The Buddha–Mimansa: The Buddha Relation to Vedic Religion

The book presents a comparative study of a all religions made with a view to arrive at the universal religion. The whole range of Vedic and Buddhist literature native as well as foreign has been researched in preparing this book. The title "Buddha Mimansa" is significant. It reveals, in essence, the doctrines of Buddha and their relation to the religion of the Vedas. There is a lot of difference between the faiths of the Hindus and Buddhists. Here is a book that lays emphasis on the similarity and concordance between the two. The book consists of 2 parts. Part I deals with the three main topics viz. that the Buddha was a follower of the original religion of the Hindus, that the Hindus were the original followers of Buddha, that the Buddhists formed a sect ejected by them. Part II is an appendix which explains the doctrine of ahinsa in Buddhism. It also contains notes to the first part and the appendix. The books opens with the introduction which deals with the original Hindu religion—the religion of the Vedas. It concludes with an index and the two portraits of the Buddha and their remarkable significance. The author has shown that in its origin Buddhism was an off shoot more of a social than of a religious reformation. It was an attack upon the web of priest craft which Brahmanism had woven round the society. Otherwise like Vedic sages Buddha believed in the soul and its rebirth and in the law of retribution. He believed the system of Yoga too and practised it himself. His doctrine of Sunyata as the Vedanta concept of Maya—the dream like unreality of all sensible things that make up the universe. In religion Buddha followed the Upanishads precepts of self-realisation. Like the Hindus of those days, Buddha bore the sacred mark (Tilaka) on his forehead and wore the sacred thread across his shoulders. For he was never ejected by the Hindus. His doctrine of non-violence is positively a doctrine of universal love. The author has shown on the basis of Vedic and Puranic texts how Buddha entered the Hindu fold, was accepted as the ninth incarnation of Visnu and how the concept of purification and Nirvana preached by him could be equated with the Hindu of Samskaras and Moksa. The book is a unique contribution in the field of Buddhist and Indian studies.