Download Victor van Bijlert PhD Department of Religious Studies, The VU

Victor van Bijlert PhD
Department of Religious Studies, The VU, Amsterdam
Restating the message of Buddha for modern India: Tagore on Buddhism and its European
interpreters.
Throughout his career as a writer, Tagore often acted as a prophet, warning and
admonishing, preaching – in the best sense of the word – the high spiritual values
which he thought informed Indian culture from times immemorial. When he
presented his interpretations of Indian spirituality for the first time in English, he
prefaced these with the following personal observation:
To me the verses of the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever
been things of the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth;
and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as being
instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and awaiting for their
confirmation, my own special testimony, which must have its value because
of its individuality.
… They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual
lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation.
(The English Writings, vol. 2: 278)
Here Tagore avows his allegiance to Buddhist teachings and the personal interest he
takes in Buddhism. The teachings of Buddha have the potential to stimulate the
personal spiritual growth of the seeker. Every seeker’s personal experience with
these teachings ‒ obviously meant to be put into practice rather than being learned
by rote ‒ confirms their infinite personal usefulness. In Tagore’s estimation,
Buddha’s teachings are applicable at any time and everywhere. It is interesting that
Tagore should mention immediately after the Upanishads the teachings of Buddha
as a source of his private spirituality. That in his private and public spirituality
Tagore was heavily leaning on the utterances of the Upanishads, is relatively well
known. That Buddhism was a second important source of Tagore’s spiritual makeup
is less well known, and in any case this fact is not much analysed. Studies on
Tagore’s religious thought mostly highlight his affinity with the Upanishads, and his
theistic symbolism and imagery. The study by Jose Chunkapura on ‘The God of
Rabindranath Tagore’ is a recent instant of this (Chunkapura 2002).
Speaking about Tagore and Buddhism in English and from the vantage-point
of religious studies, we are obliged to use the word ‘religion’. This term has led and
still leads to much confusion and heated debate, especially in the context of South
Asian religions. This fact challenges us to take a brief look at recent scholarly
discussions on Indian religion. These discussions are being dominated by
postcolonial and postmodern theory. A volume published in 2010 contains essays by
various scholars on South-Asian religion. These essays summarize many recent
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debates with a strong postcolonial slant (Bloch, Keppens, Hegde 2010). Some
scholars represented in this volume hold that ‘religion’ is a ‘category of the
imagination’ and a product of eurocentrism and the ‘cultural imperialism of
Christianity’(cf. op.cit:97-99). This is emphasised for instance by Richard King who
draws on the work of the famous historian of religions Jonathan Smith. Richard King
also holds that the concept of religion is predominantly Anglo-Protestant in origin
(cf.op.cit:105-6). Timothy Fitzgerald on the other hand argues that the word ‘religion’
is a misleading ‘reification’ (op.cit:115) and that contemporary ‘usages misleadingly
suggest that “religions” are observable things in the world, which is a form of
misplaced concreteness’ for, according to Fitzgerald ‘religion is an act of the
imagination which we are persuaded to believe in by the rhetoric of academics,
politicians, media people, and by general discourse’ (op.cit:115). John Zavos agrees,
claiming that religion as ‘a network of phenomena’ is implicated in the ‘epistemic
violence of post-Enlightenment thinking exported to the rest of the world through
European expansion’ (op.cit:56). For Buddhism Zavos makes a remarkable
exception, for according to him Buddhism is ‘virulently anti-essentialist’ (ibid) and
thus quite in line with postmodern thinking. Then there is S.N. Balagangadhara who
holds that Hinduism and Buddhism ‘exist ... but they do so only in the western
universities’ (op.cit:138-9). Religion for Balagangadhara is a typically Semitic affair
which he defines as ‘explanatory intelligible account of both the cosmos and itself’
(op.cit:144). Jacob de Roover and Sarah Claerhout, both following Balagangadhara,
summarize their own position on Hinduism and Buddhism as follows: both are
western constructs that are mistaken for empirical realities, ‘not only by western
scholars and laymen, but also by the western-educated classes of India and
elsewhere’ (op.cit:170). Perhaps the only dissenting view on religion is put forward
by David Lorenzen to the effect that religion is ‘any set of normative ideas about
how society should behave’ and ‘so long as the source of authority for these
normative ideas is considered to be supernatural or at least beyond reason’
(op.cit:36).
