Asian Religions, page 17
The Indian diaspora has also contributed to the globalization of Hindu traditions. Hindus have emigrated to every part of the world and, in England and the United States in particular, most Indian immigrants are highly educated. Many have sought to preserve their cultural and religious traditions by constructing temples and community centers in their new homes. Every semester, my students in Texas visit a local Hindu temple, built to resemble temples in India. The temple is maintained by recent immigrants from India as well as by the descendants of immigrants. Temple devotees hire Hindu priests from India to conduct periodic rites and use the temple for social and cultural events – such as dance classes for teenagers, service projects, and lectures on Hindu theology. My assignment entails participant observation and a reflection paper based upon a close reading of Diana Eck's Darśan.1 Years after students have taken the course, they remember the Hindu Temple Project as the high point of the semester. They observe the pūja and are encouraged to ask questions of the temple devotees. These conversations contribute more than anything that students have read in textbooks or heard in lectures to a sympathetic understanding of Hinduism as it is practiced in the modern world.
Hinduism left its modern legacy in intellectual currents in Europe and America, beginning with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American transcendentalism and its successors – theosophy, Christian Science, and self-help movements like the “mind-cure” movement, the “mind science” movement, the “new thought” movement, and so on. Both Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) were inspired by Hindu advaita (non-dualism) and the idea that all gods and all things are manifestations of a single, abstract spiritual force. Thoreau's transcendentalist reading of the Hindu scriptures was based on the first English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, by Charles Wilkins (1749–1836).2 Thoreau wrote:
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial … I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma, and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the River Ganga reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and waterjug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganga.3
In his seminal work The Varieties of Religious Experience, which was based on lectures he gave in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1901 and 1902, the American pragmatist William James devoted much attention to American and European converts to Hinduism and to its Western forms.4 One hundred years later there is no doubt that ideas of “positive thinking,” of “spirituality without religion,” and of personal disciplines like yoga and vegetarianism owe their existence in America and Europe to Hinduism in its modern, “mystical” forms.
In the 1960s and 1970s modern Hinduism erupted on the American and European scene, first with the worldwide popularity of “TM” – transcendental meditation – and, second. with the globalizing enterprise of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
The TM movement was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008) in the 1950s. TM is indebted to the yogic tradition of meditation upon sounds or internal mantra recitation, but, in spite of its focus on the “deeper self,” it describes itself as a “non-religious” mental discipline. The Transcendental Meditation Program website presents scientific and psychological arguments for its effectiveness, rather than religious ones, though it cites “500 years of Vedic tradition” for its inspiration. The website claims that more than 5 million people worldwide have taken the TM course of study.
The Transcendental Meditation technique allows your mind to settle inward beyond thought to experience the source of thought – pure awareness, also known as transcendental consciousness. This is the most silent and peaceful level of consciousness – your innermost Self. In this state of restful alertness, your brain functions with significantly greater coherence and your body gains deep rest.”5
ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) was founded in 1966 by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada (1896–1977). Known colloquially as the “Hare Krishna movement,” ISKCON was branded a “cult” in the 1970s, when new religions gained widespread attention – from the People's Temple at Jonestown to Eckankar, scientology, Jews for Jesus, and the Rajneesh movement (to name some of the best known ones at the time). Lumped together with these other religions, ISKCON was targeted by the anti-cult movement of the 1980s. Today ISKCON has more than 80 centers around the world.6 It is a bhakti (devotional movement) dedicated to the worship of Lord Krishna and promoting vegetarianism, purity of lifestyle, and salvation through communal chanting of the Lord's name.
Perhaps the most visible form of Hindu practice outside of India is in neighborhood health clubs and local yoga franchises. The yoga industry is one of the fastest growing in the world, with revenues approaching $6 billion a year and projected to grow above $8 billion by 2016.7 While the health benefits of recreational yoga have recently come under attack8 and its connection to Indian yoga is questioned (especially in India),9 schools of yoga are growing in number at an exponential rate, embracing a wide spectrum – from Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga to Iyengar Yoga, Integral Yoga, Kripalu Yoga, Sivananda Yoga, Bikram Yoga, Power Yoga, Satyananda Yoga, and innumerable others. Are these practices “Hindu”? Are they “religious”? My own experience, I suspect, is typical: an hour-long series of stretches and bends begins and ends with “affirmations” and reminders to “connect with my innermost self and the innermost self of others,” to “find the balance between body and spirit,” and to “acknowledge the supreme spirit of the universe, whatever it may be called.” “Namaste!” All of these phrases echo the non-dualistic philosophy of jñāna-yoga in its modern guise.
