Excellent interpretation

Submitted by Ujjwal Karmakar (India), Jun 3, 2016 at 05:18

Buddhism rose as a reaction to Vedic rituals and arbitrary animal sacrifices.A philosopher who reacts must be speaking something very correct or else why is that a reaction in the first place?

Buddhism not only changed the way of life for most of the countries of the Far East but it did change and modify even the mother Hinduism. The Gita was written in the context when kings after converting to Buddhism refused to go to war and destroy a spiteful and bad enemy.How would the peaceful subjects of a king unwilling to go to a righteous war would be saved?Excessive pacifism created a problem and therefore the Gita was to be written.Hinduism by itself has been subject to changes. Buddhism despite being a wonderful dharma gives a very pessimistic approach to life which is ultimately less useful.The Gita won't discuss about alleviating sorrows but rather concentrates only on the duties a man has to perform.When a man performs his duties rightfully,he is naturally a happier soul by contributing to the society or the country he lives in.Excessive preoccupation with the concept of sorrow actually makes one more sorrowful. When a teacher says his students not to remember the image of a white bear in the next five minutes, the students compulsively remember it more for the very idea of avoiding an image brings back that image into the mind.So the concept of nirvana is partly false on a psychological platform.

Excessive pacifism destroyed Buddhism from Afganisthan, Bangladesh, Kashmir and even India also.That the mainland of India was spared from Islam is due to the fighting instructions of Krishna, prescribed for Hindus in the Gita, if it was a rightful war.Inspite of that,Indian Hindus are historically the greatest pacifists on earth because their minds were a creation from constant philosophical searching for the truth for generations, a constant internal struggle , discussing noble things from diffences schools of thought from the times of Jains, Buddha, Charvakas etc.The immense practicality in the matter of love and peace, their practical applications in a society is best understood by a hindu of India and not by a buddhist of China.Just because he has moulded his mind by repeated analyses of different even contradictory viewpoint.Hinduism is no rigid set of instructions but a constant search for truth.

Regrading caste, the writer is partially correct in saying that it is an arrangement for permanent slavery.That might be true to some extent.But the immense capacity to change existing within Hinduism is also causing the caste system in a India to be melting down and dissolving fast.
Nobler ideas came with the certain specific phases of human civilisation.A Buddha could not have been born at 8000 BC.Just because we needed peaceful wealthy non-nomadic habitations with complacent deity-worship and animal sacrifices with an initial purpose of forestalling natural calamities before which phase Buddha could not have been born.Thereafter the next centuries saw farther newer ideas.Nobody is saying that Buddhism is not great.But Buddhism could not have been born in Europe.It was in the Indian Vedic perspective it had to take its birth which ultimately pervaded into many countries giving them peace and happiness.

But Sanatana Dharma is sanaatana. How old was it? A Bisnu (Narasingha)idol was invented in Germany which was prepared some 31 thousand years ago? Is Hinduism far older-as old the birth of Homo Sepians (100 thousand years)?

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".