The Disappearance of Buddhism From India:

The Untold Story

Naresh Kumar

The almost complete disappearance of the religion of the Buddha from the land of its birth is one of the saddest episodes in history for India if not the entire world. Buddhism and its culture of harmlessness (ahsima) and its humanism, once held sway throughout the length and breadth of Asia. Now, Buddhists practice only in the Himalayan fringes along the Tibetan frontier and in small pockets in northern and western India among recent Ambedkarite Dalit converts.

Various theories have been put forward which seek to explain the tragic eclipse of Buddhism from India. According to one view, corruption in the Buddhist sangha or Monkhood, led to Buddhism’s gradual decline and extinction. While it is true that with time the Buddhist priests became increasingly lax in the observance of religious rules, this degradation alone cannot explain the death of Buddhism. After all, Buddhism was replaced by an even more corrupt Brahmanism. Another theory is that Buddhism disappeared from India in the wake of the Arab and Turkish invasions in which many Buddhists were said to have been killed. However, this theory too, seems not to provide a convincing explanation of the cultural extinction of Buddhism in India. After all, in places such as Bengal and Sind, which were ruled by Brahminical dynasties but had Buddhist majorities, the Buddhists are said to have welcomed the Muslims as saviours who freed them from the tyranny of ‘upper’ caste rule. This gives an explanation as to why most of the ‘lower-caste’ people in Eastern Bengal and Sind embraced Islam. Few, if any, among the ‘upper’ castes of these regions did the same.

There is no doubt that Brahmanism triumphed over Buddhism due to a Brahminical revival. The Buddha was a true revolutionary – and his crusade against Brahminical supremacy won him his most ardent followers from among the oppressed castes. The Buddha challenged the divinity of the Vedas, the bedrock of Brahmanism. He taught that all men are equal and that the caste system or varnashramadharma, to which the Vedas and other Brahminical books had given religious sanction, was completely false. Thus, in the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha is said to have exhorted the Bhikkhus, saying, “Just, O brethren, as the great rivers, when they have emptied themselves into the Great Ocean, lose their different names and are known as the Great Ocean, Just so, O brethren, do the four varnas – Kshatriya, Brahmin, Vaishya and Sudra – when they begin to follow the doctrine and discipline propounded by the Tathagata [i.e. the Buddha], renounce the different names of caste and rank and become the members of one and the same society.”

The Buddha’s fight against Brahmanism won him many enemies from among the Brahmins. They were not as greatly opposed to his philosophical teachings as they were to his message of universal brotherhood and equality, because it directly challenged their positions of power over the people and the scriptures that they had inherited from an earlier age as the basis of this power. To combat Buddhism and revive the tottering Brahminical power, Brahminical revivalists resorted to a three-pronged strategy. Firstly, they launched a campaign of hatred and persecution against the Buddhists. Then, they appropriated many of the finer aspects of Buddhism into their own system so as to win over the “lower” caste Buddhist masses, but made sure that this selective appropriation did not in any way undermine Brahminical power. The final stage in this project to wipe out Buddhism was to propound and propagate the myth that the Buddha was merely another ‘incarnation’ (avatar) of the Hindu god Vishnu. Buddha was turned into just another of the countless deities of the Brahminical pantheon and the Buddhist Monks did not stop it.

The Buddhists were finally absorbed into the caste system, mainly as Shudras and ‘Untouchables’, and with that the Buddhist presence was almost completely obliterated from the land of its birth. Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar writes in his book ‘The Untouchables’, that the ancestors of today’s Dalits were the Buddhists who had been reduced to the lowly status of ‘untouchables’ for not having accepted the supremacy of the Brahmins. They were kept apart from other people and were forced to live in ghettos of their own. Being treated worse that beasts of burden and forbidden to receive any education, these people gradually lost touch with Buddhism, but yet never fully reconciled themselves to the Brahminical order. Many of them converted to Islam, Sikhism and Christianity in a quest for liberation from Brahminical tyranny.

