ABSTRACT
In the late 19th century, Buddhism attracted the interest of Hindu religious modernisers. For centuries Buddhism seemed to have disappeared from the land of its origin, India. The discovery of the Pali Tipiṭaka in Sri Lanka, of Buddhist Sanskrit texts in Nepal and Max Müller’s editions of Sanskrit Mahayana texts from Japan and China enabled Indian intellectuals to regain some direct access to the narratives and soteriologies of Buddhism. From the beginning of the 19th century in colonial Bengal, Vedanta-inspired Hindu modernity discourse was constantly being produced. Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) and Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) were both, in their own ways, major exponents of this type of discourse. But beyond the Upanishads and Vedanta, both also looked up to the Buddha as a moral figure. This chapter will look at the way Tagore and Vivekananda framed their views of the Buddha and how they turned him into a paradigm of ethics of Hindu modernity. Tagore especially has evoked the figure of the Buddha as a symbol of the Hindu moral reform that he himself advocated. Vivekananda often emphasised the moral stature of the Buddha. In the works of both authors, the doctrines of Buddhism do not figure much, but the personality of the Buddha is mostly highlighted. The chapter will show how both authors tried to present a ‘Hinduised’ Buddha to an Indian audience, what type of ethics they made the Buddha represent and how they did this with a view to bolstering their respective Hindu reform agendas. The chapter will also show the differences between Tagore and Vivekananda’s evocations of the Buddha and will reveal some of the sources they based their works on.
