Chapter XXV. Causes of the Disappearance of Buddhism from India

Volume V: Part II pp. 1003–1030

Chapter XXV. Causes of the Disappearance of Buddhism from India

At the beginning of Chapter XXIV (pp. 913–14, n 1448) above, it was stated that the Purāṇas had a large share in bringing about the final disappearance of Buddhism from India, the land of its birth. The disappearance of Buddhism from India was complete and seemed to be sudden and is a com- plex probleṃ No single cause, nor even a few causes can fully account for this phenomenoṇ A combination of causes, both internal and external, must have been in operation for a pretty long time to bring about this remarkable event. It may be admitted that some of the causes are more or less conjectural. In the first quarter of the 5th century A. D. Fa-Hian found Buddhism in a flourishing condition in India, while in the first half of the 7th century A. D. Yuan Chwang appears to say that the decline of Buddhism had set iṇ It-sing found Buddhism very much on the decline in the beginning of the 8th century A. D. An attempt will be made here to discuss briefly the several causes that have been put forward by scholars for explaining the almost total disappearance of Buddhism from India. A few of the contributions bearing on this subject may be noted here. ‘Religions of India’ by A. Barth, translated by J. Wood (1882) pp. 133–139; Journal of Pali Texts Society (1896 pp. 87–92 ) on ‘Persecution of Buddhists in India’ by Rhys Davids; Kern’s ‘Manual of Buddhism’ (in the German Grundriss pp. 133–134); ‘Buddhist India’ by Rhys Davids (1903, pp. 157–158, 319 ); I. H. Q. vol. IX pp. 361–371 (where the causes of the disappear- ance of Buddhism emphasized by M. M. Haraprasad Shastri are enumerated ); ‘The Sum of History’ by René Grousset, trans- lated by A. and H. Temple Patterson pp. 101–105 (Tower Bridge Publications, 1951); ‘The Decline of Buddhism in India’ by Dr. R. C. Mitra (1954), particularly pp. 125–164; ‘Life and Teaching of Buddha’ by Devamitta Dharmapala (G. A. Natesan & Co., Madras, 1938); ‘2500 years of Buddhism’ edited by Prof. P. V. Bapat, 1956 pp. 360–376; ‘The Path of the Buddha’ by Prof. Kenneth W. Morgan pp. 47–50 (New York, 1956); ‘How Buddhism left India’ by N. J. O’Connor, Ralph Fletcher Seymour, Chicago (1957). Before setting out the main causes of the virtual disappear- ance of Buddhism from India certain general points have to be emphasizeḍ Buddha was only a great reformer of the Hindu religion as practised in his time. He did not feel or claim that he was forming a new religion, nor did he renounce the Hindu religion and all its practices and beliefṣ The Buddha referred to the Vedas and Hindu sages with honour in some of his sermonṣ He recognised the importance of Yogic practices and meditatioṇ His teaching took over several beliefs current among the Hindus in his day such as the doctrine of Karma and Rebirth and cosmological theorieṣ A substantial portion of the teaching of Buddha formed part of the tenets of the Upaniṣadic perioḍ At the time when he was born there were two main currents of thoughts and practices prevalent among the people, one being the path of sacrifices to Gods and the other being the path of moral endeavour, self-restraint and spiritual goal. It has been shown above (pp. 917–918) how the Upaniṣads assigned a lower position to the Vedas and the sacrifices enjoined therein and how spiritual knowledge after cultivating high ethical qualities was deemed greater than sacrificeṣ The Upaniṣads first began by symbolical interpretation of Vedic sacrifices, as for example in Bṛ. Up. I. 1. 1, where Uṣas, Sūrya and Saṁvatsara are said to be respectively the head, the eye and the soul of the sacrificial horse or as in Chāṇ Up II. 2. 1–2, where the five parts of the Sāman employed in a sacrifice are symbolically identified with earth, fire, sky, sun and heaveṇ Then they proceed to belittle the Veda as mere name and as much inferior to brahmavidyā (e. g. Bṛ. Up. IV. 4. 21, I. 4.10, Chāṇ Up. VII. 1–4, Mundaka I. 1. 4–5. It is generally held by all Sanskrit scholars that at least the oldest Upaniṣads like the Bṛhadā- raṇyaka and the Chāndogya are earlier than Buddha, that they do not refer to Buddha or to his teachings or to the pitakaṣ On the other hand, though in dozens of Suttas meetings of brāhmaṇas and Buddha and his disciples and missionaries are reported they almost always seem to be marked by courtesy on both sideṣ No meetings are recorded in the early Pali Texts or brahmanical Texts about Śākyans condemning the tenets of ancient brahma- ṇas or about brāhmaṇas censuring the Bauddha heterodoxy. Besides, in all these meetings and talks, the central Upaniṣad conception of the immanence of brahma is never attacked by Buddha or by the early propagators of Buddhisṃ What Buddha says may be briefly rendered as follows: “Even so have I, O Bhikkhus, seen an ancient path, an ancient road followed by rightly enlightened persons of former timeṣ And what, O Bhikkhus, is that ancient path, that ancient road, followed by the rightly enlightened ones of former times? Just this very Noble Eightfold Path, viz. right viewṣ..&c. This, O Bhikkhus, is that ancient path, that ancient road, followed by the rightly enlightened ones of former timeṣ Along that (path) I have gone and while going along that path, I have fully come to know, old age and death. Having come to know it fully, I have told it to the monks, the nuns, the lay followers, men and women; this brahmacarya is prosperous, flourishing, widespread, widely known, has become popular and made manifest well by gods and meṇ¹ It will be noticed that the Noble Eightfold Path which the Buddha put forward as the one that would put an end to misery and suffering is here expressly stated to be an ancient path trod by ancient enlightened meṇ Buddha does not claim that he was only one of a series of Enlightened men and stressed that the moral qualities which he urged men to cultivate belonged to antiquity. In the Dhamma-pada and the Suttanipata (Mahāvagga, Vāsettha sutta) the truly virtuous man is spoken of as brāhmaṇa: "I speak of him as brāhmaṇa, who causes no harm (or evil) in body, word and thought, who is guarded as regards these three sources"; 'neither by matted hair nor by lineage, nor by caste, does one become a brāhmaṇa'; 'that man in whom there is truth and righteousness is blessed and is a brāhmaṇa'; 'him who does not cling to desires (or pleasures) as water does not stick to a lotus leaf or as a mustard grain (does not stick) on the top of an awl, I call a brāhmaṇa.'² Moreover, it does not appear that at any time the whole of India or even large portions of it were completely Buddhistic. The people of India as a whole were always Hinduṣ⁴ There were many millions of people at all times who professed Hinduism and not Buddhisṃ Besides, even when Buddhism secured the patronage of emperors like Asoka, Kaniṣka and Harṣa Buddhism was mainly restricted to mona- steries and schools and great tolerance prevaileḍ For example, Harṣa’s father was a great devotee of the Sun and he himself is described in his Banskhēra and Madhuban plates as a great devotee of Śiva, though his elder brother Rājayavardhana is described as paramasaugata (a great devotee of Buddha) and he appears to have shown favour to the Buddhist pilgrim (Yuan Chwang).⁵

