Two Masks of the Buddha

I’ve been reading some scholarly monographs on the subject of the Ramayana and, in one, came across an essay on Buddhist Rama traditions and stories. The essay’s author noted several textual sources of Buddhist Rama stories; one in particular was the Dasaratha Jataka which was not only a Buddhist version of the story of Rama, but has been posited as the earliest written version of the Ramayana yet known, earlier even than Valmiki’s classic version. Suddenly I recognized the possibility that while Hinduism accounted the Ramayana as originally “Hindu” in origin, the Ramayana might, instead, have come out of Buddhist tradition. Valmiki, rather than being the original author of the work, or even the first to put down on paper the oral tradition of the Ramayana, was instead simply incorporating and recasting the Ramayana into the Hindu tradition. If the Dasaratha Jataka is an original written source of the story of Rama, whether it preceded or followed oral traditions, it opens an important insight into Buddhism and makes more credible the belief that the Buddha was himself the original teller of the tale. This is probably not the case, but elements of truth can be found here.

It is unlikely that we can uncover a true original version of the Ramayana. The stories of Rama have been told throughout South Asia for generations and have been colored by local variations that bear only a resemblance to Valmiki’s version of the story. Finding the original source of the Ramayana is not likely possible today, as the stories and their origins are hopelessly tangled together, receding from one another and returning intertwined, retold, redacted and recycled to fit local tastes and customs. The Dasartaha Jataka appears to be one such redaction. However, if the stories of Rama’s journey are a thousand tributaries, it is fair to ask which version was the original river. Can that original version be discovered? Were the original tales strictly oral? Were Rama stories told originally only to entertain? Were Rama stories told to illustrate political, social, or theological points? Many scholars agree that Valmiki’s version is possibly the closest we will come to that original source. Yet it is almost as certain that the Buddha told stories of Rama, as teaching tales, to illustrate important points (and probably told stories of Krishna as well). No one, for example, would argue that Muhammad “wrote” or even “revealed” the Book of Genesis, yet the version of the story of Joseph that appears in the Quran was a teaching tale that imparted important lessons to Muslims both then and today.

I raise this because I feel almost certain that the stories of Rama and Krishna and the Buddha are largely valuable theologically; yet only the Bhagavad Gita seems to contain any part of Krishna’s original teachings in a form that makes sense. What Rama taught, or if he taught at all or simply presented his life itself as the teaching, we cannot know. The same is true of the Buddha. Is the Dhammapada all we have to go on? Is there more that can accurately be said to reflect the original teachings of the Buddha? Or are stories like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata the closest we are likely to come to knowing what the Buddha even said or ever taught his students? Surely these stories of Rama and Krishna formed the context in which the Buddha taught and in which Buddhism developed. But is it also possible that the original teachings of the Buddha receded into the mists of stories of Rama and Krishna? If so, then my attempts to reconcile Semitic religion with Indo-Aryan religion is curious modern reflection of the Buddha’s probable attempts to reconcile his own teachings with the Indo-Aryan religious traditions that preceded it. Some undoubtedly resisted such reconciliation, particularly individuals with a vested interest in maintaining Vedic superiority and the class superiority of the Brahmin caste with it. Ironically, Hinduism reabsorbed Buddhism by proclaiming the Buddha an avatar of Vishnu whose mission was to mislead and confuse weak-willed Hindus, as though the Buddha was born to play Iblis’ role. In the meantime, so much of original Buddhism has been lost, muddied, or mutilated, that going back to those Indo-Aryan traditions and stories of Rama and Krishna appears to me the only effective way of acknowledging the Buddha’s rightful station, even if his teachings cannot be uncovered with any certainty.