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BUDDHISM AND MAHATMA GANDHI

MAHATMA Gandhi considered religion, spirituality, morality, and ethics, in fact, all activities of life, whether personal or public, to be integrated into the search for self-realization. He said in the introduction to his Autobiography; “What I want to achieve... what I have been striving and pining to achieve for 30 years—is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha.”

In this search, he felt instinctively inspired by the life and teaching of Lord Buddha. He did not see Buddhism as a new religion but, historically, as the most daring effort made to reform and revitalize the sanatan Hindu tradition of India. He saw it as the most revolutionary attempt to propagate the doctrine of ahimsa, or nonviolence, in its widest sense. His concept of Truth as God and ahimsa as a sense of identification with all creation, attained through self-purification, was in line with the teaching of Lord Buddha. He wrote at the end of his Autobiography; “... a perfect vision of Truth can only follow a complete realization of ahimsa... identification with everything that lives is impossible without selfpurification... God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart.” Did not Siddhartha also say when quitting his family and palace: This golden prison where my heart lives caged,

To find truth, which henceforth I will seek, For all men’s sake, until truth be found. Since there is hope for man only in man, And none hath sought for this as I will seek, Who cast away my world to save the world.

The first two religious books that Gandhiji studied during his student days in London (1888–1891) were Sir Edwin Arnold’s English translation of the Bhagavad Gita—The Song Celestial (1885)—and The Light of Asia (1879)—which depicted the life and philosophy of Gautama Buddha. He writes in his Autobiography; “I read The Light of Asia with even greater interest than I did the Bhagavad Gita. Once I had begun it, I could not leave off... My young mind tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, The Light of Asia, and the Sermon on the Mount. That renunciation was the highest form of religion appealed to me greatly.” Much later in India, while denying that his ‘philosophy’ was an indifferent mixture of Tolstoy and Buddha, he had written in 1925 that he owed much to Tolstoy and Buddha but he fancied that his philosophy represented the true meaning of the teaching of the Gita, and further that the source of his inspiration was of no consequence as long as he stood for unadulterated truth.

During his long formative period in South Africa (1893–1914), where he organized a struggle against racial discrimination, and evolved his theory and practice of satyagraha, he made his first statements in appreciation of Lord Buddha and his teachings. In an ‘open letter’ addressed to the Members of the Legislative Council and Assembly at Durban [1894], while asserting the greatness of India, he wrote; “Add to this the facts that India has produced the Buddha, whose life some consider the best and the holiest by a mortal, and to some second only to that lived by Jesus.” In Durban, he once upset his hostess when he said that Gautama’s

compassion was extended to all living beings while one failed to notice this love in the life of Jesus. He repeated this conviction in a letter written on July 2, 1913: “It is difficult to say who was the greatest among Krishna, Rama, the Buddha, the Jesus, etc.... In point of character alone possibly the Buddha was the greatest. But who can say?” Speaking in a lecture on ‘Hinduism’ in Johannesburg on March 1905,5 he explained the indissoluble link between Hinduism and Buddhism. Gautama Buddha came into this world when Hinduism had become too rigid. He taught that animal sacrifice was despiritualizing and that toleration of all life was the highest form of love. Buddhism was to Hinduism what Protestantism was to Catholicism; a movement of reform. The jealousy of the Hindu priesthood having been aroused, Buddhism as a formal creed declined but its spirit remained in India and actuated every principle professed by the Hindus. Gandhiji reiterated this view later in his life. Paying homage to the Buddha for his renunciation of worldly attachments, Gandhi wrote in the Indian Opinion on July 7, 1907, how in the sixth century B.C., Lord Buddha, after “suffering many privations, attained self-realization... and spread ideas of spiritual welfare among

the people.”6 In letters written on January 28, 1909, July 19, 1913, and June 10, 1914, he praised how the Buddha had left his wife and parents and brought deliverance to them as well; and how they were admired by the world for this act of sacrifice and also how his own freedom from attachment with Kasturba (his wife) permitted him to serve her better. In a letter dated August 23, 1911, he praised his own state of voluntary poverty, as this was the state of the Buddha and the way to self-realization.

After returning to India in 1915, until his imprisonment in 1922,Mahatma Gandhi had led local satyagraha in Champaran, Ahmedabad,band Kaira, an all-India movement against the Rowlatt Bills, and the non cooperation movement. During this period, his first public reference to the Buddha’s teachings was made in his speech at the Missionary Conferencein Madras, given on February 14, 1916. He said that Hinduism was a mighty force because of its underlying swadeshi spirit and that it was erroneous to think that it had driven out Buddhism; it had in fact

absorbed it. He repeated in a speech given on October 21, 1917 that Buddhism cherished the same ideals as Hinduism.In a number of articles written during this period,9 he said that it was unmanly and against the Buddha’s teachings to be afraid to die because we are unable strike. Both the Buddha and Christ had taught us how to non violently resist what was wrong by direct action, taken with truth nd love, against the arrogant priesthood, the hypocrites, and the Pharisees.

The Buddha, “with a lamb on his shoulder,” did not spare the cruel Brahmins engaged in animal sacrifice, but he was “all love at heart.” Says Gandhiji, “Who am I in comparison with these? Even so I aspire to be their equal in love in this very life.” During an earlier visit to India in 1901, too he had spoken against “this cruel form of worship” to a friend in Calcutta but was told, “The sheep don’t feel anything.” Writes Gandhiji, “I thought of the story of Buddha but I also saw that

the task was beyond my capacity.” In a speech he gave on July 27, 1916, he said that had the Buddha and Christ not spent years in the wilderness preparing themselves for their mission, they would not be “what they are.” Again in his famous speech given at the Muir College Economic Society in Allahabad on December 22, 1916, he said that “the Buddha, Jesus, and other great religious leaders ... had deliberately embraced poverty,” and we would only go downhill

if we make “materialistic craze as our goal.” Practice of the Buddha’s Teachings

After his release from jail in 1924, Gandhiji delivered speeches on Buddha Jayanti at Bombay on May 18, 1924, and at Calcutta on May 7, 63 1925, in which he explained that his book-knowledge of Buddhism was confined to Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia, which he had “devoured from page to page” and “with deep veneration,” and one or two other books. He said, “Many friends consider that I am expressing in my own life the teachings of Buddha. I accept their testimony... I am trying my level best to follow these teachings.” He emphasized the following points in those speeches: (a) He drew “no distinction between the essential teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism.” The Buddha had “lived Hinduism in his own life.” The “blind Brahmins” had “rejected his reforms because they were selfish.” But the masses, who are “philosophers in action,” had recognized in the Buddha the true exponent of their own faith. And being himself one of the masses, he found that “Buddhism in nothing but Hinduism reduces to practice in terms of the masses.” Buddhism was not banished from India. Its every essential characteristic was translated into action in India much more perhaps than in countries that “nominally profess Buddhism.”

The Buddha had taught Hinduism “not to take but to give life. True sacrifice was not of others but of self.” He made the Vedas a living word but “the priests clung to the letter and missed the spirit.”

The reformation that the Buddha attempted has not yet had a fair trial. The Buddha taught us to “trust in the final triumph of truth and love.” He “lived what he taught.” “Each one of us should see how much of the Buddha’s message of mercy and piety we have translated into our lives.”

The Buddha was not an atheist. Buddhism teaches humility and the masses approach God in all humility. During the same period, in various other references also, he continued to insist that Buddhism was a “mighty reform in Hinduism. Buddhism rightly insisted on internal purity. Its appeal went straight to the heart. It broke down arrogant assumptions of superiority.”

