{"id":48441,"date":"2015-10-03T17:01:04","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T00:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=48441"},"modified":"2015-10-03T17:01:04","modified_gmt":"2015-10-04T00:01:04","slug":"disappearance-of-buddhism-from-india-an-untold-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/10\/03\/disappearance-of-buddhism-from-india-an-untold-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Disappearance of Buddhism From India: An Untold Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Naresh Kumar<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The complete disappearance of the religion of the Buddha from the land of
\nits birth is one of the greatest puzzles of history. Once holding sway
\nthroughout the length and breadth of the subcontinent, Buddhism today
\nsurvives only in the Himalayan fringes along the Tibetan frontier and in
\nsmall pockets in northern and western India among recent Ambedkarite Dalit
\nconverts.<\/p>\n

Various theories have been put forward which seek to explain the tragic
\neclipse of Buddhism from India. According to one view, corruption in the
\nBuddhist sangha or priesthood precipitated Buddhism’s ultimate decline.
\nWhile it is true that with time the Buddhist priests became increasingly
\nlax in the observance of religious rules, corruption alone cannot explain
\nthe death of Buddhism. After all, Buddhism was replaced by an even more
\ncorrupt Brahminism. Another theory is that Buddhism disappeared from India
\nin the wake of the Arab and Turkish invasions in which many Buddhists were
\nsaid to have been killed. However, this theory, too, seems not to be
\nconvincing as a complete explanation of the extinction of Buddhism in
\nIndia. After all, in places such as Bengal and Sind, which were ruled by
\nBrahminical dynasties but had Buddhist majorities, Buddhists are said to
\nhave welcomed the Muslims as saviours who had freed them from the tyranny
\nof ‘upper’ caste rule. This explains why most of the ‘lower-caste’ people
\nin Eastern Bengal and Sind embraced Islam. Few, if any, among the ‘upper’
\ncastes of these regions did the same.<\/p>\n

Since Buddhism was replaced by triumphant Brahminism, the eclipse of
\nBuddhism in India was obviously primarily a result of the Brahminical
\nrevival. The Buddha was a true revolutionary – and his crusade against
\nBrahminical supremacy won him his most ardent followers from among the
\noppressed castes. The Buddha challenged the divinity of the Vedas, the
\nbedrock of Brahminism. He held that all men are equal and that the caste
\nsystem or varnashramadharma, to which the Vedas and other Brahminical
\nbooks had given religious sanction, was completely false. Thus, in the
\nAnguttara Nikaya, the Buddha is said to have exhorted the Bhikkus, saying,
\n“Just, O brethren, as the great rivers, when they have emptied themselves
\ninto the Great Ocean, lose their different names and are known as the
\nGreat Ocean Just so, O brethren, do the four varnas – Kshatriya, Brahmin,
\nVaishya and Sudra – when they begin to follow the doctrine and discipline
\npropounded by the Tathagata [i.e. the Buddha], renounce the different
\nnames of caste and rank and become the members of one and the same
\nsociety.”<\/p>\n

The Buddha’s fight against Brahminism won him many enemies from among the
\nBrahmins. They were not as greatly opposed to his philosophical teachings
\nas they were to his message of universal brotherhood and equality for it
\ndirectly challenged their hegemony and the scriptures that they had
\ninvented to legitimize this. To combat Buddhism and revive the tottering
\nBrahminical hegemony, Brahminical revivalists resorted to a three-pronged
\nstrategy. Firstly, they launched a campaign of hatred and persecution
\nagainst the Buddhists. Then, they appropriated many of the finer aspects
\nof Buddhism into their own system so as to win over the “lower” caste
\nBuddhist masses, but made sure that this selective appropriation did not
\nin any way undermine Brahminical hegemony. The final stage in this project
\nto wipe out Buddhism was to propound and propagate the myth that the
\nBuddha was merely another ‘incarnation’ (avatar) of the Hindu god Vishnu.
\nBuddha was turned into just another of the countless deities of the
\nBrahminical pantheon.<\/p>\n

