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The Indian Neo Buddhism has aroused a movement since the 50s, which propa-gates Buddhism as the top form of the Indo-genous dharma. - The vast majority of that new religious movement belongs to the Dalits [1], people whose en-dogamous communities have been excluded from the varna system [2a] since centuries. The varna system is the traditional hierarchic structure of the relation-ships of those Indian communities who mutually acknowledge themselves as constituent members of their society. These varna jatis established a social class of people devoid of any basic social right. Declared as 'Untouchables' these peo-ple lost all human substance in the eyes of the varna jatis. Yet, that social degra-dation didn't primarily spring from racial, religious or even cultural reasons but from economic ones. When the old Indian agrarian production became a little more productive the division of labour was established as basic structure of the society; but in India the productivity remained on a low level during centuries so that the new non-productive jatis had to keep down the costs of the material pro-duction and the necessary services; they needed cheapest labour.
The Hindu Buddha according to the theology of the Bengali Vaishnava Acharya Bhaktivedanta Swami
(1999)
In the broad Indian religious culture we find two basic concepts of the inner structure of the Holy. The Advaita religion believes in the 'not-two' will say absolute 'oneness' of the ultimate reality. The Dvaita religion yet believes in 'two' will say the dual structure of the whole. Nevertheless, the latter one is no radical dualism because it recognises nothing to be outside the last reality. It is a kind of 'dualist monism' and insofar fundamentally different to West Asian and European moderate or radical dualism. The Dvaita religion experiences the inner structure of the Holy as everlasting dynamic relation of the whole and its parts. As a rule, the representation of the whole is the personal God, mostly called Bhagavan. The representations of the parts are the soul or jivas. Mostly following the idea the whole being a personal God the Dvaita religion is something like theism; yet, it is an Indian or Hindu theism teaching that the Godhead comprises within herself souls and matter, too. By the way, many of the jivas aren't conscious of their role within the Holy. They erroneously take themselves for empty monads and believe that they would get their realisation only by implementing themselves with 'matter'. Experiencing in this concern the uselessness of matter, the maya energy of the Godhead, they can get the true consciousness of their role as divine co-players in the inner divine play or lila. ...
The popularity of St. Francis (1182/3-1226) in our days is overwhelming. He has become a modern hero - not only of Catholics but also of Protestants, non-Christians and even atheists. Nevertheless, the question may be raised whether the modern portrayals of St. Francis do justice to the historical person. In order to get a more solid answer we will analyze various documents which were ap-proximately known to and approved by St. Francis himself, particularly his Tes-timony, his Song of Brother Sun, the Unapproved Rule, the Approved Rule, the Admonitions, and the Letter to the Faithful Ones I.[1] We will not even use the legendary reports of his disciples. From the very beginning the devotees of St. Francis made of him a typical convert. This biographic mutilation has remained en vogue until today.[2] - In his Testimony he tells his real story in a few brief words: "While I was in sins it appeared to me extremely bitter to look at the lep-ers. And the Lord himself brought me among them and I gave alms to them. When I was leaving them that what appeared bitter to me was to me exchanged for (converted into) sweetness of the soul and the body. And afterwards I stopped for a moment and then I left the world."[3] Therefore, his life can be divided into three periods: 1) the life in 'sin' or the 'world'; 2) the short period of the conversion, of a short stopping and of the leaving the 'world'; and 3) his exis-tence outside the 'world'. ...
Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) and Vishvambhara Mishra (1486 - 1533), known as Shri Krishna Caitanya, have been the outstanding representatives of the great west-eastern religious revolution which shattered the hearts of their societies in the 16th century. They were the spiritual revolutionaries of the modern times. The question may very well be raised if and how these two religious reformers on the edge of modern age share theological commonness, even though they lived wide apart and certainly did not know of each other. We will see: Both Martin Luther and Shri Krishna Caitanya have taught the un-conditioned, Free Love viz. Bhakti. Even if they did it in the tradition of the theological context they were born in they produced a new common setting of religion: the destruction of meritoricly bound religion and its substitution by free religion. The worship of God or charity were no more a mean for but the final state of salvation. Their interpretation of this revolutionary religion has lost nothing of its existen-tial meaning, even though having been twisted often enough to indiscernibility or even to the complete opposite - up to the present day. ...