Some recent authors like Prof. K. W. Morgan hold that the most important causes of the disappearance of Buddhism were decline of vigour in the Saṅgha, the Moslem invasions and the opposition of the Hindu community ('The Path of the Buddha' p. 48).

There is a good deal of truth in A. Coomaraswamy's con- mention that the more profound is one's study of Buddhism and Brahmanism the more difficult it becomes to distinguish between the two or to say in what respects Buddhism is really unortho- dox (vide his ‘Hinduism and Buddhism’ p.452). Buddha and his successors really attacked some popular varieties of Brahma- nisṃ Mrṣ Rhys Davids in her lecture on ‘The relations between Early Buddhism and Brahmanism’ (published in I.H.Q. vol. X. pp. 274–286) endeavours to show that the Tripitakas do not refer to rupture with brāhmaṇas and that what Buddha preached was in agreement with the central tenet of immanence in the Brahmanism of the day. Buddha agreed (or at least had no quarrel) with the Upaniṣad teaching about high moral endeavour being a necessary pre-requisite for brahma realization and mokṣa (as in Br. Up. IV. 4. 23 ‘tasmād-evamvic-chānto dānta uparatas-titikṣuḥ samāhito bhūtvā ātmanyevātmānam paśyati’, Katha Up. I. 2. 23, I. 3, 8, 9, 13, Praśna Up. I. 15–16, Mundaka I. 2. 12–13).

The main matters of controversy between Buddha and the Hindu religious and philosophical system current in his time are generally held to have been caste divisions and pride of caste, the absolute authoritativeness of the Vedas and the great importance attached to sacrificeṣ⁵ Buddha asserted that righteousness and wisdom were the best, he did not expressly deny the existence of God but proclaimed that it was unnecessary to be definite nor did he pronounce his definite views on such questions as whether the world is eternal or non-eternal, since according to him, to cogitate on such points would be “a thicket of theorizing, wilderness of theorizing, the tangle of theorizing, the bondage and shackles of theorizing ….. nor would it conduce to aversion, passionlessness, tranquillity, peace, illumination and nirvāṇa.”⁷ Buddha did not think much of worship or prayer. According to him, what mattered was the deliverance of man from sorrow and suffering and the attainment of nirvāṇa⁸ ( which state he did not care to define clearly and precisely ). The original doctrine ( called hinayāna, 'the lesser way or vehicle' ) held that the experience of enlightenment and nirvāṇa can be secured by human beings in this very life if they follow the path chalked out by Buddha.

The causes that have been advanced from time to time by scholars for the total disappearance of Buddhism from India must now be dealt with. (1) Persecution is alleged by some scholars as at least one of the main causeṣ King Puṣyamitra of the Śuṅga dynasty is charged with having proclaimed that whoever would bring to him the head of a śramaṇa would receive one hundred dīnāras;⁹ Mihirakula, king of Kashmir, is accused by Yuan Chwang (or more correctly, Hsuan Tsang according to some modern writers) with having overthrown Buddhist topes in Gandhara, with destruction of monasteries and the inauguration of myriads of Buddhists (vide 'In the footsteps of Buddha' by René Grousset pp. 119-120 on Mihirakula, the Indian Atilla; king Śaśānka is said by Yuan Chwang to have destroyed the Bo-tree ( Bodhidruma), replaced the image of Buddha by one of Maheśvara and to have destroyed the religion of Buddha and dispersed the order (vide Beal's 'Buddhist Records of the Western World' Vol. II. pp. 118, 122 and Watters on 'Yuan Chwang's Travels' Vol. II, pp. 115-116); king Sudhanvan is supposed to have issued at the instigation of Kumārila¹¹ a proclamation to take effect from the Himālayas to Cape Comorin (which is palpably absurd) that he would put to death any servant of his who did not kill the Buddhistṣ These instances are carefully examined by no less a scholar than Rhys Davids in the Journal of the Pali Texts Society for 1896 (pp 87-92). After adverting to the facts that there is nothing about persecution in the Pali Piṭakas, that the tone of Pali books is throughout appreciative of brāhmaṇas, that no details are given and that hardly any names of persons suffering by persecution are mentioned, he asserts that he does not believe in these stories, but adds that he must maintain that there is no truth at all in the legend about Pusyamitra (but judgment must be reserved in view of the text in the avadāna being corrupt and the author of it being grossly ignorant). As to the legend about Sudhanvan and Kumārila he holds that of all the cases of alleged persecution this is the weakest and that it is no more than boastful and rhetorical exaggeratioṇ Rhys Davids emphasizes that the adherents of both faiths so diametrically opposed to each other lived in continuous peace side by side for a thousand years, that this redounds to the credit of the whole Indian people from the time of Aśoka downwards and that India never indulged in persecution in anyway approaching to the persecution of reforming Christians by the orthodox Church or the persecution of Christians by the Roman authoritieṣ Dr. R. G. Mitra in “Decline of Buddhism in India” (pp. 125–130) arrives at the same conclusion about the cases of persecutioṇ Barth (in ‘Religions of India’ p. 136) admits that everything tends to prove that Buddhism became extinct from sheer exhaustion and that it is in its own inherent defects that we must seek for the causes of its disappearance. He prefaces this remark with the words ‘the most reliable documents, coins and inscriptions, bear evidence of a tolerance exceptionally generous on the part of the civil powers’ (p. 133) and illustrates this by exampleṣ¹³ It should be noted that great Smṛtikāras like Yājñavalkya laid down that when an Indian king reduced a kingdom to subjection, it was the conqueror’s duty to honour the usages, the transactions and family tradi- tions of the conquered country and to protect theṃ Aśoka, though himself a believer in Buddha’s teachings, shows great tolerance by requiring honour to be shown to all beliefs and sects in his 12th Rock Edict in the words 'Neither praising one's own sect nor blaming other sects should take place,' that 'other sects ought to be duly honoured in every case', that 'concord (samavāya) alone is meritorious, that is they should both hear and honour each other's Dhamma'.¹⁴ In the 7th Pillar Edict (Delhi-Topra p. 136) Aśoka proclaims that he appointed officers called Mahāmātras to look after the Sangha (the community or body of preaching Buddhist mendicants), brāhmaṇas, Ājīvikas, Niggṇṭhas and all other pāṣaṇḍas (sects). India has been for thousands of years a country of nearly absolute tolerance, which is literally a religion, while European religiosity has nearly always been intolerant and, when not intolerant, it is tantamount to mental hostility or complete indifference. Most Indian religious people were and are ready to agree that there may be alternative approaches to the mystery of life and the salvation of the soul. Indians feel amused at the claims of millions of people that some prophet revered by them has got the monopoly of the knowledge of God and the Hereafter. This tolerance for differing tenets and cults persisted in India with rare exceptions throughout the long stretch of time from centuries before Aśoka onwards till about 1200 A. D. when Moslems overran India. A few striking instances (both early and late) may be cited here: (1) Khāravela again, a Jain king of Kalinga (2nd or 1st century B. C.), granted freedom from taxation to brāhmaṇas in the 9th year of his reign (E. I. vol. XX. p. 79 and 88); (2) The Nasik cave Inṣ No. 10 records that Uṣavadāta, son-in-law of Kṣatrapa Nahapāna of the Kṣaharāṭa lineage made very large gifts to gods and brāhmaṇas on the banks of sacred rivers and at Bharukaccha (modern Broach), Daśapura, Govardhana and donated a field for feeding a congregation of Buddhist monks (E. I. Vol. VIII p. 78); ¹⁵ The Gupta kings were generally devotees of Viṣṇu but they also made gifts to Buddhist monks e. g. Gupta Inscription No. 5 ('Gupta Inscriptions' eḍ by Fleet pp. 31–34) records a grant by Amrākardava (an officer of Chandragupta II) to an Āryasaṅgha in the Gupta year 93 (412–3 A. D.); ¹⁶ Siri Chāntamūla I, an Ikṣvāku king of Śrīparvata in Āndhradeśa, had performed Agniṣṭoma, Vājapeya and Aśvamedha sacrifices but the ladies of that family were almost all Buddhist and one of them erected a pillar in honour of the supreme Buddha (E. I. Vol. XX. p. 8 and Jayaswal's 'History of India' 50–350 A. D., p 175); ¹⁷ The Maitraka rulers of Valabhī (in Kathiawar) were all orthodox Hindus and almost all are described as great devotees of Maheśvara (Śiva). The Journal of the University of Bombay vol III. (pp. 74–91) sets out five grants (four Buddhist and one to a brāhmaṇa) The first is issued by a feudatory Gārulaka Mahārāja Varāhadasa in Valabhī year 230 (= 549 A.D.) and the others by the Valabhī kings themselveṣ The four Buddhist records make grants to Yakṣaśūra-vihāra and Pūrṇabhaṭṭa-vihāra (both monasteries for nuns) of lands and villages for providing garments, food, beds, seats and medicines to the nuns and for providing for incense, flowers, sandalwood &c. for the worship of Buddha images; ¹⁸ A king of Orissa, named Śubhākaradeva, who was son of a Buddhist king and who styles himself paramasaugata, made a grant of two villages in the latter half of the 8th century to a hundred brāhmaṇas belonging to various gotras (E. I. vol. 15 at pp. 3-5 Neulpur grant); ¹⁹ Vigrahapāla, king of Bengal, who belonged to the Buddhist Pāla dynasty, granted in the 12th year of his reign a village to a Sāmavedi brāhmaṇa after taking a bath in the Ganges on a lunar eclipse in honour of Buddha (Bhagavantam Buddhabhaṭṭārakam uddiśya) by the Amgacchi grant (E. I. Vol. XV. p. 293 at pp. 295–298, about 1000 A. D.); ²⁰ The successor of king Vigrahapāla (III) by name Mahīpāla granted a village in honour of Buddha after a bath in the Ganges in Viṣuva-saṅkrānti to a brāhmaṇa (E. I. Vol. XIV. p. 324); vide also I. A. vol. 21 pp. 253–258 for a grant of Devapāladeva, a Buddhist king of Bengal, about the end of the 9th century, recording a grant of a village to a learned brāhmaṇa. ²¹ In the Kalacuri stone Inscription from Kasia (E. I. vol. XVIII p. 128) the first invocation in prose is to Rudra and then to Buddha, the first two verses are in praise of Śaṅkara, 3rd in praise of Tara (a Buddhist deity) and the 4th and 5th verses praise Buddha (who is styled Munindra); (10) Kumāradevi, 4th queen of Govindacandra (1114-1154 A. D.), a Gāhadavāla king of Kanauj and an orthodox Hindu, built a vihāra in which she placed an image of Dharma-cakra Jina i. e. Buddha (vide E. I. Vol. IX p. 319 at p. 324); (11) Govindacandra himself made a gift of six villages to a Buddhist learned ascetic (Śākyarakṣita by name) who hailed from Utkala (Orissa) and to his pupil for the benefit of the Saṅgha at Jetavana Mahāvihāra (vide the Sahet-Mahet plate of Govindacandra dated saṁvat 1186, i. e. 1128-29 A. D. recorded in E. I. vol. XI p. 20 at p. 24). (12) The Madanapur plate of the Buddhist king Śrīcandra²² of East Bengal records that the king made a grant of land to a brāhmaṇa named Śukradeva ‘in honour of Buddha-bhaṭṭāraka’ after having bathed on the Agastitṛtīyā day. (13) The Dambal (inscription in śaka 1017 i. e. 1095-96 A. D.) begins with an invocation to Buddha and records certain grants to two vihāras, one of Buddha built by certain Seṭṭis of Dharmāpura or Dharmavolal (i. e. Dambal in Dharwar District) and the other of Tārādevi by a Seṭṭi of Lokkiguṇḍi (or modern Lakkuṇḍi). (14) In E. I. vol. XVI p. 48 at p. 51 (inscription of Lakṣmeśvara in 1147 A. D.) a general is styled as the restorer of the four sects viz. Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, Bauddha and Jaina (catuḥ-samaya-samuddhāraṇam). (15) A stone inscription from Śrāvastī (modern Sahet-Mahet) of (Vikrama) saṁvat 1276 (1219-20 A. D.) records that a certain person Vidyādhara of the Vāstavya family established a convent for Buddhist ascetics at the town where the inscription was put up (I. A. Vol. 17 p. 61). (16) The Kumbhakonam inscription of Sevappa Nāyaka of Tanjore (of 1580 A. D.) records the gift of some land in the brāhmaṇa village (agrahāra) of Tirumaliarājapuram to an individual attached to a temple of Buddha at Tiruvilandura.²³ The above examples show that in all parts of India in the North as well as in the South, the general rule among kings and their officers was tolerance and care for all faithṣ If there was rarely some persecution it was by an individual king or officer or the like. On the other hand, though Asoka, as an inheritor of the Indian royal tradition of showing honour and respect to all faiths of the subjects irrespective of his own religious views, breathes a striking spirit of tolerance in his 7th and 12th Rock edicts, one cannot help a suspicion that in the later part of his life he seems to gloat over the fact that the gods worshipped as divinities in Jambudvipa had been rendered false and he proudly proclaims that this result is ‘not the effect of my greatness but of my zeal’.

