Question about the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu

My son and I have long had this discussion, and I need some other points of view.

I love the Buddha, and love Mahayana Buddhism. My son, sadly, does not--nor did my husband. My husband was raised by Christians (he was Punjabi, adopted by Americans, did not know he was Indian until after he was 18 and could research his birth parents). When I met him, he considered himself an atheist, but, over time, moved towards Hinduism, with much respect for Sikhism--but, even as a self proclaimed atheist, he said he found Buddhism terrifying--the whole, "life is suffering and then non existence" thing, in a simplified version.

Well, my son, who never heard this from his dad, as he passed away when my son was four, has basically told me the same exact thing, verbatim. And he does not understand why, as an incarnation of Vishnu, he would have preached atheism. And, frankly, neither do I? And that the ultimate goal is non-existence, vs Moksha?

And so you know, I am well aware of the theory of how the Buddha was incorporated, historically, into Hinduism; I'm speaking specifically from a Hindu point of view. How do you reconcile an incarnation of Vishnu preaching atheism, and this ultimate goal?

[sunsoul]

The Buddha was added quite late on to the Hindu pantheon of gods. According to the Hindu mythology concerning the ten avatars of Vishnu, he is the 9th incarnation. However, this list is not definitive as he is often replaced by Balarama depending on the different sects or traditions.

Hinduism has always been extremely open to all kinds of teachings and principles. You can find atheistic, devotional, meditative, tantric, orthodox, non-orthodox and monistic trends all being recognised as Hindu. As I mentioned on a recent thread, there is actually an atheistic school of philosophy within Hinduism called Mimamsa.

From this point of view, there is no problem including the Buddha within Hinduism, although he is a relatively minor deity (I actually have only seen one small Hindu temple for Buddha in Northern India). His complexion is dark black when you do come across a Hindu Buddha and it was quite surprising to see him with a garland of flowers around his neck and various Hindu iconography.

[ajay00]

Originally Posted by Kiran65

How do you reconcile an incarnation of Vishnu preaching atheism, and this ultimate goal?

The Buddha never preached atheism. He only remained silent,when asked about the existence of God or gods, and never gave an answer. This has been blatantly interpreted as atheism by some, which is not true.

His silence was intended to convey the message that mere verbal gymnastics is not going to make one understand or figure whether God or Divine exists or not. The whole thing depends on experiential understanding.

And all of the Buddha's efforts were focused on creating this experiential understanding in the seeker.

He completely steered clear of verbal argumentation and debates which he perceived as a waste of valuable time and energy, as intellectual appreciation of the divine and experiential understanding are two different things altogether.

Originally Posted by ajay00

The Buddha never preached atheism. He only remained silent,when asked about the existence of God or gods, and never gave an answer. This has been blatantly interpreted as atheism by some, which is not true.

His silence was intended to convey the message that mere verbal gymnastics is not going to make one understand or figure whether God or Divine exists or not. The whole thing depends on experiential understanding.

And all of the Buddha's efforts were focused on creating this experiential understanding in the seeker.

He completely steered clear of verbal argumentation and debates which he perceived as a waste of valuable time and energy, as intellectual appreciation of the divine and experiential understanding are two different things altogether.

Great explaination.

Fine, then, even if The Buddha never preached atheism himself, Buddhism is definitely an atheistic religion. From a purely Hindu viewpoint, not just saying there are atheistic sects, etc, seeing it from the view of a Hindu who believes in God, who is Vaishnavite, which my son is, I am looking for a response that could possibly help him (and me) understand this? And reconcile it? Because we do see The Buddha as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, not Balarana, and this is causing him considerable angst.

And thank you for the clarification on the preaching :)

Sorry, Balarama

On a tablet

[sunsoul]

I don't think it is particularly problematic because Advaita Vedanta from a Hindu perspective is very similar to Buddhism as it is monistic (although it still retains essential concepts such as the existence of a soul and adherence to the Vedas) and it is a major orthodox Hindu tradition.

Mimamsa is essentially atheistic and yet it is a valid Hindu school of philosophy.

Strictly speaking, Buddhism wouldn't be called atheistic because it has the key tenet of enlightenment (nirvana) which has parallels with liberation (moksha) in Vedic Hinduism.

[kralaro]

"Sorry, Balarama"
Mother, there's an edit button available for a while after posting.

Regarding your question, let's do a Google search "buddha in hinduism" (without quotes); Google search done, oh nice there's a Wikipedia page for it, let's see it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha_in_Hinduism

In it, it's written:
-------------------------------------------(quote)
A partial list of major Puranic references of the Buddha is as follows:

• Harivamsha (1.41)
• Vishnu Purana (3.18)
• Bhagavata Purana (1.3.24, 2.7.37, 11.4.23) [2]
• Garuda Purana (1.1, 2.30.37, 3.15.26) [6]
• Agni Purana (16)
• Narada Purana (2.72)
• Linga Purana (2.71)
• Padma Purana (3.252) etc. (Dhere Ramchandra Chintaman) [7]

(unquote)-------------------------------------------

Bhagavata Purana (AKA Srimad Bhagavatam) 1.3.24 is part of the above list. Let's see what it contains: ( ISKCON's translation from http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/1/3/24 )

---
Then, in the beginning of Kali-yuga, the Lord will appear as Lord Buddha, the son of Añjanā, in the province of Gayā, just for the purpose of deluding those who are envious of the faithful theist.
---


Out of the list, I chose Srimad Bhagavatam because it's famous.

Did Bhagavata Purana 1.3.24, answer your question?

Um, wow. Not quite sure how to respond to this last post.

I'll assume it was done kindly...

I'm new to this forum, and forums in general, so thank you, I had no idea there was an edit button--I've seen other people post corrections, so I guess I'm not the only one who didn't know.

As far as wikipedia as a source of knowledge, again, raised Hindu, looking for knowledge for my Hindu son, wikipedia is not the place I usually run to... And the Bhagavata Purana? Not the text I would consult for information about The Buddha; Krishna, yes, Buddha, no. One small mention of him would not answer my question, by any means, and certainly not that answer.

I'm looking for something meaningful, not dismissive, that I can pass on to my son; thinking of the other incarnations of Vishnu, looking at their lives, and what they contributed to Hinduism, to our belief system, how they shaped it, etc, I was hoping to find something substantial, something that would correlate to the same sort of relationship with the religion and its history. We have been trying to reconcile the idea of The Buddha as incarnation of one of the major gods with what we have seen of him, what we believe of him. And while I so appreciated the correction on his not preaching atheism (I was not aware of that), Buddhism is still an atheistic religion (at least with the Indian Hindu Buddha, since there is no deity; yes, I know in some other countries there are certain "gods", but not in our religion).

Sorry, not looking for an argument, was just looking for some help with this. Thanks for your input.

[Vinayaka]

Namaste Kiran: I'm not a Vaishnavite, but I have read some about it, and I do empathise with the inability to give a satisfactory explanation to your son.

From the little I know, it seems that there is much variance on avatar lists. In fact, many more modern Gurus like both Sai Babas, Sankara, and others have had their status lifted to 'avatar' by their followers. It seems that there has been a historical pattern going on here, and it could well be that the addition of 'Buddha' was nothing more than that, but much longer back.