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Lord Buddha
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To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Lord Buddha
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From: nparker@crl.com (Nathan Parker)
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Date: 15 Mar 1995 08:59:36 -0800
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From nparker@crl.com Wed Mar 15 11: 49:46 1995
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest]
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LORD BUDDHA
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"Then, in the beginning of Kali-yuga, the Lord will appear as Lord
Buddha, the son of Anjana, in the province of Gaya, just for the purpose
of deluding those who are envious of the faithful theist." (S.B. 1.3.24)
Srila Prabhupada gives a detailed description of Lord Buddha and
the cause of His appearance in his purport to this verse.
"Lord Buddha, a powerful incarnation of the Personality of Godhead,
appeared in the province of Gaya (Bihar) as the son of Anjana, and he
preached his own conception of nonviolence and deprecated even the animal
sacrifices sanctioned in the Vedas. At the time when Lord Buddha appeared,
the people in general were atheistic and preferred animal flesh to
anything else. On the plea of Vedic sacrifices, every place was
practically turned into a slaughterhouse, and animal killing was indulged
in unrestrictedly . Lord Buddha preached nonviolence, taking pity on the
poor animals. He preached that he did not believe in the tenets of the
Vedas and stressed the adverse psychological effects incurred by
animal-killing. Less intelligent men of the age of Kali, who had no faith
in God, followed his principle, and for the time being they were trained
in moral discipline and nonviolence, the preliminary steps on the path of
God realization. He deluded the atheists because such atheists who
followed his principles did not believe in God, but they kept their faith
in Lord Buddha, who himself was the incarnation of God. Thus the faithless
people were made to believe in God in the form of Lord Buddha. That was
the mercy of Lord Buddha: he made the faithless faithful to him.
Killing of animals before the advent of Lord Buddha was the most
prominent feature of the society. People claimed that these were Vedic
sacrifices. When the Vedas are not accepted through the authoritative
disciplic succession, the casual readers of the Vedas are misled by the
flowery language of that system of knowledge. In the Bhagavad-gita a
comment has been made on such foolish scholars (avipascitah). The foolish
scholars of Vedic literature who do not care to recieve the transcendental
message throu gh the transcendental realized sources of disciplic
succession are sure to be bewildered. To them, the ritualistic cerimonies
are considered to be all in all. They have no debth of knowledge.
According to the Bhagavad-gita (15:15), vedais ca sarvair aham eva veyah:
the whole system of the Vedas is to lead one gradually to the path of the
Supreme Lord. The whole theme of the Vedic literature is to know the
Supreme Lord, the individual soul, the cosmic situation and the relation
between all these items. Whe n the relation is known, the relative
function begins, and as a result of such a function the ultimate goal of
life or going back to Godhead takes place in the easiest manner.
Unfortunately, unauthorized scholars of the Vedas become captivated by the
puri factory ceremonies only, and natural progress is thereby checked.
To such bewildered persons of atheistic propensity, Lord Buddha is
the emblem of theism. He therfore first of all wanted to check the habit
of animal killing. The animal-killers are dangerous elements on the path
going back to Godhead. There are two type s of animal-killers. The soul is
also sometimes called the animal or the living being. Therefore, both
the slaughter of animals and those who have lost their identity of soul
are animal-killers.
Maharaja Pariksit said that only the animal-killer cannot relish
the transcendental message of the Supreme Lord. Therefore if people are to
be educated on the path of Godhead, they must be taught first and foremost
to stop the process of animal-killing a s above mentioned. It is
nonsensical to say that animal-killing has nothing to do with spiritual
realization. By this dangerous theory many so-called sannyasis have sprung
up by the grace of Kali-yuga who preach animal-killing under the garb of
the Vedas. The animal sacrifice as stated in the Vedas is different from
the unrestricted animal-killing in the slaughterhouse. Because the asuras
or so-called scholars of Vedic literatures put forward the evidence of
animal-killing in the Vedas, Lord Buddha superf icially denied the
authority of the Vedas. This rejection of the Vedas by Lord Buddha was
adopted in order to save people from the vice of animal-killing as well as
to save the poor animals from the slaughtering process of their big
brothers who clamor fo r universal brotherhood, peace, justice and equity.
There is no justice when there is animal-killing. Lord Buddha wanted to
stop it completely, and therefore his cult of ahimsa was propagated not
only in India but also outside the country.
Technically Lord Buddhas philosophy is called atheistic because
there is no acceptance of the Supreme Lord and because that system of
philosophy denied the authority of the Vedas. But that is an act of
camouflage by the Lord. Lord Buddha is the incarnat ion of the Godhead. As
such, he is the original propounder of Vedic knowledge. He therefore
cannot reject Vedic philosophy. But he rejected it outwardly because the
sura-dvisa, or the demons who are always envious of the devotees of
Godhead, try to suppor t cow-killing or animal-killing from the pages of
the Vedas, and this is now being done by the modernized sannyasis. Lord
Buddha had to reject the authority of the Vedas altogether. This is simply
technical, and had it not been so he would not have been s o accepted as
the incarnation of Godhead. Nor would he have been worshiped in the
transcendental songs of the poet Jayadeva, who is a Vaisnava acarya. Lord
Buddha preached the preliminary principles of the Vedas in a manner
suitable for the time being to establish the authority of the Vedas.
Therefore both Lord Buddha and Acarya Sankara paved the path of theism,
and Vaisnava acaryas, specifically Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, led the
people on the path towards a relization of going back to Godhead.
We are glad that people are taking interest in the nonviolent
movement of Lord Buddha. But will they take the matter very seriously and
close the animal slaughterhouses altogether? If not, there is no meaning
to the ahimsa cult."
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