Not Just Buddha, Even Mahavir's Parents Practised Vedic Faith!
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
13 October
2023
"There is no proof that Buddha's parents
practised Vedic faith. Buddhist literature does not mention anything like this.
There is no material evidence that Vedas existed before Buddha was born.
Sanskrit did not exist then. Please elaborate."
By Ashok Sharma 11/10/2023 10:54:04
Acharya
Dharmanand Damodar Kosambi (refer to 'Dharmanand Kosambi: The Essential
Writings' edited by Meera Kosambi, Orient Blackswan, 2013) and Rahul
Sankriyayan (Kedar Nath Pandey-refer to 'Tibbat Mein Sava Varsha', 1933
) 'believed' that Buddha's parents practised Vedic Faith because it was
prevalent at that time.
Virendra
Kumar Jain speculated that even the royal parents of Vardhman (later, Mahavir)
practised Vedic faith (refer to 'Anuttar Yogi: Teerthankar Mahavir,' Volume
3).
It must be
stated that Buddha and Mahavir were coevals and born approximately 2600 years
ago. In fact, there're schools both in Jainism and Buddhism that still believe
they were not different individuals but one!
In fact,
Buddha's allegiance to Vedic tradition was challenged by Dr B R Ambedkar who
propounded an alternative narrative which eliminates all Vedic contributions to
Buddhist literature and Pitakas.
By the way,
Sanskrit has a recorded history that dates back over 3,500 years, with the
earliest written records of Sanskrit found in the Vedas, ancient Hindu texts
that were composed between 1500 and 1200 BCE.
Buddhist
sutras record the Buddha’s teachings, in which some concepts are common with
those appearing in the Vedas, such as Dharma and Karma. The Buddha himself says
so and called the Vedic sages ancient. So, they predated him by quite a bit.
I find the
demand for “historical evidence” for such matters unsubstantiated, unnecessary
and leading nowhere. How can we excavate historical evidence about texts dating
back for thousands of years? And after dwelling on such a formidable task to
analyse and “prove” - a point of view, the question is: what is the benefit of
this spent energy and time?
Both the
Vedas and Sutras are about the problem of existence and suffering, and now also
- people are truly suffering. I think we can help people in a better way than
speculating about historical evidence, which will always be a subject of
dispute or a question of what is the benefit to humanity if the answer was this
or that!
I'm sure,
the erudite reader, contributor and bureaucrat Mr Ashok Sharma nods his head in
agreement.
------
A
regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative
religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the
world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/buddha-mahavir-vedic-faith/d/130890
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism