7 Responses to “ISLAM RELIGION & EVERY BUDDHA’S NOBEL FOOT PRINT”

1. Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   December 9th, 2013 at 4:31 pm

   The container labelled “Grease, Ceramic and Plastic Goods”, which was found to have Asia’s largest stock of 130 kg Heroin with street value of Rs 1.3 billion.had been shipped from the Port of Karachi in Pakistan on June 17, 2013 and had been unloaded at the Port of Colombo on the June 22, 2013. Upon a tip-off received by the Western Province Intelligence Bureau officers, Police Narcotic Bureau had made a request from Sri Lanka Customs to examine the container before clearing it out. It is during this time, politicians had made undue influences upon Sri Lanka Customs to get the container cleared. The drug lords who tried to smuggle in 261 Kilos of Heroin from Pakistan concealed inside grease cans, had made a desperate attempt to get the container cleared from the Port of Colombo through the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka- Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne. The racketeers had even sent orders to Sri Lanka Customs, through secretaries, under official letterheads of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne and his son Anuraddha Lanka Jayaratne. One such order has demanded to reduce the VAT on the container from 15%. The second order had been sent to quicken the clearance of the container from the Port. These two orders have been sent in the form of letters and another order has been issued to the Petroleum Corporation under the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne’s letterhead to issue a report on the grease immediately. Sri Lanka Customs officers and the Police Narcotics Bureau which are investigating on this matter are in possession of the original copies and the photocopies of these letters.
   Two racketeers who have been arrested regarding the matter, the Sri Lankan agent of this racket Mohammed Kaamil owner of Rohan Impex, of T-30, Railway Quarters, Maligawatte and the Pakistani agent Jamaal Casif Ayes Abdul had worked together for some time in Kuwait. There they had been associating with a female agency worker who had come to Kuwait. Husband of that woman had been a close associate of the Prime Minister Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne’s son Anuraddha Lanka Jayaratne. It is in that way the racketeers had gained the the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne’s connection to get this container cleared from the port. Mohammed Kaamil owner of Rohan Impex had applied for the registration at the Department of Registrar of Companies only after the container had reached the country on June 22, 2013.
   Investigation sources reveal that neither the the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne nor his son Anuraddha Lanka Jayaratne had been aware of any drug racket and that they have been misled by the racketeers. However, the Pakistan drug lords had planned to start a tea exporting business by joining hands with the the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne’s son Anuraddha Lanka Jayaratne, appointing him as the Sri Lankan partner in the trade.
   Secretary of the the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne admitted the issuing of the letters and said that it was a mistake. He stated that as the the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne was engaged in his son Anuraddha Lanka Jayaratne’s election campaign work and had signed many letters forwarded to him by his party associates and the racketeers had taken advantage of this busy nature. He further emphasized that the the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne or his son Anuraddha Lanka Jayaratne have no knowledge of this narcotics container at all.
   The official of the the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne’s office also said that after the incident, the the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne has stopped signing for any of the letters except a few compulsory documents. However, the attention of the investigation squads who are following the trail, have been drawn into information received about this Pakistani drug Lord giving bribes of Millions of Rupees to various parties, in order to get this container cleared. A senior investigation officer had said that information has been received about a bag of money which had been kept by the Pakistani suspect who had been staying in the Salmar Hotel Maradana, to be distributed among various parties. Meanwhile, a special team of the American DEA which comes under the US Department of Justice has arrived in Sri Lanka for a special investigation. These US officials have taken Samples of the Grease tins and also the fingerprints which were seen among the drugs. Pakistani Narcotics Control Unit and Indian “Q Branch” officers have arrived to Sri Lanka with regards to this matter.
   Pakistani Zarder Azar who was directly involved in the smuggling of this stock of heroin, was arrested in an area close to the Kashmir border in Pakistan after Interpol and Pakistani’s AntiNarcotics Force were informed. Zarder Azar is due to be brought to Sri Lanka to face charges under an extradition treaty.

2. Susantha Wijesinghe Says:
   December 9th, 2013 at 5:51 pm

   THANKS NALLIAH, FOR ENLIGHTENING US ON THIS SORDID EPISODE. INTERESTING INFORMATION. THANKS.

3. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:
   December 10th, 2013 at 1:17 pm

   Islam and Buddhism cannot share a land together for all Islamic nations strictly prohibit the practice in open or the construction of a Vihara. When the Muslims invaded India they raped and pillaged Hindu India but the eradicated Buddhism from India. Even the Muslim Koran nor the Buddhist Tipitaka have little to share. Islam demands subservience from her followers while Buddhism imparts a way of life that elevates man into that of a Superman

4. Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   December 11th, 2013 at 4:05 am

   Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia’s ruling House of Saud have been intimately and permanently intertwined since their births.
   Unlike Islam in other Muslim countries, however, Wahhabism treats women as third class citizens, imposes the veil on them, and denies them basic human rights such as: driving cars; the freedom of traveling within the country or leaving it without permission or Mahram-a relative male chaperon, the interaction with men who are not related to them in order to maintain a complete separation of the sexes; and until a few decades ago denied them public education and banned them from Radio & Television.
   Wahhabism created the Saudi monarchy, and the House of Saud spread Wahhabism. One could not have existed without the other. Wahhabism gives the House of Saud legitimacy, and the House of Saud protects and promotes Wahhabism. Wahhabism is highly self-centered and extremely intolerant of progressive ideologies, other religions, and other Islamic sects such as Shiism and Sufism. It despises Arab Nationalism with a great deal of passion, yet it promotes “Saudi” nationalism, despite the fact that any nationalism is considered a violation of Islamic theology due to the concept of Islamic Ummah (“nation”).
   Wahhabi Islam has already penetrated every nook and corner of the Muslim world. It is right time that like minded Muslim scholars join together and put an end to its spreading further in the interest of protecting the younger generation. What is causing a big concern is that these Wahhabis concentrate much on brain washig the youths. This is a dangerous trend and the Sunnath Jamath Moulvis and followers should take a serious note of this. More than the illeteracy prevailing in the Islamic community, its backwardness, unemployment etc, what is the serious problem confronting the whole Muslim society is Wahhabism.
   There are NO SECTS in islam, indeed Koran specifies God’s dislike of schism in very clear terms. “Muslims” have taken it upon themselves to create various sects, each claiming others are wrong, this defeats the whole concept of “ummah”. Sects are clearly a human trait as Judaism & Christianity are also plagued with this divide, and at any rate all people who believe in One God should be part of one “Ummah”, instead we all seem to worship our Egos/parents religion/history rather than God.

5. Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   December 11th, 2013 at 4:08 am

   Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh was a camel-mounted pirate, a warlord, a slave trader and the murderer of defenseless prisoners. During his ten years in Medina, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh personally led 27 military attacks. Prior to his death, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh conquered most of the Arabian peninsula. According to the Quranic verses written in Medina verses, Allah accepts converts who do not believe in him inwardly, but will kneel to him outwardly under threat of death. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh did not have this view of Allah until he became a warlord and used force to compel people to accept his rule. In Mecca, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh had one wife. During his last 10 years of his life at Medina, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh married 12 more women. A warlord does not tolerate those who question his decrees. Similarly, Muslims are warned by their teachers that asking too many questions about why Allah commands something is a sign of impiety. The corruption of Muslim officialdom in many countries seems to follow the pattern set by Mohammed ibn ʿAbd Allāh when he was a corrupt warlord.

   Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh did not invent monotheism. The Pharaoh Akhenaten in Egypt’s 18th dynasty had put a single sun deity at the centre of worship 2,000 years before Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh. Monotheism makes totalitarianism and intolerance much easier. Monotheism is responsible for more human suffering than any idea ever thought up by humans, with the possible exception of the idea that faith is a virtue, but we can’t blame Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh. Whatever his myriad faults are originality of thought is not one of them.

   Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh did not initiate slavery. Slavery had been universal across Africa, Asia and Europe for several thousands of years. Slavery was considered to be totally normal. We can’t blame Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh for inventing slavery. But Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh thoroughly endorsed slavery and engaged in the trading, keeping and taking of slaves himself. Nobody wants to be enslaved and making, keeping and trading of slaves is totally abhorrent under any circumstances. Slavery is wrong period.

   Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh did not invent the barbaric and primitive practice of marrying very young girls. Joseph was a 90 years old man at the time of marriage with the Mary – Mother of Jesus od Nazreth. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh married Aisha at the age of 6, he watched over her until the age of 9 when he took her into his household as his wife, with all that this normally entails. Aisha was accused of being unfaithful to Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh declared that Aisha was innocent after a convenient divine revelation and decreed that from then on all accusations of adultery which includes rape require 4 reliable men as witnesses. Even today Muslim women are being thrown into prison or even stoned to death in places where sharia law is applied for the sin of being raped without enough 4 reliable men as witnesses.

   The common claim that Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh was a pedophile is unfair. If this had been the case Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh could have had a lot more children in his tent. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh’s first marriage was to an older widow Khadijah, which lasted 25 years during which time he had no other wife. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh had something in the order of 16 wives and most of these were widows and older women. The statistics on the safety of childbirth among the under 14 give strong support to the idea that marriage at the first hint of puberty is an extremely bad example for any potential role-model to set. This bad example is blighting the lives of millions of girls and is directly responsible for many cases of miscarriage and horrific damage to young girls. Many women have a lifetime of incontinence and infertility because they followed the example of Islam’s “perfect man” Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh.

   Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh did not invent the ritual sacrifice of animals. The Jews had done it for thousands of years. Animal sacrifice was also done by many other civilizations including the Greeks.
   Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh did not introduce animal sacrifice to Arabia as his tribe and many others had been sacrificing to their Pagan gods for centuries and the younger Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh himself had both sacrificed to pagan gods and eaten the meat of that sacrifice.

   Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh took for granted that his followers would be having sex with the wives of the pagan warriors that they captured in the battles and the wives of the Jewish tribes that they had killed. Qur’an says that a Muslim may marry up to 4 wives and have sex with the captives that his right hand possesses, which refers to slave women captured in battle.

   Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh did not invent the strange barbarous practice of circumcision. Jews copied male circumcision from the Egyptians. Circumcision was carried out across large parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Even today the butchery of the genitals of young girls is widespread across Africa, practiced by Muslims, practitioners of African traditional religions and Christians. Female Genital Mutilation is very common in Egypt and Ethiopia among Christians, and it is not right to blame this on Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh.

6. Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   December 11th, 2013 at 4:13 am

   January 26th, 2013 at 6:25 pm

   sawmeer khan,

   Unfortunately and Understandbly you have left out the Muslim Barbarians led by Bakhtiyar Khalji in 1193 that destroyed Nalanda University. NU was so vast that it was reported to have had burned for three months.

   Both, the Muslim Barbarians and Brahmin Barbarians were mainly responsible for trying to destroy Buddhism in India and elsewhere!
   Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   January 26th, 2013 at 8:11 pm

   Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha’s period saw not only urbanisation, but also the beginnings of centralised states.The successful expansion of Buddhism depended on the growing economy of the time, together with increased centralized political organization capable of change. Buddhism had seen a steady growth from its beginnings to its endorsement as state religion of the Maurya Empire under Ashoka Maurya (304BCE–232 BCE). It continued to flourish another 4 centuries and spread even beyond the Indian subcontinent to Central Asia and beyond to China.

   Ashoka Maurya banned Vedic sacrifices as contrary to Buddhist benevolence, Buddhism began its spread outside of its Magadha homeland. The succeeding Shungas reinstated the sacrifices. They also built the large Sanchi stupa next to a Shunga capital. The overall trend of Buddhism’s spread across India and state support by various regional regimes continued.The consolidation of monastic organization made Buddhism the center of religious and intellectual life in India. Pushyamitra the first ruler of the Sunga Dynasty built great Buddhist topes at Sanchi in 188 BCE. The succeeding Kanva Dynasty had four Buddhist Kanva Kings.

   The decline of Buddhism in India is the result of the hostility of the Brahmans. The gradual expansion in the scope and authority of caste regulations shifted political and economic power to the local arena, reversing the trend of centralization.The caste system gradually expanded into secular life as a regulative code of social and economic transactions. In ancient times, the four varnas were primarily a categorization scheme and the Vedas did contain prohibitions regarding intermarriage. There were, however, large numbers of castes probably originally tribal lineage groups.

   Pusyamitra Sunga (185 BCE to 151 BCE) was hostile to Buddhism, he burned Sūtras, Buddhists shrines and massacred monks. The Hindu Saivite ruler Shashanka of Gauda (590–626) destroyed the Buddhist images and Bo Tree, under which Siddhartha Gautama is said to have achieved enlightenment. But a steady decline of Buddhism in India set in during the later Gupta era and under the Pala Empire. Chinese monks traveling through the region between the 5th and 8th centuries CE, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, Yijing, Huisheng, and Song Yun, began to speak of a decline of the Buddhist sangha, especially in the wake of the White Hun invasion. By that time, Buddhism had become especially vulnerable to hostile rulers because it lacked strong roots in society as most of its adherents were ascetic communities.

