Changes in Buddhism and its disappearance from India

LECTURE VII. 
Changes in Buddhism and its disappearance from India.

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In the preceding Lectures I have confined myself chiefly to the consideration of what may be called true Buddhism as taught by its Founder and developed by his immediate followers and disciples during the first two or three centuries of its existence in the land of its birth, India.

To attempt an explanation of all the subsequent phases of Buddhism would, as I have before stated, require the command of unlimited time. All I can hope to accomplish in the concluding Lectures is to give a very general idea of the nature of the changes Buddhism underwent before it died out in India, and of its corruptions in some of the countries bordering on India and in North-eastern Asia.

And I may add that those who desire correct views on this subject, ought not to trust to mere inferences and theories founded on a critical perusal of the so-called Sacred Books of the Buddhists. For it is certain that without any practical experience of what Buddhism has become in modern times—I mean such an experience as can only be gained by residing or travelling in countries where Buddhism now prevails—the mere study of its ancient scriptures is likely to be misleading.

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At the same time book-knowledge is indispensable, and it is essential to bring to the study of later Buddhism a scholarlike acquaintance with Sanskṛit and Pāli. Even a knowledge of Tibetan ought to be added. Nor ought the inquirer to be ignorant of the science of comparative religion, seeing that the principles of that science may throw light on many difficult questions.

For example, a student of comparative religion will be prepared to expect that all religious systems will diverge more or less from their original type in the hands of enthusiastic disciples, who are ever inclined to amplify their master’s teaching and to explain it differently according to each man’s peculiar temperament and mental bias, until in the end the original deposit of simple doctrine becomes overlaid with layer upon layer of adventitious matter.

Nor will he be surprised to find that the tendency of every religious movement is towards deterioration and disintegration. Nor will it appear strange to him that the chief conservative force is antagonism. As time goes on disagreements among the followers of any great leader seem to be inevitable, and always lead to sectarian divisions and subdivisions. Yet it is this opposition of religious parties that usually operates to mitigate the worst extremes of corruption, and tends to bring about re-forming movements.

Even the progress of Christianity—as history shows too well—furnishes illustrations of the law of deterioration, disintegration, and re-formation. At all events, it is certain that no study of the New Testament is likely to give a true idea of the varying condition of 149 the Christian religion as exhibited at the present day in different parts of the world.

But here it is important to caution the student of religions against forcing a comparison between two systems of doctrine like Christianity and Buddhism, which are radically and essentially opposed to each other.

The unchristianlike incrustations and divisions which have marred the original teaching of the Head of our religion exist in spite of Christianity. They are not the result of any development of its first principles; whereas, on the contrary, the corruptions and schisms of Buddhism are the natural and inevitable outcome of its own root-ideas and fundamental doctrines.

In proof of this let us revert for a moment to the insight we have gained into the origin of Buddhism.

It will be seen that the most remarkable feature of the Buddha’s teaching, so far as it has been stated in the preceding Lectures, was that he altogether ignored the existence in human nature of any spiritual aspirations, affections, or instincts higher than or distinct from the natural aspirations, affections, and instincts of humanity; and of any force outside of human nature capable of aiding a man’s own efforts in his struggle for salvation. Not that he reviled, or poured contempt on the religion prevalent among his fellow-countrymen, but that he found no place in his system for an external Ruler and Controller of the Universe, and would have stultified his own teaching had he acknowledged a Supreme Creator, guiding and upholding all things by His will, and always at hand to co-operate with His creatures and listen to their supplications.

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If it were possible, in short, to condense into a categorical statement the scattered utterances of a man whose teaching was rarely dogmatic, we might affirm that it was to the effect that for any man to depend on a Being higher than himself, or to centre the noblest affections of his nature on a merciful, just, and holy God, whose presence he yearned for, whose aid he prayed for, and to whose image he longed to be assimilated—was a mere delusion, though perhaps a harmless one. He therefore set aside every supposed supernatural revelation as useless and incapable of proof. He prescribed no prayer, he enjoined no form of worship, he established no real church, and instead of a priesthood or clergy, ordained to aid men in their progress heavenwards or to console them in the trials of life, he founded an Order of Monks pledged to denounce human life as not worth living, and bound to abstain from all participation in human affairs.