It would take another long lecture to analyse all these views separately but a
few commonalities can be pointed out. The first commonality is the fact that they
purport to be postcolonial and postmodern. Whatever the merits of postcolonial and
postmodern scholarship might be, these views seem to labour under the notion that
rationality is western and constitutes a form of ‘epistemic violence’. Rationality or
common sense, however, can be historically proven not to be a mere western
accident. Rational philosophy did exist in ancient India – not only in ancient Greece
‒ but it did not play the same socio-political role that seventeenth century European
rationalism played.
Another postmodern dogma is that one is not allowed to note generalities,
because postmodernism has decided that there can only be particulars. General traits
of a religion like Hinduism or Buddhism must therefore be western impositions on a
chaotic Indian reality. This accounts for the postmodern idea that Hinduism and
Buddhism are western academic constructs and not real socio-religious phenomena.
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Even if all Indians or some Indians believe that they are Hindus or Buddhists, then
the postmodern or rather postcolonial conclusion is that these Indians must have
been duped and misled by western scholarship.
It is perhaps all too easy to altogether dismiss postmodernist and
postcolonialist views on the basis of the preceding somewhat queer remarks. The
scholars just mentioned are clearly trying their best to avoid old pitfalls of
Eurocentric generalisation and prejudice. But one should judge postmodern and
postcolonial analysis on the basis of how much they improve our understanding.
Postmodern criticism does offer at least one correct assessment in saying that
western scholars of Hinduism and Buddhism are definitely biased in their
interpretations. And the point is well taken that Christianity plays an important role
in this western bias.
We are now equipped with some postmodern understanding to appreciate
Tagore’s misgivings about European scholarly understanding of Buddhism. As we
shall see, Tagore foreshadows some of the postmodern and postcolonial critique.
The problems concerning the term religion and its relation to South Asian
phenomena that we could recognise as religions, have a history that goes back at
least to the late nineteenth century. It was Tagore himself who understood the
misunderstandings the western term religion could give rise to in an Indian context.
He indicates this in the same book from which I quoted at the beginning:
The Sanskrit word dharma which is usually translated into English as religion
has a deeper meaning in our language. Dharma is the innermost nature, the
essence, the implicit truth, of all things. Dharma is the ultimate purpose that is
working in our self.
(The English Writings, vol. 2:308)
It is important to realise that dharma is the preferred term also in Buddhism. In
Buddhism Dharma signifies the teaching of Buddha, and it seems to signify also the
grand order of things which the Buddha is supposed to have observed and fully
comprehended. Tagore’s assertion that Dharma ‘is the innermost nature ... the
implicit truth, of all things’, is valid for Hinduism as well as Buddhism. Tagore’s
description of Dharma has a normative ethical aspect as well. In the lectures entitled
‘The Religion of Man’ Tagore writes:
Religion has its function... by subordinating the brute nature to what we
consider as the truth of Man. ... men have willingly sacrificed their vital needs
and courted death in order to express their dharma…
(The English Writings, vol 3:144)
According to Tagore, unselfishness and love were the essential normative aspects of
Dharma and he regarded them as the foundation of Buddha’s message:
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The path Buddha pointed out was not merely the practice of self-abnegation,
but the widening of love. And therein lies the true meaning of Buddha’s
preaching.
(The English Writings, vol 2:309)
And furthermore:
… what Buddha describes as extinction – the extinction of selfishness … is the
function of love, and it does not lead to darkness but to illumination. This is
the attainment of bodhi, or the true awakening…
(The English Writings, vol 2:312)
Tagore got this idea of love from the Metta Sutta, the discourse on friendliness. This
small sermon in verses probably belongs to the oldest layers of the Pali canon.
