system also generated a creative tension. This was a tension between what one had to do as part of the Vedic hierarchy—one’s duty or dharma —and the impulse to break free from that rigid system, to escape to a higher level of individual spiritual wholeness and freedom.
That impulse was embodied first in the ancient set of commentaries on the Vedas called the Upanishads, which offered a path to becoming one with a higher reality, the World Spirit or Brahman. 20 It would continue with the Jains and their spiritual leader Mahavira, who respected the sanctity of all life, compared to the blood-soaked Vedic sacrifices, and were nonviolent. (Gandhi would be a great admirer of the Jains.) In the sixth century C.E . that same impulse would reach its crescendo in the teachings of India’s greatest and most influential spiritual figure, Gautama Buddha.
For fifty years this former north Indian prince taught others his unique path to liberation or nirvana, creating small retreats or ashramas of disciples and converts—the first monastic communities in the world. After the Buddha’s death, his disciples continued to spread his message of the Middle Way, of how to be “free from anger, fear from malice, pure in mind, and master of oneself,” with a missionary zeal. Four hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Buddhism would become the first truly universal religion, spreading from India to Ceylon, Tibet, China, Japan, and Indonesia. By 700 C.E. Buddhism was the largest single spiritual faith in the world.
But the Buddha’s presence on his own country and culture was marginal. Over the centuries his followers would steadily shrink away, except in certain parts of the south. Even in his home region he became forgotten. It was British scholars, not Indians, who would eventually discover that the Buddha was Indian and would even pinpoint his birthplace—all less than thirty years before Gandhi was born. 21
For in the end, the traditional Hindu foundation was too strong and too flexible to be overturned or replaced. It ended up absorbing its Buddhist challenger, just as it had absorbed pre-Vedic gods like Shiva and the festivals, myths, and legends of the myriad peoples and cultures who lived on the subcontinent. Hinduism had become India itself. Nothing else held it together. Over the centuries it would face down all challengers, either by words or by swords.
Among the first challengers were the Greeks. One hundred and fifty years after the Buddha’s death, Alexander the Great arrived on the banks of the Indus with his Macedonian army, after a twenty-two-thousand-mile thirteen-year march and fresh from his conquest of Persia. For two years he fought against a civilization that already included one-quarter of the world’s population. 22 He defeated a great king on the banks of the Jhelum River and had coins struck in Babylon bearing an image of an elephant to commemorate his victory. He nearly lost his life in combat against a wild warrior tribe in the hill country of western Punjab; he had the West’s first encounter with Indian yogis; *14 and he eventually declared victory and headed back to Persia. Yet he barely cracked the outer shell of a civilization that was now centered on cities rising along the mighty river Ganges, from Delhi and Benares to Patna and Calcutta. Like the Ganges itself, it was a vast and slow-moving world that stood aloof from its neighbors to the west and to the east, thanks to its unique religion and its distinct social and cultural patterns. The basic lesson of Indian history was already established. Material power like kingdoms, and kings, including Alexander the Great, comes and goes. But spiritual power, embodied in religion and caste and spiritual unity with Brahman, the changeless essence of the universe, lasts forever.
Prime exhibits of the transitory nature of political power were India’s own dynasties. In 305 B.C.E. a prince from the central Ganges Valley named Chandragupta
That impulse was embodied first in the ancient set of commentaries on the Vedas called the Upanishads, which offered a path to becoming one with a higher reality, the World Spirit or Brahman. 20 It would continue with the Jains and their spiritual leader Mahavira, who respected the sanctity of all life, compared to the blood-soaked Vedic sacrifices, and were nonviolent. (Gandhi would be a great admirer of the Jains.) In the sixth century C.E . that same impulse would reach its crescendo in the teachings of India’s greatest and most influential spiritual figure, Gautama Buddha.
For fifty years this former north Indian prince taught others his unique path to liberation or nirvana, creating small retreats or ashramas of disciples and converts—the first monastic communities in the world. After the Buddha’s death, his disciples continued to spread his message of the Middle Way, of how to be “free from anger, fear from malice, pure in mind, and master of oneself,” with a missionary zeal. Four hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Buddhism would become the first truly universal religion, spreading from India to Ceylon, Tibet, China, Japan, and Indonesia. By 700 C.E. Buddhism was the largest single spiritual faith in the world.
But the Buddha’s presence on his own country and culture was marginal. Over the centuries his followers would steadily shrink away, except in certain parts of the south. Even in his home region he became forgotten. It was British scholars, not Indians, who would eventually discover that the Buddha was Indian and would even pinpoint his birthplace—all less than thirty years before Gandhi was born. 21
For in the end, the traditional Hindu foundation was too strong and too flexible to be overturned or replaced. It ended up absorbing its Buddhist challenger, just as it had absorbed pre-Vedic gods like Shiva and the festivals, myths, and legends of the myriad peoples and cultures who lived on the subcontinent. Hinduism had become India itself. Nothing else held it together. Over the centuries it would face down all challengers, either by words or by swords.
Among the first challengers were the Greeks. One hundred and fifty years after the Buddha’s death, Alexander the Great arrived on the banks of the Indus with his Macedonian army, after a twenty-two-thousand-mile thirteen-year march and fresh from his conquest of Persia. For two years he fought against a civilization that already included one-quarter of the world’s population. 22 He defeated a great king on the banks of the Jhelum River and had coins struck in Babylon bearing an image of an elephant to commemorate his victory. He nearly lost his life in combat against a wild warrior tribe in the hill country of western Punjab; he had the West’s first encounter with Indian yogis; *14 and he eventually declared victory and headed back to Persia. Yet he barely cracked the outer shell of a civilization that was now centered on cities rising along the mighty river Ganges, from Delhi and Benares to Patna and Calcutta. Like the Ganges itself, it was a vast and slow-moving world that stood aloof from its neighbors to the west and to the east, thanks to its unique religion and its distinct social and cultural patterns. The basic lesson of Indian history was already established. Material power like kingdoms, and kings, including Alexander the Great, comes and goes. But spiritual power, embodied in religion and caste and spiritual unity with Brahman, the changeless essence of the universe, lasts forever.
Prime exhibits of the transitory nature of political power were India’s own dynasties. In 305 B.C.E. a prince from the central Ganges Valley named Chandragupta
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