what happened to buddhism in india?

Question

india is the cradle of buddhism, but today you will not find a single indian who is a buddhist. How did buddhism leave india and take root in places such as sri lanka and tibet? i wonder how buddhism vanished from its cradle india?

Answer 1

Buddhist could not sustain attacks from Islam. They were too passive to resist.

Arabic word for idolaters is " But Parast"(But =Buddha, Parast=follower). The word 'But' as everybody knows, is the Arabic word and means an idol. 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.


Islam came out as the enemy of the 'But'. The word 'But' as everybody knows, is the Arabic word and means an idol.

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 whatever 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..."


"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."

-Dr Amebdakar.
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 disappearance of Buddhism from India is due to the practical coalescence of the two faiths, especially when both the Brahmanical and Buddhist faiths got mixed up with gross superstitions. The over emphasis on an exclusive ethical pathway to salvation by some of the Buddhistic schools made it incompatible with the flexible, many-sided, synthetic genius of the Indian religious consciousness. The Indian religion rejected the exclusiveness and assimilated the valuable teachings of Buddhism and thus preserved the line of continuity."

(source: East and West: Some Reflections - By S. Radhakrishnan p.30).

British Historian 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."

In particular the destruction of the Buddhist universities of Nalanda, Vikramshila, Odantapura, and Jagddala as the universities destroyed by Mohammed Bakhtiar Khilji around 1200 A.D. These were particularly heinous crimes. The burning of the Library of Nalanda ranks with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria as the two most notorious acts of vandalism in the course of Islamic expansion.

Long before the Arabs came here with their new religion of Islam, Buddhist monks lived in Central Asia, the conduit through which Buddhism traveled from India to the East.

The giant Buddha statues at Bamian in Afghanistan lay on the same road.

They have been destroyed, but a wonderful sleeping Buddha, 16m long, still lies peacefully in Tajikistan.

And near Kampyr-Tepe, we were invited to the site of a Buddhist lamasery, where the mendicant monks lived underground in a labyrinth, to protect them from the terrible heat and cold of the plain.

(source: Uzbekistan's best kept secret - BBC news.com).

The infidels in the new territories were mainly Buddhists and Hindus. The Buddhists with their pacifist philosophy offered no resistance and were the first to go. The destruction of the monasteries, the killing of the monks and the rape of nuns is well-known even though there is still no book documenting this episode in all its horror.

The tradition of "but shikani" (idol or statue-breaking) practiced by Arab marauders in their quest to rule the Indian subcontinent, was done on the plea that idol or religious object worshipping was un-Islamic.

One thousand years later, this intolerance has resurfaced, justifying the destruction of all statues of the Buddha (Bamiyan Buddhas) in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

Chek out Buddhist areas in history. From Tajikistan, Afganistan, Pakistan ,Bangladesh , Bihar , all of them are Islamic majority area.

Answer 2

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/DECLINE.HTM

" We don't know why Buddhism declined in the last half of the first millenium AD. By the time the Muslims began conquering India in the twelfth century, the number of monasteries had severely declined. Buddhism, which once had spread across the face of India, was a vital force only in the areas of its origins. Scholars believe that the monasteries became detached from everyday life in India. After centuries of patronage, the monasteries had amassed a wealth of endowments. Life inside the monasteries was very good. So the monasteries became very selective in admitting monks to the brotherhood.

For the everyday Indian, Buddhism increasingly became indistinguishable from Hinduism, which had undergone a transformation itself. The average Hindu thought of Buddha as a god among their gods; we find numerous indications that Buddha was worshipped by Hindus as any other god. In fact, Hinduism eventually construed Buddha as a manifestation, or avatar , of the god Vishnu (Krishna is another avatar of Vishnu).

Finally, the Buddhists lived in separate communities; Buddhism wasn't an integral part of everyday life in India, such as the rituals associated with Hinduism. When the Muslims began their conquest of India in 1192, they energetically set about trying to convert the regions to Islam. Part of this conversion process involved suppressing indigenous religions. Since Hinduism was so fundamentally a part of Indian life, they didn't succeed in suppressing it. But when they destroyed the Buddhist monasteries and either executed or drove out the Buddhist monks, there was no-one left to take up the religion. From 1192 to the present day, Buddhism ceased to be an organized religion in India, the fertile soil from which the religion grew."