The Buddha renounced pleasures as they “become painful.” To have anything was a torture to him.14 He said that Buddhists were not atheists nor agnostics as we all may have different definitions of God: “God is that indefinable something which we all feel but which we do not know.” In 1926, Gandhiji delivered a series of discourses on the Gita in the Sabarmati ashram in which he explained that there was no difference between the nirvana mentioned by Lord Buddha and the nirvana of the Gita. They referred to the same state. He related how once the Buddha had fainted while fasting and a woman placed a few drops of milk on his lips... “Did the milk rouse his appetite? No; on the contrary, he realized God soon after.” The Buddha’s nirvana was only “a seeming inertness,” not shunya [nothingness]. It is “perfect disinterestedness.”16 He had written in a letter earlier that he drew “no distinction between Buddhistic nirvana and the Brahama nirvana of Shankara,” as he believed in the complete annihilation of one’s individually as being “an absolute condition of perfect joya and peace.” He wrote on January 4, 1926 that he wanted to propagate ahimsa as a religion of the brave kshatriyas, as the Buddha, Mahavira, Rama, and Krishna, all votaries of ahimsa, were kshatriyas. “Ahimsa is the extreme limit of forgiveness. But forgiveness is the quality of the brave. Ahimsa is impossible without fearlessness.” Soon after returning from Ceylon, he said at Sabarmati that forgiveness was a quality of the soul, and that the Buddha had asked us to “conquer anger by non-anger.” And nonanger meant “the supreme virtue of charity or love.” As time passed, Gandhiji tended to link even more issues with the teaching of Lord Buddha. During his Presidency of the Belgaum Congress in December 1924, he had unequivocally responded to a Ceylonese deputation’s plea that possession of the historic Buddha Gaya temple should be vested in the Buddhists and called the reported animal

sacrifice in it a “sacrilege.”19 In a speech at Gaya, he said, if untouchability was not removed, the Hindu society, and to him it included Buddhists, might all perish altogether.20 Again, the contrast between the palaces built in New Delhi for wealthy people and the miserable huts of the laborers reminded him of the shock received by Gautama Buddha when he saw such miseries and which also transformed his life and the fortunes of the world.

During his two-week visit to Ceylon in November 1927, he addressed a large number of Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian groups, as well as other public forums. In every speech he referred to the Buddha’s life and teaching. The main points covered by him in those speeches are summarized below:

(a) The Great Master had taught the Right Path. Its first maxim is truth, and the second “to love all that lives,” and it teaches “personal purity of life.” This is what we have to learn, even in a college.

(b) As for the return of the Buddha Gaya temple to Buddhists, he had done everything humanly possible but there were several obstacles preventing this from happening.

(c) Some people had “accused” him of “being a follower of the Buddha”

and of “spreading Buddhistic teachings under the guise of sanatan Hinduism.” But he felt proud of it and he owed much to the inspiration he had derived from the Buddha’s life. (d) The Buddha’s teaching formed an integral part of Hinduism,

which “owes on eternal debt of gratitude to that great teacher,” who was “one of the greatest Hindu reformers,” a “Hindu of Hindus.” He never rejected Hinduism but broadened its base. He made some of the words of the Vedas yield meanings more relevant to the age. What Hinduism did not assimilate was not an essential part of his teaching. In fact, his teaching was “not assimilated in its fullness” outside of India.

For a complete study of Buddhism they should study Sanskrit scriptures and observe the five yamas [vows], viz., celibacy, truth, ahimsa, non-stealing, and non-possession. The Buddha, Mohamed, and Jesus were Asiatic. All that is permanent in Hindu culture is also found in their teachings. If we search for the greatest common measure in all great faiths, we come to the very simple factor, viz., “to be truthful and nonviolent.”

The contention that the Buddha did not believe in God “contradicts the very central fact of the Buddha’s teaching.” He justly rejected the “base things,” like animal sacrifice being done in the name of God. He “redeclared the eternal and unalterable existence of the moral government of this universe... the law was God himself.” From this also arose the confusion about the meaning of nirvana. It is the “extinction of all that is base in us... vicious in us... corrupt and corruptible in us.” It is not the “dead peace of the grave” but the “living happiness of a soul.”

The Buddha had an “exacting regard for all life, be it ever so low.” But as Buddhism traveled abroad, “sacredness of animal life” had not that sense, as if we could avoid the effects of our own acts. “It is an arrogant assumption to say that human beings are lords and masters of lower creation. On the contrary, being endowed with greater things in life, they are trustees of the lower animal kingdom.” Further, “If animals could not be sacrificed to the gods above, how could they be sacrificed to the epicure in us?” The Buddha wanted us to sacrifice ourselves, our lust and worldly ambition, and not other life. (i) “The Buddha renounced every worldly happiness, because he wanted to share with the whole world his happiness, which was to be had by men who sacrificed and suffered in search of truth. A time is coming when those who are in the mad rush today of multiplying their wants, vainly thinking that they add to the real substance, real knowledge of the world, will retrace their steps and say: What have we done?”

(j) The Buddha’s spirit lies in treating life not as “a bundle of enjoyments and privileges, but a bundle of duties and services.” That is what separates man from the beast. Hence, the ‘drinking’ habit was “totally against the spirit of the Buddha.” Untouchability, being practiced in Ceylon also, was “wholly against the spirit of the Buddha,” who had “abolished every distinction of superiority and inferiority.”

To render something unto the Buddha for his “great message of mercy,” they must wear khadi. Buddhism and Nonviolence

Gandhiji visited Burma [Myanmar], another Buddhist country, in March 1929, and spoke at a number of public and religious meetings in which he emphasized the following points:

(a) He felt honored when Buddhists in Ceylon, Burma, China, and Japan claimed him as their own, because “Buddhism is to Hinduism what Protestantism is to Roman Catholicism, only in a much stronger light.”

(b) Speaking in a pagoda he said he was glad that the Phoongys [Buddhist monks] were leading the political movement in Burma, but they must remain “pure beyond suspicion” and combine with the movement “great wisdom and great ability,” and may Lord Buddha’s spirit guide everyone in the movement.

(c) They had “one of the greatest truths that the world can ever have uttered by one of the greatest teachers of mankind, viz. ahimsa.” They should put it to practice in every act of life. Used wisely, it could become their “own saving and the saving of mankind.” It was the most active force in the world. “It radiates life and light and peace and happiness.” But it appeared that this message had “only touched but the surface of the heart of Burma.” For example, “when the law of ahimsa reigns supreme, there should be no jealously, no unworthy ambition. No

crime.” But the incidence of murder was common in Burma. India perhaps

had taken the Buddha’s message more fully.

(d) The Buddha undertook tapasya, i.e., penance, to overcome the oppression, injustice, and darkness around him. The priests sitting there must also lead others through penance, bringing out the spirit of the scriptures. Then they would realize that taking animal life, smoking, drinking, and being afraid are inconsistent with the Buddha’s doctrine of love.

