Even a reasonable argument from the mouth of a follower of the Veda looks ugly like a necklace or string of beads placed on the feet.”[8]

“Long time has passed and women are fickle by nature. So it is very difficult to ascertain the purity of the Brahmana race.”[9]

The most important contribution of Shankara was in systematically refuting the logical inconsistencies present in both heterodox systems like Buddhism and Jainism and orthodox ones like Sankhya, Nyaya-Vaisheshika, etc with sharp arguments. Shankara’s zeal to debate and theorise, in contrast to Buddha’s aversion for the same, proved to be a blessing. He authored a vast amount of literature in the form of commentaries on Upanishads, Bhagavad-gita and Brahmasutra, and original compositions like Viveka-chudamani. These works in addition to the dialectic criticism of other philosophical theories have laid a firm foundation for Advaita Vedanta and saved it from meeting the same fate as Buddhism in India.

Reconciling Buddha and Shankara

Swami Vivekananda called the Buddha “the living embodiment of true Vedanta”. He noticed that the essence of Vedanta and Buddha’s teaching were one and the same. But then, as Vivekananda observes, “teachings of the Buddha became in time degenerated. … Buddhism taught no God, no ruler of the universe, so gradually the masses brought their gods, and devils. (Mahayana)” Superstition once again came to the fore. Vivekananda continues,

“Shankara came, a great philosopher, and showed that the real essence of Buddhism and that of the Vedanta are not very different, but that the disciples did not understand the Master and have degraded themselves, denied the existence of the soul and of God (Hinayana), and have become atheists. That was what Shankara showed, and all the Buddhists began to come back to the old religion.”  

It may be added that Buddha confined his teaching to easily observable phenomena like the impermanence of the world and taught to the people that living morally and cultivating unconditional love could raise them from the fleeting world and its suffering. He believed that the fact that suffering in the world is inevitable is sufficient to convince people to strive for nirvana. Moreover, he did not want people to get entangled in speculations or rely upon dogmas, so he refused to give reasons or proofs to strengthen his claims. However, as it is often said, man is by his very nature a thinking being, who likes to enquire and speculate. Buddha’s disciples themselves proved the point; they indulged in hair-splitting discussions about the nature of life and existence but struggled to find a solution. This task of rationalizing the philosophy and providing logical proofs was completed by Shankara.

Vivekananda notes that “By Buddha moral side of philosophy was laid stress upon, and by Shankara, the intellectual side.” He then pleads to the people: “…it is possible to have the intellect of a Shankara with the heart of a Buddha. I hope we shall all struggle to attain to that blessed combination.”

Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda was born in 1863 in Kolkata. Even as a child, he was fascinated by sadhus and ascetics. On hearing from a professor about Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and his profound yet simple spirituality, he set out to meet him at the Dakshineshwar temple. Attracted by his personality, Vivekananda made it a point to visit Sri Ramakrishna regularly and learnt the message of Vedanta. This went on up to 1886 when Sri Ramakrishna attained mahasamadhi, leaving behind a group of disciples under the leadership of Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda then travelled across India as a parivrajaka. He puts his travel experiences thus:

“I travelled all over India. But, alas, it was agony to me, my brothers, to see with my own eyes the terrible poverty of the masses, and I could not restrain my tears. It is now my firm conviction that to preach religion among them, without first trying to remove their poverty and suffering, is futile. It is for this reason – to find means for the salvation of the poor of India – that I am going to America.”

His admirers whom he met while travelling had insisted on him to attend the World’s parliament of religions at Chicago. With the financial help of Raja Ajith Singh of Khetri he left to America in 1893 and the rest is history. Returning in 1897, he founded the Ramakrishna Mission using the money collected by his lecture tours and donations in the West. The Ramakrishna mission in addition to preaching religion and spirituality runs charitable hospitals and schools even in remote and tribal areas of North- East and Chattisgarh to name a few.

