Buddhist Concept of God...

Buddha was silent about the existence or non-existence of God. It may be that
since India was drowned in idol worship and anthropomorphism that a sudden step
to monotheism would have been drastic and hence Buddha may have chosen to remain
silent on the issue of God. He did not deny the existence of God. Buddha was
once asked by a disciple whether God exists? He refused to reply. When pressed,
he said that if you are suffering from a stomach ache would you concentrate on
relieving the pain or studying the prescription of the physician. "It is not my
business or yours to find out whether there is God ? our business is to remove
the sufferings of the world".

Buddhism provided Dhamma or the "impersonal law" in place of God. However this
could not satisfy the craving of human beings and the religion of self-help had
to be converted into a religion of promise and hope. The Hinayana sect could not
hold out any promise of external help to the people. The Mahayana sect taught
that Buddha?s watchful and compassionate eyes are on all miserable beings, thus
making a God out of Buddha. Many scholars consider the evolution of God within
Buddhism as an effect of Hinduism..



Many Buddhists adopted the local god and thus the religion of "No-God" was
transformed into the religion of "Many-Gods" - big and small, strong and weak
and male and female. The "Man-God" appears on earth in human form and incarnates
from time to time. Buddha was against the caste-system prevalent in the Hindu
society................by Dr. Zakir Naik