India is scattered with numerous archaeological sites related to Buddha. Not only present-day India, but the whole of Indian subcontinent known as Jambudvipa in Buddhist and Bharatvarsha in Brahminical texts, is having plenty of evidence of Buddha in various art forms, from plain writing on the rocks to stone carvings, from caves to intricate building structures, from mirror-like smooth stone pillars to living sculptures and sublime paintings. India has a rich heritage of Buddhist culture by way of archaeological evidence. The historical evidence. We cannot though say that living Buddhist culture can be found much in India. 

Whatever magnificent Buddhist heritage we find in India is, of course, a recent discovery. Just 200 years old discovery. Till then, till precisely 1830s we Indians believed that Buddha was some out of the world mystic person who had taken an Avatar of the supreme God Vishnu like some nine Avatars before him. 

Buddha didn’t have any heroic stories around him like other Avatars. We were told that he was born as a prince, witnessed illness, old age, death of people in his childhood, got disturbed, left, rather irresponsibly, his palace quietly in the darkness of the night without any concern for his own little child and young wife. He went to the jungle, lived like a hermit under some yogis and got enlightenment and became Vishnu’s Avatar. That’s all! Those who declared him an Avatar of Vishnu in the line of Parashuram, Lord Rama or Lord Krishna did not bother to tell the people what was his life story, his philosophy and his worth. Why and how did he qualify to be an Avatar of the supreme God in their system of beliefs! Not a mention! No wonder Buddhist philosophy and culture evolved around it was lost in India. By the time British arrived in the 18th century, Buddha was told to be some saintly person who had come to India from a distant land of Ethiopia. That is what Brahmins, the powerful priestly class, would tell the British officers who were intrigued by the discovery of splendid Buddha sculptures in India.  

Of course, Britishers were not like closed-minded Bhakta to believe that thrash. They started their research firstly through Asiatic Society of Bengal and then through the Archaeological Survey of India. The outcome of their consistent, life-threatening research was stupendous. The huge wealth of heritage was excavated, discovered and writings “of God” were deciphered to unflinchingly establish that India had an Emperor called Priyadarshi Ashok and Buddha belonged to India. This Buddhist heritage mostly created over a period of 1000 years from 3rd century BCE to 11th century CE and beyond was widespread all over the Indian subcontinent and beyond up to Afghanistan and Eurasia. The heritage includes huge monastery complexes, viharas, chaityas, palace complexes, statues and even a specially erected spacious hall for Dhamma Sangiti during Ashoka’s life. The evidence of this Buddhist heritage continues to be excavated even now. 

The recent case is that of Ayodhya, the erstwhile Saket. Media has widely reported in the last week of May 2020 about the finding of Buddhist artefacts during levelling of the land for construction of a grand temple of Lord Rama. Finding of similar artefacts at Ayodhya earlier also is on record. Based on that, some Buddhists even tried to intervene in the long-pending Ayodhya dispute before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ignored their intervention and finally decided the acknowledged property dispute on the basis of “majority community’s faith in Ram Lalla’s birthplace”.  That’s fine.

But the question before the Indian society remains that who created the diversely rich vast Buddhist heritage all over India? Communities create permanent stone structures of their belief systems so that they long endure. That is why a grand temple for Lord Rama is being constructed by the “majority community for the deity of their belief”. 

So did the majority community of India in the past, for well over a period of 1000 years! They created such an enduring, such a vast heritage for their deity, the Lord Buddha! Where has that majority community of India vanished? Presently there are a handful of Buddhists banished to hilly terrains of Himalayas. In the mainland proper there are mostly neo-Buddhists, people those who converted with Dr. Ambedkar in 1956 and later. No doubt, Buddhists are there in several countries across the globe, in the majority in many Asian countries. But certainly, they could not have built all this heritage in India. Then what has happened to the majority Buddhists who built this unparalleled heritage in India during and after the Ashoka’s time? Where are the heirs to this veritable Buddhist heritage? 

