THE BUDDHA IN HINDUISM

Indian--Hindu--views of Gautama Buddha are mixed and confused at times, if not contradictory.  On the one hand, he is considered one of the greatest Indians ever to have lived, even as, on the other, his Buddhism is seen as merely one of many forms of an all-encompassing tolerant Hinduism.  Indeed, according to some Hindus, the Buddha did not intend to found a new religion at all, but merely sought a reformed, reasonable "middle path" in Hinduism.

The fact, meanwhile, that the Buddha did not mention God is taken as evidence that he was a Hindu who simply took God for granted, the obvious not needing elucidation. 

Scores of Hindu temples contain an image of the Buddha along with those of various deities and saints.  Pilgrimages to Bodh Gaya, the sacred site of the Buddha's enlightenment, and other Buddhist shrines in India, are also common in India. 

Such are the favorable views among a large number of Hindus, even while others, especially those with speculative or occultist minds, see the Buddha in a vastly different light.  They see him as sent to the world in order to mislead people, by opposing the teachings of the Brahmins.  They regard him as the embodiment of illusion and delusion.  To them, Buddhism is a sacrilege.