Gandhi’s golden cord linking Buddhism and Hinduism---------------------
“Mahatma Gandhi told the Buddhists gathered in Colombo to hear him, that Buddha and his teachings were not driven out of India. He said that during Gandhi’s lifetime, it was impossible for Hindu India to retrace her steps and go behind the great reformation that Gautama had effected into Hinduism.”
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by Elmo Leonard
(April 20, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The life of the Buddha and his teachings formed an integral part of Hinduism, according to Mahatma Gandhi during a visit to Sri Lanka in 1927.
It is considered a fact of history that Buddhism had been weeded out of India, the land of its birth by Hindu rulers. That historical occurrence took place centuries following the establishment of Buddhism in India.
Not driven out
Mahatma Gandhi told the Buddhists gathered in Colombo to hear him, that Buddha and his teachings were not driven out of India. He said that during Gandhi’s lifetime, it was impossible for Hindu India to retrace her steps and go behind the great reformation that Gautama had effected into Hinduism.
According to Gandhi, the Buddha, by His immense sacrifice, by His great renunciation and by the immaculate purity of His life, had left an indelible impression upon Hinduism and thus Hinduism owed an eternal debt of gratitude to the Buddha.
Buddhist sympathiser
Addressing Buddhists at the Maligakanda Temple Colombo, Gandhi said that his son and some Hindus in India had accused him (Gandhi) of being a follower of Buddha and that he was also accused of spreading Buddhist teachings under the guise of Sanatana Hinduism. Gandhi sympathised with his son and Hindu friends on their accusations. The Indian saint had even felt proud of being charged of being a follower of the Buddha, and had no hesitation in declaring in the presence of the Buddhist audience that he owed a great deal to the inspiration that he had derived from the life of the Enlightened One.
Gandhi told the audience that what was passed under the name of Buddhism might have been driven out of India, but the life of the Buddha and His teachings were not.
In his speech in Colombo, the Mahatma also stated,
“It is my fixed opinion that Buddhism or rather the teaching of Buddha found its acceptance in India, and it could not be otherwise, for Gautama was himself a Hindu of Hindus.
He was saturated with the best that was in Hinduism, and he gave life to some of the teachings that were buried in the Vedas and which were overgrown with weeds. His great Hindu spirit cut its way through the forest of words, meaningless words, which had overlaid the golden truth that was in the Vedas. He made some of the words in the Vedas yield a meaning to which the men of his generation were utter strangers, and he found in India the most congenial soil.”
Triumph of Hinduism
Gandhi thought aloud that wherever the Buddha went, he was followed by and surrounded not by non-Hindus but Hindus, those who were themselves saturated with the Vedic law.
The Buddha’s heart, like his teaching was all expanding and all embracing and so it had survived His own body and swept across the face of the earth. “And at the risk of being called a follower of Buddha, I claim this achievement as a triumph of Hinduism, Buddha never rejected Hinduism, but He broadened its base. He gave it a new life and a new interpretation.”
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