Who injected compassion into Indian religion?

Paisarn Likhitpreechakul’s thoughtful article makes many good points, but Thai Buddhists shouldn’t beat themselves up too badly over their response to the Rohingya tragedy. The other religions haven’t exactly covered themselves with glory on this issue either. Maybe they should all be beating themselves up.

Khun Paisarn’s article makes one point that deserves elaboration. He quotes Richard Gombrich as saying, “It was the Buddha who introduced love and compassion into Indian religion.” 

This is true, and modern Hinduism has acknowledged its debt to Buddhism. In 1893 the great Hindu reformer-monk Swami Vivekananda delivered a speech at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago on the topic “Buddhism: The Fulfilment of Hinduism”. He made the point that Hinduism was deficient in compassion for the downtrodden, but Buddhism had remedied this deficiency.

Vivekananda’s teacher, Sri Ramakrishna, went a step further by asking, “Who are you to show compassion? Rather the service of man, recognising him to be a veritable manifestation of God.” Vivekananda developed this notion into the ideal of selfless service to God in man, summarised in the slogan “Serve jiva [the individual] as Shiva [God].”

This is but one example of the cross-fertilisation and mutual enrichment that have characterised the long interaction of Buddhism and Hinduism through the ages. Their doctrines might differ, but they have the same goal, expressed in the Rig Veda as “bahujana sukhaya, bahujana hitaya cha”. That translates as, “For the happiness of the many, for the welfare of the many.” Buddhism has a similar expression that means the same thing. Cooperation on the points that unite them, rather than competition on the points that divide them, would be beneficial to both.

William Page