History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.98.3

v7.c92.98.3

Thus the prophecy of the founder of Buddhism pronounced, when yielding to the pressure and entreaties of his favourite disciple Ānanda for allowing women to be members of the *saṅgha* and to be nuns, that on account of this innovation his system would stand fast only for five hundred years, though otherwise it would have lasted for a thousand years, was literally fulfilled (vide Cullavagga X. 1. 6 in Vinaya Texts, vol. III, S. B. E. XX. p. 325). If we accept 483 B. C. as the date of Buddha's Parinirvāṇa (as many scholars hold) or 477 B. C. (as A. Foucher holds) 500 years therefrom would bring us to the first century A. D. and it is clear that by a century or two after that time much of Buddha's teaching appears to have been almost completely swamped by doctrines of Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Tantras. By a strange irony of fate Buddha's 'dharma-cakra-pravartana' came to be transformed into 'adharma-cakra-pravartana' by many of his so-called followers of the Vajrayāna. In the Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta V. 23 (S. B. E. vol XI. p. 91) the Buddha was very strict and warned bhikkhus not to see bhikkhunīs, not to talk to them if they could not avoid seeing them, and to be wide awake if a nun talked to them. Buddha severely rebuked one of his disciples for showing his miraculous powers (vide p. 1037 and n. 1672 above), but Guhyasamāja and other Buddhist tantras make provision for endowing the sādhaka with miraculous powers, such as causing rainfall in case of drought (Guhyasamāja p.