Myth: Buddhism was the solution to the problem of Hinduism

Just like the Aryan Invasion Theory, this conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism is one of the myths manufactured by western indologists that just refuses to go away. The videshi narrative is that Buddhism was a much needed social reform movement to free the masses from the clutches of caste-ridden, superstitious, ritualistic and regressive Hinduism that was rampant during the times of the Buddha. The conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism is often equated with that between Islam and Christianity.

All this is nonsense.

How so? Watch the below talk by Prof Koenraad Elst at the second swadeshi indology conference at Delhi in Feb 2017. Buddhism naturally fits in the bigger tent of Hinduism. It borrows many core ideas like Karma and rebirth from the Vedas. As Prof Elst says, Buddhism should be considered a sect of Hinduism, just like, say, the BhrahmaKumari sect, just much more successful and more international. There is NO conflict. I am quite convinced by the data and arguments that Prof Elst presents.

Hinduism vs Buddhism is another Breaking India fault line that needs to be healed. In fact this fault line was partly responsible for the terrible civil wars in Sri Lanka as explained in chapter seven of Breaking India.  So we better take it seriously and do our part to bury this myth and unite the dharmic forces.

We should realize a lot of theories of the western indologists are based on fabricated or cherry picked data and flawed arguments. You may wonder then as to how such falsehoods survived for long enough that they have now become the default narrative and part of our popular culture. A good example is a new TV series Aarambh on Star Plus which is based on the Aryan-Dravidian divide! Rajiv Malhotra spoke about it a while back and there is now a petition against the show with lot more information.

The reason these myths have survived for so long is because the alternative swadeshi perspective was deliberately suppressed by the British before independence and the Congress-Left nexus after independence. High time we set the record straight now. Do check out other talks from the Swadeshi Indology conference.