It is true that he deserves commendation for having substituted moral conduct for useless superstitious rites, but his moral code had no other aim than the suppression of lusts and desires (p. 139, note 2), and his peculiar stoical philosophy had no other object than the removal of the ignorance which obstructed the path to true knowledge—the knowledge that all life is fraught with pain and misery, and not worth perpetuating.

It is admitted, too, that its moral precepts were of a high order; but it promised man no divine aid in observing them, it supplied him with no motive power except the selfish hope of benefiting himself in future states of corporeal existence, and it provided no remedy 151 in case his attempts to obey its injunctions ended in failure. How, indeed, could it do any of these things when its only idea of sin was not the infraction of God’s law, but the commission of an act fraught with evil consequences to the doer?

Furthermore, it was guilty of the inconsistency of bidding a man cherish a fellow-feeling for others and diligently engage in all good works, while it made his true salvation depend on his giving up all love for wife and children, and setting before himself, as his final goal, a condition of absolute indifference and inactivity.

What, therefore, I am at present concerned to point out is that, if the essential doctrines of primitive Buddhism were of the character thus summarized, a rebound from one extreme to another became inevitable, and that such a reaction was due to the very nature of the original teaching of its Founder. In point of fact it was not a development that took place, but a recoil—like the recoil of a spring held down for a time by a powerful hand and then released. And this resulted from the simple working of the eternal instincts of humanity, which insisted on making themselves felt notwithstanding the unnatural restraint to which the Buddha had subjected them; so that every doctrine he taught developed by a kind of irony of fate into a complete contradiction of itself.

Let us take a few examples:—

Buddhism, we know, started with the doctrine that all idea of marriage, or of happy home-life, was to be abandoned by wise men—by all who aimed at becoming true Buddhists (in direct contradistinction, 152 we may note, to the primary Christian truth that it is not good for created man to be alone, and that therefore his Creator created a help meet for him—a truth confirmed in a remarkable manner by the Founder of the Christian Church when He gave the first sign of His divine commission at a marriage ceremony).

What, then, followed on the Buddha’s original unnatural teaching in regard to marriage?

Of course an immediate result was that, although according to the Buddha’s ordinance any one who aimed at perfect sanctity was bound to lead a celibate life, the rule against marriage was admitted to be inapplicable to the majority of human beings living in the world. The mass of the people, in short, were necessarily offenders against the primary law of Buddhism. Though called lay-Buddhists, they were not ‘wise men’ in the Buddhist sense of the term (pp. 86, 88). There is even evidence that among certain monkish communities in Northern countries the law against marriage was soon relaxed. It is well known that at the present day Lamaseries in Sikkim and Tibet swarm with the children of monks, though called their nephews and nieces[62]. And far worse than this, Buddhism ultimately allied itself with Tāntrism or the worship of the female principle (ṡakti), and under its sanction encouraged the grossest violations of decency and the worst forms of profligacy.

It was the same in regard to the unnatural vow of 153 poverty. Monasteries and Lamaseries now possess immense revenues, and monks are often wealthy men.

Then again, what resulted from the Buddha’s ignoring the existence of a God, and telling his disciples to abstain from depending on any Being higher than what man himself could become? Of course this was opposed to every man’s innermost sense of his own needs and of his own nature. For man is so constituted that he cannot be happy without loving and trusting a Being higher than himself—a Being who takes the initiative in loving His creatures and is the proper object of their loftiest affections. Nor can man in his secret heart regard either himself or any one of his fellow-men as a being worthy of his highest adoration. Nor can he set his affections on a blank or an abstraction. And so, in spite of the Buddha’s teaching, his followers would act on their own convictions. They would believe in beings higher than themselves, and in a personal Creator knowable and lovable by themselves, and knowing and loving His creatures. Nay, they ultimately converted the Buddha himself into the very God he denied, calling him ‘The chief god of all the gods’ (Devātideva).

Again, what was the effect of the Buddha’s leading men to believe that all supernatural revelation was unneeded—that all enlightenment came from within, and that every man was competent to think out true knowledge for himself by the exercise of his own reasoning powers, in the way that the Buddha himself had done?

Of course the result was that the generality of men who shrank from the effort of thinking out truth for 154 themselves, and were wholly destitute of any faculty for doing so, insisted on believing in a revelation from an external power, and ended in attributing infallibility to the Buddha’s own teaching, and worshipping the Law of Buddhism—as a visible embodiment of their deceased teacher—with all the ardour of enthusiastic bibliolatrists.

Furthermore, what followed on the Buddha’s denying that any prayer, however earnest, could have any power to modify the operation of natural laws?

Of course men longed for some form of supplication to a higher power, and so the Buddha’s disciples not only composed prayer-formularies, but invested the mere letters and syllables of such forms with an efficacy which no other body of religionists has ever thought of attributing to prayer of any kind.

They not only repeated mystical sentences, which were called prayers, though really mere charms, believing that an occult virtue was inherent in the words, but invented a method of manufacturing such sentences (Dhāraṇī) like marketable commodities.

They fabricated prayers, in fact, by machinery, inscribing them on wheels or on rolls inserted in cylinders, which in the present day are made to revolve by hand or by the force of water and wind, and will possibly, with the spread of science, be impelled by steam-power, so that each revolution may count for an infinite number of repetitions, and be set down to the credit of the owner or manager of the mechanism.

Yet again, what was the inevitable consequence of the Buddha’s rejection of the doctrine that any benefit 155 could accrue to human beings from religious services conducted by regularly ordained priests, and of his instituting in their stead an Order of Monks, who were little better than a community of drones, contributing nothing to the wealth of the world, doing nothing of any utility to any one, and taught to regard inaction as the path of true wisdom?

Naturally, men craved for spiritual helpers, guides, and intercessors, and so by degrees these very monks conducted elaborate religious services, and a complicated hierarchy was organized in Tibet, even more intricate and far-reaching in its ramifications than that of the modern Romish Church.

And once more, what resulted from the Buddha’s objection to provide visible images and material objects of worship, with a view to stimulate devotion or aid meditation?

Of course concrete and objective Buddhism of some kind became a necessity. It became essential to make concessions to the weakness and infirmity of human nature, which required external aids, and declined to be devoted to an ideal void, or to meditate on a pure abstraction. Even the Founder of Buddhism himself seems to have felt, as we shall see, that his hold on the memory of his followers would depend on their venerating certain objects and symbols after his death. Unhappily for the purity of Buddhism, but quite in conformity with the inveterate tendencies of humanity, the Buddha’s disciples pushed veneration of external objects to an extreme. They were not contented with mere reverence shown to the relics of the Buddha’s 156 burnt body and the shrines containing them. They worshipped the tree under which he attained Buddhahood, the seat on which he sat, the prints of his feet, his shadow supposed to be impressed on rocks, the utensils he used, the books containing the Law, the wheel which symbolized both the propagation and the character of his doctrine, and finally bowed down before carved representations of his body and images of all kinds. It is remarkable that in Buddhist countries idols are far more numerous than among any other idolatrous people in the world.

Lastly, what resulted from the Buddha’s teaching that the ultimate end to which men’s efforts ought to be directed was Nirvāṇa—that is, the total extinction of all individual existence and personal identity?

Of course men instinctively recoiled from utter self-annihilation, and so the Buddha’s followers ended in changing the true idea of Nirvāṇa and converting it from a condition of non-existence into a state of hazy beatitude in celestial regions, while they encouraged all men—whether monks or laymen—to make a sense of dreamy bliss in heaven, and not total extinction of life, the end of all their efforts.

But it was not only this natural and inevitable recoil to the opposite extreme that ultimately brought about an entire change in primitive Buddhism. Another cause must also be taken into account.

We have already explained the nature of the tie which bound Buddhism to Brāhmanism, from the first day on which Gautama sat as a disciple at the feet of the Brāhman philosophers Udraka and Āḷāra (p. 29). 157 Now, although this tie was soon loosened, and although the Buddha struck out a line of his own, and a separation took place, yet the two systems stood on so much common ground that they were always ready to draw together again.

At all events, it is probable that one system never expelled the other, and that the constant attrition and contact which took place between Brāhmanism and Buddhism, led to a considerable splitting up of the original fabric of Buddhism, involving, of course, many divisions and subdivisions of Buddhistic thought, some of which were closely allied to the later developments of Brāhmanical philosophy.

In the Sarva-darṡana-saṅgraha four principal sects of Buddhism are enumerated, which must have taken root early on Indian soil.