In the words of Swami Vivekananda, the 19th century India had suffered “hundreds of years of oppression and foreign invasion and tyranny” and its people had “forgotten that they are human beings.” Naturally, its religion too had once again degenerated into superstition. During such a crucial phase, as Sister Nivedita writes, Swami Vivekananda emerged as a “meeting-point” of “East and West”, and of “past and future.” He spread the message of Vedanta and introduced Yoga in the West. He countered the stereotypical views held by western nations about India and its religion with sharp and witty replies, which made an American newspaper write “After hearing him we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to this learned nation”. In India, he made the ancient message of Vedanta more accessible to the disconnected masses by teaching them with “modern clearness and incisiveness of statement” and exhorted them to throw away superstitions and “Go back to Upanishads”.

[Swami Vivekananda]

Practical Vedanta and Universal religion

Swami Vivekananda gave a series of lectures under the title ‘Practical Vedanta’ to show how Vedanta can be and should be practiced not just in the calmness of “forest caves” but even in “busy streets and cities” and “everyday lives”. This is all the more important in our times when spirituality is assumed to be meant only for “other worldly” people.

He proposed the idea of universal religion which could suit the needs of all types of minds and inclinations. He characterised men into four classes:

1. The worker, who has “tremendous energy in his muscles and his nerves. His aim is to work.”

2. The emotional, who “loves the sublime and the beautiful to an excessive degree.”

3. The mystic, “whose mind wants to analyze its own self, to understand the workings of the human brain.”

4. The philosopher, “who wants to weigh everything and use his intellect even beyond the possibilities of all human philosophy.”

To suit all these minds he proposed the concept of Yoga or union and its four variations:

1. Karma-Yoga teaches how to work without attachment to the results and without expectations of any returns; it results in a union between the individual and whole humanity.

2. Bhakti-Yoga teaches how to love God for the love’s sake, without any motive; it leads to the union between himself and God.

3. Raja-Yoga teaches how to concentrate our mind and discover its innermost recesses; it helps in uniting the lower and higher self.

4. Jnana-Yoga teaches how to see the reality as it is by going beyond the visible; it helps in realizing union of all existence.

The keynote in each of these paths is to transcend the dualities and realize the true nature of human existence. The idea of achieving some kind of union with a higher principle is based on Advaita Vedanta, which Shankara had preached already. Vivekananda only showed practical methods of achieving it, and this he did in a manner by which one can harmonize the spiritual and material needs in this modern age. Karma-Yoga, is especially important given that one cannot shun work altogether in this age.

Of all the spiritual leaders discussed above, only Vivekananda had an exposure to western philosophies and only he got to travel across the world and witness directly the culture of different countries. That helped him assess India’s importance from a global perspective. He declared that “the spiritualization of the human race” is the “life-work” of India and “raison d’etre” of its very existence.

About India’s role in the world order, he says:

“This is the land from whence, like the tidal waves, spirituality and philosophy have again and again rushed out and deluged the world, and this is the land from whence once more such tides must proceed in order to bring life and vigour into the decaying races of mankind.”

“Up India and conquer the world with your spirituality.”

References:


[1] Vide Sogen systems p.3

[2] An introduction to Indian Philosophy, p. 131

[3] A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, p 77

[4] A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, p 332

[5] Spiritual Heritage of India by Swami Prabhavananda

[6] A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, p 328

[7] A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, p 76

[8] A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, p. 333

[9] A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, p. 333

Bibliography

A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, Chandradhar Sharma

An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, Satishchandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Dutta

Spiritual Heritage of India, Swami Prabhavananda

Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Swami Vivekananda

Shankara: A Hindu Revivalist or a Crypto-Buddhist, Kencho Tenzin

Author’s note:

To get a sense of how these great philosophers are hijacked for petty ideological reasons by today’s commentators, I would request the readers to go through the following articles and notice the superficiality of their arguments:

How Adi Shankaracharya united a fragmented land with philosophy, poetry and pilgrimage

Is Adi Sankaracharya India’s ‘national philosopher’?

About Author: Vinay H A

Vinay is a mechanical engineering graduate who is interested in religion, philosophy, and history.

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