To undo the scandal, undo the control -- Arun Shourie July 24, 1998
"There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans," writes the author. "Islam came out as the enemy of the 'But'. The word 'But,' as everybody knows, is an Arabic word and means an idol. Not many people, however, know that the derivation of the word 'But' is the Arabic corruption of Buddha. Thus the origin of the word indicates that in the Moslem mind idol worship had come to be identified with the Religion of the Buddha. To the Muslims, they were one and the same thing. The mission to break the idols thus became the mission to destroy Buddhism. Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before Islam came into being Buddhism was the religion of Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar and Chinese Turkestan, as it was of the whole of Asia...."
A communal historian of the RSS-school?
But Islam struck at Hinduism also. How is it that it was able to fell Buddhism in India but not Hinduism? Hinduism had State-patronage, says the author. The Buddhists were so persecuted by the "Brahmanic rulers", he writes, that, when Islam came, they converted to Islam: this welled the ranks of Muslims but in the same stroke drained those of Buddhism. But the far more important cause was that while the Muslim invaders butchered both -- Brahmins as well as Buddhist monks -- the nature of the priesthood in the case of the two religions was different -- "and the difference is so great that it contains the whole reason why Brahmanism survived the attack of Islam and why Buddhism did not."
For the Hindus, every Brahmin was a potential priest. No ordination was mandated. Neither anything else. Every household carried on rituals -- oblations, recitation of particular mantras, pilgrimages, each Brahmin family made memorizing some Veda its very purpose.... By contrast, Buddhism had instituted ordination, particular training etc. for its priestly class. Thus, when the invaders massacred Brahmins, Hinduism continued. But when they massacred the Buddhist monks, the religion itself was killed.
Describing the massacres of the latter and the destruction of their vihars, universities, places of worship, the author writes, "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. Summarizing the evidence relating to the slaughter of the Buddhist Monks perpetrated by the Musalman General in the course of his invasion of Bihar in 1197 AD, Mr. Vincent Smith says, "....Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the 'shaven headed Brahmans', that is to say the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed, that when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who was able to read them. 'It was discovered,' we are told, 'that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar.' "Such was the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Islamic invaders. The axe was struck at the very root. For by killing the Buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This was the greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India...."
The writer? B. R. Ambedkar.
But today the fashion is to ascribe the extinction of Buddhism to the persecution of Buddhists by Hindus, to the destruction of their temples by the Hindus. One point is that the Marxist historians who have been perpetrating this falsehood have not been able to produce even an iota of evidence to substantiate the concoction. In one typical instance, three inscriptions were cited. The indefatigable Sita Ram Goel looked them up. Two of the inscriptions had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. And the third told a story which had the opposite import than the one which the Marxist historian had insinuated: a Jain king had himself taken the temple from Jain priests and given it to the Shaivites because the former had failed to live up to their promise. Goel repeatedly asked the historian to point to any additional evidence or to elucidate how the latter had suppressed the import that the inscription in its entirety conveyed. He waited in vain. The revealing exchange is set out in Goel's monograph, "Stalinist 'Historians' Spread the Big Lie."
Marxists cite only two other instances of Hindus having destroyed Buddhist temples. These too it turns out yield to completely contrary explanations. Again Marxists have been asked repeatedly to explain the construction they have been circulating -- to no avail. Equally important, Sita Ram Goel invited them to cite any Hindu text which orders Hindus to break the places of worship of other religions -- as the Bible does, as a pile of Islamic manuals does. He has asked them to name a single person who has been honoured by the Hindus because he broke such places -the way Islamic historians and lore have glorified every Muslim ruler and invader who did so. A snooty silence has been the only response.
But I am on the other point. Once they occupied academic bodies, once they captured universities and thereby determined what will be taught, which books will be prescribed, what questions would be asked, what answers will be acceptable, these "historians" came to decide what history had actually been! As it suits their current convenience and politics to make out that Hinduism also has been intolerant, they will glide over what Ambedkar says about the catastrophic effect that Islamic invasions had on Buddhism, they will completely suppress what he said of the nature of these invasions and of Muslim rule in his Thoughts on Pakistan, but insist on reproducing his denunciations of "Brahmanism," and his view that the Buddhist India established by the Mauryas was systematically invaded and finished by Brahmin rulers.
Thus, they suppress facts, they concoct others, they suppress what an author has said on one matter even as they insist that what he has said on another be taken as gospel truth. And when anyone attempts to point out what had in fact happened, they raise a shriek: a conspiracy to rewrite history, they shout, a plot to distort history, they scream.