These four were the Vaibhāshika, Sautrāntika, Mādhyamika, and Yogāćāra. Of these the first two with their subdivisions[63] were realistic, and were established—though not perhaps thoroughly formulated and systematized—in very early times, long before the council of Kanishka; while the two later schools are described as idealistic, the Mādhyamika being a Buddhistic form of the Vedānta philosophy, and the Yogāćāra agreeing generally with the Yoga system.

Indeed there is good evidence that Buddhism developed in India a greater number of schools and phases 158 of thought than Brāhmanism itself. Some authorities enumerate eighteen divisions (corresponding perhaps to the eighteen original disciples, pp. 47-73) which existed in king Kanishka’s time—that is, in the first century of our era, while others specify thirty-two; and in the fourth century we find the Chinese traveller Fā-hien (p. 160) making allusion to as many as ninety-six (Dr. Legge’s translation, p. 62).

We cannot wonder then that the author of the Sarva-darṡana-saṅgraha expressed himself in rather strong language to the following effect:—

‘Though the venerated Buddha be the only one teacher, his disciples are manifold; just as when the sun has set, the thief and other evil doers, the theological student and others understand that it is time to set about their occupations, according to their several inclinations.’

Yet, after all, it was chiefly in the North, and in consequence of the council held by Kanishka, India’s greatest Buddhist king after Aṡoka[64] (see p. 69), that the original features of Buddhism underwent the greatest change and became overlaid with coating after coating of extraneous matter. It was there, in Northern regions, in the valley of the Indus, that the Protean system called Mahā-yāna arose, and grew, by the operation of the usual laws of accretion, conglomeration, 159 disintegration, and reintegration, into a congeries of heterogeneous doctrines, including the worship of Bodhi-sattvas, deified saints, and personal gods.

Naturally the adherents of this wider method spoke disparagingly of the simpler system prevalent in the South, whose sacred books were the Tri-piṭaka of Ceylon written in the ancient vernacular (Pāli). That system they designated Hīna-yāna, ‘the defective method,’ not denying however that their own enlarged system grew out of and included the simpler one.

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There arose, too, a third method, or ‘vehicle’ of salvation, called ‘the middle method’ (Madhyama-yāna). This, however, is not so well known, and, being a compromise between the other two, never gained many adherents, though it is still recognized in Tibet—the Tibetans often speaking of Tri-yāna, or ‘the three vehicles.’

At all events, it is only necessary for practical purposes to recognize the distinction of the Great and Little Vehicle—the Mahā-yāna[65] and the Hīna-yāna. And it may be stated generally that the inhabitants of Nepāl, Tibet, China, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Japan have always shown a preference for the Mahā-yāna, or ‘Great Vehicle,’ while the people of Ceylon, Burma, and Siam have always preferred the ‘Little Vehicle.’

At the same time, it is important to note that while the Buddhists of Northern countries are supposed to be disciples of the Mahā-yāna or Great Way of 160 Salvation, the Buddhism of each Northern country differs greatly from that of the other, and that the countries nearest to India have still further complicated the Mahā-yāna system by adopting mystical doctrines, and introducing magic and other practices supposed to aid in the acquisition of supernatural powers.

It must also be borne in mind that, although the Mahā-yāna or Great Method originated on the Indus, and the Hīna-yāna or Little Method, on the Ganges, the two streams of teaching were not always confined to these two areas, even on Indian soil.

In point of fact they were often intermixed, and the changes thus brought about in Buddhism will become more evident by referring to the narratives of three well-known Buddhist travellers from China.

Buddhism was introduced into China between 58 and 75 of our era[66], but it was not till much later that Chinese pilgrims visited India—the holy land of Buddhism.

The first traveller of whom we have any record was a certain Chinese Buddhist monk named Fā-hien, who set out on a pilgrimage to India about the year 399 of our era, with the definite object of searching for and carrying back to China complete copies of the Vinaya or Rules of discipline for the Order. He wrote a very simple and straightforward account of his travels[67]—which lasted for fourteen years—and of his visits to all the spots in India held most sacred by Buddhists. He 161 was followed by a Chinese traveller of less mark, named Sang Yun, who started about 518 A.D., and seems to have ended his journey at Peshawar, or at least not to have penetrated much further South. Peshawar, we know, was a great Buddhist centre, and there was a fine Stūpa there, containing the alms-bowl of Buddha. Then after another interval a much more celebrated Chinese pilgrim named Hiouen Thsang[68] started for India (A.D. 629-644). The narrative of his travels for about fifteen years is perhaps the best known and most commonly quoted of the three. In Chang Yueh’s preface[69] to these travels Hiouen Thsang is described as ‘a Doctor of the three Piṭakas, and is said to have translated 657 works from the original Sanskṛit. In all the districts through which he journeyed he learnt the dialects and investigated the deep secrets of religion.’

