[hnedeotes]

Yeah, western countries are known for having about 50% of their population relegated to an untouchable status without any chance of social mobility or partaking in the benefits and rituals of the other 50% - and not only in this life, it's for eternity.

[zozbot234]

Untouchable status is flat-out illegal in India, and the Indian government has gone to huge lengths to help former pariahs/untouchables (now properly called Dalit) improve their education and social status. To the point where the formerly privileged non-Dalit are now complaining that they don't get anywhere like the same attention from government and are at risk of being left by the wayside. These complaints might be overblown for sure, but the underlying efforts to redress these wrongs cannot be denied.

[hnedeotes]

This was not to say that those things were left unattended or no effort has been made, it was in the context of the parent comment - dharmic definitions, and ideas, are fallible as everything else and can be corrupted and lead to the same or worse outcomes and they can mingle good ideas (Vegetarianism) with bad ideas (Casts).

[zozbot234]

Untouchability was never a dharmic definition or idea. The Vedic texts talk about there being four proper "callings" in life but make no mention of any social outcaste status, and the elaborate system of caste was a result of unrelated developments, similar to the ones which created the rigid social systems of the West in the Middle-Ages.

[dominotw]

> Untouchable status is flat-out illegal in India,

How many municipal workers cleaning streets and toilets are from higher castes ?

[naruvimama]

The class system or castas was very much part of Europe.

The monopoly of the church on God and crown was precisely why it was imported into India by the British to consolidate their power.

"Caste" is often used to white wash the Islamic and Christian colonization of India that lasted for a 1000 years, that reduced the richest nation to one of the poorest.

This poverty creation machine that the British colonization is not merely an effect of exploitation or greed, it was very much driven by the same racist and Christian supremacy that drove the nazis.

The "dalits" are very much the biggest victims of colonization.

[zozbot234]

> that reduced the richest nation to one of the poorest.

Very good point, BTW. You're not going to find a rigid social stratification system in a rich society. Stratification takes over as an outcome of societal collapse, as people are reduced to fighting over scraps of their former wealth and will cling to any form of seeming stability, however damaging in the long term. This is exactly what occurred in the West of late antiquity and the dark ages, culminating in the early middle ages.

[hnedeotes]

This seems to not have any resemblance to the historical decline of the "Vedic Culture" way before any "colonising" by the "west".

If the guys writing the history didn't mess it up, wasn't buddha himself against the caste system? That seems way before there was even a Church in the West to begin with.

[zozbot234]

The Mongolic ("Islamic") invasions from Central Asia starting in the late middle ages were quite comparable in their violence. And they still count as "west" from an Indian POV since Central Asia is directly west of the Indian subcontinent. (Note that these Mongolic invaders were, by and large, merely converts to Islam, and that a very comparable dynamic also caused the end of the Golden Age of Islam, around that same time.)

Gautama Buddha was against any rigid interpretation of the varnas, but he was not unusual in that - this was close to Hindu orthodoxy even at the time.

[naruvimama]

A lot of myths have been built around Buddha or Ashoka, in the recent years to fit politics.

Buddha considered himself very much a Hindu.

[tln750]

As for the new narrative being heavily pushed these days that the caste system is a remnant of British colonial times, a few words from an Untouchable girl can correct it - written in the year 1855. From the essay:

Earlier, Gokhale, Apate, Trimkaji, Andhala, Pansara, Kale, Behre, etc [all Brahman surnames], who showed their bravery by killing rats in their homes, persecuted us, not sparing even pregnant women, without any rhyme or reason. This has stopped now. Harassment and torture of Mahars and Mangs, common during the rule of Peshwas in Pune, have stopped. Now, human sacrifice for the foundation of forts and mansions has stopped – now, nobody buries us alive. Now, our population is growing in numbers. Earlier, if any Mahar or Mang wore fine clothes, they would say that only Brahmans should wear such clothes. Seen in fine clothes, we were earlier accused of stealing such clothes. Their religion was in danger of being polluted when Untouchables put clothes around their bodies; they would tie them to a tree and punish them. But, under British rule, anybody with money can buy and wear clothes. Earlier, punishment for any wrongdoing against the upper castes was to behead the guilty Untouchable— now, it has stopped. Excessive and exploitative tax has stopped. The practice of untouchability has stopped in some places. Killing has stopped on the playground. Now, we can even visit the marketplace.

Source: https://www.forwardpress.in/2020/02/165-years-ago-first-fema...

[naruvimama]

Atrocity literate was quite convenient both for the colonizers as well as for the church.

We have a cottage industry even today that churns out fake attacks on Christians to justify interference or bullying by western countries.

[tln750]

Imagine having a mind that is so saturated with hatred and propaganda that a young girl's cry of despair from 1855, protesting against centuries upon centuries of oppression and brutality, is blithely discarded as 'atrocity literature'. For all the warbling about 'dharmic' culture, basic humanity and a desire to develop an inner yardstick for truth is utterly missing from your absurd screeds.

[tln750]

What an absolutely shocking misrepresentation of the Buddha !

The Buddha rejected the authority of the Vedas entirely and this infuriated the Brahmins of that time. He had both philosophical and pragmatic objections to the theistic stance of Brahminical groups, along with a total rejection of their focus on mass animal slaughter in the name of rituals.

