Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c19.23

c19.23

So when we should say that the Dharma cult is a crypto-Buddhist cult, we should remember that it can be said to be Buddhistic only in so far as it bears faint relation to that form of later Buddhism, more than ninety per cent of which belong to religious systems other than Buddhism. We have seen in an earlier chapter that various forms of Tāntric Buddhism were prevalent in Bengal up to the twelfth century A.D. The revival of Hinduism with the rise of the Senas of Bengal and the Muslim invasion of Bengal dealt a death blow to all schools of professed Buddhism in Bengal. It is a well-known fact that many of the Vihāras, which were important centres of Buddhism, were mistaken by the Mahomedan invaders to be the forts of the enemy and were ruined. But, as it has rightly been pointed out by MM. H. P. Śāstrī, no religious movement of long-standing cultural influence can be eradicated all at once from a land by any other religious movement or political and religious causes. Buddhism, even in its Tāntric form, was pushed aside and was gradually assimilated into the cognate religious systems among the Hindus and the Muslims, and the Dharma cult is the outcome of such a popular assimilation. It is to be noted that the yogic element, which forms the most important factor of Sahajiyā Buddhism, had no influence on the Dharma cult and save some yogic imageries and phrases found occasionally used in the liturgical works,¹ no reference to yoga of any sort is to be found in the Dharma cult.