All three travellers give information in regard to the prevalence of Buddhism in India up to the seventh century of our era, and the narratives of two—Fā-hien and Hiouen Thsang—are invaluable for the light they throw on the changes which Buddhism underwent in the interval of their travels. Here and there the pilgrims exaggerate, especially when they venture on numerical statistics or write from hearsay; but on the whole their accounts may be accepted, and we learn that Hiouen Thsang found some monasteries in ruins which were flourishing in Fā-hien’s time, and that the Mahā-yāna 162 had supplanted the earlier form of Buddhism, or rather co-existed with it in many parts of the South as well as of the North, and was to be found even in Ceylon[70].

And this brings us face to face with the greatest change of all—the total dying out of Buddhism in the place of its origin. How is it to be accounted for that no adherents of either the greater or lesser Buddhist systems—of either the Mahā-yāna or Hīna-yāna—are to be found in India at the present moment?

The problem is difficult of solution, and I can only offer a few suggestions for its elucidation.

In the first place, I think it may be confidently asserted that the disappearance of Buddhism from India was a very gradual process, and unattended by any serious or violent religious revolution.

We have already alluded to the tolerant, liberal, and eclectic spirit which has characterized Buddhism ever since the period of its first promulgation at Benares.

Such toleration of the doctrines and ideas of co-existing systems had its advantages, especially in the early stages of the Buddhistic movement. It certainly had a prophylactic effect in warding off violent attacks, and helped to promote the diffusion of Buddhism throughout the numerous countries to which it ultimately spread. In India itself, as we have already seen, Buddhism was never aggressive or combative. Its motto 163 everywhere was persuasion and conciliation. Composure, tranquillity, and absence of acrimony were stamped on all its features. The very foundation on which it was reared—the very establishment of a celibate monastic Order, by means of which true knowledge was to be propagated—had in it something altogether agreeable to the spirit and usages of Brāhmanism.

We have seen, too, that the Buddha took care to show his respect for Brāhmanical traditions, even while promulgating a philosophical theory and preaching doctrines opposed to all sacerdotalism, priestly privileges, supernatural revelation, and Vedic ceremonial.

It does not, of course, follow that the great teacher, to whom the majority of Asiatic races have for centuries looked as their chosen example, had not the courage of his opinions, and was not competent to fill the rôle of a religious reformer.

The real fact was that he was too wise to enter upon any open crusade against inveterate customs and ideas. The peculiar calm of an Indian atmosphere, though occasionally disturbed by political storms sweeping from distant regions, has rarely been stirred by violent religious antagonisms. The various currents of Hindū religious life have flowed peacefully side by side, and reformers have generally done their work quietly. As for Gautama, there can be little doubt that his whole career was stamped with the impress of his early surroundings, and that he imbibed his tolerant ideas from the Brāhmanism in which he had been trained.

It has been usual to blame the Brāhmans for their arrogant exclusiveness, but their arrogance has been 164 rather shown in magnifying their own caste-privileges and carrying them to an extravagant pitch, than in preventing any discussion of their own dogmas, or in resenting any dissent from them.

The very essence of Brāhmanism was tolerance. Every form of opinion was admissible under a system which made every person and every object in existence manifestations of the one Being, Brahmă.

The only delicate ground, on which it was dangerous for any reformer to tread, was caste. The only unpardonable sin was infringement of caste-rules. Nor was any one tempted to adopt the rôle of a violent agitator, when all were free to express any opinion they liked without hindrance, provided they took care to abstain from any act of interference with caste-privileges.

It does not appear, in short, that the preachers of either Buddhism, or Vaishṇavism, or Ṡaivism, or Ṡāktism, or of any form of these sectarian systems, ever incurred the special animosity of the Brāhmans or of each other, or ever indulged in very violent denunciations of each other’s religious doctrines.

In real truth, these systems of doctrine were all evolved out of Brāhmanism. They were, therefore, not only tolerated by Brāhmanism, but accepted as the inevitable outcome of its own pantheistic creed.

