Abstract: This presentation examines the contrast between Western perceptions of Buddhism
and Brahmanism as relayed through the work of leading German Indologists such as Weber,
von Schroeder, and Oldenberg. Indologists’ accounts of ancient India often presented
Brahmanism as an oppressive system, characterized by ritualism, demand for gifts, and
bloody sacrifices. The standard narrative was that the Vedic ritual, with its simple childlike
worship of nature forces, had declined in the hands of the priesthood. Over time, ever more
elaborate systems of worship developed as the priests concentrated power and knowledge of
the Vedic hymns in their hands. The antidote to this priestly domination was provided by the
Buddha. The religion he introduced removed the worst excrescences of Hinduism: animal
sacrifice, superstition, idolatry, and caste prejudice. Not only was it rational, ethical, and
spiritual; it also fostered scientific and material progress and “the historical sense.” The
Buddha was explicitly called a “reformer” and frequently compared with Luther, while also
prefiguring Christ in his charisma and his compassion. Although scholars have repeatedly
shown that this account is historically inaccurate and is more reflective of Protestant
prejudices than any objective features of Buddhism (McGetchin 2009, Myers 2013, see also
Schopen 1991 on Western scholars’ “Protestant presuppositions”), elements of it survive even
in contemporary scholarship (Bronkhorst 2007, 2011, and 2016) . This presentation examines
the twin foundations of the application of a Protestant hermeneutic to Indian texts: the
emphasis on a pristine ur-text and the valorization of “history.” It traces how the “texthistorical” method amounted to a reading of India’s religious history in terms of racial kinship
(Aryan) and miscegenation (Dravidian), on the one hand, and religious corruption
(Brahmanism) and national decline (colonization), on the other. We shall also trace the
criticisms of Brahmanism back to their anti-Judaic and anti-clerical stereotypes in German
Protestantism, particularly as they became salient in the Kulturkampf. The reading of Buddha
as a Christ-figure was adopted by many Indian social reformers and echoes in contemporary
“woke” appropriations today. But it falsifies the historical relationship of Buddhism to
Brahmanism and misrepresents Buddha’s enlightenment as if it were nothing more than
social conscience.