(e) Those following the Buddha’s teaching could not afford to pass a single moment in idleness. Later, he could not comprehend how the followers of Buddha could give themselves up to savagery during the riots in Burma in 1938, in which even the priests took an active part. Similarly, when the Burmese leader Gen. U Aung San and his comrades were assassinated in 1947, he considered it “a great tragedy.” He said that the terrorists who committed such political murders, considered the victims to be criminals. But one who thus took the law into his hands, “commits violence against the people.” He enunciated a vital principle of public life: “Only an elected Assembly can dispense with the obligation to be nonviolent.” After returning from Burma, Gandhiji was again thrown into the hectic arena of politics, the campaign against untouchability, and a series of satyagrahi and imprisonments. After his release in 1944 and until his assassination, he was ever more deeply involved in the post-war political and communal problems in the country. But even during these periods, he continued to make frequent references to the Buddha and his teachings. In 1929, he had written and said that prophets such as the Buddha had preserved their religion “by breaking down bad traditions.” They had stood alone but had “living faith in themselves and their God.” He reiterated this statement in 1932 and said that they had stood against the world but “were humanity incarnate. To have such humility, one must have faith in oneself and in God.” He explained to N.K. Bose in 1934 that in the teaching of prophets like the Buddha, there was a permanent portion and an impermanent one, the latter being suited to the needs of their time. As we try to sustain this latter portion, we find so much distortion in religious practice today. While propagating the virtue of ‘bread labor’ or manual work, Gandhiji said that Jesus was a carpenter and the Buddha lived on charity— however, “a roving ascetic” also had a lot of manual work to do. He himself preferred the Gita’s gospel of work to that of contemplation and was “never attracted by the idea of complete renunciation,” but said that there “may be some like the Buddha whose mere thoughts would influence the world. The Efficacy of Prayer He was a firm believer in the efficacy of ‘prayer.’ He said that the Buddha,

Jesus, and Mohamed had found illumination through prayer and could not possibly live without it. In a dialogue with Charles Fabri, a Buddhist, who thought that Buddhism had taught him that some spirits could do without belief in God, Gandhiji had said; “But Buddhism is one long prayer.” Those who could not pray should be humble and not limit “the real Buddha.” Skepticism and intellectual conception do not help in critical periods of life. But “to know the meaning of God or prayer,” one must “reduce oneself to a cipher.” In difficult times when spiritual conception alone helps, then we have a glimpse of God. “That is the prayer.” Buddha, Jesus, and Mohamed had also fasted to see God face to face. A Japanese sadhu who came in 1935 to Gandhiji’s Wardha ashram, had stayed on and the evening prayer always commenced with his mantra ‘nam myo ho renge kyo,’ meaning “I bow to the Buddha, the giver of true religion.” When World War II broke out and the police were taking him away, he recited this mantra and left his drum with Gandhiji. Since then, morning and evening prayers at Sevagram ashram would start with the same mantra as a reminder of Sadhu Keshav’s “purity and single-eyed devotion. Gandhiji reiterated that, along with Vivekanand, he believed that “Shankara never drove Buddhism from India for he was himself a prachhanna [in disguise] Buddha. He merely rid it of the bad things that were creeping into it, and prevented its alienation from Hinduism.” In any case, the substance and purity of the Buddha’s teaching had been best preserved in India. As “a Hindu of Hindus, he [the Buddha] gave a new orientation to Hinduism.” Nor is Buddhism realized, said Gandhiji, “by getting to know its externals.” In a letter to the Dalai Lama, he wrote that he had asked his friends to give up “secretiveness and superstition if Buddhism is to live.” One of the many things for which Gandhiji revered the Buddha was “his utter abolition of untouchability, that is the distinction between high and low.”31 Had not the Buddha said; Make all fresh kin. There is no caste in blood Which runneth of one hue, nor caste in tears, Which trickle salt with all; neither cometh man To birth with tilak-mark stamped on the brow, To sacred thread on neck. Who doth right deeds Is twice-born, who doeth ill deeds vile. Similarly, while propagating khadi, he had emphasized the Buddha’s concern for the poor. Practice of Nonviolence

He said in an interview [1937] that the effects of the Buddha’s nonviolent action “persist and are likely to grow with age,” while those of Hitler’, Mussolini’s and Stalin’s violence though immediately visible were transitory. He had the greatest veneration for the Buddha, one of the greatest preachers and warriors of peace. The Buddha—and 600 years later Jesus—had taught us the love that was “essentially a social and collective virtue,” not a mere personal one. In another context, he said that in the Buddha’s time, the present day type of politics did not

exist and hence the Congress experiment in practicing nonviolence in the political sphere was a new one. When he saw a leaflet published by the Madras Provincial War Committee saying that World War II was being waged for “great ideals,” including that for peace, “as exemplified in the teaching of Lord Buddha

and Mahatma Gandhi,” he asked for this clause to be removed “as being untrue.” He said, “If Lord Buddha was on earth in the body at this moment, such a war would be impossible” and “Ashoka is perhaps the only instance of a great king having voluntarily abandoned war.” When communal violence erupted in Bihar in 1947, he was so anguished that “the hallowed land of Lord Buddha and King Janak and Lord Rama” was seeing the “devilish dance of violence.” It could only retrieve its ancient glory by means of nonviolence. He commented similarly about corrupt practices in Bihar. Gandhiji could not subscribe to the doctrine of Asia for the Asiatics. There was the imprint of Buddhistic influence on the whole of Asia including India. Asia has to relearn the Buddha’s message and deliver it to the world. The flower of nonviolence, which seemed to be withering, must come to full bloom. Later addressing the Inter Asian Relations Conference in 1947, he said that wisdom had come to the West from the East—the Buddha and other prophets all had come from the East. “The West is today pining for wisdom. It is despairing of the multiplication of the atom bomb ... It is up to you to tell the world of its wickedness and sin,”—that was the teaching of our teachers. Finally, during the last period of his life with violence and hatred prevailing all round, Gandhiji denied that he could be “a modern Buddha.” The Buddha and the later prophets “had gone the way they went in order to stop wars.” They could establish peace and happiness. The fact that he could not do so was “proof positive” that he had no such power. He was no divine person since “I am not able to establish peace.”

Here, I have attempted to give a summary of what Mahatma Gandhi had said and written about Lord Buddha’s life and teaching. He revered the Buddha and was deeply committed to follow the essence of his teaching. He saw the Buddha as one of the greatest reformers of Hindu dharma who taught us truth and ahimsa, self-purity, sacrifice and renunciation, and faith in the ultimate morality, which Gandhiji called God. He taught us to realize the unity of all life and the truth of what we are through our actions and selfless service, through humility and piety. In spirit, Gandhiji had followed in Lord Buddha’s footsteps.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in India on October 2, 1869. He was a member of the lowly Vaisyu caste, which was ranked above the Sudra, the lowest caste in Hindu society. Gandhi called "the untouchables or "Outcastes", as the Sudra caste was known, the Harijans or "Children of God"

He became a father at nineteen, before leaving India to study law in England. Gandhi later worked as a lawyer in South Africa, where he fought against racial discrimination.

On his return from South Africa he was hailed as "Mahatma", or the Great Soul.

From a young age Gandhi made was determind to act in accordance with truth and non-violence.He preached equal respect for all faiths.He disavowed any new message and claimed what he said was as old as the hills. It is said he made heros out of dust.Viscount Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, was quoted as saying; :Mahatma Gandhi will go down in history on a par with Buddhaand Jesus Christ"Buddhists respected this man of peace highly.He has been viewed in the same light as the Buddha.

This great man, stripped himself of all worldly goods and vowed to live a simple life, often fasting in his struggle for peace and Indian independence from British rule. He encouraged a boycott of British goods, urging Indians to spin their own cloth. Gandhi himself set an example, no matter how busy his life was or what his daily commitments were, he never slept without having spun some cloth.