It should be noted that even Asoka’s ahimsa was at first not thorough-going but qualifieḍ In his first Rock Edict he himself states that in his royal kitchen thousands of animals were killed, but that he had reduced the slaughter to two peacocks a day and one deer (that too rarely) and that even the three animals would not be killed in future (vide C. I. I. vol. I pp 1–2). Whether this last promise was really carried out is not clear. Besides, Asoka appears to have carried his solicitude for the protection of all life too far and used against human beings his absolute power like a dictator. In the 4th Delhi Topra Pillar edict (C. I. I., vol. I p. 124) he mentions that his revenue settlement officers called Lajukas had to deal with many hundred thousands of men and were given the discretion to award punishments including the death sentence and that a respite of three days was allowed in which the relatives of the man condemned to death could persuade the lajukas to grant reprieveṣ In the fifth Delhi-Topra pillar edict (ibiḍ pp 125–128), after 26 years of his being anointed he declared that 23 kinds of birds and other animals (such as parrots, mainas, ruddy and wild geese, doves, certain kinds of fish, tortoises) were not to be killed at all, that ewes and sows that were with young or were in milk or the young of these that were less than six months old were also not to be killed; he also forbade the sale of fish on certain Full Moon days and the days previous to them and following them, the castration of bulls, rams, horses on 8th, 14th and 15th days of a month and the branding of horses and bulls on Pusya and Punarvasu and on caturmāsiṣ These sweeping regulations must have caused great hardships to poor people and must have assumed the form of rigid coercion more or less, particularly when all discretion was left to the lajūkaṣ Later in life Asoka appears to have tried to undermine the worship of Hindu Godṣ In a Rupnath Rock Inscription²⁴ published by Bühler in I. A. vol. VI pp. 154–156 it was stated that he had been an upāsaka (lay worshipper of Buddha) for certain years but that he was not zealous, that for a year or more (he had become zealous), that during that (last interval) those gods that were held to be true gods in Jambudvīpa (i. e. India) had been made (to be regarded as) false and that was the reward of his zeal. This could be construed as saying that when he became a zealous Buddhist he tried to dissuade people from the worship of gods and probably resorted to coercive measures in that directioṇ This very inscription is edited at O. I. I., Vol. I, pp. 166 by Dr. Hultzsch and the translation of the important sentence is changed and is given as 'And those gods who during that time had been unmingled with men in Jambudvīpa have now been made (by me) mingled with them; for this is the fruit of zeal'. This new translation cannot be understood as it stands and on p. 168 (note 3) Hultzsch admits that this sentence is enigmatical and tries to show that it refers to religious shows at which effigies of gods were shown in order to convey to the subjects that they would be able to reach the abodes of gods by the zealous practice of Buddha's Dhamma. This interpretation is extremely far-fetched and does not fit into the context. How can the mere showing of exhibitions and their effect on people be regarded as the reward of zeal? Besides, in the very first rock edict he forbids assemblies or festival meetings (O. I. I., vol. I, p. 1 ‘na ca samājo kattavyo)’ except such as were regarded good by Aṣoka and asserts that the king sees great evil in festival meetingṣ Aṣoka probably followed what Ap. Dh. S. I, 11, 32, 19 provides for Vedic house- holders 'sabhāṇ samājāṁśca' (varjāyet), sabhā meaning 'gambling hall'. The author is not satisfied with the translation of Hultzsch, particularly when Bühler and Senart (pp. 168 note) agreed as to the meaning of the important sentence about godṣ²⁵

About Emperor Harṣa also Yuan Chwang narrates that he caused the use of animal food to cease throughout the five Indies and he prohibited the taking of life under severe penalties (vide Watters' work cited above p. 344). This also must have been felt by large populations as coercive and bordering on persecutioṇ It is remarkable that Harṣa felt no qualms in reconciling his zeal for bird and animal life and keeping vast armies on a war footing for conquest. A few more striking examples of tolerance of other faiths and spirit of accommodation may be cited here. The great Hindu emperor Samudragupta allowed the building of a splendid three-storied convent at Bodh Gayā at the request of the Buddhist king Meghavarma of Ceylon about 360 A. D. Vide ‘Early History of India’ by V. A. Smith (4th eḍ of 1924 pp. 303-304), where the historian further points out that when Yuan Chwang visited Bodh Gayā, that convent was a magnificent establishment occupied by a thousand monkṣ One Muhammad Ufi relates an anecdote. Though Mahomed of Gazni plundered Kathiawad and Gujarat several times and desecrated temples, the Hindus made a distinction between such invading and destructive marauders and peaceful Muslims residing in Gujarat for trade. Some Hindus at Cambay, being incited by some Parsis, destroyed a mosque and killed some Muslimṣ One Muslim that escaped approached the king Siddharaja with a petitioṇ The king in disguise inquired into the matter, punished the offenders, gave to the Moslems one lakh of Balotras to rebuild the mosque and presented to the Khatib four articles of dress which were preserved in the mosque. Ufi declares that he never heard a story comparable to thiṣ Vide Elliotts’ History of India, Vol. II pp. 162-163. The Somanath-Pattan Inscription (in I. A. Vol. XI p. 241) is a most remarkable document. A Muslim ship-owner from Hormuz acquired a piece of land in the sacred town of Somanath-pattan, built a mosque, a house and shops thereoṇ The purpose of the grant was to confirm the purchase and to provide for the application of the income from the shops for particular Moslem religious festivals to be celebrated by the Shia sailors of Somanath and to provide that the surplus left, if any, was to be made over to the sacred towns of Mecca and Medina. It is dated in four eras, first in Rasul Mohammad samvat i. e. Hijra year 662, then Vikrama samvat 1320 (1264 A. D.), Valabhi year 945 and Simha samvat 151 (i. e. probably of Calukya Siddharaja Jayasimha). Syrian Christians were given special privileges by generous Hindu rulers in South India.

