Hinduism & Buddhism: Spiritual Empowerment, Enslavement, & Emancipation
Introduction
Among all peoples at different times in history, individuals who have the gift of communication, of song, or other unusual talents, have usually attracted others, possibly, because of the perception that they are in touch with a realm different from our own. Individuals who have been through unusual personal hardships, such as war, pestilence, or a journey, and survived, can also become attractive figures. Not all such figures may capitalize on their following to start a religious movement, but it seems, that the genesis of some religions can be traced to individuals or groups that exhibit such unusual talents. This seems to be the case both with the Aryans from which Hinduism sprang and the prince turned pauper who is credited with having originated the philosophy cum religion known as Buddhism. Though it is difficult to ascertain the true motives of the founders of religions, this paper considers how Hinduism and Buddhism dealt with issues of empowerment, enslavement, and emancipation.
Hinduism: Spiritual Empowerment and Enslavement
The fact that Hinduism encompasses such a wide variety of beliefs developed over many centuries makes it difficult to make generalizations about it. In the ancient world, as is true of today, human beings have never shied away from expressing their pride or superiority through warfare, but every now and then, other impulses take hold. And such seems to have been the case with the “tall, light-skinned people of Indo-European stock, calling themselves Aryans”[1] who conquered India around the middle part of the 2nd millennium BCE. Even the most skillful warriors know that perpetual warfare cannot bring happiness, so the chance to settle down permanently without fear of continual warfare can be a welcome relief. As Noss & Grangaard write of the Aryans mentioned above, “They had hardly won a place for themselves in India before they began to further develop their oral tradition. Their ritual sacrifices became more elaborate. Folktales and epic stories took shape. At the same time, the hymns and prayers of their priests gave voice to their expanding religious conceptions.”[2]
It is not difficult to appreciate how the range of talents developed by this group would have appealed not only to their own people but also to others round about. In fact, even today, we can see the magnetic appeal of talented people when we observe how young people are so taken by performers such as the Beatles or Michael Jackson that they sometimes faint! When charismatic people with such power over others have nothing but good intentions, they can empower a whole people and spread goodness in the land. On the other hand, when charismatic people have a tint of darkness in their hearts, they can cause a great deal of destruction.
The Aryan poets and priests were not unaware of their talents and the power such charisma held over others. They may indeed have started from a place of care and concern for the communities around them. Over time, however, pride and greed may have set in when the Aryans began to articulate the idea that society was made up of different strata, and that the Brahmins, or priesthood, of Aryan background were at the top while others such as the ruling Kshatriyas, the Vaisyas or common people, and finally, the Shudras, or servants, rounded the bottom three. Religion, presented in such a form, appears to be a cleverly disguised means of empowerment of one group, and the oppression of others. As people from the priestly class ascribed to themselves more and more power and made proclamations about what rituals society needed, they were able to cement their status to the point where they were able to abolish intermarriages and social interaction. Thus, though the Brahmins’ love of learning and questioning and magic may have begun innocently enough, it seems that the treacherous human heart took over, and made them more concerned about their prestige and self-aggrandizement rather than being genuine stewards of the spiritual welfare of all in their communities. As Noss & Grangaard note, “There existed too a struggle for social prestige between the ruling Kshatriya nobles and the Brahmins, each group, in the name of either custom or supernatural prerogative, claiming final and supreme authority.”[3]
It is always a source of wonder for outsiders, this writer included, to consider how people could have accepted the caste system that many today see as such a social wrong. First of all, the Brahmins did not begin their teachings with this idea. It was only after they had become very well entrenched in the society and perhaps developed a sense of dependency on them as the ones in charge of all special rituals that they introduced this perverse new idea of caste; the division of society into castes by the Brahmins would have been explained as something that was for the benefit of the society and even those who had been cast at the bottom might have gone along with it, believing that the Brahmins were inspired.
Once the basic outlines of the caste system had been laid, the Brahmins, once again, using their access to knowledge and the creativity of a well-educated group, continued to tighten the noose around the so-called lower castes, through teachings such as the law of Karma. “If a man was born a Shudra, it was because he had sinned in previous existences and did not deserve a better lot. A Brahmin, on the other hand, had every right to exalt his position and prerogatives; by good deeds in previous existences, he had merited his present high station.”[4] To be fair, it is not only Brahmins who have used their superior knowledge to lord it over others. It is a common human temptation, and one that another religious teacher in another era, Jesus Christ, warned about when he said, in Mark 12:38–39, “38 And he saith unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces, 39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts.” Both in their insistence to stay separate from the common people and in their prescriptions for evermore costly sacrifices, it seems that the Brahmins, despite their superior learning, were not very empathetic towards people not of their own kind. In this sense, the same teachings that may have empowered generations of Brahmins and made them walk through life with a sense of optimism, created for those in the lower castes, a spiritual burden whose impact continues to this day.
