On Saturday 01 Mar 2008 12:29:27 am Charles Haynes wrote: > I thought much of the objection was to converting to Buddhism? > Buddhism does not say that only one god is correct and that other gods > are wrong. > > For that matter, I've heard that the Buddha is supposedly the ninth > avatar of Vishnu, so what's the problem with "converting" to Buddhism?
Let me tell you what I understand the story to be. At some time in history Hindu India had reached a stage when it was open and receptive to non violent ideologies. There were, in these periods at least two non violent offshoots of Hinduism - both considered as "dharmas" - and these were Buddhism and Jainism. Some Hindus reacted violently to all this at some stage and there was a concerted effort to reduce the runaway success of Buddhism and reclaim the place of Hindu belief. Ultimately Buddhist thought was incorporated as part of Hindu thought, possibly making Hinduism more easily acceptable. This probably explains why Buddhism retained a greater following outside India. The BJPs contention is not against conversion to Buddhism, but conversions to Islam and Christianity. Buddhism is not seen as an adversarial religion. Both Christianity and Islam are seen as adversarial towards Hinduism. However, Hinduism itself has consistently displayed an ability to be adversarial and change its avatar in various ways through history. The BJP itself may just be a modern-day indicator of that . One more religion that is considered dharmic and non adversarial (towards Hindus) and an offshoot of Hinduism is the Sikh religion. The Sikh religion started off as a mild-mannered variant that took dharma from Hinduism and a monotheistic theme, but wars with Islamic kings and the cruel fate of the ninth Sikh guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur led to the leadership of the tenth Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh who converted Sikhism into an organized and highly militant religion. A tradition that used to exist (still exists?) in Punjab in India is that Hindu Punjabis will give their eldest son to Sikhism. So there is loose agreement on various issues between Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. shiv
