Warrior Castes

In studying Hinduism, the grandfather of all religions, I read some passages from the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the earliest of Hindu religious texts. In it, Krishna (one of the trinity of gods, or a manifestation of the single god, however you like it) was talking to Arjuna, who was deciding whether to go into battle. Arjuna was born into the Khastria caste of warriors, and so had the obligation to go into battle and conceivably risk his life and limb.

Krishna talked to him about reincarnation, about he (whatever “he” represents) would get reborn when he died into another creature, and if he followed the guidance of his religious leaders (whatever that happened to be, and for him it was go into battle), he would get born into an even better situation.

Clearly it is an advantage for a culture to sacrifice some of its young men in battle to protect the existence or resources of the population as a whole. However, young men being somewhat intelligent, you have to have something to tell them to get them to sacrifice their lives. The original idea seemed to be that they have an inner essence, a “soul” if you will, that will go to some better place if they get killed. In Hinduism, it was a better situation for their next experience on earth. In early European cultures, some sort of Valhalla existed. Christianity turned it into an unearthly paradise, as did Islam. Could it be that one of the core reasons for the origination of religions, starting with the earliest, Hinduism, was to motivate young men or men in general to go out and possibly get killed for the good of the whole tribe (or sect, or some group). Some brilliant wizard thousands of years ago figured out that people believed him, and he might as well make the tribe more likely to survive by motivating his warriors to do their duty and not shirk it, by telling him this tale of their survival, despite their death. This was obviously a neat trick.

The core belief stayed as part of the main religions in the world, and just the unprovable promise got changed, largely into even more grandiose rewards. The other social benefits of a religion don’t require any afterlife imagination. For example, building churches can be done by any dictatorial power, no matter whether enforced by custom (the oldest guy gets to decide), by power (the guy who’s recruited the soldiers gets to decide), or by religious authority (the guy who’s impressed everyone with his knowledge of things in general extends the awe that surrounds him to supernatural domains). But getting people to die some traumatic way, doing something not necessarily pleasant (killing other people might be some taboo), takes a real attractive promise. So, lo and behold, religion is born!

Buddha tried to squash this, which is why the Hindu theologians ganged up on him after he died to get rid of these ideas. (Successfully in India and other places). Buddha was in favor of peace, and this means that people don’t get born into warrior castes. See my earlier blog on the disappearance of cultures that don’t have warriors, e.g., Buddhist ones. Rather than sacrifice their defenses, they skewered his beliefs.

The Roots of Buddha and Buddhism

After studying Buddhism for a very long time, reading the Buddha's sutras, and learning about some of the events in his life, I suddenly came upon the realization that I understood almost nothing about the Buddha's environment. Gautama grew up as a Hindu, surrounded by Hindu religious beliefs, with Hindu parents, with Hindu educators, with Hindu friends and with a Hindu wife. Yet somehow, the writers about Buddha that I have read from, mostly in the context of Soka Gakkei, have never seen fit to enlighten me about this environment.

I decided to put an end to that and start learning about Hinduism, with even the goal in mind to understand the Hinduism of Buddha's time and location. Gautama certainly participated in the Hindu rituals, was baptized (and other things) in Hindu tradition, and maybe learned yoga, meditation, chanting, commandments, rituals, and more from his Hindu tradition. What exactly of his teachings is different, and what is carried over from his Hindu past?

India, in the common American view, is like Africa, primitive, unhygenic, poorly educated and not a place to go on vacation. Except for a few travel ads for the Taj Mahal, it is hardly mentioned. It almost has not entered most Americans' consciousness. Our geographic ignorance is legendary around the world, and I doubt many Americans could describe where it is located. Since it is so backward, why learn anything about it? So we Americans grow up without hearing anything about India, or about Hinduism, except for a few news flashes, as when someone important is assassinated. But then again, we don't much keep up with anywhere but home anyway...

Yoga comes from India, and many Americans are taking up yoga. But they do so without understanding its position in Hindu life and the Hindu religion. It is almost like it is some sort of exercise regime that someone dreamed up, and we can learn about.

These two factors, that Buddhist thought more or less ignores Buddha's Hindu roots, and America's (maybe Europe's too) disdain for the culture have certainly combined to leave me with a black hole where my education about Hinduism should be. Time to fix that.

A quick read of a simple book on Hinduism left me in shock. Such a huge amount of religious thought, continuing on after Buddha of course, was laying in wait for the interested reader. I can see spending the next year studying, not about Buddhism, but about Buddha's roots -- following a fascinating track back to the time 25 (or 30 in some people's opinion) centuries ago.