Gandhi once said that the Buddha was the greatest teacher of ahimsa (non-violence) and that he "taught us to defy appearances and trust in the final triumph of Truth and Love." Albert Schweitzer once said that "Gandhi continues what the Buddha began. In the Buddha the spirit of love sets itself the task of creating different spiritual conditions in the world; in Gandhi it undertakes to transform allworldly conditions." Raghavan Iyer concurs: "Gandhi was, in fact, following in the footsteps of the Buddha in showing the connection between the service of suffering humanity and the process of self-purification"; and even more emphatically he speaks of "Gandhi's profound reinterpretation of Hindu values in the light of the message of the Buddha," Observing that Gandhi establishes a middle path between Jain individualism and the Vedantist dissolution of the individual, Margaret Chatterjee maintains that Gandhi's position most closely resembles Mahayana Buddhism. Chatterjee claims that one of Gandhi's prayers has Buddhist overtones: "The goal of the devotee is seen as the relief of suffering humanity, not as personal release from bondage. The mood expressed is much closer to the Bodhisattva than to the arhat ideal."

This essay covers several topics related to Gandhi and Buddhism. The first section discusses nonviolence in Buddhism and how it differs from Jainism and how it is compatible with Gandhi’s view. The second section addresses the problems regarding Gandhi's misconceptions about Buddhism. The third section explores the issue of self-suffering in the Buddha and in Gandhi. The fourth section discusses the issue of the Bodhisattva ideal and Gandhi’s status as the Mahatma. The fifth section offers a positive view of the Buddhist self in order to counteract the pervasive negative view that one generally encounters. Focusing on the thoroughly empirical method of Gandhi's experiments in truth, the sixth section will suggest a constructive comparison with the Buddha's famous claim that "those who know causation know the Dharma." The seventh section will discuss the relationship between morality and beauty and show how this relates to a Buddhist-Gandhian virtue ethics. In the last section I argue that commentators who interpret Gandhi as a follower of Advaita Vedanta cannot do justice to his firm commitment to the individual and cannot make sense out of his political activism. With this preservation of individuality, it is possible to propose a convergence of Gandhian and Buddhist humanism--a humanism of nonviolence and compassion.

NONVIOLENCE IN BUDDHISM

As in Jainism, ahimsa is preeminent in Buddhist ethics. Not killing is the first of the Five Precepts, and this prohibition includes all sentient beings from insects to humans. Buddhists (except some Tantric sects) firmly reject the ritual sacrifice of animals, although many allow the eating of meat as long as Buddhists are not the butchers. (Jains criticize Buddhists for being complicit in this violence against animals.) Both Buddhist and Jain farmers can eliminate pests who are destroying crops, but Buddhists perform atoning rites afterwards. While pacifism is the ideal, Buddhists and lay Jains may kill in self-defense. Unlike Jain ascetics, Buddhist monks have not only served as soldiers, but have raised and led armies, especially in Japan, Korea, and Tibet. Finally, in some Mahayana schools Bodhisattvas may kill persons who will, if not stopped, murder others in the future. Appealing to consequentialist arguments, Buddhists defend such "preemptive strikes": Bodhisattvas accrue merit that they then can bequeath to others, and the would-be murderers are saved from the horrors of Hell. Needless to say, Jains are scandalized by what they see as a crass rationalization of violence.

Many scholars have observed that the word ahimsa occurs only rarely in Buddhist scripture and commentary. Compared to the Jains, the Buddhists conceive of ahimsa as a positive virtue or, more precisely, an enabling virtue for higher virtues. Therefore, Buddhists usually speak of these other virtues rather than ahimsa itself. In S. Tachibana's The Ethics of Buddhism the word is used only once, and then only as one of seven Sanskrit words meaning benevolence or compassion. Nonviolence, however, comes out very clearly in Tachibana's formulation of the Buddhist categorical imperative: "We ought not to hurt mentally and physically our fellow creatures as well as our fellow men, but to love and protect them." The Jain formulation of ahimsa is almost always negative, while the Buddhist expression is almost exclusively positive.

One Jain scholar sums up the contributions of the two religions by suggesting that Jainism gave us ahimsa but Buddhism offered us maitri (friendliness) and karuna (compassion). One sutra describes a monk as "pervading one direction of universe. . . with his mind accompanied by maitri, with vast, great, undivided, unlimited and universal freedom from hatred, rivalry, narrow-mindedness and harmfulness." In another story the Buddha tamed serpents by rays of maitri emanating directly from his body. (While Gandhi conceded that it might be necessary to kill poisonous snakes that threaten human life, the Buddha, in response to a monk's being killed by a snake, commanded maitri towards all snakes.) While maitri is sometimes interpreted as compassion, it was Mahayana Buddhism that made compassion the highest virtue, along with generosity, good conduct, patience, courage, concentration, and wisdom.

While they were contemporaries in India, Buddhists criticized Jain monks for their extreme self-mortification, claiming that this constituted a form of self-violence. Jains and Buddhists also disagreed on the issue of suicide, the latter holding it to be the ultimate violence to self. Jains believe that it can be, as a fast unto death (sallekhana), the highest form of spiritual sacrifice, whereas Buddhists usually condemn any form of suicide. (Buddhist monks immolating themselves to protest the Vietnam war was a dramatic exception.) It appears that extreme austerities and autonomous selfhood are conceptually linked. Spiritual suicide would constitute the ultimate release and isolation of the Jain jiva from the corrupting influences of matter. On the other hand, a Buddhist, because of a nonsubstantial view of the self, would recognize that a spiritual self free from matter is an illusion; and she would be more concerned about the karmic effects of suicide as the ultimate violence to the self.

Gandhi actually allowed many exceptions to ahimsa, based on very realistic and pragmatic considerations, exceptions that scandalized many Hindus and Jains. His view is summed up in the surprising qualification that "all killing is not himsa," and his equally provocative imperative that it is better to fight an aggressor than to be a coward. In contrast to the Jain position, Gandhi's ahimsa is reactive and flexible, not passive and absolute. Throughout October 1928, Gandhi carried on a lively debate with various respondents inYoung India. Gandhi defended his decision to euthanize an incurable calf, and even went on to list the conditions for human euthanasia that do not violate ahimsa. He also thought that tigers, snakes, and rabid dogs might have to be killed if they threaten human life. In a letter to man who is trying to occupy land “haunted by wild beasts,” he advises him to kill them, because “ahimsa is not a mechanical matter, it is personal to everyone.” (Only a perfect yogi could pacify dangerous animals.) This comment is strong evidence that the ethics of nonviolence cannot be rule based; rather, it must be based on the development of virtues that are formed within the context of the person, his spiritual stature, his vocation, and the various situations in which he finds himself. Human life is a constant “experiment in truth” in which we all act out of distinctively personal behavorial styles that do not lend themselves to the mechanical application of rules.

Some of Gandhi’s exceptions to ahimsa would appear extreme and unacceptable even to contemporary proponents of euthanasia. Gandhi proposed that a dying man must euthanize his handicapped child if he thought that no one would care for her. If his own son were suffering from rabies and there was no cure, then he should be euthanized.¹² In both cases it is more important to relieve pain and preserve personal dignity than to follow lock-step the rule of nonviolence. This means that in many cases passive ahimsa is actually himsa. If a man who runs amuck and threatens to kill others, Gandhi insists that he must killed; furthermore, the killer should “be regarded a benevolent man.”¹³ Gandhi once told a Jain friend that ahimsa was not absolute and that one should always be “capable of sacrificing nonviolence for the sake of truth.”¹⁴ If one cannot be true to himself without defending himself and others, then violence may be necessary.