   In 711 Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the Sindh, bringing Indian societies into contact with Islam, succeeding partly because Dahir was an unpopular Hindu king that ruled over a Buddhist majority and that Chach of Alor and his kin were regarded as usurpers of the earlier Buddhist Rai Dynasty – a view questioned by those who note the diffuse and blurred nature of Hindu and Buddhist practices in the region, especially that of the royalty to be patrons of both and those who believe that Chach himself may have been a Buddhist. The forces of Muhammad bin Qasim defeated Raja Dahir in alliance with the Jats and other regional governors.

   Many instances of conversion of stupas to mosques such as at Nerun as well as the incorporation of the religious elite into the ruling administration such as the allocation of 3% of the government revenue was allocated to the Brahmins. As a whole, the non-Muslim populations of conquered territories were treated as People of the Book and granted the freedom to practice their respective faiths in return for payment of the poll tax (jizya). They were then excused from military service or payment of the tax paid by Muslim subjects – Zakat. The jizya enforced was a graded tax, being heaviest on the elite and lightest on the poor.

   The Gupta Empire period was a time of great development of Hindu culture but even then, in the Ganges Plain, half of the population supported Buddhism and the five precepts were widely observed. The Hindu rulers and wealthy laity gave lavish material support to Buddhist monasteries. After the Guptas, the Shaivite kings of Gujarat (as well as Nepal and Kashmir) also patronized Buddhist monasteries, building a great center of Buddhist learning at Valabhi. The Buddhist emperor Harsha and the later Buddhist Pala dynasty (8th to11th Centuries ) were great patrons of Buddhism but it had already begun to lose its political and social base.

   With the surge of Hindu philosophers like Adi Shankara(788 – 820), along with Madhvacharya and Ramanuja, three leaders in the revival of Hindu philosophy, Buddhism started to fade out rapidly from the landscape of India.

   By the 10th century Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the Hindu-Shahis, effectively removing Hindu influence and ending Buddhist self-governance across Central Asia, as well as the Punjab region. He demolished both stupas and temples during his numerous campaigns across North-Western India, but left those within his domains and Afghanistan alone. Hindu and Buddhist statues, shrines and temples were looted and destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni and many Buddhists had to take refuge in Tibet.

   Decline continued after the fall of the Pala dynasty in the 12th century and the gradual Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent. The Buddhism of Magadha was finally swept away by the Islamic invasion under one of Qutb-ud-Din’s generals Muhammad Bin Bakhtiar Khilji, during which many of the Viharas and the famed universities of Nalanda and Vikramshila were destroyed, and thousands of Buddhist monks were massacred in 12th century.

   Muhammad attacked the north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent many times. Gujarat later fell to Muhammad of Ghor’s armies in 1197. Muhammad of Ghor’s army was too developed for the traditional Indian army of that time to resist.

   In 1197 the capital, Bihar, was seized by a small party of two hundred horsemen, who rushed the postern gate, and sacked the town. Further, the slaughter of the “shaven-headed Brahmans,” as the Muslim chronicler calls the Buddhist monks, “was so complete that when the victor searched for a competent person to explain the contents of the library not a soul was alive.

   A similar fate befell upon the other Buddhist institutions, against which the combined intolerance and rapacity of the invaders was directed. The monasteries were sacked and the monks were slain, many of the temples were ruthlessly destroyed or desecrated, and countless idols were broken and trodden under their foot. Those monks who escaped the sword fled to Nepal, Tibet, and South India to avoid the consequences of war and Buddhism was finally destroyed and those areas then came under these Muslim rulers.

   Although the Mithila rulers were Shaivite Hindus, they continued the Pala patronage of Buddhism and offered strong resistance against the Ghurids. They stopped, for example, an attempted drive to take Tibet in 1206. The Sena king (a Hindu) installed defensive garrisons at Odantapuri and Vikramashila Monasteries, which were imposing walled citadels directly on the Ghurids’ line of advance.

