The Missing Pieces of the Puzzle

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• 1 Spirit // Jun 25, 2009 at 1:25 pm

  The Buddha's teaching rests on four principles: 1) material existence is duùkha, miserable. 2) There is samudäya, a cause of material existence. 3) Because there is a cause, there is also nirodha, a way to remove material existence. 4) That way is märga, the path of righteousness that the Buddha himself exemplified. But as he circumvented the distortion of Vedic sacrifice in leading people away from the sin of animal slaughter, he denied the Vedas, the soul, and God. After the Buddha's disappearance, many schools of Buddhism came into being.
  The appearance of the incarnation of Lord Buddha was foretold in the First Canto of the Srimad-Bhägavatam, Chapter Three, verse 24, written 2,000 years before Buddha’s birth: “In the beginning of the Kali-yuga, the Lord will appear as Lord Buddha, the son of Aïjana, in the province of Gayä, for the purpose of deluding persons envious of the faithful theist.” India is therefore the land where the religion of Buddhism sprang forth. For his special mission, Lord Buddha rejected the Vedas, and therefore the authority of the scriptures had to be reaffirmed. This was done by the great spiritual master Sankaräcärya, who drove Buddhism from the land of India by his brilliant explanations based on the Vedic literature. According to Srimad-Bhägavatam Lord Krishna is Himself the source of all the incarnations. The self-same Lord Krishna appeared in His original form, also on Indian soil, 5,000 years ago when He exhibited full-fledged activities as the Personality of Godhead in the provinces of Vrindävana and Mathurä. As it is said, God is great. The true vision of His pastimes and His greatness was then displayed to all living entities on this planet, and it is all recorded in the book Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda.
  In establishing his philosophical doctrine of impersonalism, Sankaräcärya accepts the Vedic literatures as authoritative, and this acceptance indicates the underlying purpose of his teachings. When the Personality of Godhead appeared as Lord Buddha, he superficially rejected the Vedas to lead people in general to the religious principles of nonviolence. After the spread of Lord Buddha's teachings, Sankaräcärya sought to defeat the voidist teachings of Lord Buddha and reestablish the authority of the Vedic literature. Therefore, as Lord Buddha deliberately rejected the Vedas and introduced voidism to win adherents to his principles of nonviolence, similarly, to reestablish the authority of the Vedas, Sankaräcärya deliberately taught his then-Buddhist followers the misleading philosophy of impersonalism. This is confirmed in both the Padma and Siva Puränas. Although superficially they may appear to be otherwise, both Lord Buddha and Sankaräcärya were among the greatest of theists, for by their teachings they paved the way for the path of pure devotional service to be established later by Sri Caitanya Mahäprabhu(krishna Himself in the garb of a devotee) through sankirtana, or the chanting of the holy names of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
  The impersonal philosophy of Sankaräcärya is akin to Buddhism, for both philosophies deny the Personality of Godhead. However, whereas Buddha maintained that beyond illusion there is only void, Sankaräcärya accepted the Vedic principle that beyond matter there is an eternal spiritual existence. Sankaräcärya, however, insisted that this spiritual existence is impersonal, although this is against the conclusion of all Vedic literatures. Thus Sankaräcärya both accepted and rejected the Vedas simultaneously. Sripäda Sankaräcärya was a brilliant logician, grammarian and scholar, and thus by skillfully misinterpreting the Vedic verses in his own way, he successfully reestablished the authoritative status of the Vedic literature while simultaneously repudiating its ultimate conclusions.
  As clearly stated in Bhagavad-gitä, the purpose of all the Vedas is to understand Lord Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead (Bg. 15.15). This is further confirmed in Srimad-Bhägavatam, the most authorized of the Vedänta-sütra commentaries: "In the revealed scriptures, the ultimate object of knowledge is Sri Krishna, the Personality of Godhead." (Bhag. 1.2.28) All the Vedic literatures point to Lord Sri Krishna, the Personality of Godhead, as the fountainhead of all existences.

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