But they are the ones who had distorted it in the first place -- by suppressing the truth, by planting falsehoods. And these "theses" of their's are recent concoctions. Recall the question of the disappearance of Buddhist monasteries. How did the grand-father, so to say, of present Marxist historians, D. D. Kosambhi explain that extinguishing? The original doctrine of the Buddha had degenerated into Lamaism, Kosambhi wrote. And the monasteries had "remained tied to the specialized and concentrated long-distance 'luxury' trade of which we read in the Periplus. This trade died out to be replaced by general and simpler local barter with settled villages. The monasteries, having fulfilled their economic as well as religious function, disappeared too." And the people lapsed!
"The people whom they had helped lead out of savagery (though plenty of aborigines survive in the Western Ghats to this day), to whom they had given their first common script and common language, use of iron, and of the plough," Kosambhi wrote, "had never forgotten their primeval cults."
The standard Marxist "explanation" -- the economic cause, the fulfilling of historical functions and thereafter disappearing, right to the remorse at the lapsing into "primeval cults". But today, these "theses" won't do. For today the need is to make people believe that Hindus too were intolerant, that Hindus also destroyed temples of others...
Or take another figure -- one saturated with our history, culture, religion. He also wrote of that region -- Afghanistan and beyond. The people of those areas did not destroy either Buddhism or the structures associated with it, he wrote, till one particular thing happened. What was this? He recounted, "In very ancient times this Turkish race repeatedly conquered the western provinces of India and founded extensive kingdoms. They were Buddhists, or would turn Buddhists after occupying Indian territory. In the ancient history of Kashmir there is mention of these famous Turkish emperors -- Hushka, Yushka, and Kanishka. It was this Kanishka who founded the Northern School of Buddhism called Mahayana. Long after, the majority of them took to Mohammedanism and completely devastated the chief Buddhistic seats of Central Asia such as Kandhar and Kabul. Before their conversion to Mohammedanism they used to imbibe the learning and culture of the countries they conquered, and by assimilating the culture of other countries would try to propagate civilization. But ever since they became Mohammedans, they have only the instinct of war left in them; they have not got the least vestige of learning and culture; on the contrary, the countries that come under their sway gradually have their civilization extinguished. In many places of modern Afghanistan and Kandhar etc., there yet exist wonderful Stupas, monasteries, temples and gigantic statues built by their Buddhist ancestors. As a result of Turkish admixture and their conversion to Mohammedanism, those temples etc. are almost in ruins, and the present Afghans and allied races have grown so uncivilized and illiterate that, far from imitating those ancient works of architecture, they believe them to be the creation of super-natural spirits like the Jinn etc. ..."
The author? The very one the secularists tried to appropriate three-four years ago -- Swami Vivekananda.
And look at the finesse of these historians. They maintain that such facts and narratives must be swept under the carpet in the interest of national integration: recalling them will offend Muslims, they say, doing so will sow rancour against Muslims in the minds of Hindus, they say. Simultaneously they insist on concocting the myth of Hindus destroying Buddhist temples. Will that concoction not distance Buddhists from Hindus? Will that narrative, specially when it does not have the slightest basis in fact, not embitter Hindus?
Swamiji focussed on another factor about which we hear little today: internal decay. The Buddha -- like Gandhiji in our times -- taught us first and last to alter our conduct, to realise through practice the insights he had attained. But that is the last thing the people want to do, they want soporifics: a mantra, a pilgrimage, an idol which may deliver them from the consequences of what they have done. The people walked out on the Buddha's austere teaching for it sternly ruled out props. No external suppression etc., were needed to wean them away: people are deserting Gandhiji for the same reason today -- is any violence or conspiracy at work ?
The religion became monk and monastery-centric. And these decayed as closed groups and institutions invariably do. Ambedkar himself alludes to this factor -- though he puts even this aspect of the decay to the ravages of Islam. After the decimation of monks by Muslim invaders, all sorts of persons -- married clergy, artisan priests -- had to be roped in to take their place. Hence the inevitable result, Ambedkar writes: "It is obvious that this new Buddhist priesthood had neither dignity nor learning and were a poor match for the rival, the Brahmins whose cunning was not unequal to their learning."
Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and others who had reflected deeply on the course of religious evolution of our people, focussed on the condition to which Buddhist monasteries had been reduced by themselves. The people had already departed from the pristine teaching of the Buddha, Swamiji pointed out: the Buddha had taught no God, no Ruler of the Universe, but the people, being ignorant and in need of sedatives, "brought their gods, and devils, and hobgoblins out again, and a tremendous hotchpotch was made of Buddhism in India." Buddhism itself took on these characters: and the growth that we ascribe to the marvelous personality of the Buddha and to the excellence of his teaching, Swami Vivekananda said, was due in fact "to the temples which were built, the idols that were erected, and the gorgeous ceremonials that were put before the nation." Soon the "wonderful moral strength" of the original message was lost "and what remained of it became full of superstitions and ceremonials, a hundred times cruder than those it intended to suppress," of practices which were "equally bad, unclean, and immoral..."
Swami Vivekananda regarded the Buddha as "the living embodiment of Vedanta", he always spoke of the Buddha in superlatives. For that very reason, Vivekananda raged all the more at what Buddhism became: "It became a mass of corruption of which I cannot speak before this audience...;" "I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. 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"...
With reform as his life's mission, Swami Vivekananda reflected deeply on the flaws which enfeebled Buddhism, and his insights hold lessons for us to this day. Every reform movement, he said, necessarily stresses negative elements. But if it goes on stressing only the negative, it soon peters out. After the Buddha, his followers kept emphasising the negative, when the people wanted the positive that would help lift them.
"Every movement triumphs," he wrote, "by dint of some unusual characteristic, and when it falls, that point of pride becomes its chief element of weakness." And in the case of Buddhism, he said, it was the monastic order. This gave it an organizational impetus, but soon consequences of the opposite kind took over. Instituting the monastic order, he said, had "the evil effect of making the very robe of the monk honoured," instead of making reverence contingent on conduct. "Then these monasteries became rich," he recalled, "the real cause of the downfall is here... some containing a hundred thousand monks, sometimes twenty thousand monks in one building -- huge, gigantic buildings...." On the one hand this fomented corruption within, it encoiled the movement in organizational problems. On the other it drained society of the best persons.
From its very inception, the monastic order had institutionalized inequality of men and women even in sanyasa, Vivekananda pointed out. "Then gradually," he recalled, "the corruption known as Vamachara (unrestrained mixing with women in the name of religion) crept in and ruined Buddhism. Such diabolical rites are not to be met with in any modern Tantra..."
Whereas the Buddha had counseled that we shun metaphysical speculations and philosophical conundrums as these would only pull us away from practice -- Buddhist monks and scholars lost themselves in arcane debates about these very questions. [Hence a truth in Kosambhi's observation, but in the sense opposite to the one he intended: Shankara's refutations show that Shankara knew nothing of Buddha's original doctrine, Kosambhi asserted; Shankara was refuting the doctrines which were being put forth by the Buddhists in his time, and these had nothing to do with the original teaching of the Buddha.] The consequence was immediate: "By becoming too philosophic," Vivekananda explained, "they lost much of their breadth of heart."
Sri Aurobindo alludes to another factor, an inherent incompatibility. He writes of "the exclusive trenchancy of its intellectual, ethical and spiritual positions," and of how "its trenchant affirmations and still more exclusive negations could not be made sufficiently compatible with the native flexibility, many-sided susceptibility and rich synthetic turn of the Indian religious consciousness; it was a high creed but not plastic enough to hold the heart of the people..."
We find in such factors a complete explanation for the evaporation of Buddhism. But we will find few of them in the secularist discourse today. Because their purpose is served by one "thesis" alone: Hindus crushed Buddhists, Hindus demolished their temples... In regard to matter after critical matter -- the Aryan-Dravidian divide, the nature of Islamic invasions, the nature of Islamic rule, the character of the Freedom Struggle -- we find this trait -- suppresso veri, suggesto falsi. This is the real scandal of history-writing in the last thirty years. And it has been possible for these "eminent historians" to perpetrate it because they acquired control of institutions like the ICHR. To undo the falsehood, you have to undo the control.
Dear Vir, Leave these kids alone…
9 DECEMBER 2009
This post was triggered by Vir Sanghvi’s misleading article “Ayodhya for dummies” that he wrote in response to his “younger readers…(who are) mystified by the fuss and annoyed by the refusal of journos to tell them what it (Liberhan Report) was all about”
RC has already done a masterful dissection of Vir Sanghvi’s seemingly clever play with words. So I will limit myself to a specific flippant remark made by Vir Sanghvi viz. “…Hindu kings destroyed Buddhist monasteries, more or less throwing Buddhism out of India”
Before I begin, I must stress that I am neither a historian nor have any academic pretensions. My response to Sh Sanghvi is therefore based on a diligent search of publicly discoverable material – mostly sourced via the world-wide web. Having said that, I do not have an army of researchers at my command – so if there have been any omissions/mistakes, please do highlight them via the comments section below and note that the added emphasis is mine, throughout.
