Were Buddhists persecuted by Hindus ? Was Hinduism responsible for extinction of Buddhism in India? हिंदू धर्म और बौद्ध धर्म
Were Buddhists persecuted by Hindus ? Was Hinduism responsible for extinction of Buddhism in India?
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Were Buddhists persecuted by Hindus ? Was Hinduism responsible for extinction of Buddhism in India?
GENERAL ANSWER -
This is now another piece of propaganda which is increasingly being used by Hinduphobes to randomly tarnish and bash Hindus. This is also a manifestation of the modern “victim-culture” in which the search for past and present victims and the identification of their persecutors has become a modern academic sport.
But I for one, love history and striving for academic honesty, like to put things into perspective.
Alleged Hindu Persecution of Buddhists.
Persecution of Buddhists was attributed to Pushyamitra Shunga (c185 - c149 BCE) but many scholars have expressed skepticism about the alleged accounts.
Pushyamitra Shunga - Wikipedia
Let us assume for the sake of argument that he did actually persecute Buddhists - lets look at a broader perspective. He was one single king and the alleged persecution took place over 2000 years ago in one state on the sub-continent of India. Blaming all “Hindus” for this ancient persecution is like blaming all Europeans for the German holocaust.
For the most of the past 2000 years, in most of South East Asia Hindus have lived in peace and harmony with the Buddhists and the Jains. Peaceful coexistence and harmony have been the norm.
Hindu wars against Hindus.
The famous Ashoka was a Hindu monarch who waged a destructive war against the neighbouring Hindu state of Kalinga (Odisha) which he conquered in about 260 BCE. After witnessing the mass deaths of the Kalinga war which he had waged out of a desire for conquest and which reportedly directly resulted in more than 100,000 deaths and 150,000 deportations, in about 263 BCE, he converted to Buddhism out of deep remorse, and became it’s greatest patron.
There were many other wars between Hindu kingdoms themselves over land and resources. The wars were not religious but political. The Hindus never destroyed each others’ temples as some apologists would claim, in order to exculpate the followers of the religion of peace.
Buddhist wars against Buddhists.
The Buddhist kings were never pacifists and some of them were very valiant warriors. The Burmese, Thais and Khmer were frequently at war with each other.
One of the worst examples was the sacking by the Burmese of Ayutthaya and the massacre of inhabitants and destruction of the monasteries and temples in 1768.
The Fall of Siam & the Lost Temples of Ayutthaya
In order to spare the feelings of the gentle readers one example will suffice but several others are there.
Now let’s take the other great religions and have a peek at their conflicted history.
The Christian wars of religion.
The wars of religion were a series of religious wars which were waged in Europe in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. The wars, which were fought between Catholics and Protestants after the Protestant Reformation began in 1517.
The Thirty Years Wars raged from 1618 till 1648.
The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts between the Christian nations waged from 1337 to 1453.
These wars resulted in mass deaths, starvation, deprivation and suffering. The warring factions desecrated each others churches and slaughtered each others clergy.
European wars of religion - Wikipedia
The Islamic wars of religion.
I allude to the perpetual conflict between the Sunni and Shia factions of Islam which has been going on for the past 1600 years and shows no sign of abating any time soon.
The internal fighting started soon after the death of the prophet with the wars of Riddha. The internal fighting even included the murder and beheading of the grandson of the prophet himself - Husayn along with his 6 year old son Ali. Husayn was one of the rightly guided caliphs. So Muslims themselves murdered members of the House of the Prophet.
Husayn ibn Ali - Wikipedia
The Turkish Ottomans ruled the middle east from the 14th up to the 20th century and were well known for their brutal repression of their fellow Muslims as well as religious minorities - the worst example is the horrendous genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915.
Armenian Genocide - Wikipedia
Buddhist wars against Hindus.
The recent conflict in Srilanka should be mentioned in which many Hindu and Christian civilians from the Tamil community were raped and massacred by Buddhists. Albeit this was not a religious conflict but rather ethno-nationalist.
Buddhist massacres of Muslims.
Check the accounts of the massacres and expulsions of the Rohingya Muslim minority from Myanmar.