The above examples will indicate what tolerance was practised by Indian kings and people even in the mediaeval period when Moslem invaders were ruthlessly attacking India. The reader should visualise to himself what the fate of a Hindu would have been, if he had the audacity to build a temple in Christian or Moslem countries or tried to collect materials for describing the Christian or Muslim religion and ways of life in the 13th century A. D. like Alberuni, who was able to collect, without molestation, from Hindu Pandits and people vast material in the 11th century A. D.

How intolerant most Moslem kings were need not be dwelt upon at length. A few typical examples may be cited from the Cambridge History of India, vol. III. Fīruz Shah Tughlak burnt a brāhmaṇa who tried to propagate his religion (ibid. p. 187); Sikander Lodi did the same (ibid. p. 246) to a brāhmaṇa and was guilty of wholesale destruction of Hindu temples; Sultan Sikandar of Kashmir offered his subjects the choice between Islam and exile (ibid. p. 280); Hussein Shah of Bengal sent an army to destroy Navadvipa and converted many brāhmaṇas forcibly. Jehangir says in his ‘Memoirs’ (translated by A. Rogers and edited by H. Beveridge, 1909 pp. 72–73) that he killed Guru Arjun for his religious activitieṣ Vide ‘History of Aurangzeb’ by Jadunath Sarkar vol. III. chap. XXX. pp. 265–279 for firmans to demolish temples such as those of Somanātha, Mathurā, Viśvanātha in Benares, Ujjain and Appendix V. It is not necessary to go into great details about the terrible persecution of the Jews in Europe and the horrible deeds of the Inquisition in Europe and particularly in Spain and Portugal. For the persecution and expulsion of the Jews in Europe one may read ‘A short History of the Jewish people’ by Cecil Roth (MacMillan and Co. 1936 ) chapters XX–XXI. References to several works have been given above on p. 933 note 1494 about the Inquisitioṇ A few instances of the intolerance and barbarities of that body may be citeḍ The Inquisition staged what are called acts of faith or ‘autos-da-fé’. In the presence of thousands of people severe punishment would be inflicted on harmless individuals whose adherence to the Holy Catholic faith was suspecteḍ Those that professed penitence were stripped of their property and condemned to imprisonment, deportation or the galley. The minority who refused to confess to their crime of heresy or gloried in their views would be burnt at once. Kings and nobles graced such spectacles by their presence and such spectacles were arranged at the marriages of high persons or on the birth of a son to the reigning monarch. During the three centuries when the Inquisition was active, it is found that the it condemned about 375000 people, of whom at least one-tenth were burnt; vide Cecil Roth’s ‘A short History of the Jewish people’ (1936) p. 312. Henry O. Lea in ‘Superstition and force° (1878) pp. 426-427 remarks 'The whole system of the Inquisition was such as to render resort to torture inevitable. Its proceedings were secret; the prisoner was carefully kept in ignorance of the exact charges against him and of the evidence on which they were baseḍ He was presumed to be guilty and his judges bent all their energies to force him to confesṣ To accomplish this no means were too base or too cruel'.

It would be instructive to read what the state of Hindus was under Portuguese rule in Goa, where the infamous Inquisition was established in 1560 A. D. and continued its intolerant and inhuman work for about 250 years more. Those interested may consult ‘ A India Portuguesa ’, vol. II. published by the Portuguese Government in 1923, particularly the paper by Antonio de Noronha, a former judge of the High Court of Goa, on ‘Os Indus de Goa’ pp. 211-355. A brief passage from a paper on ‘Historical essay on the Konkani Language’ by J. H. de Cunha Rivara, who was General Secretary to the Portuguese Governor General in India from 1855 to 1870 A. D., is very illuminating. It runs (original in Portuguese) ‘we shall now endeavour to investigate the causes, which, under the Portuguese regime, were either favourable or contrary to the culture of the Konkani language. In the first ardour of conquest temples were demolished, all the emblems of the Hindu cult were destroyed and books written in the vernacular tongue, containing or suspected of containing idolatrous precepts and doctrines, were burnt. There was even the desire to exterminate all that part of the population which could not be quickly converted; this was the desire not only during that period, but there was also at least one person who, after a lapse of two centuries, advised the Government, with magisterial gravity, to make use of such a policy.’ The writer further notes that the long distance of Goa from Portugal, the invincible resistance offered by a numerous population amongst whom the principal castes had reached a very high degree of civilization, obliged the conquerors to abstain from open violence and to prefer indirect, though not gentle, means to achieve the same enḍ²⁶

