Was the Buddha cruel? Did he even have a choice in the matter? What about the cruelty of war and the many men who died and left their parents, wives and children to face the aftermath of the righteous Kurukshetra war? 

The declaration of his cruelty is not a criticism. It is a fact of what happened. Omitting it, does not help. Rationalizing it to make it palatable merely warps the story and gives incorrect impressions. One has to be cruel to be a successful ascetic because otherwise the involvement will be endless and it will consume one's effort-energy which means no success in the required austerities. No excuse is required about the cruel detachment of an ascetic but all the same, it is what it is.

Gautam Buddha himself got hassled by his father when someone complained that Buddha influenced young men to abandon domestic duties and the traditional way of life. That is evidence that his influence even caused emotional distress to parents of young men. There is pain in renunciation. Why avoid declaring that?

There is also pain in settling social matters the domestic way. Not just in Bhagavad Gita but in the Pali canon reports, there was war happening as a result of those who did not join Buddha and who lived in his vicinity. Chief warriors and others went to him for solutions about this. It happened there too. He advised some who took the posture of lay disciples, but who did not become monks.

Did he have a choice? There is indication in the report of his life, that the astrologers involved with his parents, who did rituals regarding his birth, spoke that he had two alternatives. One was to become a world conquering monarch and the other was to be a fully enlightened being who was matchless and infallible. As it manifested, he began his adult life as a Prince but then he switched to being an ascetic. But his decision to be an ascetic was circumstantial based on shock of some traumatic features which every creature is subjected to at some time.

Buddha made no attempt during his life to stop any of the feudal wars which happened where he lived in Nepal. Her did advise one group to behave in a certain way but besides that he made no effort to help anybody or to form any truce. Total detachment is a form of cruelty. It does not matter who does it and for renunciants no excuse is required for it. This is why what Alinkar Nan wrote was critically commented on by me.

An ascetic should be honest to know when his/her detachment is a cruel action. But even so, he/she may still proceed with the renunciation but with knowing that it is risky because of the blow back which may come. Buddha got some blow back from his father and from others in the clan in which he was born.

The war of the Kauravas resulted in untold suffering and Krishna did not sit under a tree to work out his liberation. Instead, he participated in the carnage by supervising one of the main warriors, Arjuna.

In both cases there was anguish, even though in Buddha’s situation there was no physical injury just the emotional type and the resentments felt by the families who lost their income and workforce because their sons, husbands and grandsons abandoned them.