Buddha - a nAstika?

[Sankaran Jayanarayanan]

Ravi Mayavaram <msr at REDDY20.TAMU.EDU> wrote:

[..]

>I know that shrImad bhagavadam (at least the copies I have seen)
>refers to Buddha as one of the avatars. I dont know about vishhNu
>puranam. I have read only a tamil translation of it long back when I
>was in eighth standard. I dont  remember a great deal of it. That is
>why I added "even if". I may be wrong on this, but I still wonder
>whether shrIman nArAyaNA, who establishes dharma time and again, will
>come in to confuse the masses.

The Bhagavatam and Vishnu Purana are similar in their accounts of Vishnu
deluding the asuras by appearing before them as Buddha (not unlike the
Mohini avatar.)

> Does shankara quote the portion which
>refers to buddha?
>

Shankara does not quote this part, but when commenting on Buddhism,
declares,"By establishing three mutually contradictory doctrines (the
madhyamika, the hinayana, and the vijnanavada), the Buddha either
revealed his own incoherent talkativeness or his enmity towards the
jivas, by attempting to cause confusion among them."

So we have good testimony from Shankara himself that what Buddha taught
is certainly not advaita :-)

>Ravi
>
>sharaNAgata rakshakI nivEyani
>sadA ninnu nammiti mInAkshI
>

-Kartik

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