Buddha’s renunciation of his princely position, of his young wife, child and home, to become a wandering ascetic for dis- covering the path of humanity’s deliverance from sorrow and suffering, his subsequent mortification of the body for years, his retirement into solitude for meditation, his struggle with Māra and final victory, his confidence that he had discovered the path of deliverance, his constant travels from city to city and village to village for about forty-five years for preaching the great truths he had discovered, his crusade against the slaughter of innocent and dumb animals in sacri- fices, his passing away full of years and in peace and content- ment – this panorama of Buddha’s life had a noble grandeur and irresistible human appeal. Edwin Arnold in his preface (p. XIII) to his poem ‘Light of Asia’ (1884) pays a very eloquent tribute to Buddha’s teaching in the following words ‘this vener- able religion which has in it the eternity of an universal hope, the immortality of a boundless love, an indestructible element of faith in the final good and the proudest assertion ever made of human freedom’. The torch lighted by Buddha was kept burning brightly by a succession of able and worthy disciples till Buddhism reached its peak about the 6th century A. D. A reaction had already begun by that time. Substantial changes in the old Buddhist faith had been made, the ideals had changed (as noted above). From being a faith without a clear accep- tance of God, many sects arose that had become thoroughly theistic and Buddha himself came to be worshipped as if he were God and the sects were gripped by the strange doctrines and evil practices of Vajrayāna Tāntrik sects; and Buddhism became a medley of conflicting dogmas and was riven with dissensions and internecine rupture. Discussions as to doctrines arose immediately on the passing away of Buddha, when the first council was held at Rājagṛha, a second one being held about one hundred years later at Veśalī and a third one at Pāṭaliputra under Aśoka. In all four councils appear to have been held to secure ‘saṅgīti’ (standardized scriptural recital) according to traditions, but no Pāli book can be traced back to a time before the council held in the time of Aśoka (about 250 B. C.). These discussions and subsequent schisms very much undermined Buddhisṃ This is mentioned as the first of the four main causes of the decline and disappearance of Buddhism from India by N. J. O’Connor.

III. From about the end of the 7th century A. D. India was divided into several independent but small and warring Stateṣ Buddhism could not secure the favour and patronage of powerful and zealous monarchs and emperors like Aśoka, Kāniṣka and Harṣa. Royal patronage on a large scale having ceased from the end of the 7th century A. D., except under the Pāla kings of Bengal, Buddhism began to wane.

IV. Many of the ablest and most vigorous exponents of Buddhist thought and faith left India for propagating their faith in other landṣ Dr. Rādhakṛṣṇan in 'India and China' names 24 eminent Indian scholars who went to China for propagating Buddha's teachings from the 3rd Century A. D. to 973 A. D. (p. 27) and also mentions a few Chinese scholars who came to India for visiting the sacred places of Buddhism and for making a study of Buddhism on the spot (ibid. pp. 27–28).

V. The observance of the high moral ideals inculcated by Gotama Buddha must have been found irksome by at least a great many of his followers, and particularly after his personal example ceased to exist. In the Mahāparinibbānasutta ( S. B. E. vol. XI, p. 127 ) we are told that Subhadda, a barber who had been received in the Order in his old age, addressed the brethren, that deeply mourned and lamented on Buddha's nirvāṇa, as follows: "Weep not, neither lament. We are well rid of the Great Samana. We used to be annoyed by being told 'this becomes you, this beseems you not'. But now we shall be able to do whatever we like; and what we do not like that we shall not have to do." Ordinary people could not be fed for long on mere repetition of the sermon on suffering being the lot of man, on monasticism, aversion to speculation and on promises of nirvāṇa which was hardly ever well defineḍ By nirvāṇa Buddha probably meant extinction of egoism and desires, a state of bliss beyond understanding and not a complete annihilation or extinctioṇ But this last was the sense in which many understood it. Buddha had an aversion to speculation and particularly to issues that were irrelevant to his purely moral approach and purpose. Several questions of a metaphysical or speculative character such as whether the world is permanent or not, whether it is finite or not, whether the soul is the same as the body or other than the body, whether the Tathāgata continues after death or not were left unanswered by Buddha ( vide Majjhima Nikāya discourse 63, Trenckner's eḍ vol. I ). Monasteries of Buddhist monks and nuns became in course of time centres of idleness, pleasures and immorality, and of debased practices like those of Vajrayāna Tāntricisṃ A well-known scholar like Rāhula Sāṁkṛtyāyana, himself a Buddhist bhikṣu, in a paper on 'Vajrayāna and the 84 Siddhas' contributed to the Journal Asiatique vol. 225 (1934) pp. 209–230 was constrained to say "The monasteries and temples were gorged with riches due to the pious offerings made by the multitudeṣ The life of the monk became more comfortable than that of the laymaṇ The discipline weakened and many unfit persons entered the community.²⁷ The easy life associated with the culture of a sensual art under the cover of cultured paintings, meditation, gods and goddesses must have inclined the minds towards sensuality. Already from the Kathāvatthu²⁸ (XXIII. 1) we know that the Andhaka School was disposed to permit Maithuna (copulation) for a special object; it was introduced in the mystic cult. Coming to the south, the practice of mantras, psychical practices, and a certain indulgence in the pleasures of sense were united; the Vajrayāna was complete".

VI. Smṛtis like those of Gautama (IX. 47, 68, 73), Manu (IV. 176, 206, X. 63), Yājñavalkya (I. 156, III. 312–313), while asking the people to honour the Vedas and learned brāhmaṇas laid great emphasis²⁹ on Ahimsā, truthfulness, charity, self- restraint, sexual purity and other virtues for persons of all the four varṇas, just as Buddha and early Buddhist works did for his followerṣ The sentiment in Manu V. 45 and the Viṣṇu-dharma-sūtra 51. 68 ‘he, who kills harmless animals (like deer) merely for the sake of his own pleasure, never increases nor prospers in happiness, whether living or after death,’ finds a parallel in the Dhammapada 131. Even the Ṛgveda solemnly says (X. 85. 1) ‘the earth is supported by Truth, the sky is supported by the Sun’. The Muṇḍaka Up. exhorts ‘Truth alone is victorious, not falsehood’ (III. 1. 6).

VII. The strong faith and the alertness of brāhmaṇas who welded into a coherent whole the Veda, the philosophy of the Upaniṣads, Yogic practices of a middle path as in Gītā VI. 15-17, the doctrine of salvation by faith and bhakti for all preached in the Gītā gradually held an irresistible appeal.

