Answered by Archaya Mahayogi Shridhar Rinpoche:
Excerpts from http://www.byomakusuma.org/Teachings/MarshlandFlowersPart1.aspx
Published on 21-27 May
2007 Issue
But of
course, we cannot say that Buddhism was not influenced by Vedic
Brahmanism and later Hinduism at all. That would be too naïve.
However, in the give and take which is inevitable in any culture
within a space of time (and Buddhism covered 75% of India and 75%
Asia for sixteen or so hundred years), it was Hinduism which took
mostly from Buddhism and not the other way around.
Another
interrelated myth is that it was Sankaracharya who defeated the
Buddhists all over India and that is how Buddhism vanished from
India or as the former President of India Dr. Radhakrishnan
Sarvapulli put it, Hinduism embraced Buddhism and in the process
killed it. Again these are myths running wild amongst Hindus of the
Indian sub-continent; but they do not have any historical validity.
This notion is given further credence to Nepalese, including
Buddhist Newars by the Newari legend that Sankaracharya came to
Nepal and defeated all the Buddhists, converted the kings and
beheaded the Bhikchhus. First of all the Adi Sankaracharya was
around the 7th century and great Mahavihars like Nalanda and
Bikramashila were still running strong till the 12th /13th
century when the Muslims over ran India and destroyed them.
Secondly there were still Mahasiddhas like Naropa, Tilopa and many
others till the Muslim invasion. So, Buddhism was still running
strong five century after Adi Sankaracharya. And furthermore, the
stories of Sankaracharya as written by Ananda Giri and Madhava etc.
do not contain any element which mentions that he debated with the
Buddhists all over India and defeated them. In fact those stories
show Sankaracharya debating mostly with other non-advaita Hindus
and rarely with the Buddhist. So, the misconception that
Sankaracharya went up and down India defeating all the Buddhists
and this is how Buddhism vanished from India seems to be baseless
and fabricated by uneducated Non-Buddhists. Thirdly, the
Sankaracharya that came to Nepal seems to be of the 11th-12th
century or later and not the Adi Sankaracharya. He seems to have
entered Nepal when Buddhism was beginning to decline in Nepal as a
result of its having declined in India due to the Islamic invasion
which literally destroyed Buddhism in India. So he did not find any
match for his debates and was able to convert many people in
Kathmandu. He may possibly be the same Harinanda who was defeated
by the Great Tibetan Guru Sakya Pandit. However this is not
conclusive. But the stories do say he died in Tibet. However he did
not die before he created havoc amongst the Buddhists of Kathmandu
Valley, who still do not seem to have recovered from the shock. Big
learning houses like Nalanda, Bikramashila etc were raised to the
ground and the monks beheaded and the books in the libraries burnt
to cinders by the Islamic invaders like Bakhtiar, Khilji etc. It is
said in the diary of Khilji's general that, the books of the
library of Nalanda took six months for the cinders to settle down
and nine months for the smoke to settle down. So much destruction
took place all over the Indian subcontinent. It said one of the
reasons why the Buddhist monasteries were specially picked out by
the Islamic invaders is that they mistook the monks in uniform monk
dress as uniformed army men and the books in the library as books
on warfare et al. This happened in the 12th/13th century, almost 5
centuries after Sankaracharya. Till then Buddhism was still
flourishing strong in the Indian subcontinent.
Published on 28 May -
June 3 2007 Issue
Yes the
Adi Sankaracharya refuted the Buddhist tenets in his commentaries
of the Upanishads and Brahma Sutra; but the Buddhists have also
equally refuted the concepts of Sankara. Debate and refutation was
both ways till the Islamic Invasion. It was only after Buddhism was
literally raised to the ground by the Islamic Invaders that present
day Hinduism, which is a metamorphosed form of Vedic Hinduism,
began to raise its head. Till then 75% of Indian subcontinent and
75% Asia was Buddhist. From the time of the Buddha and specially
from the 1st/2nd century till the 11th/12th century, when the
Vajrayana form of Buddhism was in sway, Buddhist art, philosophy
and logic developed to its fullest potential. It can certainly be
said that, that was the golden period of Indian culture as a whole
and Indian Buddhism specifically. This was also the period when, as
a result of interaction with Buddhism, Hinduism also developed to
its cream. It should be remembered that Sankaracharya who is
considered as the cream of Hinduism by an overwhelming majority of
the Hindus, was a product of the 6/7th century and many ancient
Hindus like Bhaskaracharya etc even called him pracchanna Bauddha
(crypto Buddhist). Why did these Hindu pillars call Sankaracharya a
crypto-Buddhist? This is not because he, his philosophy or tenets
were like the Buddhists'. No, far from it, he has attempted to
refute the Buddhist tenets. It is because he has used the Buddhist
logical modus operandii to refute all his opponents which included
the Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. This clearly shows how even
Sankara was influenced by Buddhism. The great Buddhist Nyaiyayik
(logician) Dharmakirti literally changed the logical system of the
Indian subcontinent with his Buddhist logical tenets.