Hinduism & Buddhism and the Promise of Emancipation
In the ancient world in the Indus valley, where millions of people sought solace in religion, it is not surprising that the Brahmins were not the only ones with the fertile imagination to peddle probable pathways to peace of mind for religious seekers. The story of Buddha, from his childhood as Prince Siddhartha, to his moment of enlightenment, sounds very attractive. The idea that he tested the different religions and lived the extremes of life, only to find them wanting, must have appealed to those who may have been harboring doubts about the truth of Hinduism or worries about the burdens it imposed. The hold that religion can have on people, including the mark that it makes on their identity is an important one. As Hagan & Kuykendall note, “enhancement of one’s belief is virtually the same as reinforcement of a large portion of one’s social identity!”[5] And this may apply across the board, as the division into castes, for the Hindus, created an environment in which different castes became active in policing one another and to ensure that there were no intermixing of the castes. For those at the lowest castes who seemed sentenced to a lifetime of suffering, it is only natural that some would seek relief through membership in other religions. To realize how strong the power of religion is, despite hundreds of years of Hinduism, the relative number of people from the lower castes who have left may not be all that significant. For example, even though “caste ceased to apply to individuals who joined the Buddhist order,”[6] the number of Buddhists in India is miniscule, about 9 million, compared to the number of Hindus, which is 80% of a population of over one billion.
What is still more remarkable is that while in some religions such as Islam and Christianity, there are injunctions to be kind to the poor, Hinduism sought to keep the poor at the margins of society.[7] Gandhi, who was a Hindu, is one notable figure who made an effort to change how Hindu society viewed the untouchables by giving those at the margins of society, the name, harijan, which translates into Children of God. “Gandhi also conceived this Hindu burden of emancipating the harijan as a penance for the sins the Hindus had committed. He understood the untouchability as a problem of mindset and never succeeded in grappling with the structural basis of caste that reproduced inequalities in different strata of social life.”[8] Even in 2016, when much of the world likes to think that it is moving towards one form of enlightenment or another, the problem of castes persists in India. An Indian Ph.D. Dalit student who committed suicide based on his perception that he was steadily isolated because of his status, wrote: “My birth is my fatal accident…I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life…I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this.”[9] This is a sentiment that India’s 180 million Dalits might readily understand. The extent to which the abuse of the lower castes is ingrained is easily appreciated when one considers that even in one of India’s best medical schools, “a federal investigation into complaints of caste-based harassment and discrimination against Dalit and tribal students uncovered a shocking picture of abuse.”[10]
Though the caste system is invariably identified with Hinduism, the notion of caste, according to Jodhka (2004) is probably best seen as a function of traditional Indian life. As proof, even though the religious tenets of Sikhism expressly forbid the caste system, in the Punjab area, where many Sikhs live,
the Sikh leadership, having become aware of the significance of numbers, did not deny the existence of caste among the Sikhs or that the low castes among the Sikhs faced disabilities due to their birth. The Sikh leadership, in fact, had to lobby a great deal with the national leadership so that certain Sikh castes could also be included along with Hindus in the list of the Scheduled Castes for the provision of special benefits and reservations.”[11]
The ties of religion bind so hard which may explain why it is so difficult for people to break away even when they have reached the point where the religion in which they put so much faith or, in the case of Dalits, turns out to be oppressive. Even so, throughout history, people at the lower castes have been doing what they can to escape what is essentially a sentence of indignity for life. Though India has an affirmative action program that seeks to bring the Dalits into the sunshine of everyday life, this is an uphill battle. For example, “In two well-publicized cases last year, Dalits in Tamil Nadu were beaten for bathing in an upper-caste well in Rajastan and forced to eat human excrement as punishment. In Haryana, not far from New Delhi, a mob of caste Hindus lynched five Dalits employed to dispose of cow carcasses after accusing them of skinning a live cow, an animal sacred to Hindus.”[12] As more and more Dalits have sought to convert to other religions, however, some Hindus in the higher castes have voiced their opposition and succeeded in some parts of India to pass anti-conversion laws.[13] Conventional wisdom suggests that people in the same religion belong to a fraternity of sorts, which is exactly why in some churches, members refer to one another as brothers and sisters. In the case of the Dalits among the Hindus, however, it seems as though those of the higher castes see no bonds of brotherhood other than to have the Dalits around as a means of cementing their own position in the society as being of greater superiority.
No Religion is Perfect
From the foregoing, it would seem that Hinduism has nothing positive going for it, which may even raise the question of how it is that almost one billion people adhere to such a religion which has so much unfairness at its heart. Japan, which had a similar system of division in its society, abolished the system as soon as they realized that such a system of inequality was both unfair to the individuals at the bottom and unlikely to help the nation progress. So, what’s good about Hinduism? Perhaps, a starting point is Hinduism’s understanding of the ultimate reality of God as one that can be approached from many different ways. Whereas many other religions, including many Christian sects, see their own pathway as the only way by which one might gain salvation through Jesus, Hinduism suggests that because people in different places are different, they are offered different opportunities to reach the same goal. “This simple idea says, ‘Your prophet and scriptures suit you and are best for you. My prophets and scriptures are ideal for my purposes, so why threaten or feel threatened by each other?’ This is the Hindu concept of pluralism.”[14] As enlightening as this sounds to people in the secular world, this is not a message that would necessarily find a listening ear among some fundamentalist religions. And yet, in a world where people from many different backgrounds have to live together out of necessity, the idea of plurality sounds great.
