2. Vedic System

The Brāhmanical religious system had its beginning in early Vedic literature. The term Brāhmaṇa is derived from the root bṛmh to grow, expand, evolve, develop, and swell.^[1] The priest, who were the custodians of such prayers had very high degree of spiritual supremacy in Vedic society and were considered to be the very progeny of Prajāpati, the creator-God (Brāhmaṇo viprasya prajātervā apatyamiti brāhmano). For the sole purpose of preserving spiritual leadership the Brāhmaṇas evolved a system of very elaborate sacrifices. These sacrifices were considered to be eternal and even the creation of the world was believed to be the result a sacrifice. The rites were performed both to gain worldly enjoyment and to injure one’s enemies.

In later Vedic literature the value of the actual sacrifices was transferred to their symbolic representation and to meditation on them.^[2] Later on, Upanishadic thinkers observed that the nature of soul could be described only in negative terms: the Ātman was said to be neither this or that (neti neti), and was regarded as free from sin, old age, death, grief, hunger, and thirst. Its desires were true. It cognitions were true. A man who knows such Ātman gets all his desires and all worlds.^[3] The soul or Brahman pervaded all objects of the universe. The universe has come out of Brahman.

Thus, “We find the simple faith and devotion of the Vedic hymns, on the one hand, beings supplemented by the growth of the complex system of sacrificial rites, and on the other, bending their course towards a monotheistic or philosophic knowledge of the ultimate reality of the universe”.^[4] The union of the soul with Brahman was considered as the state of liberation.

India circa 5^th century B.C. was already a very well developed civilization with the development of agriculture (and possibly the appearance of farming tools made of iron) and formation of cities and appearance of town dwellers. With a relatively stable social environment, people (especially the well-to-do) began to ponder on the meaning of life and how to gain salvation. The traditional Vedic religion was no longer adequate nor satisfactory for this purpose. This led to a proliferation of ideas and thoughts. As a generalization, these thoughts can be divided into one of permanence or eternalism (sassatavāda) on one hand and that of annihilation (ucchedavāda) on the other. However, this classification is not too useful in the discussion and understanding of the actual religious practices of the followers of these two schools of thoughts at the time of the Buddha. For example, the term sassatavāda would include such diverse schools as Brahma-nism and Jainism while the profounder of a materialist philosophy (which would belong to the ucchedavāda group) called Ajagara was in fact one of the great ascetics of the Jainism genre.

It is, therefore, proposed to discuss in this paper some of the major schools of philosophy and religion at the time of the Buddha individually without trying to categorize them. This should give the reader a better understanding of the actual background against which Buddhism emerged. The Buddha lived around the 5^th Century BCE in Northern India in what is generally known as the late Vedic period in Indian history. It must be remembered that the Buddha was not born into a religious vacuum, but into a background of, more specifically soteriological religions in India. In fact, his teachings were very much influenced by the religious environment of the time which was very much historically dominated by Brahmanism. In fact, a good many terminologies were borrowed by Buddhism (for that matter, most of the other religions at the time) from Brahmanism, although the meaning of these might have been very different from its original usage.

In early Vedic literature, rituals and sacrifices were the main staple. By the time the texts of Upanishads started to appear, Brahmanism had developed its own system of soteriology with the appearance of the notion of the cosmic soul. An escape from saṃsāra (with its endless round of re-birth and suffering) was offered in the form of divine knowledge–when one had full realization of one’s true nature, one’s soul (atman) would realize its identity with Brāhman (the cosmic soul or the ground of the universe). The identification of one’s atman with Brāhman was, at the same time, the truth to be discovered and the end to be attained. It is this form of the atman which was vigorously denied by the Buddha.

The description of the merging of the soul with the cosmic soul in the Upanishads literature is strongly reminiscent of the yogic experience of the ascetic practitioners of the Indus Valley. This is believed to be an evidence of the local ascetic tradition influencing the Vedic tradition. When the Aryans (a group of people from central Asia) entered Northern India circa 1750 B.C., they became the dominate people in the Indus Valley and the Ganges Plain. They brought with them their religions and their priests (the Brāhmins) among other things. Initially, the local India ascetic culture (the dominant local tradition before the arrival of the Aryans) was naturally suppressed but then by the time of the Buddha, this culture had re-emerged with fresh vigor and vitality. As pointed out above, the Brahmins probably had speculated on the experience gained in yogic trance to help to formulate the idea of the cosmic soul and its merging with the atman.

Buddhist literature indicates that the ascetic tradition was very much in vogue at the time of the Buddha. After he had “left home”, Prince Siddhattha Gotama (who was later to become the Buddha) first became the student of well-known ascetics like Ālāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta. He became proficient in the art of yogic meditation; although he was ultimately not satisfied with his teachers’ systems and not convinced that their methods could lead to complete liberation. He then spent the next six years in prolonged painful austerities, but finally found the experience wanting. The way Prince Siddhatta subjected his body to austerity indicates that he was probably a follower of Jainism during those years.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

William, S. M. Sanskrit–English Dictionary (s.v. Brāhmaṇa), p. 741

[2]:

See the Upanisad and Vedanga literature

[3]:

Chandogyopanisada VIII, 7. 1.

[4]:

Dasgupta, S. N. A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1, p. 22.