On Tuesday 25 Nov 2008 3:21:24 am Charles Haynes wrote: > > The virtues of not being overly materialistic, and overly greedy are both > > actively taught in Brahminical Hinduism ... It is not at all > > clear to me that such things are actively taught as part of family > > culture among non Brahmins in India. Perhaps it is, but I suspect that > > it is not > > Those are also traditional Buddhist values, is Buddhism taught > differently in Indian Buddhist families?
After I wrote that it occurred to me that those are also Gandhian values. A lot of people I know (and whom I "mingle with" online nowadays) tend to be derisive of Gandhi for various reasons, but I believe that is a mistake. He had a profound effect on India - although that statement is a bit of an anticlimactic cliche of an understatement. Gandhi was born into a famnily of Banias - who are a "Vysya" business community - one of the two Indian "forward caste" communities (apart from Brahmins) who are regularly singled out for bashing. It may well have been the Gandhi-Nehru aliance that has been described as the Brahmin-Bania nexus. This is what Google thrown up on "Brahmin-Bania" nexus - an expression that is used to smear the entire community for a particular political end. http://www.google.com/search?q=brahmin+bania+nexus&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 The difference between Brahminism and Buddhism (AFAICT) is the focus on ritual in Brahminism, and the relegation of renouncement to a later stage in life because duty demands certain obligations in earlier phases of life. shiv