Another
big confusion is that the Buddhist Tantra was a result of the
influence of Hindu Tantra on Buddhism. But the famous Indian
Iconographist Benoytosh Bhattacharya has amply proven that it is
the other way around. Hindu Tantra developed after Buddhist Tantra
(Vajrayana) reached its acme in the Indian subcontinent. One of the
oldest Hindu Tantric literature the Pichu Tantra also called the
Rudrayamala and the Brahmayamala very clearly states that Vasistha
went to Mahachina (Tibet) to study the tantric methods with
Shiva-rupi Buddha. Now till the 12th century, Tibetans came down to
the hot plains of India to study the tenets of Vajrayana in the
great learning houses like Nalanda/Bikramashila etc. Now this means
this oldest Hindu Tantra was written after the 12th century and not
before that. It was written after Vajrayana vanished from India
after the Islamic Invasion. Although Hindu Tantra developed as a
result of the influence of Vajrayana on the entire subcontinent,
the two are only apparently similar. A deeper probe into both of
them exposes a tremendous difference not only of the paradigms on
which each is based but also on the principles on which each is
based, the path followed by each and the final goal of
each.
The
entire Hindu Tantric systems are themselves diverse; some based on
Shakti, others on Shiva and some on Visnu. The objective of most of
them is to unite with the deity and finally attain Brahma,
Parasamvit or Sambhava states. Excepting the dualistic tantras,
they are all varieties of advaita Vedanta where other names
substitute the Brahma of the Vedanta. Most of them are geared
towards the realization of the Eternal unchanging self called the
Atma in the entire Hinduistic system. Now the whole of Buddhist
Tantra is geared to the realization of emptiness (sunyata) which is
a subtle form of Anatma.
Published on 4-10 June 2007 Issue
Hinduistic Tantra is based on the experience of an eternally
existing, unchanging entity called the true Self or true Atman,
whereas the entire Buddhist Tantra is based on the experience that
from the very beginning there is no eternally existing, unchanging
Self. Both experience is a non-dual experience. In the Hindu system
one merges non-dually with the eternal, unchanging Self and that is
the non-dual experience. In Buddhist Tantra one sees through that
there is no eternal, unchanging Self as opposed to the changing
world. So there is no two, i.e. advaya. Many scholars have been
confused by similar words like advaita/advaya and many others used
in both the systems and believe that they are two versions of the
same thing. Nothing could be further away from the truth. There are
also many differences in the path; but that would require detailed
technical nitty gritties which is not the purpose of this article.
So we shall stop here about these points. All forms of Mahayana
Buddhism within which Vajrayana lies, uses Sanskrit as its lingua
franca. Since Hinduism and Hindu Tantra also uses Sanskrit, and
because Buddhism and Hinduism developed first and foremost within
the cultural milieu of the Indian subcontinent, it is not
surprising that similar words are used in both system. For example,
words like mantra, dhyana, Samadhi are common to both but do not
necessarily mean exactly the same thing and one must not be fooled
by the use of such common words to conclude that Buddhism and
Hinduism are the same. One famous Nepalese Brahmin scholar saw that
the word Bhairava is used in the mantra of Bignantak and used that
as a proof that the Buddhist worship Bhairava and thus they are the
same. In the Buddhist context the word only means wrathful and not
any particular deity as is the case in Hinduism. The two tantric
systems of the Indian subcontinent are as different from each other
as Theravada is from Vaisnavism. Only the name Tantra is the same
but even the exact definition of tantra in each of the system is
drastically different. So these are some of the myths about
Buddhism rampant amongst non-buddhists of Nepal which needed to be
exploded.
These rampant confusions exist amongst the non – buddhists of the
Indian subcontinent because, it has been over nine centuries since
Buddhism was erased from the memory of the Indian subcontinent. It
is common place for absurd rumors to spread like wild fire in the
absence of authentic information.
The people of the Indian subcontinent came to believe that Buddhism
had died out completely and did not exist at all; so each was free
to interpret it according to one's own predilictions. But in
reality Buddhism continued to survive in full fledge in other lands
where it was taken by the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent
themselves. Buddhism is still alive and dynamic in Central Asia,
Mongolia, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, Bhutan, Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, the Cis – Himalayan regions
of Nepal and India, and in the Kathmandu Valley. But remarkably
enough blinded by their own cultural preconceptions, biases and
prejudices even the non – buddhists of the Kathmandu Valley who
could not but rub shoulders with it constantly, were completely
oblivious about its reality and continued to subscribe to the
rumors made up by their Indian Gurus. This is indeed one of the
world's best epitome of how blind spots control the human mind,
that in Nepal where Buddhism never died, the non – buddhist
populace virtually know nil about authentic Buddhism.