Tagore very often refers to this text as his source of Buddhist ethics. Already in 1904
in Bengali writings Tagore extensively discussed the content of the Metta Sutta (cf
Thakur 1985:54-56).1 In fact it is the most quoted of Buddhist texts in Tagore’s
discursive writings on Buddhism. Tagore often refers to the virtue of friendliness,
metta in Pali, maitri in Sanskrit, in conjunction with the practice of Brahmaviharas or
the four unlimited divine abidings. Metta is traditionally regarded as the first of
these four. The remaining three are: karuna, compassion; mudita, empathic joy;
upekkha, equanimity. Even in one of his latest religious writings, Man from 1937,
Tagore refers to metta, maitri, ‘friendliness’ and the Brahmaviharas:
Lord Buddha preached, ‘Cherish towards the whole universe immeasurable
maitri in a spirit devoid of distinctions of hatred, of enmity. While standing,
sitting, walking, lying down till you are asleep, remain established in this
spirit of maitri – this is called brahmavihara.
(The English Writings, vol 3:214)
Tagore was very keen to always stress the Indian origins of Buddhism. Buddhism, to
him, was the culmination of the spirituality of the Upanishads. Tagore mentions that
he once read a book by a Buddhist author who was trying to prove that Buddhism
owed nothing to the Indian mind. ‘In his zeal, the author is acrimoniously violent in
the assertion that Buddhism as a religion is absolutely contrary to whatever
preceded it in the religious history of India’(The English Writings, vol 3:490). But
Tagore maintains that there ‘can be no question that Buddhism was one of the great
products of the mother-heart of India’(The English Writings, vol 3:490). Furthermore
Tagore considers ‘Buddhism to be one of the greatest religious achievements of
man’(The English Writings, vol 3:491). Tagore does not believe that Buddhism was a
See also his Bengali text from 1908 entitled Brahmavihara in which he offers a Bengali translation of
the Metta Sutta and the Mangala Sutta with comments (Thakur 1985:21-30).
1
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‘freak of human nature, and that as a religion, utterly unlike any other religion in the
world’ (The English Writings, vol 3:491). Rather ‘Buddhism must have its inherent
relation and resemblance to that spiritual endeavour in ancient India which led men
to leave aside their material possessions and seek the fulfilment of their life’(The
English Writings, vol 3:491). What the Buddha taught was ‘Dharma, difficult to be
rendered in English ... highest ideal of perfection’(The English Writings, vol 3:492).
According to Tagore precisely this ideal of universal friendliness or love was
responsible for the fact that Buddhism spread over the rest of Asia. In 1924 Tagore
said about the proliferation of Buddhism: ‘The great religion of Buddha had once
spread its living spirit of Unity over the greater part of Asia. It drew races together
and turned their hope and faith away from the turmoil of self-seeking’ (The English
Writings, vol 3:490, 761). Buddha spread the highest message of India to the rest of
Asia. In Tagore’s view this was possible because the Buddha inculcated ‘respect for
ordinary people’(Thakur 1985:66); and because Buddha’s message had accepted ‘all
humanity’ (Thakur 1985:14). Buddhist India ‘did not show contempt for anyone,
therefore she could not remain hidden anymore. The fences of socio-religious class
were washed away by the tidal wave of truth; India’s invitation reached all the
communities in all countries. China came, Burma, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia came’
(Thakur 1985:14). This explained why Buddha’s message, a message born in the
India of Brahmanism and the Upanishads, became a world religion and could
spread far beyond India’s cultural borders.
It is noteworthy that Tagore does not discuss many of the Buddhist scholastic
doctrines, the material found in the canonical sources. This is the material on the
basis of which western scholarship has produced an allegedly authoritative
scripturally founded version of the Buddhist doctrine. Tagore did not have the
postmodern scorn for this type of western Buddhological scholarship but he was
perfectly aware of its limitations in understanding how Buddhism could have
spread as a world religion. In other words: the Buddhological western
reconstructions of the Buddha’s message never did inspire and never could have
inspired millions of Asians over the centuries to turn to Buddhism.
