History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c91.310
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c91.310
- Language
- English
v7.c91.310.1
The causes that have been advanced from time to time by scholars for the total disappearance of Buddhism from India must now be dealt with. (1) Persecution is alleged by some scholars as at least one of the main causes. King Puṣyamitra of the Śuṅga dynasty is charged with having proclaimed that whoever would bring to him the head of a *śramaṇa* would receive one hundred *dīnāras*;¹⁶⁴⁴ Mihirakula, king of Kashmīr, is accused by Yuan Chwang (or more correctly, Hsuan Tsang according to some modern writers) with having overthrown Buddhist topes in Gandhāra, with destruction of monasteries and the slaughter of myriads of Buddhists (vide 'In the footsteps of Buddha' by René Grousset pp. 119-120 on Mihirakula, the Indian Attila), king Śaśānka is said by Yuan Chwang to have destroyed the Bo-tree (*Bodhidruma*), replaced the image of Buddha by one of Maheśvara and to have destroyed the religion of Buddha and dispersed the order (vide Beal's 'Buddhist Records of the Western World' Vol. II. pp. 118, 122 and Watters on 'Yuan Chwang's Travels' Vol. II, pp 115-116); king Sudhanvan is supposed to have issued at the instigation of Kumārila1644a a proclamation to take effect from the Himālayas to Cape Comorin (which is palpably absurd) that he would put to death any servant of his who did not kill the Buddhists. These instances are carefully examined by no less a scholar than Rhys Davids in the Journal of the Pali Texts Society for 1896 (pp 87-92).
v7.c91.310.2
After adverting to the facts that there is nothing about persecution in the Pali Pitakas, that the tone of Pali books is throughout appreciative of brāhmanas, that no details are given and that hardly any names of persons suffering by persecution are mentioned, he asserts that he does not believe in these stories, but adds that he does not go so far as to maintain that there is no truth at all in the legend about Puṣyamitra (but judgment must be reserved in view of the text in the *avadāna* being corrupt and the author of it being grossly ignorant). As to the legend about Sudhanvan and Kumārila he holds that of all the cases of alleged persecution this is the weakest and that it is no more than boastful and rhetorical exaggeration¹⁶⁴⁵ Rhys Davids emphasizes that the adherents of both faiths so diametrically opposed to each other lived in continuous peace side by side for a thousand years, that this redounds to the credit of the whole Indian people from the time of Aśoka downwards and that India never indulged in persecution in anyway approaching to the persecution of reforming Christians by the orthodox Church or the persecution of Christians by the Roman authorities. Dr. R. C. Mitra in "*Decline of Buddhism in India*" (pp. 125-130) arrives at the same conclusion about the cases of persecution. Barth (in '*Religions of India*' p.
v7.c91.310.3
136) admits that everything tends to prove that Buddhism became extinct from sheer exhaustion and that it is in its own inherent defects that we must seek for the causes of its disappearance. He prefaces this remark with the words 'the most reliable documents, coins and inscriptions, bear evidence of a tolerance exceptionally generous on the part of the civil powers' (p. 133) and illustrates this by examples.1645a It should be noted that great Smṛtikāras like Yājñavalkya laid down that when an Indian king reduced a kingdom to subjection, it was the conqueror's duty to honour the usages, the transactions and family traditions of the conquered country and to protect them. Aśoka, though himself a believer in Buddha's teachings, shows great tolerance by requiring honour to be shown to all beliefs and sects in his 12th Rock Edict in the words 'Neither praising one's own sect nor blaming other sects should take place,' that 'other sects ought to be duly honoured in every case', that 'concord (samavāya) alone is meritorious, that is they should both hear and honour each other's Dhamma'¹⁶⁴⁶ In the 7th Pillar Edict (Delhi-Topra p 136) Aśoka proclaims that he appointed officers called Mahāmātras to look after the Sangha (the community or body of preaching Buddhist mendicants), brāhmanas, Ājivikas, Nigganthas and all other *pāsaṇḍas* (sects).
v7.c91.310.4
India has been for thousands of years a country of nearly absolute tolerance, which is literally a religion, while European religiosity has nearly always been intolerant and, when not intolerant, it is tantamount to mental hostility or complete indifference Most Indian religious people were and are ready to agree that there may be alternative approaches to the mystery of life and the salvation of the soul. Indians feel amused at the claims of millions of people that some prophet revered by them has got the monopoly of the knowledge of God and the Hereafter. This tolerance for differing tenets and cults persisted in India with rare exceptions throughout the long stretch of time from centuries before Aśoka onwards till about 1200 A. D. when Moslems overran India. A few striking instances (both early and late) may be cited here: (1) Khāravela again, a Jain king of Kalinga (2nd or 1st century B C), granted freedom from taxation to brāhmanas in the 9th year of his reign (E I vol. XX. p. 79 and 88); (2) The Nasik cave Ins No. 10 records that Usavadāta, son-in-law of Ksatrapa Nahapāna of the Kşaharāţa lineage made very large gifts to gods and brāhmanas on the s of sacred rivers and at Bharukaccha (modern Broach), pura, Govardhana and donated a field for feeding a congreon of Buddhist monks (E. I. Vol. VIII p. 78); (3) The ia kings were generally devotees of Visnu but they also gifts to Buddhist monks e. g. Gupta Inscription No. 5 upta Inscriptions' ed.
