Impact of culture on religion - An analysis of history - Part 2

Even though Buddhism was primarily developed and driven around the charismatic leadership of Buddha, it will be wrong to presuppose that it was Buddha centric. In fact Buddhism was the earliest missionary religion, as Swami Vivekananda pointed out. Its sphere of influence once included almost the half of the world population before the advent of Christianity and Islam. Buddhism spread mainly through the silent work of a band of monks whose simple and austere life style attracted people. Buddha himself came to fulfill, not to destroy, like Christ. He was an embodiment of Upanishadic teachings and his doctrine was much more closer to Vedanta than that can be imagined as has been pointed out by Swami Vivekananda. Buddhism was possibly more inspired by Kapil's Samkhya philosophy. In any event, Lord Buddha did not face any major hostility. For one, India was always receptive to great teachers whom the people had an uncanny ability to recognize and understand. Buddha's main adversary were not the Brahmins whose monopoly, hypocrisy and exploitative practices he sought to break, just as Christ rebelled against the Pharisees and Sadducees in Judaism. His opponent was within his clan - Devadutta, his cousin who conspired against him at every stage. At first king Ajatashatru was bitterly opposed to him, but after killing his own father remorse got the better of him and he finally took refuge with Buddha. Then there was no other king who could be antagonistic to him. In any event Lord Buddha enjoyed tremendous popularity. Everywhere he went, he saw and conquered and people came in multitude to take refuge at his feet. So it was quite natural that Buddhism would be very much part of local culture and identity and unlike Christianity it did not have any problem of adapting local culture to fit its own doctrines. One of the master strokes of Buddhism was to adopt the common man's language for spreading its doctrines instead of using Samskrit, the Brahmanical language which was out of reach of the common folks since Ramayana era. In Valmiki Ramayana, Hanumana speaks with Sita in a common dialect rather than Samskrit to assure her that he was not Ravana disguised - so a popular common dialect bridging the North South divide was in vogue since very ancient times Lord Buddha thus used Pali to create Buddhist texts and other local languages were used to connect to the masses. 

Lord Buddha also developed the monastic order and way of life in a very organized way. His superior organization skill is something that is worth emulating by today's corporate. Great teachers are far far ahead of their times and this is very evident in which Buddhist Sangha was developed, rules were framed and organization structure, culture, vision, mission, values were all formed. The Buddhist Sramanas were thus one of the first to organize the monastic ashrama, which hitherto had been in place (one of the four ashramas in Hinduism and also part of Moksha Marga, but looked down upon Mahabharata as the way of life of bhikshus. However Suka, son of Vyasa was one of the notable sannyasins and Shiva, the eternal great Yogi is always the epitome of ascetism). Monasticism was thus given a great importance and this helped the sramanas in getting due respect everywhere. This was a cultural revolution. Even though in Bhagavat Gita Moksha Marga has great importance and renunciation forms the core part of Gita's teachings, yet Sri Krishna did not encourage monasticism. In fact in the sixth chapter He is clearly stating that only whoever performs an action with complete detachment, without any desire for its fruits, he is a sannyasin, not one who has given up actions, nor one who has renounced home and hearth (niragni literally means one who has no right over the fires and fire worship - a critical part of life of every householder). This is because Sri Krishna had to emphasize on work, on action, intrinsically linked to a householder who had responsibilities. Only that responsibility must be discharged in a certain way, as worship. Organized monasticism was absent in Hinduism until the advent of Sankaracharya about 1200 years after Buddha. So this was a new culture and tradition that was created.