The Buddhists were finally absorbed into the caste system, mainly as
\nShudras and ‘Untouchables’, and with that the Buddhist presence was
\ncompletely obliterated from the land of its birth. Dr.Bhimrao Ambedkar
\nwrites in his book, The Untouchables, that the ancestors of today’s Dalits
\nwere Buddhists who were reduced to the lowly status of ‘untouchables’ for
\nnot having accepted the supremacy of the Brahmins. They were kept apart
\nfrom other people and were forced to live in ghettos of their own. Being
\ntreated worse that beasts of burden and forbidden to receive any
\neducation, these people gradually lost touch with Buddhism, but yet never
\nfully reconciled themselves to the Brahminical order. Many of them later
\nconverted to Islam, Sikhism and Christianity in a quest for liberation
\nfrom the Brahminical religion.<\/p>\n

To lend legitimacy to their campaign against Buddhism, Brahminical texts
\nincluded fierce strictures against Buddhists. Manu, in his Manusmriti,
\nlaid down that,\u00a0“If a person touches a Buddhist he shall purify himself by
\nhaving a bath.”\u00a0<\/strong>Aparaka ordained the same in his Smriti. Vradha Harit
\ndeclared entry into a Buddhist temple a sin, which could only be expiated
\nfor by taking a ritual bath. Even dramas and other books for lay people
\nwritten by Brahmins contained venomous propaganda against the Buddhists.
\nIn the classic work, Mricchakatika, (Act VII), the hero Charudatta, on
\nseeing a Buddhist monk pass by, exclaims to his friend Maitriya “Ah! Here
\nis an inauspicious sight, a Buddhist monk coming towards us.” The Brahmin
\nChanakya, author of Arthashastra, declared that, “When a person entertains
\nin a dinner dedicated to gods and ancestors those who are Sakyas
\n(Buddhists), Ajivikas, Shudras and exiled persons, a fine of one hundred
\npanas shall be imposed on him.” Shankaracharaya, the leader of the
\nBrahminical revival, struck terror into the hearts of the Buddhists with
\nhis diatribes against their religion.<\/p>\n

The simplicity of the Buddha’s message, its stress on equality and its
\ncrusade against the bloody and costly sacrifices and ritualism of
\nBrahminism had attracted the oppressed casts in large numbers. The
\nBrahminical revivalists understood the need to appropriate some of these
\nfiner aspects of Buddhism and discarded some of the worst of their own
\npractices so as to be able to win over the masses back to the Brahminical
\nfold. Hence began the process of the assimilation of Buddhism by
\nBrahminism. The Brahimns, who were once voracious beef-eaters, turned
\nvegetarian, imitating the Buddhists in this regard. Popular devotion to
\nthe Buddha was sought to be replaced by devotion to Hindu gods such as
\nRama and Krishna. The existing version of the Mahabharata was written in
\nthe period in which the decline of Buddhism had already begun, and it was
\nspecially meant for the Shudras, most of whom were Buddhists, to attract
\nthem away from Buddhism. Brahminism, however, still prevented the Shudras
\nfrom having access to the Vedas, and the Mahabharata was possibly written
\nto placate the Buddhist Shudras and to compensate them for this
\ndiscrimination. The Mahabharata incorporated some of the humanistic
\nelements of Buddhism to win over the Shudras, but, overall, played its
\nrole of bolstering the Brahminical hegemony rather well. Thus, Krishna, in
\nthe Gita, is made to say that a person ought not to violate the “divinely
\nordained” law of caste. Eklavya is made to slice off his thumb by Drona,
\nwho finds it a gross violation of dharma that a mere tribal boy should
\nexcel the Kshatriya Arjun in archery.<\/p>\n