No doubt each received at first a strong stamp of individuality from its founder, marking it off from other systems, but with the lapse of years the deeper shades of difference grew fainter. Then it became a question which should become merged in the other. In such a competition between rival systems Buddhism had 165 less chance of holding its own than either Vaishṇavism or Ṡaivism; for its root-ideas—as we have seen—were not rooted in the eternal instincts of human nature.

Buddhism, in fact, could never have maintained itself in India till the twelfth or thirteenth century of our era, had it not gradually, and to a great extent through interaction with Vaishṇavism and Ṡaivism, dropped its unnatural pessimistic theory of life and its unpopular atheistic character, and accommodated itself to those systems.

But Buddhism in parting with its ultra-pessimism and its atheistic and agnostic ideas, lost its chief elements of individuality and its chief independent stand-point.

Vaishṇavism, on the other hand, was quite alive to its own interests, and had an eye to the spread of its own doctrines. It took care to adopt all the popular features of Buddhism. It vied with Buddhism in inculcating universal love, toleration, liberality, benevolence, and abstinence from injury. It preached equality, fraternity, and even in some cases the abolition of caste distinctions. It taught a succession of incarnations or rather descents (Avatāra[71]) of divine beings upon earth (as Buddhism taught a succession of Buddhas), and it even adopted the Buddha himself as one of the incarnations of Vishṇu.

This, indeed, is the best explanation of what has happened at Purī in Orissa, where a temple once 166 dedicated to Gautama Buddha, and supposed to contain a relic of his burnt body, was afterwards dedicated to the Jagannāth form of Kṛishṇa and supposed to enshrine one of his bones, and where low-caste and high-caste both eat together the food cooked in the house of that popular god.

The same may be said of the interaction which took place between Buddhism and Ṡaivism; for Ṡaivism, of course, was quite as bent on the propagation of its own creed as other systems were. It vied with Buddhism in encouraging abstract meditation, and although it had less sympathy than Vaishṇavism had with that system, it approached in some respects so closely to its rival, that when Buddhism disappeared from India, images of Gautama were converted into representations of Ṡiva seated in profound contemplation.

Ultimately, the interaction between the three systems proceeded to such a point that each was influenced and modified by the other; each learnt something, or adopted some practice from the other.

It was thus, too, that Ṡāktism, i. e. the worship of energy or force (Ṡakti), identified with Ṡiva’s consort, was imported into Buddhism; its doctrine of the self-evolution of all things from Prakṛiti having much that harmonized with the Buddhist theory of the origin of the Universe. Thus, too, even Tāntrism in its worst forms became intermixed with Buddhistic practice.

Enough, then, has been said to justify the assertion that Buddhism was not forcibly expelled from India by the Brāhmans. It simply in the end—possibly as late as the thirteenth century of our era—became 167 blended with the systems which surrounded it, though the process of blending was gradual.

It would certainly be easy to prove from the records of the three Chinese travellers, that Buddhism and Brāhmanism existed together in Northern and Central India as quite distinct systems till at least the seventh century of our era, if not always quite amicably, yet without any violent internecine conflict. Bitter controversies between the two rival creeds are without doubt clearly alluded to, and Fā-hien in one passage states that ‘the Brāhmans with their contrary doctrine became full of hatred and envy in their hearts[72].’ Yet, on the other hand, we find that at a Council held by the great Buddhist king Ṡilāditya (Harsha-vardhana), whose meritorious acts are fully described by Hiouen Thsang (ch. v), and who had his capital at Kanouj, in the year 634 of our era[73], controversial points relating to both Buddhism and Brāhmanism were discussed in a tolerant spirit, though it is said that in discussing questions between the Northern and Southern Buddhists, the ‘Little Vehicle’ was condemned.

Again, the Buddhist drama called Nāgānanda, ‘joy of the snake world[74],’ throws great light on the amicable 168 relations existing between the various sectarians and religionists in the days of king Ṡilāditya. It is the only Sanskṛit play in which the Nāndī or opening prayer invokes the power of Buddha, thus:—

‘“On whom dost thou meditate, putting on a pretence of religious abstraction, yet opening thine eyes? See, saviour that thou art, thou dost not pity us sick with the shafts of Love. Falsely art thou compassionate. Who is more cruel than thou?” May Buddha, the conqueror, who was thus jealously addressed by the Apsarasas (daughters) of Māra (p. 34), protect you!’

