Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
In an introduction to his scholarly written book, “The Buddha and His Dhamma”, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar had raised interesting questions on the fundamental tenets of Buddhism and had left them for probing to the coming generations. However, it didn't happen as the book became so sacred to Ambedkar’s dedicated followers, the Neo-Buddhists, that they completely neglected the issues raised by Dr. Ambedkar on the very religion! Here is an attempt to seek some answers to those queries.
- The first question posed by Dr. Ambedkar is, why did the Buddha take Pavajja (renunciation)? The traditional answer to this question is that on a day, he came across a scene of death, an ailing man, and an old person, which made him think about the futility of life.
Dr. Ambedkar does not accept the traditional explanation that it was impossible for a twenty-nine-year-old prince not to have encountered such a common phenomenon occurring almost every moment of everyday life.
I agree with Dr. Ambedkar. We can see in the history of religions that various myths are created around the founders to elevate them in the eyes of the people. In my opinion, it was difficult for the later Buddhists to explain the sudden renunciation of Buddha when he had already married to a beautiful woman and had an infant son when he left home unannounced. It was a cruel deed if judged on any moral ground. Hence it needed a strong logic to explain the deed of Buddha. This is why a story must have been created that Lord Buddha confronted three tragic episodes of life on a single day that changed him suddenly, and to seek answers to the inevitable, he abandoned his family and mundane pleasures.
Superficially, the story seems believable. Religious people don’t question. But an intelligent personality like Dr. Ambedkar, who was on the verge of embracing Buddhist faith with his millions of followers, could only raise such a vital question. It is agreeable that the deed of Buddha, abandoning his sleeping wife and infant unannounced, in the middle of the night, was not a human act. However, to justify his deed, the clarification was given through the above myth.
However, not satisfied with this myth, Dr. Ambedkar creates another story to justify the act of Buddha's renunciation. According to this new myth, Buddha left the Shakya clan and his family to save the Shakya and Koliya clans from a possible war between them over the share of the river water. However, this story also does not find any support from Buddhist literature.
2. Buddhism propounds four Noble Truths (Arya Satya) which include;
"This is the noble truth of dukkha (sorrow): birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha; union with what is displeasing is dukkha; separation from what is pleasing is dukkha; not to get what one wants is dukkha; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are dukkha."
"This is the noble truth of the origin of dukkha: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, which is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination."
"This is the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it."
"This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of dukkha: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration."
It is said that this is the central doctrine of Buddhism. However, Dr. Ambedkar seems to be dissatisfied with this doctrine. According to him, these principles are pessimistic in nature and cannot raise any hope in anybody if life to death and even Rebirth is suffering.
However, it seems clear that Dr. Ambedkar has not given much importance to the last two truths, which clearly indicate “cessation of sorrow through the Noble Eightfold Path”. Instead, Dr. Ambedkar states that these noble truths are a great hindrance for the non-Buddhist to become Buddhist.
Still, the Noble Truths can also be criticized. First, according to this principle, everything is Dukkha…sorrow. Everything that man craves for is sorrow. Craving for separation, too is sorrow. If such is the case, even if one follows the Noble Eightfold Path, how is one going to get rid of the sorrow?
Cessation of suffering, it is said, is the cessation of all the unsatisfactory experiences and their causes in such a way that they can no longer occur again. It's the removal, the final absence, the cessation of those things, their non-arising. One can easily understand why Dr. Ambedkar didn’t give much importance to the cessation and the Noble Eightfold Path. He asks rightly, if suffering is the base of the philosophy of this religion and which cannot promise any pleasure or hope, then why at all this religion is needed?.
Dr. Ambedkar questions whether these principles are original tenets of Buddhism or later additions made by the unknown Bhikkhu’s? (Monks)?
Here, we must consider a fact that though followers of any religion in later times do tend to add, remove, or modify some principles of the religion to suit their times or ever-changing needs, hardly one can change the central doctrine. Buddha in his life seems to be a philosophically confused personality. The element of suffering he borrowed from Sankhya philosophers of his time and modified it to some extent. None else but the Four Noble Truths should be attributed to Buddha as his basic philosophy that has overwhelmed almost all the oldest Buddhist scriptures.
3. Dr. Ambedkar raises a serious question on the Buddhist concept of Soul, Deed, and Rebirth. According to him, Buddha has denied the existence of the Soul but is a staunch believer in the deed (karma) and rebirth. This is a great paradox in Buddhist doctrine to which many answers have been proposed. Still, Dr. Ambedkar asks, if there is no Soul (Atma), how then could there be Rebirth? How could there be any act (deed) in the absence of the Soul?
This indeed is a valid question. There cannot be a concept of rebirth in the absence of the soul, though scholars have tried to find many explanations. From some scripts, it seems that Buddha too had tried to find solution to this problem by raising counter questions, but to no satisfaction. The existence of the soul is a precondition for the concept of Rebirth.
Buddha does not meet this condition. This is a great lacuna in his basic philosophy. When I read the oldest Buddhist scriptures, in fact, I do not find much difference between Tripitaka’s or Jataka’s and Hindu Purana’s, except mention of some Buddhist elements. All Vedic Gods keep on floating around in almost every story. Miracles too have occupied the greater part of the Life of Buddha, though Buddhists claim Buddhism is a scientific religion. That way, Buddhism, as considered by the people in general, has nothing special to boast of. It has no independent philosophy to offer of its own.
DR. Ambedkar, though having serious doubts on Buddhism, had no choice but to embrace Buddhism, as the Hinduism of those times (and to some extent even today) had crossed all the limits of inhuman practices of inequality and untouchability. Still, a great scholar like him could only raise serious questions about a religion he was about to embrace with his millions of people!
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