In Germany, theological studies on the Hindu religion of the International Soci-ety of Krishna Consciousness and its Vaishnava theology are still only just be-ginning. Previously this relevant task was left mostly to religio-political polemics, resulting in a politically highly problematic research deficit which seriously impeded the necessary social and clerical confrontation with these new religious impulses in the German society. But theological passiveness and polemic activ-ism actually reduce the chances for religiously relevant analyses and socially acceptable solutions of philosophical and spiritual problems. Ignorance rather than dialogue, and polemics inimical to dialogue, have directly or indirectly stabilised the destructive forces in the new religious communities for decades, and consequently favoured a diminution and isolation of reformative tendencies. Due to an increasing respect for the freedom of religion as a human right, the profane alliance of the aggressive forces of both sides has recently ended, and a public, and differentiating, discussion of participants and persons concerned has cautiously started, reinforcing a freer and more competent inter-civil dialogue about spiritual affairs. Clear signs may be seen, not only of a reform within the ISKCON religion, but also in the churches setting about discussing the multi-religious topic on a higher level. A so-called broader theological research, partly transcending the border-lines of Christianity, is developing in the universities, and the free science of religion in Germany is receiving a surprising impetus. It was the suppression of the science of religion that had been impeding a constructive discussion in society of the new religious situation in Germany. The rejection of an inter-civil dialogue of spiritual affairs, however, contradicts an effective democracy which subsists on the continuous confrontation of free citizens with their common culture, especially with the ultimate questions of human existence. But the success of this inter-civil confrontation is solely guaranteed if the participants in the dialogue respect their mutual freedom as citizens and take the mutual dialogue among citizens for granted. This is the only way to attain a reasonable range of solutions concerning the ends of our existence and its proper means. As a contribution to this inter-civil dialogue a theological analysis is to be made of the religious culture practised by citizens of this country engaged in the ISK-CON religion and from there desiring to exert an impact on our civil culture. I. Subject and Aim of Diacritical Theology Because of the diffuse understanding of theology it is necessary to explain what it is, where it should and should not be engaged. Theology is not a religious ideology of a particular community that argues the interests of social organisations, but a universal science. It is not limited to a certain religious culture or form of society but is committed to its specific subject (1). Such an autonomous theology has the task of discrimen inter legem et evangelium—the diacritical analysis of Law and Gospel according to the description of its function by Martin Luther. We will follow these basic categories of diacritical theology and explain them here (2).
The Christian culture experienced a deep-going change with the uprising of the Civil Society ("Bürgerliche Gesellschaft"), the industrialization of economic production, the urbanization of life-style and the individualization of religiosity in the 19th century. The Christian formation of inner- and outer-world in those days became obsolete. From this conflict the civil or modern Christianity origi-nated. In a painful changing process most of the people of this new society have newly interpreted religion, moral and ritual of traditional Christianity and cre-ated to their new conditions of life new institutional forms of transmission and realization of Christian cultural heritage. Under the recourse of the Reformato-rian heritage the modern Christianity developed the religious-moral doctrine: A true Christian is before all a citizen who is living in the midst of the world self-determinate and socially engaged fulfilling all his worldly duties; the modern Christian has to get this motivation for a world-oriented existence on his own responsibility because religion is not restricted anymore. ...
The historian has to safeguard the strangeness of the past. Therefore, religio-historical research has to scrutinise the reconstruction of the real history of religions by religious ideologies of the present. Very often religious ideologies fall back to the past in order to get an alleged legitimacy for their actual am-bitions; however, for that purpose they have to model or falsify the past according to their present ideo-logical needs. One of the outstanding examples of such an ideologisation of history of religion is the modern view of Buddhism. Developed by the Western colonialist Indology this ideology portrayed and still is portray-ing Buddhism as an rationalist-atheistic, anti-brahmanical, anti-caste and egalitarian religion - in con-trast to Hinduism which is caricatured as idolatrous, casteistic and brahmanised. The aim of such an ideological interpretation is to demonstrate the alleged Western modernity of Buddhism and the alleged obscurantism of Hinduism. The target of that ideological aggression was the Hinduism. In order to exploit the wealth of India the Western colonialists needed the weakening of the Hindu self-consciousness; therefore they favoured an Indology which produced an not existing Indian Buddhism as an alleged modern alternative to the alleged primitive religion of the 'Hindoos'. Playing the Buddhism against the 'Hindoos' the colonialist attempt to defame the vast majority of the Indian people was very successful. Even Indian religious intellectuals and leaders (i.e. the secularists or the Neo-Buddhists1) are sharing and supporting that colonialist view still today. We want to dispute these asserted positions by empirico-historical reasons. First we will discuss the early Buddhism, than Ashoka's reform program of the dharma and at last the historio-graphical dilemmata of scholars sharing the colonialist ideology of Buddhism. ....
The Dalai Lama, in exile since 1959 in Hindu majority India, has continuously been taking a firm stand on giving importance to an inter-religious dialogue and interaction. He has made it absolutely clear that Buddhism represents just one of the many religious ways open for mankind. Nonetheless, he has always referred to the bond shared between Buddhism and Hinduism as a very special one and has experienced it as a religious tie. Both these religious streams belong to what is known as Bharatiya or Indo-genous Dharma. The Dalai Lama does not restrict his care for nurturing this common bond to a mere academic talk. In fact he has been taking active part in promoting this kind of inter-religious dialogue and has been showing a fiery political commitment as well. He thus took active part in the second World Hindu Congress organized by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad held in Prayag-Allahabad in the year 1979. According to official reports, the organizers in their welcome speech for the Dalai Lama were frank enough to admit that 2500 years ago, the Kashi Pandits (Kashi also known as Varanasi) had stopped Siddharta Gautama Buddha from entering the Vishwanath temple. It was also mentioned that for all these years, there has never been any letup in the conflict between Sanatani Hindus and Bauddhas, despite the fact that later on Shakya Muni was rewarded the status of avatara by Hindus. The fact that these very Kashi Pandits had invite one of the highest religious authorities of Buddhism - the Dalai Lama- to this congress should be seen as "a positive step towards reconciliation." The Dalai Lama was thus pleasantly surprised to see that the highest rung of the religious body of Hindus publicly acknowledged the divine status of Siddharta Gautama Buddha and recognized the presence of the Dalai Lama as a valuable contribution towards the reconciliation between the two religious streams. ...