   Nalanda escaped the fate of Odantapuri and Vikramshila monasteries. When the Tibetan translator, Chag Lotsawa Dharmasvamin (Chag Lo-tsa-ba, 1197 – 1264), visited northern India in 1235, he found Nalanda damaged, looted, and largely deserted, but still standing and functioning with 70 students.
   A Tibetan monk called Dharmaswamin visited Nalanda in 1235, nearly 40 years after its sack, and found a small class still conducted in the ruins by a 90 old monk, Rahul Sribhadra. Weak and old, the teacher was kept fed and alive by a local Brahmin, Jayadeva. Warned of a roving band of 300 Turks, the class dispersed, with Dharmaswamin carrying his nonagenarian teacher on his back into hiding. Only the two of them came back, and after the last lesson (it was Sanskrit grammar) Rahul Sribhadra told his Tibetan student that he had taught him all he knew and in spite of his entreaties asked him to go home. Packing a raggedy bundle of surviving manuscripts under his robe, Dharmaswamin left the old monk sitting calmly amidst the ruins. And both he and the Dharma of Sakyamuni made their exit from India.

   Many Buddhist monks fled Bihar and parts of northern Bengal, seeking asylum in monastic universities and centres in modern-day Orissa, southern Bangladesh, Arakan on the western coast of Burma, southern Burma, and northern Thailand. The majority, however, together with numerous Buddhist lay followers, went to the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, bringing with them many manuscripts from the vast monastic libraries that had been destroyed.

   Buddhism was in a strong position in Kathmandu at the time. The Hindu kings of the Thakuri Dynasties (750 – 1200) had supported the Buddhist monasteries, and there were several monastic universities. Since the end of the tenth century, numerous Tibetan translators had been visiting these centres on their way to India, and Nepalese masters from them had been instrumental in the revival of Buddhism in central and western Tibet. The early Hindu rulers of the Malla Period (1200 – 1768) continued the policies of their Thakuri predecessors.

   The Musalman invaders sacked the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Vikramshila, Jagaddala, Odantapuri to name only a few. They raised to the ground Buddhist monasteries with which the country was studded. The monks fled away in thousands to Nepal, Tibet and other places outside India. A very large number were killed outright by the Muslim commanders. How the Buddhist priesthood perished by the sword of the Muslim invaders has been recorded by the Muslim historians themselves.

   In 1215, Genghis Khan conquered Afghanistan and devastated the Muslim world. In 1227, after his death, his conquest was divided. Chagatai then established the Chagatai Khanate, where his son Arghun made Buddhism the state religion. At the same time, he came down harshly on Islam and demolished mosques to build many stupas. He was succeeded by his brother, and then his son Ghazan who converted to Islam and in 1295 changed the state religion. After his reign, and the splitting of the Chagatai Khanate, little mention of Buddhism or the stupas built by the Mongols can be found in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

   Timur was a 14th-century warlord of Turco-Mongol descent conqueror of much of Western and central Asia, and founder of the Timurid Empire destroyed Buddhist establishments and raided areas in which Buddhism had flourished.

   In Tamilnadu and Kerala, Buddhism survived until 15th to 16th century, as witnessed by the manuscript of the Manjusrimulakalpa. At Nagapattinam, in Tamil Nadu, Buddhist icons were cast and inscribed until this time, and the ruins of the Chudamani Vihara stood until they were destroyed by the Jesuits in 1867.

   January 26th, 2013 at 6:25 pm

   sawmeer khan,

   Unfortunately and Understandbly you have left out the Muslim Barbarians led by Bakhtiyar Khalji in 1193 that destroyed Nalanda University. NU was so vast that it was reported to have had burned for three months.

   Both, the Muslim Barbarians and Brahmin Barbarians were mainly responsible for trying to destroy Buddhism in India and elsewhere!
   Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   January 26th, 2013 at 8:11 pm

   Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha’s period saw not only urbanisation, but also the beginnings of centralised states.The successful expansion of Buddhism depended on the growing economy of the time, together with increased centralized political organization capable of change. Buddhism had seen a steady growth from its beginnings to its endorsement as state religion of the Maurya Empire under Ashoka Maurya (304BCE–232 BCE). It continued to flourish another 4 centuries and spread even beyond the Indian subcontinent to Central Asia and beyond to China.

   Ashoka Maurya banned Vedic sacrifices as contrary to Buddhist benevolence, Buddhism began its spread outside of its Magadha homeland. The succeeding Shungas reinstated the sacrifices. They also built the large Sanchi stupa next to a Shunga capital. The overall trend of Buddhism’s spread across India and state support by various regional regimes continued.The consolidation of monastic organization made Buddhism the center of religious and intellectual life in India. Pushyamitra the first ruler of the Sunga Dynasty built great Buddhist topes at Sanchi in 188 BCE. The succeeding Kanva Dynasty had four Buddhist Kanva Kings.

