The Rashtrakutas and their Times c20.2

c20.2

The Hindu revival, begun in the north under the S'unga patronage, reached its culmination in India as a whole during our period. There were a few exceptions; Sindh continued to be largely under the Buddhist influence down to the beginning of our age as the Chachanāmā testifies; in Bengal Buddhism continued to flourish down to its conquest by the Muslims towards the end of the 12th century. In the Deccan itself the revival of Hinduism did not in the least affect the prospects of Jainism; it continued to be the religion of a strong minority throughout our period. That sect was destined to make rapid progress in Gujarat in the 12th century under the influence of Hemachandra and his pupil and patron king Kumārapāla. In spite of this local ascendency of Buddhism and Jainism in some of the provinces of India, it must be, however, admitted that the period under review marked a distinct and decisive advance of the reformed Hinduism. The discomfiture of Buddhism can be regularly traced from a much earlier period. It is true that in spite of state patronage of Hinduism Buddhism continued to prosper in the Gupta age, as the accounts of Fa Hsien and the sculptures of the Gupta school of Buddhist art at Sarnath, which represents the indigenous Buddhist art at its best, clearly show. But the tide had turned; and its effects were to be clearly seen in the seventh century. In spite of Harsha, Yuan Chwang found that the Punjab, and the Northern United Provinces, which were definitely Buddhist at the time of Fa Hsien, had slipped back into heterodoxy. Sacred places of Buddhists like Kosambi, S'ravastī, Kapilavastu, Kusinagara, and Vaiśālī were either wild ruins or populated by heretics;(1) even in Magadha, Buddhism was not supreme.