佛教：印度教的圆满
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中文
我并非佛教徒，正如你们所听说的那样，然而我又是。若说中国、日本或斯里兰卡是追随这位伟大导师教义的，那么印度则将他敬奉为降临于世的神明化身。你们刚刚听说我将对佛教进行批评，但我希望你们理解的仅仅是这一点：我岂会去批评我所礼拜的、降临于世的神明化身？然而我们对佛陀的看法是：他的弟子们并未真正理解他。印度教（我所说的印度教，是指吠陀的宗教）与当今所谓佛教之间的关系，几乎与犹太教和基督教之间的关系如出一辙。耶稣基督是犹太人，而释迦牟尼是印度教徒。犹太人拒绝了耶稣基督，不仅如此，还将他钉上了十字架；而印度教徒则接受了释迦牟尼为神明，对他顶礼膜拜。但是，我们印度教徒所要指出的现代佛教与我们理解中的佛陀教义之间的真正差异，主要在于：释迦牟尼来到世间并非要宣扬什么新的东西。他与耶稣一样，是来成全而非来废除。只是在耶稣的情形中，不理解他的是旧有的民族——犹太人；而在佛陀的情形中，未能领悟其教义深义的，却是他自己的追随者。正如犹太人未能理解旧约的成全，佛教徒也未能理解印度教真理的成全。我再重申，释迦牟尼并非来废除，而是印度教宗教的成全、其逻辑的归结与逻辑的发展。
印度教的宗教分为两部分：礼仪性的与灵性的。灵性的部分尤为出家僧侣所专修。
在这一领域中没有种姓之别。在印度，出身最高种姓的人与出身最低种姓的人都可以出家为僧，而这两种种姓便趋于平等。在宗教中没有种姓；种姓不过是一种社会制度。释迦牟尼本人就是一位出家人，他的荣耀在于，他有着宽广的胸怀，将隐藏于吠陀中的真理揭示出来，并通过它们向全世界广泛传播。他是世界上第一个将传教付诸实践的人——更不用说，他是第一个构想出改宗布道这一理念的人。
这位导师的伟大荣耀在于他对所有人，尤其是对无知者和贫苦者所怀的那种令人赞叹的悲悯之心。他的一些弟子是婆罗门。当佛陀传法之时，梵语在印度已不再是日常口语。彼时它只存在于学者的典籍之中。佛陀的某些婆罗门弟子希望将他的教义译成梵语，但他明确地告诉他们："我是为穷人、为大众而来的；让我用百姓的语言说话。"所以直至今日，他的绝大多数教义仍保留在当时印度的方言口语之中。
无论哲学处于何种地位，无论形而上学处于何种地位，只要世界上还有死亡这件事，只要人心中还有软弱，只要人在软弱中发出的呼告之声还从心底涌出，就将有对神的信仰。
在哲学层面，这位伟大导师的弟子们以头颅撞击吠陀那永恒的磐石，却无法将其击碎；而在另一面，他们又从这个民族那里夺走了那永恒的神——每一个人，无论男女，都如此深切地依附于那神。结果是，佛教在印度自然地消亡了。时至今日，在佛教的诞生之地印度，已没有一个人自称是佛教徒。
但与此同时，婆罗门教也失去了某些东西——那种改革的热忱，那种对所有人所怀的令人惊叹的悲悯与慈爱，那种佛教曾带给大众的、令印度社会一度如此伟大的美好境界。当时有一位撰写关于印度的希腊史学家，被人们引述说：没有一个印度人被知晓说过谎话，也没有一个印度女性被知晓有失贞洁。
印度教离开佛教无法生存，佛教离开印度教同样无法生存。那么让我们认识到，这种分离向我们揭示了什么：佛教徒没有婆罗门的头脑与哲学无法立足，婆罗门没有佛教徒的心灵同样无法立足。佛教徒与婆罗门之间的这种分离，是印度衰落的根源。这就是为何印度有三亿乞丐，这也是为何印度在过去一千年间沦为征服者的奴隶。那么让我们将婆罗门那卓越的智慧，与这位伟大导师的心灵、高贵的灵魂以及那令人叹为观止的人道主义力量结合在一起吧。
English
I am not a Buddhist, as you have heard, and yet I am. If China, or Japan, or Srilanka follow the teachings of the Great Master, India worships him as God incarnate on earth. You have just now heard that I am going to criticise Buddhism, but by that I wish you to understand only this. Far be it from me to criticise him whom I worship as God incarnate on earth. But our views about Buddha are that he was not understood properly by his disciples. The relation between Hinduism (by Hinduism, I mean the religion of the Vedas) and what is called Buddhism at the present day is nearly the same as between Judaism and Christianity. Jesus Christ was a Jew, and Shâkya Muni was a Hindu. The Jews rejected Jesus Christ, nay, crucified him, and the Hindus have accepted Shâkya Muni as God and worship him. But the real difference that we Hindus want to show between modern Buddhism and what we should understand as the teachings of Lord Buddha lies principally in this: Shâkya Muni came to preach nothing new. He also, like Jesus, came to fulfil and not to destroy. Only, in the case of Jesus, it was the old people, the Jews, who did not understand him, while in the case of Buddha, it was his own followers who did not realise the import of his teachings. As the Jew did not understand the fulfilment of the Old Testament, so the Buddhist did not understand the fulfilment of the truths of the Hindu religion. Again, I repeat, Shâkya Muni came not to destroy, but he was the fulfilment, the logical conclusion, the logical development of the religion of the Hindus.