VIII. In re-orienting their religious outlook and practices to stem the tide of Buddhism and make Hinduism popular, the brāhmaṇas and other leaders of Hindu society of the centuries before and after the Christian era had to make compromises of a far-reaching character; the old Vedic gods (like Indra and Varuṇa) receded into the background though not totally forgotten, most of the Vedic sacrifices had to be given up, deities like Devī, Gaṇeśa and the Mātṛs had to be brought to the front, Paurāṇika mantras came to be used along with Vedic ones as the mantras even in śrāddha (e. g. ‘dātāro nobhivardhantām’ &c. which occurs in Manu III. 259, Yaj. I. 246, Matsya 16. 49-50, Padma, Sṛṣṭikhaṇḍa 9. 117, Kūrma II. 22. 60 and ‘other works). Even an early writer like Varāhamihira (first half of 6th century A.D.) in describing the Puṣya-snāna for the king provides ordinary mantras (Br. S. 47. 55-70) to be recited with mantras in the Atharvaveda, Rudra (Tai. S. IV. 5. 1-11), the Kūṣmāṇḍa mantras (Vāj. S. XX. 14-16 and others, Br. S. 47. 71) and winds up the whole procedure with a well-known Paurāṇika verse.³⁰ Even Aparārka (pp. 14-15) had to say that in Devapūjā the procedure to be followed is that in the Narasiṁhapurāṇa (probably something like the one in chap. 2 of the Narasiṁha Purāṇa) and in the matter of ‘pratiṣṭhā’ (establishment of images) also Paurāṇika procedure was to be adopteḍ Besides, emphasis was laid on ahiṁsā, charity (dāna), pilgrimages and vratas and it was said that the latter two were more efficacious than even Vedic sacrificeṣ These changes seriously reduced the appeal of Buddhisṃ The purāṇas con- tained stories of gods and avatāras that vied in their appeal to the common man with the Buddhist Jātaka taleṣ The Kādambarī of Bāṇa (first half of 7th century A. D.) states that the people of Ujjayinī were fond of the Mahābhārata, Purāṇas and Rāmāyaṇa (Mahābhārata-Purāṇa-Rāmāyaṇa-nurāgiṇā &c ). This is put down as the last of the four causes of the decline of Buddhism by O’Connor.

IX. From about the 7th century A. D. Buddha began to be recognised by Hindus as an avatāra of Viṣṇu and by the 10th century Buddha came to be so recognised throughout India by almost all Hinduṣ

X. Moslem fanaticism and invasions of India delivered the coup de grace (final blow) to Buddhism about and after 1200 A. D. by ruining famous universities like those of Nālandā and Vikramaśilā and the monks were mercilessly killed in large numberṣ Those who escaped the carnage fled to Tibet and Nepal. H. M. Elliott’s History of India (as told by its own historians) vol. II p. 306 contains a passage from Tabakat-i- Nasiri about Bakhtiyar Khilji that states that Bakhtiyar led his army to Behar and ravaged it, that great plunder fell in his hands, that most of the inhabitants of the place were brāhmaṇas with shaven heads, that they were put to death, that large numbers of books were found and it was discovered that the whole fort and city was a place of study (madrasa). The des- cription indicates that brāhmaṇas with shaven heads were Buddhist monkṣ

It should not be supposed that Buddhist bhikkhus renounc- ed wealth altogether. Vīde I. A. vol. VII pp. 254-256 ( Inscrip- tions 2 and 9 at Kuda ) where bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇis are donors and Cunningham's ‘ Bhilsa Topes ’ p. 235-236 where there are many bhikṣus and some bhikṣuṇis among donorṣ The great appeal of the original Buddhism to common men lay in its spirit of self-abnegation, discipline, service and sacrifice.

When Moslem invaders exterminated the monks the laity became bewildered and were either converted to Islam or became slowly absorbed among Hinduṣ It has been already stated that Buddha himself was against the admission of women into the Saṅgha but at the persistent requests of his favourite pupil S. D. 129 Ananda he yielded and prophesied that his pure Dharma, which otherwise would have flourished for a thousand years, would not last so long but only for 500 yearṣ Vide 'Cullavagga' in SBE. vol. XX p. 325.

The Pātimokkha for monks contains 227 articles which were to be recited twice a month in an assembly of at least four monks and confessions of breaches of the rules had to be made. If one reads the Cullavagga (SBE. XX. pp 330-340), one may understand how the gatherings of legions of monks and nuns in immense monasteries led in some cases to sapping the ordinary observances of decency and morality. At first the Pātimokkha could be recited to nuns by monks and the nuns could confess their lapses to monks but this had to be changed later and it was laid down that only bhikkhunis could do these things for theṃ P. 333 of the same shows how nuns quarrelled among themselves and came to blows and p. 335 narrates how some monks threw dirty water on nuns and how they uncovered their bodies and thighs before nunṣ

The author has cited the above as the main causes of the disappearance of Buddhism following what most have writteṇ Different writers attach importance to a few of them according to their individual leaningṣ While prepared to concede that the causes noted above went a long way in bringing about the downfall of Buddhism in India, he feels that the principal cause was that large sections of the Indian population came to realize that the persistent teaching of the world being a place of suffering, of giving up all desires and of monasticism, which were preached by the writers on Buddhism to all and sundry, was too much for ordinary men to attempt and that the Hindu ideal of an ordered scheme of life into four āśramas³¹ with peculiar duties and rights, particularly the importance attached to the vast populations that family life properly regulated and disciplined was capable of realizing the highest that man was capable of and that too much insistence on the giving up of all desires (including desire for life) sapped the very stability and continuance of human society and gradually led on to the loss of physical and mental virility, to idleness, base morals and race suicide. Manu III. 77–78, VI. 89–90, Vaṣ Dh. S. VIII. 14–17, Viṣṇu Dh. S. 59, 29, Dakṣa II. 57–60 and many other sages and writers praise the stage of householder as the highest.³² The Mahābhārata (Śānti 270. 6–11) and the Rāmāyaṇa, (Ayodhyā 10b, 2) and the Purāṇas also sing the same tune; vide H. of Dh. vol. II pp. 425–426 and 540–541.

Not only Dharmaśāstras but also great poets like Kālidāsa emphasized the supreme importance of the householder’s stage to society. In the Raghuvamśa ³³ (V. 10) king Raghu says to a learned brāhmaṇa student ‘it is now time for you to pass on to the second stage of life that is capable of being useful to (men of) other āśramas’. In the Śākuntala also Kālidāsa harps on the same idea.