GANDHI'S MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT BUDDHISM

It was not until he reached England that Gandhi discovered the great religious classics of his own Indian tradition. He first read the Bhagavad-gita in Sir Edwin Arnold's translation, and he read with "even greater interest" Arnold's verse rendition of the Buddha's life and thought. Writing to a Burmese friend in 1919, Gandhi said that "when in 1890 or 1891, I became acquainted with the teaching of the Buddha, my eyes were opened to the limitless possibilities of nonviolence."¹⁶ Gandhi declared that he was proud of the accusation (lodged by his own son) that he was a closet Buddhist, and he claimed that Buddhism was to Hinduism as Protestantism was to Roman Catholicism "only in a much stronger light, in a much greater degree." This comment represents a slight against Roman Catholicism, which currently has the most compassionate and most understanding Christian mission in Asia. It also reveals Gandhi's mistaken belief that Buddhism, along with Jainism, are simply reform movements within Hinduism.

During November, 1927, Gandhi was on tour in Sri Lanka, and he naturally had occasion to present his views on Buddhism. Gandhi maintained that the Buddha's extreme austerities during the time before his enlightenment were done as penance for the sins of corrupt brahmin priests. Using the time-honored practice of tapasya, the Buddha, according to Gandhi, had only one principal goal: to convince Hindus to give up animal sacrifice. With remarkable candor Gandhi told his Buddhist audience that he was shocked that they could justify eating the flesh of animals that they themselves had not killed. He claimed that vegetarian Hindus were more consistent in their adherence to ahimsa and were thereby the true heirs of the Buddha's gospel of nonviolence. Reminding them of the Buddha's principle of dependent origination, Gandhi told his audience that any meat eater is causally linked to the violence of the one who butchers the animal. His judgment against Burmese Buddhists in 1929 was equally harsh, and there he speculated that their meat eating was the reason why Burma had a higher crime rate than India.

In his first speech in Sri Lanka Gandhi said that the Buddha only meant to reform Hinduism and not start a new religion of his own. It was his disciples, not the Buddha, who established a religion separate from Hinduism. According to Gandhi, the Buddha never rejected Hinduism; rather, he "broadened its base. He gave it new life and a new interpretation." And, most incredibly, Gandhi claims that any element of Buddhism not assimilated by Hinduism "was not an essential part of the Buddha's life and teaching." Unfortunately, Gandhi's effusive praise for Buddhism is rather back-handed, because he unwittingly eliminates the separate identity that it rightly deserves: "It can be said that, in India at any rate, Hinduism and Buddhism were but one, and that even today the fundamental principles of both are identical."

Gandhi was not always a very good scholar, and his passionate belief in the basic unity of all religions made him distort what we know to be the Buddha's intentions. There is no question that Siddhartha Gautama envisioned a clean break with the Hindu tradition. The Buddha preserved the time-honored techniques of yogic meditation, but his Middle Way contained a strong critique of India's ascetic traditions. He also broke with orthodox Hindus on other major issues, such as the nature of reality and the self and its relationship to the gods. In addition, the Buddha totally rejected the caste system, which Gandhi wanted to preserve in a revised form. My view is that Gandhi should have broken with his Hindu tradition on all of these points except perhaps for his views on the deity. Most importantly, we will find that Gandhi often speaks of both the self, God, and reality in dynamic and relational ways that are Buddhist in their implication. A process theologian, for example, would be thrilled to read that for Gandhi God “is ceaseless activity. . . . God is continuously in action without resting for a single moment.”

Gandhi's persistence in believing that the Buddha was a theist is yet another instance in which his own religious views clouded his understanding. Gandhi's argument that "the Law (dharma) was God Himself" is true only in Mahayana Buddhism, where the cosmic Buddha is called the dharmakya, literally, the Body of the Law. (Surendra Verma’s suggestion that Gandhi’s idea that God is Law, as it is not a Hindu or Jain idea, must have come from Buddhism is certainly worth serious consideration.) The Buddha himself, however, did not claim any transcendental or cosmic nature, and the deification of the Buddha came after his death. Furthermore, Gandhi's insistence on the Buddha's theism is ironic given the fact that he constantly wavered between personal theism and an impersonal pantheism, or even an impersonal "truthism." After all, Gandhi is most famous for his proposition that "Truth [not a supreme person] is God," a strategy partially designed to attract atheists to his cause. In any case, the Buddha adopted the Jain-Sankhya-Yoga view of the relationship between humans and gods. This view is neither theistic nor atheistic: the gods do indeed exist, but they, like all other nonhuman beings, have to have human incarnations in order to reach Nirvana. Finally, although I personally embrace Gandhi’s theism, if the ethics of nonviolence is to have the most comprehensive acceptance, a nontheistic form would obviously be more preferable.

To his credit Gandhi did have the correct view of Nirvana, and he is to be commended for his clear understanding of it. He said that "Nirvana is utter extinction of all that is base in us, all that is vicious in us, all that is corrupt and corruptible in us. Nirvana is not like the black, dead peace of the grave, but the living peace, the living happiness of [the] soul. . . ." This is a perfect response to perennial charges of Buddhist nihilism. Nirvana is, in a word, freedom--freedom not only from hate and greed, but freedom from craving, the unquenchable desire for those things that we can never attain. One significant assumption of the Buddha's position is that ordinary desires, even for the Enlightened One, are acceptable. This is the clearest mode of understanding the Buddha's Middle Way between extreme asceticism on the one hand and sensualism on the other. It is also a good way to see Buddhism as a religious humanism accessible to all people.

A Hungarian convert to Buddhism once asked Gandhi whether God could change because of human prayer. Sensing that his questioner was not sympathetic to the idea of petitionary prayer, Gandhi answered that God was of course immutable, so "I beg it of myself, of my Higher Self, the Real Self with which I have not yet achieved complete identification." This answer may well have satisfied the Buddhist interlocutor if he were a Mahayanist, but not so if she were Theravadin. The latter has a belief closer to the Buddha's own: that there is no higher self at all. It is clear that Gandhi is much more in line with the Mahayanists with regard to his concept of self. (There is good reason to believe that the Mahayanist higher self is a philosophical import from Hinduism, although Mahayanist doctrines of shunyata total interrelatedness mean that this self is very different from the Hindu atman.) This issue aside, it was never reported that the Buddha petitioned either a god (except in legends) or a higher self for any favor. So Gandhi was wrong when he insisted that the Buddha "found illumination through prayer and could not [have] possibly live[d] without it."

Gandhi and Buddhists definitely find common ground if Gandhi really means that prayer is chanting or meditation, which is, in fact, what he suggests in his conversation with the Hungarian. "You may, therefore, describe it as a continual longing to lose oneself in the Divinity which comprises all." In this regard it is instructive to note Gandhi's observation that a Japanese monk chanting at his Sevagram ashram was engaged in Buddhist prayer. Mahadev Dasei, Gandhi's faithful secretary, gives us more information about this person, who was obviously a follower of Nichiren Daishonin:

There is among us a Japanese monk who works like a horse and lives like a hermit, doing all the hard chores of the ashram and going about merrily beating his drum early every morning and evening, filling the air with his chanting of Om Namyo Hom Renge Kyom. . . . I do not believe there is one iota of truth in the charge some people have leveled at him of being a . . . spy. If he is a spy, spies must be the most amiable specimens of humanity and I should like to be one. To my mind he lives up to the gospel of ahimsa better than any one of us not excluding Gandhiji.

Unfortunately, the Japanese monk's practice of ahimsa did not stop the Indian police from arresting him and removing him from the ashram.

