The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c6.59

v1.c6.59

In the middle of the seventh century, Hiouen Thsang found the Brāhmaṇs on the ascendant, but Buddhism still maintaining its ground,—the heretics and the men of the law living pell-mell. Buddhism must have, however, soon after yielded to its adversary, and retired altogether from the field. The belief is pretty common that a general persecution headed by Saṅkara Ācārya was the main cause of its disappearance, and that a long protracted war was carried on to effect that object. According to Chevalier Bunser, the Hindu priesthood “rejected Buddhism, and entered on a sanguinary persecution of its adherents, issuing in a war of extermination, such as we only find repeated once in the annals of mankind, namely, in that deadly struggle of the Romish hierarchy which ended with the yet more cruel Thirty Years’ War”.⁴¹ The existence of a *maṭh* or monastery of Śaṅkara at Puri has given [ 9 ] some colouring to this theory. There is nothing, however, in the records of the Buddhists and the Hindus to support it. Volumes upon volumes have been read and analysed, but as yet without affording a single trace of anything like a protracted war between the two sects. The two lives extant of Śaṅkara are perfectly silent on the subject, and nowhere shew that that great Vedāntist and reformer ever used other than legitimate polemical weapons to overcome his opponents ; and his character of a mendicant afforded him but scant opportunities to persecute rival sectaries.⁴² It is worthy of note also that his biographers, who have entered into tedious details of his peregrinations in different parts of India, do not say that he ever visited Orissa. The fact is, that even as Buddhism rose mainly by working on the religious sentiment of the people, so did modern Hinduism. At a time when the rituals of the Vedic worship deluged the country with the blood of thousands of animals slaughtered in the name of God, the universal benevolence of Śākya appealed to the feeling of the people with a force and directness of purpose, which proved irresistible. No man, who had seen a dozen heads of cattle killed by spikes driven into their chests, the usual mode of sacrifice at the time, could for a moment deny the superiority of a religion which preached mercy for all created beings, and absolutely prohibited slaughter of every kind. But the Brāhmaṇs were not slow in perceiving their weak points; they soon dropped the sacrifices of the Vedas; inculcated universal love and kindness, even in the very words of their rivals; and adopted a system of anthropomorphic theology which completely restored to them their hold on the mind of the masses. The theory of a gradual intellectual perfection, which formed the corner-stone of Buddhist philosophy, could not stand against a man-god endowed with supernatural attributes, and ever ready to attend to the call of his devotees; and faith and devotion offered to illiterate people were far easier means of attaining salvation, than the cultivation of the intellectual powers to a high theoretical standard. The Brāhmaṇs went further; they exalted the author of Buddhism by calling him an incarnation of the divinity; and, instead of exciting antagonism, gradually won the Buddhists over to their way of thinking by explaining away their theology and their philosophy. Generally speaking, their policy was not to excite an *odium theologicum*, but to enlist the sympathy of the people on behalf of their creed by advancing half-way, and agreeing to a compromise. They admitted the sanctity of the shrines and holy places of the followers of Buddha, adopted their customs and religious observation on a large extent,⁴³ and preached in the language of their teachers; but all in a manner so as completely to undermine their system, and transform it into a different religion.