Answer 3

My dear friends,

I have read the above statements by all you learned ones, and have found them informative and thorough; however we have seem to failed on our goal of answering our friend, s21181's quesitons. Please allow me to suppliment and I am hopeful that my humble insight will enlighten every one of you.

As [billthedude ...] has kindly informed us, the cause which led to the decline of Buddhism in India was the conquest by the Muslims. What is omitted here is a background of their religious background, which I beleive is one of the key issues here. In the Islamic tradition, they do not idolize or worshipp images - of any kind. When they entered India near the end of the 12th century, they discovered that Buddhists worshipped grand stsutes of various Bodhisattva, Arahants and of course the Lord Buddha Himself. In there train of thought they felt they needed to "liberate" the Buddhists from their "slumber", hence they began the mass destruction of these holy statues and the temples/monasteries.

Buddhism teaches us of compassion, peace and non-violence, and being Buddha's followers, the Buddhist's of that time could only continues with their prayers and preaching. Although this was in no way aggrevating to the Muslims, they saw this as a threat to their conquest and vowed to completely exterminate Buddhism in India. Whether or not they were successful, it is uncertain, but it is certain that there was a massive decline in Buddhism from that time onward.

Please respect my humble apologies, s21181, as it is not true that there are no Buddhists in India; it is merely that the number is significantly smaller than that of the other religions present.

On to the next part of your question, after the pri-nirvana of the Lord Buddha, Buddhism was trasmitted into two major areas: the North and the South. The Northern transmission includes countries like China, Japan, Mongolia, Tibet (to name a few); the Southern transmission includes Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka (again, to name a few). As you ask about Tibet and Sri Lanka, you will see from my introduction that they are from two separate transmissions; what the differences are I will not discuss since it is not the focus of your question.

As it "HOW" they took root, it is a difficult question because Buddhism is spread according to the causes and conditions; it is very circumstantial. I can only assume that during the duration in which Buddhism was translating into these countries, it was much needed, and more importantly, strongly accpeted into society.

Please forgive me if I have offended anyone, and I am open to criticism and education from all the learned people of the world wide web.
Further, I hope I have managed to answer your question, s21181.

In Dharma,
vhy

Answer 4

there are still some indians that are buddhist. buddhism became popular among the indian lower classes as a reaction againt hinduism, which claimed that the lower castes deserved their place in the world. In the face of buddhism's growing popularity, the hindu priests incorporated buddhism into hinduism, making buddha an avatar of vishnu. I don't know the specifics beyond that the incorporation of buddhist beliefs into hinduism allowed for hinduism to rememerge as the dominant religion in india.

You might want to read this for a more in depth explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism#Decline_of_Buddhism_in_India_and_Central_Asia

Answer 5

I'll give a short answer. According to my knowledge the way it is said in the scriptures.....

It is said that All Buddha's are born in India (or what ever it is named at those times)..
& the Dhamma (The teaching) Prevails in Sri Lanka (or what ever it is named at those times).. :)

To give you a different perspective...... The Buddhas are born in times where the majority of ppl search for the end to birth, & death, end to suffering & a ever lasting place... By Meditation & other bazaar practices...

The Buddhas come & gives the correct path to Nirvana...
So when the Buddha passes away the leaders of other religions hack away at the foundations of Buddhism some how or the other...

May all be well & happy

Rami

Answer 6

Saint Shankaracharya belived in Vedic philosophy and found decline of thinking logically like in
Upanishad time (Hinduism) and he spread his Vedic teachings with group of followers all over
India in the 7th centuary and regained " Hinduism" in mst of India. The home of this great sage
and scholar was deep south went north with his teachings with his followers and thus Buddism
disappeared in most of India.It remained in Ceylone which was out of his area and similiarly
parts of north east India were beyond his reach. Rest of Buddhism was destroyed by Islamic
invaders. Prakash

Answer 7

Chinese kidnap Buddha to Beijing.. so Buddhism spread over China.

Answer 8

Well, short story here: Hindu was created because it embraced the caste system of reicarnation and karma, which were big deals. Essentially, Hinduism is a contradiction of sorts. But yeah, they kind of liked that better than just going to nirvana.

Answer 9

dumbo there are about 2 million buddhists in India even now

Answer 10

It could be that the Indian people like the other religions much better.