GANDHI, SELF-SUFFERING, AND THE BUDDHA

A typical Gandhian response to the misdeeds of others was to shame them completely by doing their penance for them. This proved to be very effective not only against the British but with his own family and followers as well. It is most intriguing to see how Gandhi has imposed his own principle of self-suffering on the life of the Buddha. Although not used by the Buddha or his immediate disciples, civil protest through acts of self-immolation has been common in ancient as well as modern Asia. (Buddhist monks burning themselves to death during the Vietnam War and Falun Gong suicides in China are the most recent examples.) Gandhi was of course aware of this tradition of self-immolation, but he still believed that his own particular adaptation of yogic tapas was new with him and that his practice of it had not yet been perfected. Presumably he would have seen protests through self-immolation as still too passive as compared to the engaged and dynamic nature of his own satyagrahas. (The Vietnamese monks, as far as I can remember, were not actively engaged in dialogue with the American officials.) Some commentators contend that there are instructive parallels between Gandhi's self-suffering and the suffering of the Bodhisattva, and we shall assess this claim in the next section.

If Gandhi does conceive of self-suffering as doing penance for others, then he has gone far beyond the traditional view of tapas. Indeed, it may even be at odds with the law of karma, which holds that karma is always individual not collective. (This means that only the individual person can work off her karmic debt.) Gandhi, however, appears to believe in collective guilt: “If we are all sons of the same God and partake of the same divine essence, we must partake of the sin of every person.” He once observed that the "impurity of my associates is but the manifestation of the hidden wrong in me," so this does appear to focus on individual karma, but his position is still equivocal and problematic. Margaret Chatterjee finds Gandhi's position very implausible, for, in the two cases she mentions, it is very difficult to see any "strict causal line[s]" between the actions of others and any implication of guilt on Gandhi's part.

By seeing tapasya as a process of self-purification rather than doing penance for other people, one can make better sense of Gandhi's actions. In this light Gandhi would have said that he could not demand perfection in others as long as he found imperfection in himself. During his fast against the violence at Chauri Chaura in 1922, Gandhi announced that "I must undergo personal cleansing. I must become a fitter instrument able to register the slightest variation in the moral atmosphere about me." (Gandhi’s explains Buddhist mindfulness in this statement just as well as any Buddhist.) This interpretation is most consistent with his expanded concept ofbrahmacharya as self-control in all actions and his commitment to spiritual purity for himself and his followers.

THE MAHATMA AND THE BODHISATTVA

A critic might say that the most significant difference between the Buddha and Gandhi was that the Buddha was a world-denying ascetic and that Gandhi was not. The following passage sums up this view very nicely:

Outwardly it would be hard to conceive of two individuals more different. On the one hand is the tranquil Buddha who walks serenely and calmly across the pages of history, or traditionally sits peacefully on a lotus with a gentle smile of infinitive compassion. . . . On the other hand is the Mahatma, speed and energy in every movement, laughing and sorrowing in his ceaseless endeavour to help mankind with the problems of human life. . . .

Gandhi must have heard similar comments, because he formulated this own firm response: "The Buddha fearlessly carried the war into the adversary's camp and brought down on its knees an arrogant priesthood. [He was] for intensely direct action." Who is correct? The truth as usual lies somewhere in between. Although he did frequently confront brahmin priests (the scriptures report that they were almost always converted), it can hardly be said that the Buddha destroyed the Vedic priesthood. (It continues to have great power even today.) Furthermore, although Buddhism and Jainism can take much credit for the reduction of animal sacrifice, it still continues today as an integral part of Goddess worship in Northeast India and Nepal. And even Gandhi admits that because of India's own weaknesses, the Buddha's, as well as the Jains', message of universal tolerance and nonviolence failed miserably. (Much blame, according to Gandhi, must be laid at the feet of Shankara for his "unspeakable cruelty in banishing Buddhism [from] India.") Finally, Gandhi is making the Buddha more of a political activist than he ever was. Gandhi should take sole credit for his own brilliant synthesis of religion and political action. As one commentator has said: “One cannot picture the Buddha training his disciples to face lathi charges as did the Mahatma.”

A growing scholarly consensus now recognizes that the Buddha was less ascetic and less world-denying than his disciples and the early schools that followed him. For example, as opposed to most Indian philosophy, the Buddha recognized the body as a necessary constituent of human identity, rather than something to be negated in the spiritual life. (Gandhi appears to join other traditions--Cartesian and as well as Jain and Vedantist–which maintain that the body has nothing to do with true personal identity.) It was his disciples who kept asking for more behavioral restrictions, and this difference is summed aptly in the Buddha's observation that sometimes he ate a full bowl of food while his monks only ate only a half bowl. Despite Buddhism's somatic selfhood and a later doctrine of universal Buddha-essence, its strong ascetic traditions did not allow Buddhist practice to be as body or world affirming as it could have been. The influence of Chinese naturalism (especially on Zen Buddhism) and the Buddhist-Christian dialogue have turned contemporary Buddhism much more in this direction.

The spiritual transformation of the entire world is the goal of most schools of Mahayana Buddhism. As opposed to the ascetic ideal of early Buddhism, where the emphasis was on personal liberation, the focus in Mahayana schools is on universal salvation. The vow of the Bodhisattva should be well known to those who know Buddhism: the Bodhisattva, even though she is free of karmic debt, vows not to enter Nirvana until all sentient beings enter before her. (The Bodhisattva's extra sacrifice caused some perceptive Buddhists to ask whether that made Bodhisattvas superior to the Buddha himself, who of course did not wait for the others.) The Bodhisattva ideal and the comprehensive range of universal salvation makes it relevant to contemporary debates about animal rights and the protection of the environment.

Gandhi constantly emphasized that his focus was universal this-worldly salvation and not individual spiritual liberation: "I have no use for them [love and nonviolence] as a means of individual liberation." As with Latin American liberation theology, Gandhi's soteriology maintained that God assumes a preferred option for the poor and the oppressed; indeed, Gandhi sometimes speaks of God existing in suffering humanity and not in heaven: "God is found more often in the lowliest of His creatures than in the high and mighty." Does this, then, make Gandhi "the Bodhisattva of the twentieth century," as Ramjee Singh has so boldly suggested? The answer must be negative if we insist on early formulations of the Bodhisattva concept. Using the innovative idea of Nichiren Buddhism that all of us become Bodhisattvas by virtue of our service to humanity, then Singh's claim is closer to the mark.

On the face of it Gandhi's self-suffering does appear to be similar to Shantideva's view of the Passion of the Bodhisattva:

By my own self all the mass of others' pain has been assumed: . . . I have the courage in all misfortunes belonging to all worlds to experience every abode of pain . . . . I resolve to abide in each single state of misfortune through numberless future ages. . . . for the salvation of all creatures. . . . I for the good of all creatures would experience all the mass of pain and unhappiness in. . . my own body. . . .

Gandhi does claim to have suffered--his fasts were long and many--for the good of all (sarvodaya); and he did declare that in his next life he wanted to be reborn an untouchable; but this still does not constitute anything like the soteriology that we find in Buddhism and Christianity. Gandhi obviously did not claim to have taken away the sins of the world as Buddhist and Christians claim their saviors do.

Following the idea of penance as self-purification, Gandhi may be more like the Bodhisattva, who, although sinless, nonetheless "think[s] of [him]self as a sinner [and] of others as oceans of virtue"? But just as we cannot believe Gandhi guilty of the crises for which he fasted, we certainly cannot believe, nor of course could he, that he was sinless. Not even his most ardent followers have claimed that Gandhi had the redemptive powers of a savior. Revealing his strong Vaishnava background, Gandhi once declared that he wanted to tear open his heart for the poor just as the monkey god Hanuman did to show his devotion to Rama, but he said that he did not have the power to perfect such absolute loyalty. Finally, it must be observed that Gandhi practiced self-suffering in order to change other people's behavior, whereas the Passion of Christ and the Bodhisattva is conceived of as totally unconditional, expecting nothing in return for their grace and compassion. Gandhi realized the danger in making his self-suffering conditional on the actions of others: it might very well violate the principle that he had learned so well from the Bhagavad-gita, namely, we must not act with regard to the fruit of our actions.

