[Y-Indology] On Mr. Malaiya's comments

[Guest guest]

As noted, Buddhism was certainly on the decline by the time of Adi

Shankaracharya.

 

In my opinion, Buddhism had moved away from all it stood for. Buddhism was

supposed to be a "people's religion", preaching in Pali and other prakrit

languages, as against the Brahmanical Sanskrit.

 

But, the Mahayani saints/sanyasis controlled the religion from such bases as

Nalanda and such. They preached(?) in Sanskrit, and as per the (popular ?)

legend of Kumarila Bhatta, were always wary of the Hindu reformist/bhakti

saints.

 

Buddhism had also started to borrow sculpture, tradition and culture from

Hinduism, converting the sculptor castes, so as to induce them to picture

the Buddha in place of Hindu gods such as Vishnu and Shiva (perhaps one of

the reasons for the Buddha, over time replacing Halayudha as one of the ten

Avataras of Vishnu?)

 

In all Buddhism was no longer the popular religion it was originally

destined to be. It already did not hold water with the people by the time of

Adi Shankara. Buddhism was represented by the Sanyasis at the various (?)

universities such as Nalanda and Takshashila. Hence the "defeat" of the

Sanyasis - the authorities of Buddhism - in Philosophical debate (by Adi.

Shankara and perhaps others) pretty much expelled the faith from India.

(Shankara is also supposed to have "allowed" Buddhism to exist in other

countries, deeming it "better" than the religion Buddhism replaced in those

countries.)

 

Apologies for any offending statements. Also, this is my opinion (only) from

reading a lot of historical/legendary material, which might not be accurate

translations of any first hand accounts. I cannot quote any

book/manuscript/authority to support my statements.

 

-Regards, RV

 

 

-

"vpcnk" <vpcnk

<INDOLOGY>

Friday, August 30, 2002 6:13 PM

[Y-Indology] Re: On Mr. Malaiya's comments

 

 

>

> > It should be noted that Buddhism had already declined significantly

> > by the time of Sankaracharya. It continued to survive for several

> > centuries after Sankaracharya in several regions of India.

>

> Nobody is disputing that Buddhism was "on the decline" by the time of

> Shankara - but it is to be noted that the bhakti saints preceded

> Shankara by several centuries - in their time Buddhism and Jainism

> ruled the roost in Southern India. All of the five great epics (Im

> Perum Kaapiyangal) of the Tamils are Buddhist or Jain only - none

> is "Hindu".

>

> So the question here is : what happened to all the Buddhists and

> Jains, especially in Southern India?

>

> I just pointed to the Shankara dig vijaya to show that conversion was

> happening even then. Even as Jainism and Buddhism poached on

> the "Hindu" masses to establish themselves in Southern India, at a

> later point in time they were poached back by "Hindu" saints.

>

> The collection of Jainaa medival stories translated by Phyllis

> Granoff illustrates many such conversions to Jainism from "Hindu"

> ranks.

>

[Guest guest]

Yashwantji,

 

>When Nalanda was flourishing, word Hindu had not come into use, and

>there was no clearly identifiable separation that allows defining the

>word Hindu then in a way to exclude Buddhists. "Hindu" at that time,

>and for several centuries after destruction of Nalanda, continued to

>mean Indian.

 

I agree. There was certainly no term "Hindu" then. What I meant by this was

the Brahmana (and other non-buddhist) students. And those like Kumarila

Bhatta - who, at least in some records, is said to have been mistreated by

the - shall I use the word - "buddhist fundamentalists" of the time? He also

is said to have entered the heap of burning embers (?) because he had

'betrayed'(?) (perhaps not the right word, but I cant think of the right one

in English) his buddhist guru. I had used the word "wary" because there were

perhaps others like Bhatta, who apparently studied Buddhist philosophy only

in order to defeat the buddhist sanyasis in their own game - philosophical

debate.

 

>Worship of statues of Buddha apears to be just as old. For many

>centuries, Buddhists were the main patrons of the sculptors.

>The religion of sculptor castes has nothing to do with specific gods

>they carved.