When Buddha came to be worshipped by Buddhists as God, when Buddhists gave up the original characteristic doctrine of the attainment of the peace and bliss of nirvāṇa in this very life through the eradication of selfish desires by following the Noble Eightfold Path, when Buddhists adopted the doctrines of bhakti and the ideal they set up was the evolution of bodhi-sattvas through aeons by good deeds, the line of demarcation between Buddhism and popular Hinduism became very thin and was gradually obliterateḍ Buddhism disappeared from India because of these deviations from the original doctrine and because the brāhmaṇas made Hinduism very comprehensive by finding a place for purely monistic idealism, for the worship of several gods, for the performance of vedic or other religious rites (i. e. Karmamārga) as a preparation for higher spiritual life. The ultimate victory of Hinduism shows the strength and comprehensiveness of its religion and philosophy as against the onesidedness of Buddhism in its various phases and its silence on matters of great moment to the inquiring human minḍ The Purāṇas and dharmaśāstras put so much emphasis on ahiṁsā that millions of people in India became and are even now strict vegetarians not only among brāhmaṇas, but also among vaiśyas and śūdras, while it appears that Buddhists all over the world are not strict vegetarians at all. To-day very few of the ideal virtues that Buddhism set before even laymen are a matter of endeavour for most Buddhists in all landṣ In spite of Buddha's crusade against animal sacrifices and Aśoka's drastic measures to eliminate the killing and cruelty to birds and beasts, it is found that some Vedic sacrifices (including animal sacrifices) continued to be performed by Indian kings and common people during the centuries before and after the Christian era. A few examples are cited here : (1) Senāpati Pusyamitra (about 150 B. C.) performed two Aśvamedhas ( E. I. vol. XX. pp 54-58, Harivamśa III. 2. 35 ff 1657 (which latter speaks of Senānī Kāśyapa-dvija as performer of Aśvamedha in Kali age ) and Kālidāsa’s Mālavikāgnimitra (Act V) where he is spoken of as engaged in Rājasūya sacrifice; (2) Khāravela, king of Kalinga and a Jain, performed in the 6th year of his reign a Rājasūya ( E. I. XX. p. 79); (3) Bhavanāga of the Bhāraśiva lineage (about 200 A. D.) glorified as the performer of ten Aśvamedhas in Vākāṭaka plates (Chammak plate of Vākāṭaka Pravarasena II. in Gupta Inscriptions No. 55 pp. 236-237, 1658 and in Poona plates of Prabhāvatīgupta, the chief queen of Vākāṭaka Rudrasena II in E. I. vol XV. p. 39 ); (4) Vākāṭaka emperor Pravarasena I. (about 250 A. D.) is described as the daughter’s son of Bhavanāga and as the per- former of four Aśvamedhas (in E. I. vol. XV. p. 39 ); (5) The great Gupta emperor Samudragupta (about 325-370 A. D.) is described in some Gupta Inscriptions as one who restored the Aśvamedha sacrifice that had long been in abeyance (vide Bilsad Stone inscription in Gupta Inscriptions No. 10 at p. 42 and the Bihar Stone pillar Inscription of Skandagupta, ibid, No. 12 at p. 51); (6) The Pallava King Śivaskanda-varman (about 300-350 A. D.) is praised as the performer of Agniṣṭoma, Vājapeya and Aśvamedha (E. I. vol. I. p. 2 at p. 5); (7) The Pallava king Śimhavarman is spoken of as the performer of several Aśvamedhas (Pīkīra grant in E. I. vol. VIII. p. 159 at p. 162); (8) Cālukya king Pulakesī I (about 570 A. D.) per-formed Aśvamedha (Aihole Inscription of śaka 536 in E. I. vol. VI, p. 1); (9) Cālukya king Pulakesī II performed Aśvamedha (Aihole Inṣ of śaka 536 in E. I. vol. VI. p. 1 and Talamanchi plates of Vikramāditya I. in E. I. vol. IX. p. 98 in A. D. 660) ; (10) the Vispukundin Mādhava-varmā (a relative of the Vākāṭaka family) is recorded (in E. I. vol IV. p. 196) as having performed eleven Aśvamedhas, one thousand Agni-ṣṭomas, Paundarika,³⁶ Puruṣamedha, Vājapeya, Śodaśin and Rājasūya (about the 7th or 8th century A. D.). For other instances of Aśvamedhas performed by kings, vide H. of Dh. vol. II. pp. 1238-39.

It may be noted that even learned brāhmaṇas sometimes performed elaborate Vedic sacrificeṣ For example, the fifth in ascent from Bhavabhūti performed a Vājapeya at Padmapura in Dakṣiṇāpatha. In the Vājapeya, seventeen was a characteristic number and seventeen animals were to be sacrificed thereiṇ Vide for description of Vājapeya, H. of Dh. vol. II. pp. 1206-1212. As Bhavabhūti flourished in the first half of the 8th century A. D., the fifth in ascent from him who performed Vājapeya must have flourished about a hundred years before him i. e. in the first half of the 7th century A. D.

In these days it has become a fashion to praise Buddha and his doctrines to the skies and to disparage Hinduism by making unfair comparisons between the original doctrines of Buddha with the present practices and shortcomings of Hindu society. The present author has to enter a strong protest against this tendency. If a fair comparison is to be made it should be made between the later phases of Buddhism on the one hand and modern phases and practices of Hinduism on the other. The Upaniṣads had a nobler philosophy than that of Gautama the Buddha, the latter merely based his doctrines on the philosophy of the Upaniṣadṣ If Hinduism decayed in course of time and exhi- bited bad tendencies, the same or worse was the case with later Buddhism which gave up the noble but human Buddha, made him a god, worshipped his images and ran wild with such hideous practices as those of Vajrayāna. As a counterblast to what modern encomiasts often say about Buddhism the present author will quote a strongly-worded (but not unjust) passage from Swami Vivekananda's lecture on "The sages of India" (Complete Works, volume III, p. 248-268, 7th eḍ of 1953 published at Māyāvatī, Almora) "The earlier Buddhists in their rage against the killing of animals had denounced the sacrifices of the Vedas; and these sacrifices used to be held in every house ... These sacrifices were obliterated and in their place came gorgeous temples, gorgeous ceremonies and gorgeous priests and all that you see in India in modern timeṣ I smile when I read books written by some modern people who ought to know better that the Buddha was the destroyer of Brahmanical idolatry. Little do they know that Buddhism created brahmanism and idolatry in India. ... Thus in spite of the preaching of mercy to animals, in spite of the sublime ethical religion, in spite of the hair-splitting discussions about the existence or non-existence of a permanent soul, the whole building of Buddhism tumbled down piecemeal; and the ruin was simply hideouṣ I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhisṃ The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism" (pp. 264-265).