The answer is plainly the present-day non-Brahmin majority people of India are the heirs of Buddhist heritage. Their forefathers had created all this to commemorate their supreme, Lord Buddha. Non-Brahmin because Brahmins do not claim any stake to Buddhist heritage as can be seen from the excavated artefacts from Ayodhya or elsewhere. Brahmins initiated the process of annihilating Buddhism initially through violence immediately after Ashoka. But the majority of India was so entrenched in Buddhist principles that mere violent killing of the Bhikkhus was not enough. The commoners were still worshipping the Buddha. Brahmins cleverly appropriated the Buddha by declaring him as an avatar of their supreme God Vishnu and initiated worshipping Buddha as one and got it gradually replaced by various other mythological avatars pushing Buddha in the background and out of the memory of subsequent generations. The vast number of Buddhist viharas went into oblivion too because of neglect. 

While the Brahmins whisked away masses from Buddhism, they were not admitted into their religion as equals. Brahmins introduced graded inequality on the basis of their profession, hierarchy depending upon the nature and quality of work of the families so that they could never ever form any kind of homogeneous group which might jeopardize the supremacy of Brahmins. Brahmins kept exclusively for themselves the most precious aspect of human existence, i.e. Knowledge, which they used to create false narratives and for erasing the glorious history of the masses who were Buddhist for centuries. For example, 18 Puranas which Brahmins claim to be a history of our country does not include any mention of Ashoka, neither two of his successors, Jalauka (son) and Damodara (grandson). That is how the greatest Emperor of the Indian subcontinent, Ashoka was lost for over 2000 years! With him was lost the identity of majority masses of India as Buddhists! Well, Brahmins were successful to hide Ashoka, Buddha and Buddhist culture of India. They did appropriate Buddhist places and temples but they certainly could not erase them forever. 

India is ‘strewn with ruins of great antiquity’. Ashoka’s vision to engrave his messages on rocks and stone pillars finally helped us discover him, albeit after two thousand years! His vision to engrave on stone his Dhamma edicts long endured. His Pillar Edict-7 read thus “Concerning this, Beloved-of-the-Gods says: Wherever there are stone pillars or stone slabs, there this Dharma edict is to be engraved so that it may long endure. It has been engraved so that it may endure as long as my sons and great-grandsons live and as long as the sun and the moonshine, and so that people may practice it as instructed. For by practicing it happiness will be attained in this world and the next. This Dharma edict has been written by me twenty-seven years after my coronation.” 

The know-all Brahmins pretended for centuries that his edicts were an act of God which no human could comprehend. The Brahmins with their monopoly on knowledge and Shastras could send all and mighty into oblivion simply by not mentioning them or not acknowledging their existence at all. That is what they did to all that glorious history of the Buddhist masses and their heroes who lived in India, including Buddha and Ashoka.

But now all that has been rediscovered. The Buddhist heritage is excavated at almost anywhere you set your foot. All that is the creation of ancestors of the present-day non-Brahmins, who were Buddhists. The present-day non-Brahmins, historically the Buddhists are the real claimants of this grand heritage. They are the true claimants of Buddha. Buddha belongs to the Bahujan of this nation. Buddhist is their real historical identity. The mire of confusing and contradictory beliefs, the multiplicity of Gods and Goddesses, ‘freedom’ of customs and rituals so long as these are paid for to the Brahmins, false identity pride put up necessarily against other human beings and all such things have blinded the Bahujan of their real, pure identity. An identity with compassionate Buddha who never needed any arms to rule over the hearts of millions and also over the mighty emperors!

Its time that all non-Brahmin Bahujan reclaim their Buddhist identity and also the vast heritage that is the pride of the nation. They should pressurize the government to secure safely whatever has been discovered or is being discovered including at Ayodhya, their own erstwhile Saket. The non-Brahmin Bahujan should struggle to get unveiled what has been appropriated by Brahmins as their Gods, distorting the purity of their very own Buddha. They have nothing to lose by shedding their false pride of borrowed, rather imposed, the identity of non-existent religion. They have nothing to lose by shedding the religion which keeps them divided and stops them from realizing their true potential. They have nothing to lose in accepting their historical identity as Buddhists, in rejecting the hegemony of Brahmins on their way of life. But they have a lot to gain by way of freedom of mind and ownership of rich cultural and physical heritage of Buddhism! Buddhism opens the doors to that land where the mind is free! 

Oh Bahujan, go claim your Buddha for the Bahujan Hitay, Bahujan Sukhay, Lokanukampay!    

Author – Harishchandra Sukhdeve
The writer is an author of the book “Making of the Dome of Dignity: Deekshabhoomi”. You can get this book from Amazon.