 

Agreed, but Buddha in place of Hindu gods? Buddha as an avatar? That sounds

far-fetched given the animosity between the buddhist monks and their

brahmana counterparts. In some tales, atleast, the sculptors are said to

have been hesitant to carve the Buddha where they were used to carving

Vishnu, Shiva or Ganesha. Conversions are said to have been effected (with

sometimes the head-monk himself trying to impress upon the sculptor - a big

'stoop' for the head-monk in those days, perhaps) to get the sculptors to

carve the necessary.

 

>The vedic tradition originally did not use statues or temples.

>Manusmriti is critical of brahmins who serve as priests at temples.

 

The statues and temples part, I agree, was true. The Manusmriti part, I had

not really paid much attention till now. There was mainly fire worship way

back (what I mean, I guess, is that there were yaga-yajna, etc) - the Karma

kanda ritualists. But by the time of the decline of Buddhism - by the time

of Adi Shankaracharya, temples and statue worship was in vogue (borrowed

from Jainism?) among the sanathana dharmis.

 

>Why Buddhism declined has been widely debated. It has been argued

>that many Buddhist practices became part of other traditions and thus

>Buddhism lost its edge. Also Buddhism may have been a victim of its

>success. Its viharas owned a lot of land, the life of monks became

>too easy and they spent all their time discussing philosophy and

>logic. "Brain drain" of learned monks over several centuries may also

>have had some impact.

 

I agree. In the ultimate analysis, perhaps the decline was for a host of

reasons - all or a subset of the stated ones among our posts.

 

Regards,

Ravindra

 

PS: I have no claims to academic scholarship about the subject I have been

writing about. I am an engineer by profession. Please forgive the gaping

lacunae, and illogical statements (if any) in my posts.

 

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[Guest guest]

Ravindra wrote:

 

> Buddhism was

> supposed to be a "people's religion", preaching in Pali and other prakrit

> languages, as against the Brahmanical Sanskrit.

[snip]

> They preached(?) in Sanskrit...

While one might agree that Sanskrit was used by Buddhist scholar-monks for

their works -- as a lingua franca among scholars perhaps -- what evidence is

there that they "preached" to the masses in Sanskrit ? We know that

considerable amounts of literature were produced in Apabhramsa after the

period in question. and not all schools of Buddhism in India adopted

Sanskrit in any case.

One also is in danger of getting a slanted impression of early medieval

Buddhism when relying solely on literature -- thus, other rs have

claimed, wrongly in may view, that Buddhism was primarily a monastic

religion. It depends what is meant by "monastic" -- is the emphasis on

monks or their place of residence. If the latter, then one should not

forget the importance of the forest-dwelling tradition which continued

alongside the settled way of life in monasteries.

 

> It already did not hold water with the people by the time of

> Adi Shankara.

Though Buddhism was probably less influential by the time of Shankara, what

evidence is there for the above statement ? What records have "the people"

left for us to determine what they did or did not think ?

 

> Buddhism was represented by the Sanyasis at the various (?)

> universities such as Nalanda and Takshashila.

Who are these "sanyasis" ? It is not a term encountered in Buddhist

literature.

 

> Hence the "defeat" of the

> Sanyasis - the authorities of Buddhism - in Philosophical debate (by Adi.

> Shankara and perhaps others) pretty much expelled the faith from India.

> (Shankara is also supposed to have "allowed" Buddhism to exist in other

> countries, deeming it "better" than the religion Buddhism replaced in

those

> countries.)

As they say, the victors write history. For an interesting, alternative,

Buddhist view of Shankara's activities, see for example pp224-235 of

Taranatha's History of Buddhism in India (trans. Lama Chimpa Alaka

Chattopadyaya). This acknowledges that Buddhism was on the defensive in

India, especially in the south and east, due Shankara's debating skills but

we are told, however, that Shankara was eventually defeated by Dharmakirti

and committed suicide

by jumping into the Ganga. The account then suggests that there was a

strong Budhist revival in some quarters for several centuries -- certainly

the accounts of the Chinese and Tibetan pilgrims do not suggest that

Buddhism was yet a spent force.

 

Best wishes,

Stephen Hodge