It was a German scholar, Max Müller, who first catalogued Hindu scriptures, had them transcribed from the oral tradition, and translated them into English. From this point in the late nineteenth century and up until the twentieth, religious pundits and yoga masters – both Indian and European – have spread traditional Hindu teachings and practices throughout the world, adapting nativist traditions to the needs and interests of spiritual seekers from every culture. In addition, over the past century and into the twenty-first, thousands of Euro-Americans have journeyed to religious centers in India for instruction in yoga and advaita philosophy. Though the label suggests the religion of a particular place, India, “Hinduism” is now most certainly a world religion, with followers of every culture and ethnicity.
Hinduism and Modern India
To be self-consciously Hindu in modern India is a statement of choice. It was not always so. For most of India's history, “being Hindu” was simply a function of cultural belonging: it was not a matter of individual preference, but simply of communal identity. In fact, as we have seen, the English word “Hinduism” was a relatively late European invention. Nevertheless, since the partition of Pakistan and the establishment of two independent states in 1947, “Hinduism” has become a social and political designation, a self-referential term chosen especially by nationalistic Hindus to contrast themselves with Muslims of Indian descent. A recent manifestation of this deepening sense of religious–nationalist identity has been the development of a movement called Hindū rāravāda, “Hindu state” or “Hindu nationalism.” It was a Hindu nationalist who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, and in the subsequent years the movement has evolved into a political party, a fundamentalist religious sect, and groups who affirm Vedic teachings as the essence of Indian identity. These groups insist that there is a Hindu “essence” (Hindutva) that is no more or less than the “essence of India.”
Hindū rāravāda emphasizes nationalistic elements of Hindutva over religious ones; in fact major leaders of the movement such as Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906–1973) described Hindu nationalism in explicitly non-religious and non-theological terms. Today the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; the Indian People's Party), which has won major victories in Indian elections since its founding in 1980, claims that “Indianness” is not restricted to Hinduism or to a religious “litmus test.” Nevertheless, the BJP adopts language and terms from the Hindu tradition throughout its virulently nationalist and ethnically purist party platforms and political literature. In this sense, modern-day Hindu nationalism resembles the “Confucian fundamentalism” of the national studies movement in the People's Republic of China, drawing upon explicitly religious language while affirming a decidedly secular agenda.
One especially troubling element of the Hindu nationalist movement is a high-pitched and increasingly confrontational repudiation of Western academic research on the Hindu tradition, which nativistic Hindus accuse of being sensationalist, liberal, and anti-Hindu. Some Western scholars have reported threats on their lives, coming from extremist elements within the Hindū rāravāda movement. To what extent these fanatical voices are representative of modern Hinduism is difficult to say, but clearly the divide between “fundamentalist” Hinduism and “liberal” Hinduism is as pronounced in the Indian context as it is in Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, and other religions. Conflicts regarding what it means to be “Hindu” or to be “Indian” are shaped by parallel debates in all of the world's major religious traditions, from the Americas to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. We live in a world that struggles with forces of globalization and intercultural pluralism on the one hand, and the equally powerful response of ethnic purity, ultra nationalism, and religious fundamentalism on the other. The ongoing debate about Indian identity in relation to Hinduism is representative of this worldwide trend.
Notes
1 Diana Eck, Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
2 The Bhagvat-Geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon; in Eighteen Lectures; with Notes. Translated from the Original, in the Sanskreet, or Ancient Language of the Brahmans, by Charles Wilkins, Senior Merchant in the service of the Honorable The East India Company, on their Bengal Establishment (London: C. Nourse, 1785).
3 James L. Shanley, ed., The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau: Walden (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 298.
4 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Random House 1929; originally published in 1902).
5 At http://orgmeditationwww.tm./-techniques (accessed July 17, 2012).
6 See http://directory.krishna.com/temples (accessed July 17, 2012).
7 IBISWorld, cited in CNNMoney, at http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/18/smallbusiness/yoga_pilates/index.htm (accessed July 17, 2012).
8 William J. Broad, The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012).
9 Heather Timmons, “The Great Yoga Divide.” New York Times, January 17, 2012. At http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/the-great-yoga-divide/ (accessed July 17, 2012).
Part V
The Theravāda Buddhist Tradition
19
Buddhism and the Buddha
When a young man or woman elects to leave home to become a monk or nun in a Buddhist monastery, they declare a vow: “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha” – that is, they place their faith in and commit their lives to the Buddha, the Enlightened One; the dharma, his teaching; and the Sangha, the community of monastics who have dedicated their lives to religious cultivation. In the following chapters we will examine the life of the Buddha (Chapter 19); the basic teachings of the Buddha and their ethical consequences (Chapters 20–21); and Buddhist practice, both monastic and lay (Chapters 22–23). In Part VI we will examine later currents of Buddhism, especially the Mahāyāna tradition of East Asia, as well as contemporary forms of Buddhism as a global religion.
