WITH reference to Balmattie Persaud’s letter, “Aksharananda has a mistaken concept of Buddhism,” in the Daily Chronicle (31/7/2014), it is quite unlikely that I made the statement, “Buddhism has nothing to do with Hinduism and therefore a Buddhist cannot represent Hindu views,” which the writer attributes to me.

While I maintain that a person who professes to be a Buddhist should not, at least morally, present himself or herself to be a Hindu representative on the ERC, I almost certainly would not have said that “Buddhism has nothing to do with Hinduism.”

Let me explain. All the organisations identified by Parliament were summoned to a meeting at the Convention Centre, to be briefed by the Ethnic Relations Commission Parliamentary Committee, headed by Dr. Norton, on the nomination of their representatives who would eventually serve as Commissioners on the ERC. I was appointed as the convener by the Hindu group, consisting of some thirteen entities, to oversee the process to appoint a Hindu representative to the ERC. Of the three persons suggested by their respective organisations, one professed to be a Buddhist.

There was a discussion, which I initiated among the thirteen organisations, that a Buddhist could not be a Hindu representative on the ERC. In spite of this, the nomination was accepted and placed on the ballot, although when the election was finally held a week later, the group chose, by an overwhelming majority, a different person to be their representative.

Reviewing all the records, I do not see anyone answering to the name Balmattie Persaud among those present at any of our meetings, and it is somewhat intriguing that this writer could have quoted verbatim remarks that I allegedly made.

However, coming to the statement itself, to say that “Buddhism has nothing to do with Hinduism” is clearly something I could not have said under any circumstance. Buddha, who would eventually become the founder of one of the greatest faith traditions in the world, was born in India and grew up in the Vedic tradition. One cannot attempt any historical analysis of Buddhism without taking into consideration the fact that it was rooted and nurtured in India’s soil, in which was also born Jainism, Sikkhism, and what later came to be called Hinduism.

In terms of language, while the earliest teachings of Buddha are in the Pali language, its most important philosophical expositions, which became the hallmarks of Buddhism, are written in the Sanskrit language, the language of the scholars. As a consequence, a massive corpus of specialized literature of the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism, for example, is in Sanskrit, and one can see in the development of this school of Buddhism the intellectual debates with the scholars of the Vedic tradition, mainly Shankara and his disciples.

It is of interest to note that a number of important philosophical treatises of Buddhism have survived only in the Chinese language, from which they were reconstructed into Sanskrit. In terms of spiritual discipline, the Four Noble Truths enunciated by the Buddha are clearly grounded in the Upanishads.

Both Hinduism and Buddhism have a strong philosophy based on the science of the mind. As a matter of fact, in spite of all the important divergences, complexities and diversities in philosophical perspectives, all the faith traditions born in India have such great commonalities that it is not uncommon for persons to share in one another’s traditions without any fear of contradiction.
Every Hindu child is taught that Buddha, alongside Rama and Krishna, is an avatara of Vishnu. Because of this close relationship, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikkhism are part of the Hindu faith in the Indian constitution.

It should be noted that it was the great Babasaheb Ambedkar himself, the chief architect of the Indian constitution himself, and India’s most prominent Buddhist at the time, who ensured this definition. Nevertheless, both in India and elsewhere, Buddhism does not accept the Hindu notion of Buddha as an avatara of Vishnu. But everyone knows that this happens only in India.
Elsewhere in the Buddhist world, in almost all of East Asia — including Sri Lanka, the nation of Tibet, and large swathes of what was formerly Central Asia — Buddhism is a separate religion, one among the great religions of the world. And, as Hindus, we respect this difference. This respect is again and again underscored when the leaders of the Buddhist communities from Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Burma, Sri Lanka and Tibet meet with their Hindu counterparts in the great assemblies occasioned by frequently held Hindu-Buddhist Dialogue conferences.

Incidentally, invariably on our agenda in these conferences is the common threat of conversion. The greatest living Buddhist of our time, the Dalai Lama, is always present in these meetings. He takes a lead in all the discussions, and all of us, Hindus and Buddhists, look to him for guidance and inspiration on a wide range of matters. But even he would not be so presumptuous as to present himself as a Hindu representative of any sort, least of all in a legal and constitutional entity like the Ethnic Relations Commission of any country.

In the meantime, until Buddhism grows in number and can be recognised as a separate religion in Guyana, for the purposes of the ERC, members of this community may want to follow the Bahais, and gracefully exempt themselves from the process. To expect a Hindu to be the Hindu representative in the ERC cannot, as the writer alleges, be considered “Hindu Hegemony,” no matter how much that notion can be twisted and distorted.

SWAMI AKSHARANANDA