   The decline of Buddhism in India is the result of the hostility of the Brahmans. The gradual expansion in the scope and authority of caste regulations shifted political and economic power to the local arena, reversing the trend of centralization.The caste system gradually expanded into secular life as a regulative code of social and economic transactions. In ancient times, the four varnas were primarily a categorization scheme and the Vedas did contain prohibitions regarding intermarriage. There were, however, large numbers of castes probably originally tribal lineage groups.

   Pusyamitra Sunga (185 BCE to 151 BCE) was hostile to Buddhism, he burned Sūtras, Buddhists shrines and massacred monks. The Hindu Saivite ruler Shashanka of Gauda (590–626) destroyed the Buddhist images and Bo Tree, under which Siddhartha Gautama is said to have achieved enlightenment. But a steady decline of Buddhism in India set in during the later Gupta era and under the Pala Empire. Chinese monks traveling through the region between the 5th and 8th centuries CE, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, Yijing, Huisheng, and Song Yun, began to speak of a decline of the Buddhist sangha, especially in the wake of the White Hun invasion. By that time, Buddhism had become especially vulnerable to hostile rulers because it lacked strong roots in society as most of its adherents were ascetic communities.

   In 711 Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the Sindh, bringing Indian societies into contact with Islam, succeeding partly because Dahir was an unpopular Hindu king that ruled over a Buddhist majority and that Chach of Alor and his kin were regarded as usurpers of the earlier Buddhist Rai Dynasty – a view questioned by those who note the diffuse and blurred nature of Hindu and Buddhist practices in the region, especially that of the royalty to be patrons of both and those who believe that Chach himself may have been a Buddhist. The forces of Muhammad bin Qasim defeated Raja Dahir in alliance with the Jats and other regional governors.

   Many instances of conversion of stupas to mosques such as at Nerun as well as the incorporation of the religious elite into the ruling administration such as the allocation of 3% of the government revenue was allocated to the Brahmins. As a whole, the non-Muslim populations of conquered territories were treated as People of the Book and granted the freedom to practice their respective faiths in return for payment of the poll tax (jizya). They were then excused from military service or payment of the tax paid by Muslim subjects – Zakat. The jizya enforced was a graded tax, being heaviest on the elite and lightest on the poor.

   The Gupta Empire period was a time of great development of Hindu culture but even then, in the Ganges Plain, half of the population supported Buddhism and the five precepts were widely observed. The Hindu rulers and wealthy laity gave lavish material support to Buddhist monasteries. After the Guptas, the Shaivite kings of Gujarat (as well as Nepal and Kashmir) also patronized Buddhist monasteries, building a great center of Buddhist learning at Valabhi. The Buddhist emperor Harsha and the later Buddhist Pala dynasty (8th to11th Centuries ) were great patrons of Buddhism but it had already begun to lose its political and social base.

   With the surge of Hindu philosophers like Adi Shankara(788 – 820), along with Madhvacharya and Ramanuja, three leaders in the revival of Hindu philosophy, Buddhism started to fade out rapidly from the landscape of India.

   By the 10th century Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the Hindu-Shahis, effectively removing Hindu influence and ending Buddhist self-governance across Central Asia, as well as the Punjab region. He demolished both stupas and temples during his numerous campaigns across North-Western India, but left those within his domains and Afghanistan alone. Hindu and Buddhist statues, shrines and temples were looted and destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni and many Buddhists had to take refuge in Tibet.

   Decline continued after the fall of the Pala dynasty in the 12th century and the gradual Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent. The Buddhism of Magadha was finally swept away by the Islamic invasion under one of Qutb-ud-Din’s generals Muhammad Bin Bakhtiar Khilji, during which many of the Viharas and the famed universities of Nalanda and Vikramshila were destroyed, and thousands of Buddhist monks were massacred in 12th century.

   Muhammad attacked the north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent many times. Gujarat later fell to Muhammad of Ghor’s armies in 1197. Muhammad of Ghor’s army was too developed for the traditional Indian army of that time to resist.

   In 1197 the capital, Bihar, was seized by a small party of two hundred horsemen, who rushed the postern gate, and sacked the town. Further, the slaughter of the “shaven-headed Brahmans,” as the Muslim chronicler calls the Buddhist monks, “was so complete that when the victor searched for a competent person to explain the contents of the library not a soul was alive.

