The Buddha in Hinduism is viewed as an Avatar of Vishnu. In the Puranic text Bhagavata Purana, he is the twenty-fourth of twenty-five avatars, prefiguring a forthcoming final incarnation.[1] Similarly, a number of Hindu traditions portray Buddha as the most recent (ninth) of ten principal avatars, known as the Daśāvatāra (Ten Incarnations of God). The Buddhist Dasharatha Jataka (Jataka Atthakatha 461) represents Rama as a previous incarnation of the Buddha as a Bodhisattva and supreme Dharma King of great wisdom.
Buddha's teachings deny the authority of the Vedas and consequently Buddhism is generally viewed as a nāstika school (heterodox, literally "It is not so")[2] from the perspective of orthodox Hinduism.
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Due to the diversity of traditions within Hinduism there is no specific viewpoint or consensus on the Buddha's exact position in reference to the Vedic tradition:
In the Dasavatara stotra section of his Gita Govinda, the influential Vaishnava poet Jayadeva (13th C AD) includes the Buddha amongst the ten principal avatars of Vishnu and writes a prayer regarding him as follows:
O Keshava! O Lord of the universe! O Lord Hari, who have assumed the form of Buddha! All glories to You! O Buddha of compassionate heart, you decry the slaughtering of poor animals performed according to the rules of Vedic sacrifice.[3]
This viewpoint of the Buddha as the avatar who primarily promoted non-violence (ahimsa) remains a popular belief amongst a number of modern Vaishnava organisations, including ISKCON.[4]
Other prominent modern proponents of Hinduism, such as Radhakrishnan and Vivekananda, consider the Buddha as a teacher of the same universal truth that underlies all religions of the world:
Vivekananda:- May he who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura Mazda of Zoroastrians, the Buddha of Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heavens of Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble ideas![5]
Radhakrishnan: If a Hindu chants the Vedas on the banks of the Ganges, ... if the Japanese worship the image of Buddha, if the European is convinced of Christ's mediatorship, if the Arab reads the Koran in the mosque ... It is their deepest apprehension of God and God's fullest revelation to them.[6]
Steven Collins sees such Hindu claims regarding Buddhism as part of an effort - itself a reaction to Christian proselytizing efforts in India - to show that "all religions are one", and that Hinduism is uniquely valuable because it alone recognizes this fact.[7]
There is Vaishnava sect of Maharashtra, known as Varkari, who worship Lord Vithoba (also known as Vitthal, Panduranga). Though Vithoba is mostly considered as form of little Krishna, there is deep belief since many centuries that Vithoba is form of Buddha. Many poets of the Maharashtra (like Eknath, Namdev, Tukaram etc.) have explicitly mentioned him as Buddha, though many neo-Buddhists (Ambedkaries) and many western scholars often tend to reject this opinion. The figure of Vithoba as an avatar of Vishnu may have been identified with the Buddha in an attempt to assimilate Buddhism into the Hindu tradition. Teachings of Buddha have also been incorporated in Varkari Vaishnavism and they have been integrated with traditional Vedic philosophy uniquely.
A number of revolutionary figures in modern Hinduism, including Gandhi, have been inspired by the life and teachings of the Buddha and many of his attempted reforms.[8]
Buddhism finds favor in contemporary Hindutva movement, with Lama Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama being honored at Hindu events, like the Vishva Hindu Parishad's second World Hindu Conference in Allahabad in 1979.[9]
The Buddha is described in important Hindu scriptures, including almost all the Puranas. However, not all of them refer to the same person: some of them refer to other persons, and some occurrences of "buddha" simply mean "a person possessing buddhi". Most of them, however, refer to the founder of Buddhism.[10] They portray him with two roles: preaching false views in order to delude demons or others, and criticizing animal sacrifice as prescribed in the Vedas.[11] A partial list of Puranas mentioning the Buddha is as follows:
In the Puranic texts, he is mentioned as one of the ten Avatars of Vishnu, usually as the ninth one.
Another important scriptures that mentions him as an Avatar is Rishi Parashara's Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (2:1-5/7).
He is often described as a yogi or yogācārya, and as a sannyāsi. His father is usually called Śuddhodhana, which is consistent with the Buddhist tradition, while in a few places the Buddha's father is named Añjana or Jina. He is described as beautiful (devasundara-rūpa), of white or pale-red complexion, and wearing brown-red or red robes.[15]
Only a few statements mention the worship of Buddha, e.g. the Varahapurana says states that one desirous of beauty should worship him.[16]
In some of the Puranas, he is described as having taken birth to "mislead the demons":
- mohanārthaṃ dānavānāṃ bālarūpī pathi-sthitaḥ । putraṃ taṃ kalpayām āsa mūḍha-buddhir jinaḥ svayam ॥
- tataḥ saṃmohayām āsa jinādyān asurāṃśakān । bhagavān vāgbhir ugrābhir ahiṃsā-vācibhir hariḥ ॥
—attributed to Brahmanda Purana, quoted in Bhāgavatatātparya by Madhva, 1.3.28
In the Bhagavata Purana Buddha is said to have taken birth to restore the devas to power:
- tataḥ kalau sampravṛtte sammohāya sura-dviṣām ।
- buddho nāmnāñjana-sutaḥ kīkaṭeṣu bhaviṣyati ॥
—srimad-bhagavatam 1.3.24
In many Puranas, the Buddha is described as an incarnation of Vishnu who incarnated in order to delude either demons or mankind away from the Vedic dharma. The Bhavishya Purana contains the following:
At this time, reminded of the Kali Age, the god Vishnu became born as Gautama, the Shakyamuni, and taught the Buddhist dharma for ten years. Then Shuddodana ruled for twenty years, and Shakyasimha for twenty. At the first stage of the Kali Age, the path of the Vedas was destroyed and all men became Buddhists. Those who sought refuge with Vishnu were deluded.[17]
According to Wendy Doniger, the Buddha avatar which occurs in different versions in various Puranas may represent an attempt by orthodox Brahminism to slander the Buddhists by identifying them with the demons.[18] Helmuth von Glasenapp attributed these developments to a Hindu desire to absorb Buddhism in a peaceful manner, both to win Buddhists to Vaishnavism and also to account for the fact that such a significant heresy could exist in India.[19]
The times ascribed to one "Buddha" figure are contradictory and some put him in approximately 500 CE, with a lifetime of 64 years, describe him as having killed some persons, as following the Vedic religion, and having a father named Jina, which suggest that this particular figure might be a different person from Siddhārta Gautama.[20]
B. R. Ambedkar, who revived Buddhism in India, denied that Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu. Among the 22 vows he gave to the neo-Buddhists, the 5th vow is "I do not and shall not believe that Lord Buddha was the incarnation of Vishnu. I believe this to be sheer madness and false propaganda."[21]
In 1999, at the Maha Bodhi Society in Sarnath, Jagadguru Sankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswati of Kanchi matha and Vipassana Acharya S. N. Goenka after having a mutual discussion, gave a joint communiqué agreeing on the following three points.[22]
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