In the remark I have cited above, Sh Sanghvi makes two distinct points:
- Hindu kings destroyed Buddhist monasteries (as a consequence)
- …throwing Buddhism out of India (more or less)
I will address the first point in this post and the next point in the concluding part. So let’s examine the basis for asserting that “Hindu kings” destroyed Buddhist monasteries.
In his article, Sh Sanghvi (somewhat predictably) has been careful not to mention any names of such “Hindu kings” who were actually involved in destruction of monasteries. But what does history tell us?
From a Wikipedia entry, we learn that
The Buddhism of Magadha was finally swept away by the Islamic invasion under 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 C.E.
References? Amongst others, “History of Magadha” by L.L.S. Omalley; J.F.W. James (Veena Publication, Delhi, 2005, pp. 35) that mentions:
The Buddhism of Magadha was finally swept away by the Muhammadan invasion under Bakhtiyar Khilji, In 1197 the capital, Bihar, was seized by a small party of two hundred horsemen, who rushed the postern gate, and sacked the town.The slaughter of the “shaven-headed Brahmans,” as the Muslim chronicler calls the Buddhist monks, was so complete that when the victor searched for some one capable of explaining the contents of the monastic libraries, not a living man could be found who was able to do so. “It was discovered,” it was said, “that the whole fort and city was a place of study.”A similar fate befell the other Buddhist institutions, against which the combined intolerance and rapacity of the invaders was directed. The monasteries were sacked and the monks slain, many of the temples were ruthlessly destroyed or desecrated, and countless idols were broken and trodden under foot. Those monks who escaped the sword flied to Tibet, Nepal and southern India; and Buddhism as a popular religion in Bihar, its last abode in Northern India, was finally destroyed. Then forward Patna passed under Muhammadan rule.
But what about the Hindu kings, you may ask? Once again, let us peer into the past.
Here is Alexander Berzin in “The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist and Islamic Cultures before the Mongol Empire“:
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.
and
The Sena king (Hindu) installed defensive garrisons at Odantapuri and Vikramashila Monasteries, which were imposing walled citadels directly on the Ghurids’ line of advance.
While Berzin believes Nalanda escaped the fate of Odantapuri and Vikramshila monasteries, he notes that
When the Tibetan translator, Chag Lotsawa Dharmasvamin (Chag Lo-tsa-ba, 1197 – 1264), visited northern India in 1235, he found it (Nalanda) damaged, looted, and largely deserted, but still standing and functioning with seventy students.
Who were these 70 students? How did they survive the massacre? Parshu Narayanan has some details. From “The last lesson at Nalanda:
As I browsed, a terribly poignant account of the last lesson at Nalanda emerged. Incredibly, it was by Nalanda’s last student: A Tibetan monk called Dharmaswamin. He visited Nalanda in 1235, nearly forty years after its sack, and found a small class still conducted in the ruins by a ninety-year 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.
And what about the monks? Where did they disappear? Alexander Berzin has some answers:
Despite the possibility of accepting protected subject status (under the Muslim rulers), many Buddhist monks fled Bihar and parts of northern Bengal, seeking asylum in monastic universities and centers 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 centers 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.
As one digs deeper, more facts come to light…Here is a certain Dr B R Ambedkar writing about what happened to the monasteries:
The Musalman invaders sacked the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Vikramshila, Jagaddala, Odantapuri to name only a few.They raised(sic) 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. Summarizing the evidence relating to the slaughter of the Buddhist Monks perpetrated by the Musalman General in the course of his invasion of Bihar in 1197 AD, Mr. Vincent Smith says, “….Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the ‘shaven headed Brahmans’, that is to say the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed, that when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who was able to read them. ‘It was discovered,’ we are told, ‘that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar.’ Such was the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Islamic invaders. The axe was struck at the very root. For by killing the Buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This was the greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India….“
But surely these facts muct be known to Sh Sanghvi – and other historians? What is their response? In the words of Sh Arun Shourie:
…the Marxist historians who have been perpetrating this falsehood (of ascribing the extinction of Buddhism to the persecution of Buddhists by Hindus) have not been able to produce even an iota of evidence to substantiate the concoction.In one typical instance, three inscriptions were cited. The indefatigable Sita Ram Goel looked them up. Two of the inscriptions had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. And the third told a story which had the opposite import than the one which the Marxist historian had insinuated: a Jain king had himself taken the temple from Jain priests and given it to the Shaivites because the former had failed to live up to their promise. Goel repeatedly asked the historian to point to any additional evidence or to elucidate how the latter had suppressed the import that the inscription in its entirety conveyed. He waited in vain. The revealing exchange is set out in Goel’s monograph, “Stalinist ‘Historians’ Spread the Big Lie.”Marxists cite only two other instances of Hindus having destroyed Buddhist temples. These too it turns out yield to completely contrary explanations. Again Marxists have been asked repeatedly to explain the construction they have been circulating — to no avail. Equally important, Sita Ram Goel invited them to cite any Hindu text which orders Hindus to break the places of worship of other religions — as the Bible does, as a pile of Islamic manuals does. He has asked them to name a single person who has been honoured by the Hindus because he broke such places – the way Islamic historians and lore have glorified every Muslim ruler and invader who did so. A snooty silence has been the only response.