   A similar fate befell upon the other Buddhist institutions, against which the combined intolerance and rapacity of the invaders was directed. The monasteries were sacked and the monks were slain, many of the temples were ruthlessly destroyed or desecrated, and countless idols were broken and trodden under their foot. Those monks who escaped the sword fled to Nepal, Tibet, and South India to avoid the consequences of war and Buddhism was finally destroyed and those areas then came under these Muslim rulers.

   Although the Mithila rulers were Shaivite Hindus, they continued the Pala patronage of Buddhism and offered strong resistance against the Ghurids. They stopped, for example, an attempted drive to take Tibet in 1206. The Sena king (a Hindu) installed defensive garrisons at Odantapuri and Vikramashila Monasteries, which were imposing walled citadels directly on the Ghurids’ line of advance.

   Nalanda escaped the fate of Odantapuri and Vikramshila monasteries. When the Tibetan translator, Chag Lotsawa Dharmasvamin (Chag Lo-tsa-ba, 1197 – 1264), visited northern India in 1235, he found Nalanda damaged, looted, and largely deserted, but still standing and functioning with 70 students.
   A Tibetan monk called Dharmaswamin visited Nalanda in 1235, nearly 40 years after its sack, and found a small class still conducted in the ruins by a 90 old monk, Rahul Sribhadra. Weak and old, the teacher was kept fed and alive by a local Brahmin, Jayadeva. Warned of a roving band of 300 Turks, the class dispersed, with Dharmaswamin carrying his nonagenarian teacher on his back into hiding. Only the two of them came back, and after the last lesson (it was Sanskrit grammar) Rahul Sribhadra told his Tibetan student that he had taught him all he knew and in spite of his entreaties asked him to go home. Packing a raggedy bundle of surviving manuscripts under his robe, Dharmaswamin left the old monk sitting calmly amidst the ruins. And both he and the Dharma of Sakyamuni made their exit from India.

   Many Buddhist monks fled Bihar and parts of northern Bengal, seeking asylum in monastic universities and centres in modern-day Orissa, southern Bangladesh, Arakan on the western coast of Burma, southern Burma, and northern Thailand. The majority, however, together with numerous Buddhist lay followers, went to the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, bringing with them many manuscripts from the vast monastic libraries that had been destroyed.

   Buddhism was in a strong position in Kathmandu at the time. The Hindu kings of the Thakuri Dynasties (750 – 1200) had supported the Buddhist monasteries, and there were several monastic universities. Since the end of the tenth century, numerous Tibetan translators had been visiting these centres on their way to India, and Nepalese masters from them had been instrumental in the revival of Buddhism in central and western Tibet. The early Hindu rulers of the Malla Period (1200 – 1768) continued the policies of their Thakuri predecessors.

   The Musalman invaders sacked the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Vikramshila, Jagaddala, Odantapuri to name only a few. They raised to the ground Buddhist monasteries with which the country was studded. The monks fled away in thousands to Nepal, Tibet and other places outside India. A very large number were killed outright by the Muslim commanders. How the Buddhist priesthood perished by the sword of the Muslim invaders has been recorded by the Muslim historians themselves.

   In 1215, Genghis Khan conquered Afghanistan and devastated the Muslim world. In 1227, after his death, his conquest was divided. Chagatai then established the Chagatai Khanate, where his son Arghun made Buddhism the state religion. At the same time, he came down harshly on Islam and demolished mosques to build many stupas. He was succeeded by his brother, and then his son Ghazan who converted to Islam and in 1295 changed the state religion. After his reign, and the splitting of the Chagatai Khanate, little mention of Buddhism or the stupas built by the Mongols can be found in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

   Timur was a 14th-century warlord of Turco-Mongol descent conqueror of much of Western and central Asia, and founder of the Timurid Empire destroyed Buddhist establishments and raided areas in which Buddhism had flourished.

   In Tamilnadu and Kerala, Buddhism survived until 15th to 16th century, as witnessed by the manuscript of the Manjusrimulakalpa. At Nagapattinam, in Tamil Nadu, Buddhist icons were cast and inscribed until this time, and the ruins of the Chudamani Vihara stood until they were destroyed by the Jesuits in 1867.

7. Lorenzo Says:
   December 11th, 2013 at 5:46 am

   It is best to LEAVE Islam out. Fanaticism of some Muslims deserve bashing but NOT Islam.

   We need good Islam followers to support SL.

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