The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s2.15

c31.s2.15

The total disappearance of the Buddhist worship from India, the land of its birth, has been the subject of much discussion and some misconception. Until lately the assumption commonly was made that Buddhism had been extinguished by a storm of Brahman persecution. That is not the true explanation. Occasional active persecutions by Hindu kings, like Sasāṅka, which no doubt occurred, though rarely, formed a factor of minor importance in the movement which slowly restored India to the Brahmanical fold. The furious massacres perpetrated in many places by Musalman invaders were more efficacious than orthodox Hindu persecutions, and had a great deal to do with the disappearance of Buddhism in several provinces. But the main cause was the gradual, almost insensible, assimilation of Buddhism to Hinduism, which attained to such a point that often it is nearly impossible to draw a line between the mythology and images of the Buddhists and those of the Hindus. This process of assimilation is going on now before our eyes in Nepāl, and the chief interest which that country offers to some students is the opportunity presented by it for watching the manner in which the octopus of Hinduism is slowly strangling its Buddhist victim. The automatic compression of the dying cult by its elastic rival is aided by the action of the Government, which throws its influence and favour on the side of the Hindus, while abstaining from violent persecution of the Buddhists.¹