The History of Buddhist Thought c26.71

c26.71

There is no reason to think that the decline of Buddhism was due to persecution. C. Bendall suggested that it was perhaps owing to Tantrism that Buddhism came to be discredited in India and disappeared. This explanation will scarcely hold, for Tantrism only affected certain schools, and the Tantrism of the Hindus still flourishes. In the absence of historical facts, the causes of the disappearance of Buddhism in India must remain hypothetical. The great difference of organization between Hinduism and Buddhism lay in the fact that the brahmin priests were not an ascetic body apart from the laity. They were a part of the social structure and an essential part in carrying out the rites and sacraments for the laity. In this function they were essential even for the Buddhist laity. While the Order continued there was a body in existence in open opposition to brahminism, and the disappearance of the Order meant the end of Buddhism. The Buddhist layman, who was all along a member of a Hindu caste, worshipped deities differing little from the Hindu gods. If the educated monk and his community disappeared, there was no essential principle to distinguish the Buddhist layman from the Hindu. Mr. Nagendranath Vasu has shown how in Orissa a form of Buddhism survived which became disguised as a form of Hinduism.¹ With the disappearance of the monks and the absence of any definite teaching the god Dharma became another of the numberless gods of India.