We must again place all aspects of Gandhian religion in its proper political context. (The more appropriate comparison would be Gandhi and Emperor Ashoka, who through political means attempted to establish a nonviolent society in 3rd Century BCE India.) Gandhi called his fasting a "fiery weapon" and that we must fight the "fire" of violence with the "fire" of our own self-sacrifice. "It was," as Madan Gandhi says, "a potent weapon to convert the evil doer, i.e., to make him conscious of the spiritual kinship with the victim." It was, as I said above, an effective means to shame Gandhi's opponents into mending their ways. Joan Bondurant describes it as the "willingness to suffer in oneself to win the respect of an opponent." For Gandhi himself it had the effect of establishing his absolute seriousness, sincerity, and fearlessness. For those close to him--especially his wife and his sons--it was a test of love--"tough love" as it is now called. "The only way love punishes," as Gandhi once said, "is by [self]-suffering." (The coercive effect of Gandhi's fasts has been widely discussed and accepted by many scholars.) We are now quite distant from the Suffering Servants of Christianity and Mahayana Buddhism.

THE DYNAMIC SELF IN THE BUDDHA AND GANDHI

Siddhartha Gautama's response to the axial discovery of the self was strikingly unique: he proposed the doctrine of no-self (anatman). This conceptual innovation was so provocative that it was bound to invite misinterpretation, and unfounded charges of Buddhist "nihilism" continue even to this day. Gautama anticipated Hume's view that the self is the ensemble of feelings, perceptions, dispositions, and awareness that is the center for agency and moral responsibility. The Buddha's view, however, is superior to Hume's, primarily because Gautama supported real causal efficacy among internally related phenomena. While Hume deconstructed any theory of causality, the Buddha reconstructed causal relations with his theory of interdependent coorigination.

Gautama rejected the soul-as-spiritual-substance view of the Upanishads, Jainism, and Sankhya-Yoga, and he deconstructed the "spectator" self of these philosophies 2,500 years before recent thinkers dismantled the Cartesian self. As opposed to strict deconstruction, for example, Buddhists hold that selves, though neither the same nor different throughout their lives, are nevertheless responsible for their actions. These selves are also real in the sense that they are constituted by relations with their bodies, other selves, and all other entities. This is why the Buddhist self should be viewed in relational or process terms rather than the negative implications of the no-self doctrine. The Buddhist self is relational primarily in the sense of its dependence on the five skandhas and the internal relations this dependence entails.

From this analysis we can clearly see that the Buddhist self is a robust personal agent full capable of maintaining its personal integrity and taking full responsibility for its actions. This view of the self is also fully somatic, giving full value to the body and the emotions. At the same time it is embedded in a social and organic nexus of cosmic relations. Surendra Verma is unduly puzzled when he asked how it was possible for the Buddha to be filled with thoughts and emotions and “at the same time preaching annattavada, the theory of the nonexistence of the soul.” Like many other commentators, Verma simply does not understand the meaning of the Buddha’s Middle Way, in this case the mean between annihiliationism (no self at all–substantial or otherwise) on the one hand and eternalism (substantial self) on the other. What appears not only puzzling but impossible is for the Vedantist atman to have any relation at all with the finite world, let alone the emotions and the body.

Turning now to Gandhi, he explicitly connects "the capacity of nonviolence" with a rejection of "the theory of the permanent inelasticity of human nature." If this statement is interpreted metaphysically, Gandhi seems to have joined the Buddha in his critique of the atman of the Upanishads and all other Indian views of an eternal, immutable self. Although Mahayana Buddhists reinstate an eternal soul, in most schools this self, like early Buddhist views, still enters into relations and is responsive to change. When Gandhi states that “to endure suffering in one’s own person is the nature of atman,” the logical implication is that the self actually undergoes change.

Mahayana Buddhists tend to be more supportive of real diversity within unity, and especially helpful is the Mahayanists’ suggestion that nonduality be expressed as "two but not two" so as to avoid the implication of the total nondifferentiation that we find in Advaita Vedanta. Thich Nhat Hanh has his own playful way of phrasing this profound point: "Non-duality means 'not two,' but 'not two' also means 'not one.' That is why we say 'non-dual' instead of 'one.'"⁶⁰ Zen Buddhists as well as many other Mahayanist also reject the mind-body dualism that even infects some of Gandhi's writings. These observations allow us to see the possibility of both a Buddhist naturalism as well as a Buddhist humanism, i.e., a view that affirms both the reality of nature and individual personal identity.

GANDHIAN AND BUDDHIST EXPERIMENTS IN TRUTH

The Buddha's famous statement "a person who sees causation, sees the Dharma"implies that people know how to act, not because of abstract rules or absolutes, but because of their past and immediate circumstances. Those who are mindful of who they are and how they relate to themselves and others will know what to do. The "mirror of Dharma" should not be seen as a common one that we all look into together, as some Mahyana schools believe, but it is actually a myriad of mirrors reflecting individual histories. Maintaining the essential link between fact and value, just as Greek virtue ethics did, the Buddha holds that the truth about our causal relations dictates the good that we ought to do. As David J. Kalupahana states: "Thus, for the Buddha, truth values are not distinguishable from moral values or ethical values; both are values that participate in nature."I believe that we can find this same ethical naturalism in Gandhi's experiments in truth, which, because their purpose was always directed to how we should live, were essentially experiments in Dharma.

The Buddha's MiddleWay is a distinctively personal mean between extremes, much like Aristotle's relative mean. Aristotle defined a moral virtue as "a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by [practical reason]. . . ." For example, Aristotle thought it was always wrong to eat too much, but each person will find his/her own relative mean between eating too much and eating too little. A virtue ethics of moderation is still normative, because the principal determinants in finding a workable mean for eating are objective not subjective. If people ignore these objective factors--e.g., body size, metabolism, and other physiological factors--then their bodies, sooner or later, will tell them that they are out of their respective means.

If this analysis is correct, then the traditional translation of the moral imperatives of the Buddha's eight-fold path may be misleading. Translating the Sanskrit stem samyag- that appears in each of the words as the "right" thing to do makes them sound like eight commands of duty ethics. Instead of eight universal rules for living, they should be seen as virtues, i.e., dispositions to act in certain ways under certain conditions and personal circumstances. (Samyagajiva, right livelihood, is particularly unintelligible on the absolutist reading.) The translation of samyag- more appropriate to Buddhist pragmatism would be "suitable" or "fitting," but "right" could remain as long as we understand it to be "right for you." It is only fitting, for example, that a warrior eat more and more often than a monk, or it is only appropriate that the warrior express courage in a different way than the nonwarrior does. Both are equally virtuous, because they have personally chosen the virtues as means, means relative to them.

Gandhi's controversial experiments with brahmacharya is an instructive example of how Gandhi put aside traditional rules and found his own way, dictated solely by his own ideas, his own dispositions, and his very unique way of purifying himself of sexual desire. He made it perfectly clear to his followers that no one should imitate the quasi-Tantric methods he used. He found his own personal mean between the excess of sexual indulgence and the deficient of complete withdrawal from women. (He thought yogis who did so were cowards.) Sleeping with his grandniece was right for him, and Manu Gandhi claimed that it was as innocent as sleeping with her mother, whom Gandhi had replaced. Gandhi found his own truth in direct experience; there is no evidence that he appealed to any transcendent principle or rule. In fact, he affirmed quite the opposite: "There are some things which are known only to oneself and one's Maker. These are clearly incommunicable. The experiments I am about to relate are not such." He goes on to stress the scientific nature of these experiments and how their results open for all to verify. Gandhi’s sleeping area was open for anyone to see, and those who did found Manu and him sleeping peacefully and innocently.