To lend legitimacy to their campaign against Buddhism, Brahminical texts included fierce strictures against Buddhists. Manu, in his Manusmriti, laid it down that, “If a person touches a Buddhist he shall purify himself by having a bath.” Aparaka ordained the same in his Smriti. Vradha Harit declared entry into a Buddhist temple a sin, which could only be expiated for by taking a ritual bath. Even dramas and other books for lay people written by Brahmins contained venomous propaganda against the Buddhists. In the classic work, Mricchakatika, (Act VII), the hero Charudatta, on seeing a Buddhist monk pass by, exclaims to his friend Maitriya “Ah! Here is an inauspicious sight, a Buddhist monk coming towards us.” The Brahmin Chanakya, author of Arthashastra, declared that, “When a person entertains in a dinner dedicated to gods and ancestors those who are Sakyas (Buddhists), Ajivikas, Sudras and exiled persons, a fine of one hundred panas shall be imposed on him.” Shankaracharaya, the leader of the Brahminical revival, struck terror into the hearts of the Buddhists with his diatribes against their religion.

The simplicity of the Buddha’s message, its stress on equality and its crusade against the bloody and costly sacrifices and ritualism of Brahminism had attracted the oppressed casts in large numbers. The Brahminical revivalists understood the need to appropriate some of these finer aspects of Buddhism and discarded some of the worst of their own practices so as to be able to win over the masses back to the Brahminical fold. Hence began the process of the assimilation of Buddhism by Brahmanism. The Brahmins, who were once voracious beef-eaters, turned vegetarian, imitating the Buddhists in this regard. Popular devotion to the Buddha was sought to be replaced by devotion to Hindu gods such as Rama and Krishna. The existing version of the Mahabharata was written in the period in which the decline of Buddhism had already begun, and it was specially meant for the Sudras, most of whom were Buddhists, to attract them away from Buddhism. Brahmanism, however, still prevented the Sudras from having access to the Vedas, and the Mahabharata was possibly written to placate the Buddhist Sudras and to compensate them for this discrimination. The Mahabharata incorporated some of the humanistic elements of Buddhism to win over the Sudras, but, overall, played its role of strengthening the Brahminical hegemony rather well. Thus, Krishna, in the Gita, is made to say that a person ought not to violate the “divinely ordained” law of caste. Eklavya is made to slice off his thumb by Drona, who finds it a gross violation of dharma that a mere tribal boy should excel the Kshatriya Arjun in archery.

The various writers of the puranas, too, carried on this systematic campaign of hatred, slander and calumny against the Buddhists. The Brahannardiya Purana made it a principal sin for Brahmins to enter the house of a Buddhist even in times of great peril. The Vishnu Purana dubs the Buddha as Maha Moha or ‘the great seducer’. It further cautions against the “sin of conversing with Buddhists” and laid down that “those who merely talk to Buddhist ascetics shall be sent to hell.” In the Gaya Mahatmaya, the concluding section of the Vayu Purana, the town of Bodh-Gaya is identified as Gaya Asura, a demon who had attained such holiness that all those who saw him or touched him went straight to heaven. Clearly, this ‘demon’ was none other the Buddha who preached a Noble Path for all, including the oppressed castes, to attain salvation. The Vayu Purana story goes on to add that the terrible Yama, the king of Hell, grew jealous at this, possibly because fewer people were now entering his domains. He appealed to the gods to limit the powers of Asura Gaya. The gods led by Vishnu were able to do this; they placed a massive stone on the “demon’s” head. This monstrous legend signified the ultimate capture of Buddhism’s most holy centre by its most inveterate foes.

Kushinagar, also known as Harramba, was one of the most important Buddhist places because this is where the Buddha had entered Pari Nibbana (died). The Brahmins, envious of the prosperity of this pilgrim town and in order to discourage people from going there, invented the absurd story that those who die in Kushinagar (Harramba) will go to hell, or is reborn as an ass, while he who dies in Kashi, the citadel of Brahminism, goes straight to heaven. So pervasive was the belief in this bizarre theory that when the Sufi saint Kabir died in 1518 AD at Maghar, not far from Kushinagar, some of his Hindu followers refused to erect any memorial in his honour there and instead set up one at Kashi. Kabir’s Muslim followers were less superstitious. They set up a tomb for him at Maghar itself.

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

The extermination of Buddhism in India was hastened by the large-scale destruction and appropriation of Buddhist shrines by the Brahmins. The Mahabodhi Vihara at Bodh Gaya was forcibly converted into a Shaivite temple, and the controversy lingers on till this day. The stupa with the remains of the Buddha at Kushinagar was changed into a Hindu temple dedicated to the obscure deity with the name of Ramhar Bhavani. Adi Shankara is said to have established his Sringeri Mutth on the site of a Buddhist monastery which he took over. Many Hindu shrines in Ayodhya are said to have once been Buddhist temples, as is the case with other famous Brahminical temples such as those at Sabarimala, Tirupati, Badrinath and Puri.

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