From the original Pali canon, this discourse captures the Buddha's position:

https://suttacentral.net/an3.61/en/sujato

And, Adi Sankara wrote an entire polemic trashing the Buddha as an insignificant man who should be shunned by everybody. Here is a passage straight from the Vedanta Sutras written by Sankara:

Moreover, Buddha by propounding the three mutually contradictory systems, teaching respectively the reality of the external world, the reality of ideas only, and general nothingness, has himself made it clear either that he was a man given to make incoherent assertions, or else that hatred of all beings induced him to propound absurd doctrines by accepting which they would become thoroughly confused.--So that--and this the Sutra means to indicate--Buddha's doctrine has to be entirely disregarded by all those who have a regard for their own happiness.

Source: https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe34/sbe34208.htm

[jaldhar]

The neo-Hindu view of the Buddha is indeed misrepresentation. Buddha couldn’t have been a Hindu because “Hinduism” as they understand it simply didn’t exist at that time. But your view isn’t any better.

1. There is no reason to believe the Pali Tripitaka represents the authentic words or teachings of the Buddha. He would have spoken Magadhi as his mother tongue. Pali was a Western Prakrit and moreover a trade and literary language not a popular one. Also the Pali Tripitaka was composed and edited by the Hinayanists several centuries after the Buddha’s life and expresses doctrinal developments that would be anachronistic in that era.

2. There is no particular reason to believe that Buddha and early Buddhism was against caste except in the general sense that they are against worldly behaviors of any type. You won’t find anything about it in the Aryan eightfold path (Aryashtangamarga) for instance. (Aryan is usually translated as “noble” in this case. Did you ever wonder why?). The ten major disciples of the Buddha were all either Brahmanas or his royal relatives. The first major historical Buddhist ruler Ashoka in his rock edicts exhorts his subjects to respect both “Brahmanas and Shramanas”. The Ashokavadana, the earliest Buddhist hagiography (and canonical in Theravada) states that a Buddha can only be born in a Brahmana or Kshatriya womb.

3. Buddhism is against karma and holds that liberation is from Jnana only. Animal sacrifices are mentioned a lot because they are particularly vivid examples of the negative consequences of karma but the Buddhist critique applies just as readily to lighting a ghee lamp for worldly reasons. The Jains were more consistently for non-violence than the Buddhists. (No predominantly Buddhist culture is predominantly vegetarian). Jnana only is the position of Advaita Vedanta too. The difference is Smarta Hinduism developed a modus vivendi where karma was acceptable for householders. There was no lay Buddhism during its Indian phase only the sangha so the question could be put aside.

4. Yes Astika philosophers and saints contended against Buddhist counterparts (and each other) but it is anachronistic to bring those disputes back to the time of the Buddha himself. By the time of Shankaracharya there were several mutually antagonistic Buddhist sects. (Actually three is generous. Traditionally there are said to be eighteen.). That is what he is referring to. They can’t all be “the true teaching of the Buddha” unless he was incoherent.

[tln750]

The Pali Canon contains the kernel of the Buddha's Teaching. It is not difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff and arrive at the essence of what the Buddha taught. A guide on how to approach the discourses:

https://suttacentral.net/general-guide-sujato

Sujato addresses several claims in his essay, and has some helpful hints on the historical placement of the Buddhadhamma.

The Buddha was not a social reformer - his teaching was about total renunciation of the world. But there are plenty of discourses that reject the birth-based caste system and instead establishes that deeds and actions are the sole criteria for judging a person.

An example: https://suttacentral.net/mn98/en/sujato

You are mistaken about Karma (Pali: Kamma). Kamma is a central pillar in the Buddha's Teaching. It is, arguably, one of the most important aspects, since Nibbana is described as the cessation of kamma.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/kamma.html

Adi Sankara's rejection of the Buddha's Teaching was not a simplicistic dismissal based on sectarian divisions. His rejection was based on philosophical differences - the Vedanta Sutras make that very clear.

In any case, my main point was that it is nonsensical to call the Buddha as a Hindu.

[naruvimama]

You clearly do not understand what Hinduism is.

Brahmins are a small subset, who at different regions and times might have been corrupt. Just like the church.

But unlike the church, Hinduism is experiential and no one has a monopoly, which is precisely why Buddhism is one of many 1000s of movements.

There is no singular holy book and no need even in communities where it existed.

[tln750]

This obsession with trying to somehow make the Buddha and his teaching as a branch of Hinduism falls flat on its face when you look at his teaching even cursorily. The central tenet of the Buddha's position was his exposition of anatta (not-self), which is directly opposed to all Hindu doctrines which preach that finding one's 'true self' is the goal of existence. Instead, the Buddha taught that the search for a 'true self' (including God, Brahman etc.) is futile and pointless. This is an irreconcilable cleavage between Buddhism and Hinduism.

You really need to look into the Buddha's teaching properly before trying to appropriate it to fit your agenda.

[IgniteTheSun]

> and not only in this life, it's for eternity.

Kind of hard to make that argument and simultaneously argue that the soul transfers to a new body at death and is confined to Earth (or worse) until the soul reaches a stage of enlightenment sufficient to move to heaven. Its arguable whether caste applies even in this life - and definitely does not between lifetimes as even the highest type of body on this planet (human) is not assured.