GANDHI AND THE BUDDHA: THE AESTHETICS OF VIRTUE

Most Euro-American philosophy has unfortunately severed the time-honored connections between truth, goodness, and beauty. Agreeing with his Greek contemporaries, the Buddha established an essential link between goodness and truth on the one hand and evil and untruth on the other. Of all the contemporary forms of Mahayana Buddhism it is the Soka Gakkai that is most aware of the aesthetic dimension of being moral. Even though its founder Tsunesaburo Makiguchi substituted benefit for truth in his trinity of benefit, goodness, and beauty, he still agreed with the Greeks that beautiful deeds are performed by beautiful souls.

Gandhi makes the same connections between truth and goodness and untruth and evil. The identity of reality and truth is also clear in his adoption of the intimately related ideas of sat and satya. Gandhi is following Hindu philosophy very closely in his identification of God, Truth, and Goodness. Realizing the aesthetic dimension, Gandhi states that "all truths, not merely true ideas, but truthful faces, truthful pictures or songs are highly beautiful. People generally fail to see beauty in truth. . . ." He also observes that although they say that Socrates was not a handsome man, "to my mind he was beautiful because all his life was a striving after Truth. . . ." Some would say that Gandhi was not a handsome man either, but one commentator observed that "there was a rare spiritual beauty that shone in his face."

Drawing on the tradition of Greek virtue ethics, one could define ethics as the art of making the soul great and noble. (Here the meaning of art would be the idea of creating a unique individual piece rather than making copies from a mould as in craft art.) It was Confucius who conceived of moral development as similar to the manufacture of a precious stone. At birth we are like uncut gems, and we have an obligation to carve and polish our potential in the most unique and beautiful ways possible. Gandhi appears to agree with this view: "Purity of life is the highest and truest art"; and "Life must immensely excel all the parts put together. To me the greatest artist is surely he who lives the finest life."

If are to speak of a Gandhian or a Buddhist virtue ethics, at least two major differences must be noted vis-à-vis the Greek tradition. First, for both Gandhi and the Buddha pride is a vice, so the humble soul is to be preferred over Aristotle's "great soul" (megalopsychia). (Aristotle's megalopsychia may even be too close to megalomania for the comfort of most contemporary persons.) Second, neither Gandhi nor the Buddha would have accepted Aristotle's elitism. For Aristotle only a certain class of people (free-born Greek males, to be exact) could establish the virtues and attain the good life. In stark contrast, the Dharmakaya and Gandhi's village republic contain all people, including the poor, the outcast, people of color, and women.

UNITY IN DIVERSITY: GANDHIAN AND BUDDHIST HUMANISM

It is common to interpret Gandhi in terms of Vedanta philosophy, especially Advaita Vedanta, the most dominant school. Gandhi's several references to a qualityless absolute and two equivocal affirmations of the principle of advaita offer some support for this view. The Advaitin interpretation offers a solution to the basic puzzle about Gandhi's self-suffering, which I have mentioned above. The principle of nondualism allows Gandhi to see the sin of the other as his own sin, because in reality there is no distinction between him and others, between the "I" and the "Thou."

The best evidence for the Advaitin solution is the following passage:

I believe in [the] absolute oneness of God and therefore also of humanity. What though we have many bodies? We have but one soul. The rays of the sun are many through refraction. But they have the same source. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul (nor may I be denied identity with the most virtuous). . . . I must involve in my experience the whole of my kind.

I maintain that we must qualify the implications of this passage both in terms of its moral implications and in terms of a coherent interpretation of Gandhi's philosophy. The Advaitin solution completely undermines the basic moral implications of the law of karma. Instead of the Advaitin model of total undifferentiated unity, I suggest that this passage be interpreted in terms of an organic holism, which has the distinct advantage over absolute monism in that it maintains the reality of the individual (on the analogue of the integral living cell) while at the some time making collective responsibility intelligible as well. In a previous article I have reformulated Gandhi's refraction analogy so that it gives the equal weight to the unity and individuality that we find in Gandhi's writings.

The problems of consistently maintaining an Advaitin Gandhi manifest themselves most clearly in Bhikhu Parekh's otherwise excellent book on Gandhi's political philosophy. After summarizing basic Indian philosophy he claims that Gandhi, just like Shankara, envisioned a two-tiered religion of a personal theism focusing on Shiva, Vishnu, Devi and an impersonal monism of Atman-Brahman. People in the second tier would recognize the illusion of individual self and consciousness, would eventually put the phenomenal world behind them, and would move from the worship of individual deities to experience the total unity of Atman-Brahman. Gandhi must object already at this point, because he wavered between personal theism and impersonal monism and never claimed that one was superior to the other.

More problems arise with Parekh's interpretation, especially with regard to Gandhi's political activism and the dynamic and engaged individualism that such a view requires. There is indeed a tension in Gandhi between the ascetic and mystic Gandhi, who, as Parekh shows, has difficulty justifying, from an Advaitin standpoint, the feeling of, let alone need for love; and the activist Gandhi, who is committed to moral autonomy, love, compassion, and justice. But nowhere in Gandhi's voluminous works does he indicate that the individual self is an illusion. (Chatterjee puts the point bluntly: "Gandhi had no truck with the maya doctrine.") Gandhi's thoughts range from the self's complete autonomy, where he has come under the powerful influences he admits the Euro-American tradition had on him, to a relational, social self that has an organic relation with society and the cosmos as a whole. Parekh cannot support both an Advaitin Gandhi and the Gandhi who exhorts individuals to conform to their own historical-cultural truths. For the Advaitin there can be no ultimate value in such truths.

There is sufficient evidence to call Gandhi a pantheist, but many commentators are not careful enough to distinguish between pantheism, where the cosmos and its parts are both real and divine, and the Advaitin position where only Atman-Brahman is real. John White has suggested, echoing medieval Jain arguments, that there is a basic inconsistency in Advaita Vedanta, because from the standpoint of the unliberated souls both Atman-Brahman and the phenomenal world exists, albeit the latter only in a derivative and temporal mode, whereas from that standpoint of the liberated souls the world does not exist. The Advaitin is not even consistently nondualistic, because, until all humans are liberated, the Advaitin position is, as White calls it, a "transcendental dualism,"a dualism of divine reality and derivative phenomena roughly equivalent to Christian theology. The principal difference is that God creates the world in Christianity whereas it is the creation of ignorance in Advaita Vedanta.

Daisaku Ikeda, the philosophical leader of the Soka Gakkei, paraphrases the medieval monk Nichiren Daishonin as saying: "The Buddha is an ordinary human being; ordinary human beings are the Buddha." There are two interpretations of the second phrase depending upon whether one follows early Buddhist texts or embraces later Mahayanist views. From the standpoint of early Buddhism to say that we are all Buddhas simply means that all of us have the potential to understand the Four Noble Truths and to overcome craving in our lives. The Mahayanist interpretation would be that we all possess a Buddha-nature metaphysically equivalent to the Dharmakaya, the cosmic "body" of the Buddha. Given his commitment to a general Vedantist concept of soul, Gandhi would have felt very comfortable with the Mahayanist position, particularly since it respects diversity within unity and supports a dynamic and engaged concept of self. I therefore conclude that Buddhist humanism--a humanism of nonviolence and compassion--may be the very best way to take Gandhi's philosophy into the 21st Century.