The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s8.41

c31.s8.41

This crushing blow, followed up, of course, by similar acts of violence, destroyed the vitality of Buddhism in its ancient home. No doubt, a few devout, though disheartened, adherents of the system lingered round the desecrated shrines for a few years longer; and even to this day traces of the religion once so proudly dominant may be discerned in the practices of obscure sects; but Buddhism as an organized religion in Bihār, its last abode in Upper India south of the Himalaya, was destroyed once and for all by the sword of a single Musalman adventurer.² Many monks who escaped death fled to Tibet, Nepāl, and Southern India. Their advent produced an important effect upon the Hindu revival in Southern India. In Tibet the arrival of the learned refugees enabled Buton, the Grand Lama appointed by Kublai Khan, to enrich the Tibetan language by translations from Sanskrit sources, which were included in the *Tangyur* encyclopaedia at the close of the thirteenth century. The preservation of the fruits of the joint labours of the Indian Pundits and the Tibetan Lamas was secured by the practice of the art of block-printing, which had been introduced into Tibet from China in the seventh century.³