The various writer of the puranas, too, carried on this systematic
\ncampaign of hatred, slander and calumny against the Buddhists. The
\nBrahannardiya Purana made it a principal sin for Brahmins to enter the
\nhouse of a Buddhist even in times of great peril. The Vishnu Purana dubs
\nthe Buddha as Maha Moha or ‘the great seducer’. It further cautions
\nagainst the “sin of conversing with Buddhists” and lays down that “those
\nwho merely talk to Buddhist ascetics shall be sent to hell.” In the Gaya
\nMahatmaya, the concluding section of the Vayu Purana, the town of Gaya is
\nidentified as Gaya Asura, a demon who had attained such holiness that all
\nthose who saw him or touched him went straight to heaven. Clearly, this
\n‘demon’ was none other the Buddha who preached a simple way for all,
\nincluding the oppressed castes, to attain salvation. The Vayu Purana story
\ngoes on to add that Yama, the king of hell, grew jealous at this, possibly
\nbecause less people were now entering his domains. He appealed to the gods
\nto limit the powers of Asura Gaya. This the gods, led by Vishnu, were able
\nto do by placing a massive stone on the “demon’s” head.\u00a0 This monstrous
\nlegend signified the ultimate capture of Budhdhism’s most holy centre by
\nits most inveterate foes.<\/p>\n

Kushinagar, also known as Harramba, was one of the most important Buddhist
\ncentres as the Buddha breathed his last there. The Brahmins, envious of
\nthe prosperity of this pilgrim town and in order to discourage people from
\ngoing there, invented the absurd theory that one who dies in Harramba goes
\nto hell, or is reborn as an ass, while he who dies in Kashi, the citadel
\nof Brahminism, goes straight to heaven. So pervasive was the belief in
\nthis bizarre theory that when the Sufi saint Kabir died in 1518 AD at
\nMaghar, not far from Kushinagar, some of his Hindu followers refused to
\nerect any memorial in his honour there and instead set up one at Kashi.
\nKabir’s Muslim followers were less superstitious. They set up a tomb for
\nhim at Maghar itself.<\/p>\n

In addition to vilifying the fair name of the Buddha, the Brahminical
\nrevivalists goaded Hindu kings to persecute and even slaughter innocent
\nBuddhists. Sasanka, the Shaivite Brahmin king of Bengal, murdered the last
\nBuddhist emperor Rajyavardhana, elder brother of Harshavardhana, in 605 AD
\nand then marched on to Bodh Gaya where he destroyed the Bodhi tree under
\nwhich the Buddha had attained enlightenment. He forcibly removed the
\nBuddha’s image from the Bodh Vihara near the tree and installed one of
\nShiva in its place. Finally, Sasanka is said to have slaughtered all the
\nBuddhist monks in the area around Kushinagar. Another such Hindu king was,
\nMihirakula, a Shaivite, who is said to have completely destroyed over 1500
\nBuddhist shrines. The Shaivite Toramana is said to have destroyed the
\nGhositarama Buddhist monastery at Kausambi.<\/p>\n

The extermination of Buddhism in India was hastened by the large-scale
\ndestruction and appropriation of Buddhist shrines by the Brahmins. The
\nMahabodhi Vihara at Bodh Gaya was forcibly converted into a Shaivite
\ntemple, and the controversy lingers on till this day. The cremation stupa
\nof the Buddha at Kushinagar was changed into a Hindu temple dedicated to
\nthe obscure deity with the name of Ramhar Bhavani. Adi Shankara is said to
\nhave established his Sringeri Mutth on the site of a Buddhist monastery
\nwhich he took over. Many Hindu shrines in Ayodhya are said to have once
\nbeen Buddhist temples, as is the case with other famous Brahminical
\ntemples such as those at Sabarimala, Tirupati, Badrinath and Puri.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.sikhspectrum.com\/022008\/buddhism.htm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Naresh Kumar The complete disappearance of the religion of the Buddha from the land of its birth is one of the greatest puzzles of history. Once holding sway throughout the length and breadth of the subcontinent, Buddhism today survives only in the Himalayan fringes along the Tibetan frontier and in small pockets in northern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}