Who was the Buddha? Was he a man or a god? Did he actually live in northern India, attain enlightenment and preach the dharma there, and die peacefully at a time that he himself determined? Was he born a Hindu, and did he then critique and reform his tradition through a new revelation?
Christians ask similar questions about their founder, and many Christians would say that such questions are crucial to judging the truth of the religion itself. Modeling themselves on the quest for the historical Jesus, the first Western scholars to encounter Buddhism sought to authenticate the historical reality of the Buddha, and they often characterized him in familiar terms: like Christ, they said, the Buddha brought a new teaching of personal liberation, in contrast to what they described as the caste-based taboos and arcane laws of Hinduism. Or they contrasted the “Protestant emancipation” of Buddhism over against the “papal,” priest-bound ritualism of Hinduism. This parallelism inspired a romanticized view of Buddhism that, under different guises and in different terms, has remained strong in the West to the present day. The orientalist fantasy of a peace-loving, calm, and centered people, which values and supports highly individualized, spiritual cultivation, is an image of Buddhism that most observers in the West have assumed for generations – an imagined tradition that has also inspired some Westerners to become Buddhists themselves, though usually in a form that would be only partly recognizable at the place where Buddhism originated and had its early development, which is also where most practicing Buddhists still live today. In this book we will focus primarily upon the Buddhism of Asia.
In contrast to the search for the historical Jesus, the “search for the historical Buddha” raises significant problems.
1 First, the source problem The life and teachings of the Buddha are recounted in the Buddhist canon, a three-part collection of sacred books: texts that appear to record the sayings of the Buddha directly, called sūtras; commentaries on his teachings, composed over several centuries; and the monastic code, a collection of rules for monastic living and ritual instructions. Some of the sūtras were written in Pali, a language spoken in the general part of India where the Buddha lived. Still, even the earliest of these texts only appeared some 400–500 years after the lifetime of the Buddha and had already passed through several generations of oral transmission. Even though each sūtra begins with the formula “Thus have I heard” (suggesting that the author was present at the Buddha's assembly), it is doubtful that the “hearing” came directly from the Buddha himself.
2 Second, the problem of objectivity The Buddhist canon is the product of the Buddhist tradition, which was already well established by the time the texts were first written and collected. This does not make them any less important to Buddhists today, but there is no possibility of independent corroboration from other written sources: we cannot see the Buddha except through the eyes of the early Buddhist community.
3 Third, the problem of historicity “Historicity” here refers to the philosophy of history: attitudes and values surrounding the nature of history itself. Western and Hindu/Buddhist views of history are quite different. First, the Western, linear view of time sees history as “unfolding” and gives greater emphasis to unique, transformative, or unparalleled events. In fact, in the Abrahamic traditions, the commemoration of these historical events (Passover, Easter, Ramadan) is central to religious practice. Even outside of religious contexts, we seem to place greater store by things that happened only once; our history books often repeat the phrase “this was the only time in history that …” – and these events are seen as having greater significance than the recurrent ones. Second, the West tends to take history literally: we emphasize “factuality,” the sense that things recorded in history actually happened. When he was asked how he knew that Jesus Christ was truly the Son of God, the Reverend Billy Graham replied, “because only once in human history did a man die, was buried in a cave, and after three days rose from the dead.”
Buddhists are less concerned with either of these ideas of history. Historical events are recounted, and the Buddhist tradition teaches that rebirth “at a time when the Buddha can be known and his teachings can be heard” is considered to be a “fortunate rebirth.” Yet the factuality of particular events in the Buddha's life is less important than their mythological and symbolic significance. Why?
First, the Indian cyclical conception of history emphasizes timeless truths over particular persons and events. In fact, the tradition teaches, the historical Buddha was but one of many Buddhas, existing both sequentially (the Buddha experienced innumerable prior lifetimes, and in all these lifetimes he displayed his enlightened nature) and synchronically (particularly in Mahāyāna Buddhism, there are many Buddhas existing simultaneously). The historical Buddha of “this” world is neither unique nor comparatively more important. Second, the Buddha himself – if we read the sūtras recounting his teachings – denied the importance of his own life, and even predicted that he would eventually be forgotten. When he died, he is purported to have said: “Life and all things in life are fleeting and will one day disappear: work out your own enlightenment with diligence.” Many Buddhists say that the Buddha was not a savior; they would deny that one can achieve enlightenment only through him. He simply pointed out the way, which others can follow and test for themselves. The ultimate authority for enlightenment is the practitioner him- or herself.
