[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.

[naruvimama]

For me Hinduism is an ecosystem as is for millions of Hindus.

A Hindu will feel very comfortable in a Buddhist temple and practice and vice versa. Hindus themselves have extremely diverse traditions.

I see where we have diverging views. My Swedish landlords who happens to be a Christian once asked we where is your holy book.

In her mind not having a one-one equivalent with Christianity delegitimises the religion.

In trying to intellectualise the debate, you have taken the limited view of a Christian.

The vast majority of the Hindus are open to the ideas of Buddhism as well as 1000s of tribal/rural/regional gods and rituals. Not only is there no conflict, there is perhaps no clear boundaries.

This is completely alien to xtianity/Islam.

[ir123]

You define Hinduism as an ecosystem of ideas, with no clear boundaries, sometimes adopting ideas from Buddhism as well as other tribal rituals.

In another comment you said that casteism was brought by the West to India. (I do not agree with this but lets go with for now). So it clearly follows that Hindus (Hinduism) adopted casteism from somewhere externally. This is not for debate because we have seen and continue to see Hindus practicing casteism for whatever reason.

Hinduism can be simultaneously extolled for adopting "good" ideas from Buddhism but is also beyond criticism for adopting casteism from the west?

You arbitrarily laid the boundary for Hinduism at "caste" arguing that it was brought externally and hence not an inherent Hindu feature, yet somehow you take pride in Hinduism being a religion that does adopt external ideas. Which one is it?

[naruvimama]

@ir123

If you have been under Islamic and xtian occupation for a 1000 years, there isn't a lot of options.

Some communities are driven to extreme poverty and it becomes a dog eat dog world.

Considering Islam in Perssia completely wiped out the culture in 50 years.

And it took only 150 years for xtianity to wipe out pagan culture in Europe or the Americas.

Caste as a system was clearly used by the British to separate communities at different levels of destitution coopting some as native informants.

Even in current day USA people are divided on their political, regional, occupational lines. Dems and Reps each consider themselves superior and the other one dumb. Inspite of public schools there is a big impact of family background even in politics.