[Advaita-l] Buddha an avatar of Vishnu?

[Sudhakar Kabra]

I would like to add some thoughts and also would like to get clarifications from the learned members.
Some salient information:1.Buddhism did not believe in any God or Ishwara. Nor do they believe in Atman.2. They also do not believe in vedas.3. Prior to attaining nirvana / leaving this mortal coil, there were no idol worship in Budddhism.4. Later followers of Buddhism developed many idols of Buddha and some started a form of worship (not akin to our Bhakti marg type) but just to propagate buddhism.
Our Hindu pantheon is much older than Buddha. A question was asked to a swamiji as to how then Buddha became an avatar of hindus.
His reply was that hinduism is very versatile and embraces everyone.Whenever there is a harm to dharma, the lord takes an avatar. (Yada yada hi dharmasya ......)
The need for that day and time was the animal killing and violence in the name of sacrifice.Also all kind of unwanted karma passed in the name of religion.Dharma was at its lowest ebb and everything got passed under its name.
To stop that,   Buddha advocated the path of non-violence and restored the dharma. That is the reason of treating him as an avatar in hinduism.Violence and killing stopped and to some extent dharma was restored. But not the vedas.
In due course of time in history, there was a need to establish the dharma more correctly.So realised masters came and restored it further by the correct use of vedic concept,thereby removing the shunya of Buddhism by Brahman and Ishwara of vedanta.
Since Buddha restored dharma and hence the reason for treating him as an avatar.
Regards,Sudhakar Kabra.
 

    On Thursday, September 22, 2016 2:47 PM, V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
 

 The Madhvas believe that Buddha is an avatāra of Vishnu:

https://in.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SUMADHWASEVA/conversations/messages/38183


<goog_2098182655>
https://in.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SUMADHWASEVA/conversations/messages/32140

//So Associate each group of 10 gayatri mantras to well known Dashavataras
of the lord. (Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha, Vaamana, Parashurama, Rama,
Krishna, Buddha & Kalki)//

A Madhva scholar in his audio recently said that Buddha Jayanti is not to
be observed like the other events like Krishna Janmashtami, Rama navami,
because that avatara was not for any positive benefit to mankind.

regards
vs

On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 2:10 PM, Sujal Upadhyay via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> praNAms Sri Kripa ji,
>
> As I understand, Buddha was considered as an avatAra of viShNu i.e. amongst
> 24 avatAr-s. What you say is found in purANa-s, but this is probably an
> interpolation. viShNu avatAra deluding asura-s and leading them to
> non-vedic path was not alteast on this earth. It was a plan to end the
> tripura, three planets of iron, silver and gold. Siva was given task to
> destroy all three. They all needed to be destroyed in one hit. So all
> deva-s helped them in achieving this task. Some became chariot, some
> wheels, some bow and viShNu seated on the tip of arrow. Siv awaited for all
> three planets aligning in straight line and then he destroyed them. Siva is
> also called as tripurArI / tripurAntak. Since one cannot destroy when
> anyone is on dhArmic path, but later they developed an ego and used to
> attack deva-s. Hence, first step was to lead them astray from vedic life,
> then attack them to establish justice.
>
> In Thirumandiram, it is said - Who said Siva destroyed three cities. They
> were 3 bodies, gross, subtle and casual i.e. annamaya, manomaya and
> viGYAnamaya.
>
> I do not know the authenticity of a Buddhist Text called Sutta NipaTa, but
> there it is said that Buddha didnt completely disregarded varNa dharma and
> vedic lifestyle. If a Brahmin is leading a pure life and is noy a
> hypocryte, then one can give him alms, donations and such a person deserves
> respect.
>
> Further, the names of all ancient characters are karma based. their birth
> names are not popular. For example, duryodhan is actually suyoddhA,
> dushAshana was named sushAshana. So the name Buddha means bodha i.e. Atma
> bodha i.e. GYAna. I really doubt that such interpolation is due to vested
> interest.
>
> Surely the Buddha, who is founder of Buddhisn, is not the same Buddha who
> lead asura-s astray from vedic life.
>
> I would like to wait for others opinion.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 12:56 PM, Kripa Shankar via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> > Namaste
> > ‎
> >  I hope I am not spamming the forum. I have another doubt. ‎
> >
> > The next long standing doubt that I have is about Buddha branded as an
> > avatar of Vishnu ! The justification given for it is that - he wanted to
> > delude the bad people (daityas?asuras?humans?...depending on different
> > versions).
> >
> > Why delude the deluded? Vishnu is also called Hari which means the one
> who
> > uplifts * anyone* from samsara. Why would he want to delude? Creatures
> are
> > already deluded by their own nature, be it Devas Asuras humans or any
> > other.
> > ‎
> > There is a story in Puranas. The Asuras, fond of conflicts, were
> bothering
> > the Devas frequently. Upon investigation, the Devas concluded that it's
> due
> > to the Vedas that Asuras were able to achieve their goals. Hence the
> Devas
> > decided to snatch away the Vedic knowledge from the Asuras. While
> > Shukracharya was away to do his tapasya, the Devas sent their agent, who
> > assuming the form of Asura guru Shukracharya claimed that he came back
> from
> > the tapasya early. Gaining the confidence of  the Asuras, he began to
> teach
> > them concepts like Ahimsa(different from the Vedic context)  so that
> Asuras
> > would be discouraged from taking up further conflicts. He also taught
> them
> > that Vedas are deploreable and instead taught them some mumbo jumbo. (on
> a
> > side note, the British taught us the same Ahimsa for the exact same
> > purpose. They also taught us to starve to death:).
> > ‎
> > To me it seems like this story was superimposed on the fanciful
> > justification of why Buddha was an Avatar of Vishnu. ‎Further there is no
> > evidence of Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu in any scriptures.
> >
> > On the other hand we have ample evidence that Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa,
> > the son of illustrious Parashara was an avatar of Vishnu. Vyasa is the
> > actual 9th avatar of Vishnu! How did this come to be? Or is there any
> > evidence to suggest that Buddha was an avatar of Vishnu? ‎
> > ‎
> > Regards ‎
> > Kripa ‎
> >
> > ‎---
> > Vyasaya Vishnu roopaya Vyasa  roopaya Vishnave
> > Namo vai Brahma nidhaye Vasishtaya namo namaha
> >
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