The religion of the Hindus is divided into two parts: the ceremonial and the spiritual. The spiritual portion is specially studied by the monks.
In that there is no caste. A man from the highest caste and a man from the lowest may become a monk in India, and the two castes become equal. In religion there is no caste; caste is simply a social institution. Shâkya Muni himself was a monk, and it was his glory that he had the large-heartedness to bring out the truths from the hidden Vedas and through them broadcast all over the world. He was the first being in the world who brought missionarising into practice — nay, he was the first to conceive the idea of proselytising.
The great glory of the Master lay in his wonderful sympathy for everybody, especially for the ignorant and the poor. Some of his disciples were Brahmins. When Buddha was teaching, Sanskrit was no more the spoken language in India. It was then only in the books of the learned. Some of Buddha's Brahmins disciples wanted to translate his teachings into Sanskrit, but he distinctly told them, "I am for the poor, for the people; let me speak in the tongue of the people." And so to this day the great bulk of his teachings are in the vernacular of that day in India.
Whatever may be the position of philosophy, whatever may be the position of metaphysics, so long as there is such a thing as death in the world, so long as there is such a thing as weakness in the human heart, so long as there is a cry going out of the heart of man in his very weakness, there shall be a faith in God.
On the philosophic side the disciples of the Great Master dashed themselves against the eternal rocks of the Vedas and could not crush them, and on the other side they took away from the nation that eternal God to which every one, man or woman, clings so fondly. And the result was that Buddhism had to die a natural death in India. At the present day there is not one who calls oneself a Buddhist in India, the land of its birth.
But at the same time, Brahminism lost something — that reforming zeal, that wonderful sympathy and charity for everybody, that wonderful heaven which Buddhism had brought to the masses and which had rendered Indian society so great that a Greek historian who wrote about India of that time was led to say that no Hindu was known to tell an untruth and no Hindu woman was known to be unchaste.
Hinduism cannot live without Buddhism, nor Buddhism without Hinduism. Then realise what the separation has shown to us, that the Buddhists cannot stand without the brain and philosophy of the Brahmins, nor the Brahmin without the heart of the Buddhist. This separation between the Buddhists and the Brahmins is the cause of the downfall of India. That is why India is populated by three hundred millions of beggars, and that is why India has been the slave of conquerors for the last thousand years. Let us then join the wonderful intellect of the Brahmins with the heart, the noble soul, the wonderful humanising power of the Great Master.
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。