[Advaita-l] bauddha mata

[Satish Arigela]

From: श्रीमल्ललितालालितः lalitaalaalitah at gmail.com

>I don't think he thought anything positive about The Veda. A person
>respecting them can not generate a society of people opposed to that.

Take a look at the following extract from a longer article. The original article 
is a study on early mantra-shAstra texts and hence may not be completely 
relevant:

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Many people have an incorrect understanding of the tathAgata. They see him 
through the lenses of their own making – a pure philosopher disinterested in 
ritual, a proto-Marxist, a social reformer or simply a saint in the mold of a 
much later version. But he was in reality quite different – he saw himself as an 
insider to the vaidika tradition of the Arya-s who was redefining its structure, 
texts and worldview from within, albeit in a rather radical manner. As part of 
this activity he was on one hand a philosopher who debated with his rivals of 
mImAmsaka and other parivrAjaka traditions and on the other hand, like them, he 
too was mantravAdin. He sought to defeat them not just in philosophical debates 
but also emerge as a superior mantra-vAdin with more powerful mantra-s. This 
latter aspect is apparent in his battle with the brAhmaNa uruvela jaTila 
kAshyapa or the skull-tapping brAhmaNa va~NgIsha. While in his subversive 
philosophy departed even farther from the mainstream than the muNDaka upaniShat, 
it is likely that he was more conservative with his mantrashAstra. While the 
tathAgata probably subtly tried to encourage his own worship, in mantra practice 
for practical gains he still had to stick to the basics –this is in fact 
reflected in his advice to the councilors of the vR^iji gaNarAjya to continue 
their rituals as ordained to the deva-s and to the brAhmaNa-s to continue 
studying their veda. The MVR, coming early in the Sanskritic tradition of the 
tAthAgata-s, is in large part an adaptation of the Astika mantrashAstra. In this 
regard it tries to imitate both the proto-tAntrika as well as the late vaidika 
systems.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The early-bauddha-s are not much differenet from shaiva-s and vaiShNava-s. One 
possible reason why they got seperated and isolated is because:
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"Likewise, both the AstIka subversionists (shaiva-s and vaiShNava-s) showed some 
exclusivist tendencies in their later but not early development. The radical 
departure of the bauddha-s was in erecting blatant nara-stuti (at least vAsudeva 
and balabhadra were merely emanations of viShNu) and more importantly rejecting 
deva-bhASha and chandas. This linguistic departure more than anything else was 
probably to set the bauddha mata aside for ever as a nAstIka tradition. This 
came as we know from siddhArtha’s own mouth as he forebade the brAhmaNas from 
composing his work into vedic hymns."
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