v7.c91.310.5
by Fleet pp 31-34) records a grant by rakārdava (an officer of Chandragupta II) to an Āryasangha he Gupta year 93 (412-3 A. D), (4) Siri Chāntamūla I, an āku king of Śrīparvata in Āndhradeśa, had performed istoma, Vājapeya and Aśvamedha sacrifices but the ladies of family were almost all Buddhist and one of them erected a ar in honour of the supreme Buddha (E I. Vol. XX. p 8 and aswal's 'History of India' 50-350 A D, p 175); (5) The itraka rulers of Valabhī (in Kathiawar) were all orthodox ıdus and almost all are described as great devotees of heśvara (Śiva) The Journal of the University of Bombay III. (pp. 74-91) sets out five grants (four Buddhist and one brāhmaṇa) The first is issued by a feudatory Gārulaka nārāja Varāhadāsa in Valabhī year 230 (= 549 A.D) and the ers by the Valabhi kings themselves. The four Buddhist records te grants to Yaksaśūra-vihāra and Pūrnabhatta-vihāra (botlı nasteries for nuns) of lands and villages for providing rments, food, beds, seats and medicines to the nuns and for viding for incense, flowers, sandalwood &c. for the worship Buddha images; (6) A king of Orissa, named Śubhākara- 'a, who was son of a Buddhist king and who styles himself ramasaugata, made a grant of two villages in the latter half the 8th century to a hundred brāhmaṇas belonging to various tras (E. I. vol. 15 at pp. 3-5 Neulpur grant);
v7.c91.310.6
(7) Vigrahapāla, ng of Bengal, who belonged to the Buddhist Pāla dynasty, anted in the 12th year of his reign a village to a Sāmavedi thmana after taking a bath in the Ganges on a lunar ipse in honour of Buddha (Bhagavantam Buddhabhattārakam diśya) by the Amgacchi grant (E I. Vol. XV. p. 293 at . 295-298, about 1000 A. D); (8) The successor of king igrahapāla (iii) by name Mahīpāla granted a village in honour Buddha after a bath in the Ganges in Visuva-sankrānti to a hmana (E I. Vol. XIV. p. 324), vide also I. A. vol. 21 : 253-258 for a grant of Devapāladeva, a Buddhist king of engal, about the end of the 9th century, recording a grant of a llage to a learned brāhmana (9) In the Kalacuri stone scription from Kasia (E. I vol. XVIII p 128) the first invoca- on in prose is to Rudra and then to Buddha, the first two verses are in praise of Śaṅkara, 3rd in praise of Tārā (a Buddhist deity) and the 4th and 5th verses praise Buddha (who is styled Muniṅdra); (10) Kumāradevī, 4th queen of Govindacandra (1114-1154 A D.), a Gāhadavāla king of Kanauj and an orthodox Hindu, built a *vihāra* in which she placed an image of Dharma-cakra Jina i e. Buddha (vide E. I. Vol. IX p. 319 at p. 324); (11) Govindacandra himself made a gift of six villages to a Buddhist learned ascetic (Śākyaraksita by name) who hailed from Utkala (Orissa) and to his pupil for the benefit of the Saṅgha at Jetavana Mahāvihāra (vide the Sahet-Mahet plate of Govindacandra dated *saṁvat* 1186, i. e. 1128-29 A. D.
v7.c91.310.7
recorded in E I. vol. XI p. 20 at p. 24). (12) The Madanapur plate of the Buddhist king Śrīcandra¹⁶⁴⁷ of East Bengal records that the king made a grant of land to a brāhmaṇa named Śukradeva 'in honour of Buddha-bhaṭṭāraka' after having bathed on the Agastitṛtīyā day. (13) The Dambal (inscription of the times of Cālukya Tribhuvanamalla alias Vikramāditya (in śaka 1017 i. e. 1095-96 A. D.) begins with an invocation to Buddha and records certain grants to two vihāras, one of Buddha built by certain Settis of Dharmāpura or Dharmavolal (i. e. Dambal in Dharwar District) and the other of Tārādevī by a Setti of Lokkigundi (or modern Lakkundi). (14) In E. I. vol. XVI p. 48 at p. 51 (Inscription of Lakṣmeśvara in 1147 A. D.) a general is styled as the restorer of the four sects viz. Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, Bauddha and Jaina (catuḥ-samaya-samuddharaṇam). (15) A stone inscription from Śrāvastī (modern Sahet-Mahet) of (Vikrama) samvat 1276 (1219-20 A. D.) records that a certain person Vidyādhara of the Vāstavya family established a convent for Buddhist ascetics at the town where the inscription was put up (I. A. Vol. 17 p. 61). (16) The Kumbhakonam Inscription of Sevappa Nāyaka of Tanjore (of 1580 A. D ) records the gift of some land in the brāhmaṇa village (*agrahāra*) of Tirumalīarājapuram to an individual attached to a temple of Buddha at Tiruvilandura.¹⁶⁴⁸