Buddhism, in Tagore’s view, must be something living, not western scholastic
pedantry. He writes about Buddhism: ‘we get acquainted with this religion through
the dry pages of books written by foreign scholars who are well-read in ancient
books and are antiquarian experts. But the minds of these scholars are not all wetted
with the flow of the delight of this religion. They have not received this religion in its
completeness ... what we receive from these [scholars] is an altogether coarse
substance’. This assessment of western scholarship agrees with later postmodern
criticism of western scholarship: namely the antiquarian and text-oriented character
of western scholarship dealing with Buddhism. The outlines that western
buddhologists often sketch of Buddhism, derives from texts only. Tagore mentions
that he spoke to a ‘certain religious person’ who ‘had studied the Pali texts for a long
time. From his conversation one day, I got the hint that this study did not give him
delight and that he had wasted his time’(Thakur 1985:38).
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Obviously one could not derive much religious delight from the scholastic
texts found in the Pali canon. Tagore himself evidently did not care much for
antiquarian scholastic pedantry. I think Tagore perfectly understood what the
motivation behind the Buddhist message must have been, if it had to be spread over
vast areas of Asia. Tagore’s sources of information on Buddhist texts were limited
but they sufficed for him to get the main drift of the Buddhist gospel.2 It is to the
credit of Tagore’s genius that he needed little information on the basis of which he
could comprehend the impact of Buddhism as a charismatic message of hope,
respect and universal sympathy. He seems to have understood that Buddhism as a
world religion could not be disseminated with the help of scholastic tables and lists
of doctrinal items. It needed something that could speak to the heart of even illiterate
people. The message of universal love, the message of the Metta Sutta, seemed more
appropriate to draw people towards Buddha’s deeper message.
Tagore did not explicitly criticise western buddhologists for treating
Buddhism as a kind of scriptural religion like Christianity. This is the criticism of
postmodern scholars. But Tagore seems to foreshadow postmodern criticism when
he points out the antiquarian dry character of western buddhological scholarship.
For western buddhologists are in the habit of treating Buddhism as if it were a
religion of the book. In their view the foundations of Buddhism are scriptures: Pali
Tipitaka, Mahayana Sutras in Sanskrit, Buddhist tantric texts, Sanskrit Buddhist
scholastic texts etc. This approach is understandable if we realise that western
philological scholarship is conditioned by Protestant Bible scholarship. This is a
point also recently made by the famous buddhologist Gregory Schopen (Schopen
1997). In Buddhism the canonical texts form only part of the tradition. Or to put it
differently: the written canon derives from Buddhism but Buddhism does not derive
from the written canon. Moreover, unlike in Christianity, Buddhism does not have
one single authoritative text valid for all Buddhists in all ages. Rather, Buddhism
possesses libraries full of texts. The delight that the student of Pali to which Tagore
referred missed in his studies can be explained thus. He was busying himself in a
one-sided affair. The full story of Buddhism is not what we can derive from the
written sources. Indeed, the Buddhist inspiration may not even need much written
text. This is what Tagore has sensed all his life. And yet he paid such rich tribute to
Buddha and his message that one could call Tagore almost a Buddhist who was
trying to restate the old message for the modern world.
2
For the Pali texts Tagore relied mainly on Pandit Dharmaraj Barua’s book Hastasar (1893, 2004).
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Bibliography
Bloch, Esther; Marianne Keppens; Rajaram Hegde eds. 2010. Rethinking Religion in
India: The colonial construction of Hinduism. London & New York: Routledge.
Chunkapura, Jose. 2002. The God of Rabindranath Tagore: A Study of the Evolution of his
Understanding of God. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati.
Pandit Dharmaraj Barua. 1893 (3rd reprint 2004). Hastasar ba Bauddha Mahaparitran.
Buddhist Research and Publication Centre – Bangladesh.
Schopen, Gregory. 1997. ‘Archaeology and Protestant Presuppositions in the Study
of Indian Buddhism’, in: Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the
Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. Honolulu: The
University of Hawai’i Press. Pp. 1-22.
Thakur, Ravindranath. Beng era 1392 (1985). Buddhadeb. Kalikata: Visva-Bharati.
The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore. Volume Two: Plays, Stories, Essays. Edited
by Sisir Kumar Das. 1996. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.
The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore. Volume Three: A Miscellany. Edited by
Sisir Kumar Das. 1996. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.
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