As you can see, Marxist historians and climate change alarmists do share something in common – a disdain for (and fear of?) evidence and historical data.
To end this part, here is another example of sloppy journalism & flippant remarks on this subject. This excerpt is from an article by Shakti Maira (who “The Hindu” helpfully describes as “a noted contemporary artist”):
But let us not think that it was only the Muslims who broke or desecrated temples. Hindus have done it too. I remember the pang I felt when I saw the construction of a silly guest room on top of a stupa in Sarnath for Emperor Jehangir’s one-day visit by a Hindu Raja of Benares…It is also a fact that the destruction of the beautiful carvings and structures (stupas, viharas and temples) at Buddhist Sarnath were done by a Hindu raja with no tolerance for Buddhism and crudely used the stones for constructions in his kingdom.I am told our recount of history has glossed over the breaking of each other’s temples by the Shaivas and Vaishnavas and the breaking of Jain and Buddhist temples by Hindus.
The tone of the brief passage above is in the best traditions of Indian journalism: definitive and all-knowing without being burdened with inconvenient references.
The first para quotes an incident – without details or context. Moreover, it talks about “construction” not “destruction”! The second paragraph mentions neither the source of this “fact” nor the context (e.g. while it is believed that Pushyamitra Sunga destroyed the original Stupa at Sanchi, what is rarely mentioned is that his son rebuit it into a much grander structure). And the third paragraph begins with, “I am told…” – thus conveniently eliminating the burden of proof.
In the concluding part, I hope to examine some explanations for Buddhism’s decline in India and factors that might have contributed or accelerated its eclipse in the land of its birth.
Dear Vir, This is why Buddhism declined in India…
11 DECEMBER 2009 2,656 VIEWS 19 COMMENTS
In the first part of this post, I cited evidence contrary to Sh Sanghvi’s assertion that “Hindu kings destroyed Buddhist monasteries…”
Sh Sanghvi’s second point was that, as a consequence of such destruction (which we now know is not supported by historical records) Buddhism declined in India – that land of its birth.
Let us start by what Dr B R Ambedkar had to say on the decline of Buddhism in India:
“..There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans…Islam came out as the enemy of the ‘But’. The word ‘But,’ as everybody knows, is an Arabic word and means an idol. Not many people, however, know that the derivation of the word ‘But’ is the Arabic corruption of Buddha. Thus the origin of the word indicates that in the Moslem mind idol worship had come to be identified with the Religion of the Buddha. To the Muslims, they were one and the same thing. The mission to break the idols thus became the mission to destroy Buddhism. Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before Islam came into being Buddhism was the religion of Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar and Chinese Turkestan, as it was of the whole of Asia….”
What other reasons caused the downfall of Buddhism in India?
.Here is Arun Shourie in To Undo the Scandal, Undo the Control:
“..Swamiji (Swami Vivekananda) focussed on another factor about which we hear little today: internal decay. The Buddha — like Gandhiji in our times — taught us first and last to alter our conduct, to realise through practice the insights he had attained. But that is the last thing the people want to do, they want soporifics: a mantra, a pilgrimage, an idol which may deliver them from the consequences of what they have done. The people walked out on the Buddha’s austere teaching for it sternly ruled out props. No external suppression etc., were needed to wean them away..