Buddhism is one of many faiths that offers an outlet for Dalits who want to escape what may seem like enslavement in the Hindu camp, and it is a philosophy that has captured the imagination of many Westerners because of its associations with peace and gentleness. Some of those calls to gentleness and respect for sentient beings are also present in Hinduism, which is notable for its protection of sacred cows. Buddhism has spread all over the world, in particular, in Asia, where its influence extends through China, Japan, Tibet, Thailand, and South Korea. As with Hinduism, Buddhism has so many branches that it is difficult to lump all of them into one category. Even so, there are elements that one can safely associate with Buddhism such as the discipline of their monks and its association with meditation and constant reminders of the transience of life. In a world that continues to make effort towards the recognition of women in all phases of life, women have also had to push their way into Buddhist life, whether as nuns, or lay nuns. In this regard, Hinduism and Buddhism alike have been products of their time, with young women in Hinduism, encouraged in times past to burn themselves alive when their husbands die. The leaders of the religion might have come up with good reasons for that but looking at this practice from any angle, it is difficult not to see an undercurrent of misogyny running through the practice.
Buddhist Monks Running Amok
Any follower of contemporary news in Southeast Asia is bound to come occasionally go into shock when reading about Buddhist monks wreaking havoc on their Muslim neighbors in places such as Myanmar (formerly Burma). Following the end of British rule, the Rohingya minority in Burma were disenfranchised as citizens of Burma in the 1950s as the state sought to create a purer population and to nationalize resources. In the ensuing years, the Rohingya were subject to all manner of abuses, forcing some of them to flee to Bangladesh. While every country has its share of racial strife, it is often jarring for those who think of Buddhism in only pacifist terms to read, for example, that, “Buddhist mobs torched Mingalar Zayone Islamic boarding school, Muslim firms and all but tone of the city’s 13 mosques after a row between a Muslim and a Buddhist at a gold shop and the burning to death of a Buddhist monk by four Muslim men.”[15] In this case, people from two faiths, Buddhism and Islam, it seems, felt no compunction about destroying the lives of the other. On both sides, there is no sense of feeling of brotherhood, and the mere fact that someone belongs to another religion, is a signal that that person is one’s enemy.
Conclusion
People versed in Hinduism and Buddhism may be able to explain that what I have presented above is simplistic and that the reality is much more complex than that. It may simply be that the popular representations of religion as being concerned about humanity and meaning may fall short of the reality. This is because, in extreme cases throughout history, it seems that when religions are not directly involved in decimating their neighbors, they are crafting different ways to highlight differences, and to shun or push away those who do not want to fall in line. To be fair, some of such practices can be justified in the sense that when a person chooses to live a debauched life that might influence others, especially children, there may be room for keeping that person away from the congregation until the person has changed his or her ways. But when it comes to encouraging women to burn themselves on pyres or burning down the homes of people with other beliefs, or doing everything one can to deny the so-called untouchables any opportunity to rise in life, one has to wonder if the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” is one that these religions really take seriously.
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[1] David S. Noss and Blake R. Grangaard. A History of the World’s Religions. Pearson Higher Ed, 2012, p. 82.
[2] Ibid, p. 83.
[3] Ibid, p. 92.
[4] Ibid, p. 103.
[5] Hagan, William & Kuykendall, Kenneth L. Humanities 547 Images Of Humanity: World Religious Perspectives California State University, Dominguez Hills Humanities Master of Arts External Program (HUX) www.csudh.edu/hux 1997, p. 27.
[6] Ibid, p. 172.
[7] Parthasarathi Muthukkaruppan. “Dalit: the making of a political subject.” Critical Quarterly 56.3 (2014): 34–45, p. 34
[8] Ibid, p. 37.
[9] Soutik Biswas. “Why are India’s Dalit students taking their lives?” www.bbc.co.uk 20 January, 2016.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Jodhka, Surinder S. “Sikhism and the caste question: Dalits and their politics in contemporary
Punjab.” Contributions to Indian sociology 38.1–2 (2004): 165–192, p. 179.
[12] Jason Overdorf. “CRIMINAL CONVERSIONS.” Far Eastern Economic Review 166.37 (2003), p. 56.
[13] Ibid, p. 56.
[14] Jay Prakash Lakhani. “A pluralism Solution; Hinduism’s view of religious coexistence holds the answer to the dilemma of religious conflict.” Sep 30, 2003, p. 13.
[15] “Burma jails 25 Buddhists for mob killings of 36 Muslims in Mikhtila.” www.theguardian.com 11 July, 2013