Professor E. B. Cowell has shown in his valuable Preface that both this play and the sister Hindū play called Ratnāvali were probably put forth or at least patronised by Harsha-vardhana (Ṡilāditya), and that both were probably acted at the same period, the king being as much a Hindū as a Buddhist. Hiouen Thsang praises Harsha-vardhana for his support of Buddhism, but in his description of the two Convocations held by that king, states that both Buddhists and Brāhmans were equally honoured by him, and intimates that half his subjects held one doctrine and half the other. In the second Convocation which took place at Prayāga (now Allahābād) eighteen kings were present and 500,000 monks and laymen. On the first day the statue of Buddha was installed; on the second day that of the Sun, and on the third that of Ṡiva. Alms were distributed to Brāhmans and Buddhists alike, and even to the Nirgranthas or Jaina naked heretics.

Again the well-known play called Mālatī-Mādhava (by Bhava-bhūti, who lived at Kanauj in the beginning 169 of the eighth century) has an opening prayer addressed to Ṡiva, and yet a female Buddhist ascetic and her attendant constitute two of the principal dramatis personæ, proving that an intermixture of the two creeds prevailed everywhere.

It was also during the reign of Ṡilāditya that the immense monastery at Nālanda near Rāja-gṛiha formed a seat of learning, which might suggest a comparison with the learned monkish communities and even with the universities of mediæval Europe[75]. In that monastery might be seen several thousand novices and monks of the eighteen Buddhist schools—all of them supported by royal grants, and thus enabled both to perform their religious duties, and to prosecute the study of philosophy, law, and science in literary ease. It is probable that if disputes and disagreements upon burning questions occurred, they rarely led to serious conflicts, and were not general throughout India, but confined to particular localities; and I think it may be safely affirmed that if Buddhism was ever anywhere persecuted, it never anywhere persecuted in return.

I myself was much struck in a visit I paid to Ellora in the Nizām’s territory by the evidence I there saw of the friendly tolerance which must have prevailed between Brāhmans, Buddhists, and Jains. Brāhmanical, Buddhist, and Jaina caves are there seen side by side, and their inmates no doubt lived on terms of fairly friendly tolerance, much as the members 170 of the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Wesleyan communions live in Europe at the present day.

Even at Benares, the stronghold of Brāhmanism, I witnessed similar proofs of amicable mutual intercourse, and at Nāsik—the Benares of Western India—the proximity of the Buddhist caves and ruined monasteries which I visited, made it abundantly clear that Brāhmans and Buddhists agreed to differ and to avoid serious quarrels.

It must nevertheless be admitted, that in the extreme South of India, and perhaps eventually at Benares and a few other strongholds of Brāhmanism, the difference between the systems became so accentuated as to lead to grievous conflicts. Whether blood was shed it is impossible to prove; but it is alleged, with some degree of probability, that violent crusades against Buddhism were instituted by Kumārila and Ṡaṅkara—two well-known Southern Brāhmans noted for their bigotry—in the seventh and eighth centuries of our era. It does not appear, however, that they were very successful either in the conversion or extermination of Buddhists.

It may, I think, be confidently affirmed that what ultimately happened in most parts of India was, that Vaishṇavas and Ṡaivas crept up softly to their rival and drew the vitality out of its body by close and friendly embraces, and that instead of the Buddhists being expelled from India, Buddhism gradually and quietly lost itself in Vaishṇavism and Ṡaivism. In fact, by the beginning of the thirteenth century very little Buddhism remained on Indian soil. In a philosophical drama, called ‘the Rise of the Moon of Knowledge’ 171 (Prabodha-ćandrodaya), written probably about the twelfth century, the approaching triumph of Brāhmanism over Buddhism is clearly indicated; for the Buddhist and other heretical sects are represented as belonging to the losing side.

Yet, after all, it is scarcely correct to say that Buddhism ever wholly died away in India. Its name indeed perished there, but its spirit survived, and its sacred places remain to this day. Its ruined temples, monasteries, monuments, and idols are scattered everywhere, while some of these have been perpetuated and adopted by those later phases of Hindūism which its own toleration helped to bring into existence.

At all events it may be safely affirmed that the passing away of the Buddhistic system in India was on the whole like the peaceful passing away of a moribund man surrounded by his relatives, and was at least unattended with any agonizing pangs[76].

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