The religion became monk and monastery-centric. And these decayed as closed groups and institutions invariably do. Ambedkar himself alludes to this factor — though he puts even this aspect of the decay to the ravages of Islam. After the decimation of monks by Muslim invaders, all sorts of persons — married clergy, artisan priests — had to be roped in to take their place. Hence the inevitable result, Ambedkar writes: “It is obvious that this new Buddhist priesthood had neither dignity nor learning and were a poor match for the rival, the Brahmins whose cunning was not unequal to their learning.”
In the words of Swami Vivekananda:
“..and what remained of it (the original message) became full of superstitions and ceremonials, a hundred times cruder than those it intended to suppress”
and later
“…By becoming too philosophic…they (the monks) lost much of their breadth of heart.”
In the words of Sri Aurobindo,
“…(Buddhism’s) trenchant affirmations and still more exclusive negations could not be made sufficiently compatible with the native flexibility, many-sided susceptibility and rich synthetic turn of the Indian religious consciousness; it was a high creed but not plastic enough to hold the heart of the people…”
As Arun Shourie concludes (emphasis added):
We find in such factors a complete explanation for the evaporation of Buddhism. But we will find few of them in the secularist discourse today. Because their purpose is served by one “thesis” alone: Hindus crushed Buddhists, Hindus demolished their temples… In regard to matter after critical matter — the Aryan-Dravidian divide, the nature of Islamic invasions, the nature of Islamic rule, the character of the Freedom Struggle — we find this trait — suppresso veri, suggesto falsi. This is the real scandal of history-writing in the last thirty years. And it has been possible for these “eminent historians” to perpetrate it because they acquired control of institutions like the ICHR. To undo the falsehood, you have to undo the control.
Writing in “The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist and Islamic Cultures before the Mongol Empire”,Alexander Berzin notes that :
…this loss (of Buddhism in India) was a complex phenomenon, let us examine a few of the factors that might explain it.The Hindus and Jains had no universities or large monasteries. Their monks lived alone or in small groups in remote regions, studying and meditating privately, with no community rituals or ceremonies. Since they posed no threat, it was not worth the invaders’ time or efforts to destroy them. They damaged only the Hindu and Jain temples found in the major cities for laypeople. The Buddhists, on the other hand, had large, imposing monastic universities, surrounded by high walls and fortified by the local kings. Their razing clearly had military significance.…For laypeople in India, Buddhism was primarily a religion of devotion focused around the large monasteries. Although there was a forest tradition for intense meditation, those who wished to study deeply became celibate monks or nuns. Householders offered food and material support for the monastics. They came twice a month to the monasteries for a day of keeping vows of ethical discipline and listening to sermons based on the scriptures. They did not regard themselves, however, as a separate group from the Hindu majority. For ceremonies marking rites of passage in their lives, such as birth, marriage, and death, they relied on Hindu rituals.When Hinduism identified Buddha as a manifestation of its supreme god Vishnu, the Buddhists did not object. In fact, throughout northern India, Kashmir, and Nepal, Buddhism was already mixed with many elements of devotional Hinduism. Therefore, when the major monasteries were destroyed, most Buddhists were easily absorbed into Hinduism. They could still focus their devotion on Buddha and be considered good Hindus. Hinduism and Jainism, on the other hand, were more oriented to laypeople’s practice in the home and did not require monastic institutions.Furthermore, Hindus and Jains were useful to the Muslim conquerors. The Hindus had a warrior caste that could be conscripted into service, while the Jains were the major local merchants and sources of tax. The Buddhists, on the other hand, did not have a distinguishing occupation or service as a people as a whole. They no longer played a role in interregional trade as they had centuries earlier when Buddhist monasteries dotted the Silk Route. Therefore, whatever efforts there were for conversion to Islam were directed primarily toward them.…Thus, although most of northern India remained Hindu, with pockets of Jains, Punjab and East Bengal gradually had the most converts. The Buddhists in the former had the longest contact with Islam, particularly enhanced with the flood of Islamic masters from Iran and the Middle East that sought refuge there from the Mongol attacks that began in the early thirteenth century. East Bengal, on the other hand, has always been a land with many impoverished peasants who would be ripe for the appeal of equality with Islam.
Read together, all these accounts point to only one conclusion – The decline of Buddhism was a result of a complex interplay between several factors but no one – not one historian – has put the blame for its demise on destruction of monasteries by Hindu kings.
Sh Sanghvi owes his readers – particularly the young, impressionable minds – an apology. He is a media pundit – whose words are read and trusted by many. I wish he would have been more careful before penning his thoughts.
To end, a fitting quote by Bhagwaan Gautam Buddha:
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written…But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
May Tathagata show you the way.