THE UNIQUE FEATURES OF NEWAR BUDDHISMthe outside observers who are used to seeing earlier and simpler forms of Bud-
dhism which flourish today in a non-Hindu society. David Snellgrove remarked
several years ago:
"We forget that ... Buddhism, being one of several religions which
grew and developed on Indian soil, was affected like all the others by
the rich and extravagant tendencies which characterized medieval
Indian civilization ... Indian styles of architecture with their stylized
and symbolic arrangements, were then as much Buddhist as Hindu, for
they were all part of the same cultural heritage. Likewise temple litur-
gies and techniques of yoga belonged to an Indian patrimony developed
and enriched over the centuries by generations of worshippers and reli-
gious practicers, and the craftsmen who produced the images, religious
paintings and temple decorations and ritual implements, worked in the
same artistic mediums and styles. Saivite tantrism and Buddhist
tantrism presumably developed as the different aspects, conditioned by
their sectarian differences, of a common Indian development in philo-
sophical thinking, in approach to the gods, in building styles and all the
rest. It is thus a misleading interpretation of events, if one assumes that
Buddhism was now suddenly pervaded and corrupted by Hinduism.
Throughout the one thousand seven hundred years of its long history in
India, Buddhism could find no expression which was not part of the
Indian scene. "^2The uniqueness of Newar Buddhism, however, is related to the fact that it is
embedded in a dominant Hindu society confined within a very small geographical
area. Buddhism in India flourished in a Hindu society, but within a vast area where
it was possible for the monks to truly withdraw from Hindu society to establish
their monasteries in relatively remote places where they were less affected by the
customs and strictures of Hindu society. In the Valley of Nepal, Buddhism flour-
ished within the confines of the three small walled cities of Patan, Kathmandu and
Bhaktapur, where it was very much a part of its (Hindu) surroundings.
In order to understand Newar Buddhism I think it is important to approach it
with an open mind and attempt to understand it on its own terms, that is, within
the context of its own ideology and institutions, and without prior judgements
about what constitutes Buddhism. This is important, because so many western
writers on Newar Buddhism begin their treatment by saying that it is an unortho-
dox, aberrant or corrupt form of Buddhism mixed up with Hinduism. This
creates a prejudice in the mind of the reader which precludes any real under-
standing of Newar Buddhism, because the frame of reference is orthodox
(usually Hinayana) Buddhism as it is practised today in non-Hindu countries, or
as we find it delineated in the classical Buddhist texts which propose the ideals
and say little about the way Buddhism was actually lived among the Buddhist
population at large.