My wife Mollie and I lived for a year In Varanasi (old Benares). Very
close to the stupa in the deer park where Buddha (c.560 - c.480 BC)
preached his first sermon there is a magnificent Buddhist temple with
a statue of Buddha. Buddha himself would have been horrified at being
worshiped in the form of an idol. As opposed to original Buddhism,
which proved too severe for ordinary people, Mahayana (the great
vehicle) deified Buddha (as Adi Buddha). He is pictured as taking
birth in a series of Bodhisattvas before and after the incarnation of
Buddha himself. The severely ascetic monastic life of the Sangha (a
group of monks forming a monastery) was usually abandoned in favor of
simple faith in Buddha and other Bodhisattvas. Faith was nourished by
contemplation and prayers to a big statue of Buddha in a temple.
Instead of the original Buddhist ideal of losing all desire to merge
in the Absolute, salvation was by faith (which may suggest Christian
influence). There was also a personal heaven to be enjoyed. Mahayana
Buddhism had originated in India, but it mostly disappeared under the
influence of the very popular Bhagavad Gita and Hindu Bhakti (devotion
to a personal God). It flourished in China before the Communist
revolution, and also in Korea, and Japan before it was weakened by
secularism.
Robert Brow
browr@brow.on.ca
www.brow.on.ca