History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c91.310.2

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.