History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c37.66

v3.c37.66

Kṣemendra (about 1066 A. D.) in his Daśāvatāra-carita and the Gītagovinda of Jayadeva (about 1180-1200 A. D.) speak of Buddha as an avatāra of Viṣṇu. Therefore at least before or about the 10th century A. D. Buddha had come to be looked upon as an avatāra of Viṣṇu throughout India.¹⁷²⁸ The total disappearance of Buddhism from India, the land of its birth, is a most striking phenomenon, which as stated by A. Schweitzer in 'Indian thought and its development' (tr. by Mrs. C. E. B. Russell, 1935) p. 137, cannot be satisfactorily explained. Though Buddha did not accept the authority of the Vedas and of brāhmaṇas, nor the existence of an individual soul nor the Supreme Soul, he believed in *karma* and *punarjanma* and in release from *saṁsāra* by renunciation and desirelessness. When his followers deified Buddha, when animal sacrifices had been almost stopped and his insistence on universal charity and kindliness and on self-restraint were universally accepted by the followers of the Vedic religion, Buddha came to be deemed an avatāra of Viṣṇu, as the *raison d'être* for a separate cult ceased and the decadence of morals among monks and nuns hastened the downfall of Buddhism, the finishing touches being added by the Moslem invasions from about 1200 A. D. No one can affirm that persecution had anything to do with the disappearance of Buddhism from India. Though it cannot be said that there was no religious persecution whatever at any time in India, the evidence for persecution is very limited and such persecution if any as may have existed was as nothing compared to the persecution of Christians by other Christians and of Jews in all centuries and particularly in the 20th century by several so-called Christian powers. The few well-authenticated cases of large-scale persecutions are those of Śaśāṅka who persecuted the Buddhists (vide Beal's 'Records of the eastern world,' vol. I p. 212, vol. II. p. 42, 91, 118, 121), of Mihirakula, of a Pāṇḍya king (in the 11th century ) who persecuted the Jainas. From Aśoka downwards, kings and the civil power always extended a generous tolerance to all sects ( vide Aśoka's Rock Edict No. 12 ). The father of the great emperor Harṣa was a worshipper of the Sun, while Harṣa's elder brother Rājyavardhana was a Buddhist and Harṣa, though himself a Śaiva, speaks of his brother with greater reverence than of his own father ( vide the Madhuban copperplate inscription in E. I. vol. VII p. 155 and I p. 67 ). Vide Barth's ' Religions of India ' pp. 133-134, Farquhar's ' Outlines of the Religious Literature of India ' pp. 169, 175 for general religious tolerance in ancient India.