So when we study history we see that human beings do horrible things to other humans and that every religion (apart from the Jains) have blood on their hands - they have massacred their own as well as others at some stage in history.
So in the interests of academic honesty and integrity we should refrain from casting stones at others when we all live in glass houses.
As Lord Jesus said “ Let him who is without guilt caste the first stone!”
Let us all acknowledge our past errors and also not blame anyone for the actions of others to whom they have only a religious affiliation. Let us all rather strive for community harmony, cooperation and global peace rather than indulging in “atrocity-archeology” in order to dig up ancient dirt to throw at each other.
DETAILED ANSWER-
hindusim,Buddhism,Jainism have existed side by side n flourished in mutual symbiosis for thousand of years.debating n exchanging many philosophical concepts n ideass The claim that some Brahmins attacked Buddhism is a contested issue n plain Lie in my view.Some people claim Pushpamitra Sunga eg to make their point that Hinduism persecuted Buddhists The Pushyamitra Sunga of Shunga dynasty is commonly targeted as destroyer of several Buddhist stupas and killer of Buddhist monks.This is rejected by Rhys David-who is considered as grand authority on Buddhism.Renowned historian Vincent smith also rejects this theory. This Well written blog by Koenraad Elst explains this
http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-pushyamitra-was-more-secular-than.html…
Marxist historians who have been perpetrating this falsehood have not been able to produce even an iota of evidence to substantiate the concoction.. the contention that Hindus destroyed Buddhist sites.This is a plain lie: under several Hindu dynasties, Buddhism flourished and had some of the the biggest university in the world for centuries t was destroyed by the Muslim invader Bakhtiar Khilji in 1200. But if you repeat a lie often enough, it gains currency, and now many Indians have come to believe that Buddhism had been replaced by Hinduism as India's chief religion in a most violent manner. In reality, Buddhism had always been a minority religion in India, confined to nobles and traders; before its disappearance around 1200 AD, it had been partly reabsorbed by mainstream Hinduism; otherwise it co-existed peacefully with other Hindu sects, often sharing the same temple- complexes. It is not Brahminical onslaught but Islam that chased Buddhism from India. In Central Asia, Islam had wiped out Buddhism together with Nestorianism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheism, and whatever other religion it encountered. The Persian word for idol is but, from Buddha, because the Buddhists with their Buddha-status were considered as the idol-worshippers par excellence. The Buddhists drew the wrath of every Muslim but-shikan (idol-breaker), even where they had not offered resistance aganinst the Muslim armies because of their doctrine of non-violence. As a reminder of the Buddhist past of Central Asia, the city name Bukhara is nothing but a corruption of vihara, i.e. a Buddhist monastery; other Indian names include Samarkhand and Takshakhand, i.e. Tashkent. In India, Buddhism was a much easier target than other sects and traditions, because it was completely centralized around the monasteries. Once the monsteries destroyed and the monks killed, the Buddhist community had lost its backbone and was helpless before the pressure to convert to Islam (as happened on a large scale in East Bengal)
This article is not against Buddhism or Buddhists but against those that run false factories to repeat the lie that Hindus used violence to uproot Buddhism from this land.
While there are many reasons why the history of this great land needs to be relooked and rewritten, the myth of the persecution of Buddhists by Hindus would find an entry amongst the top 3 reasons, to get it done. What is most interesting in this whole propaganda of persecution of Buddhists by Hindus is that it is Jihadis worldwide who look most concerned with this centuries old issue on humanitarian grounds forgetting that it were their fellow Momins aka Taliban only, in Afghanistan, who blew the ‘dirty’ Bamiyan Buddha statues and showed how much Jihadis care for Buddhists in 21st Century!
The point of this article is to expose the fallacy of the argument of Hindu persecution of Buddhists, with specific instances from Buddhist historical accounts. The scope of this article is not about delving into the theological aspects of what Siddhartha Gautama Buddha taught or the various schools of Buddhism prevalent today. We proceed to the meat of the article right away by looking at Buddhist historical accounts at the time of Emperor Ashoka, who was instrumental in the spreading of Buddhism far and wide.
Myth #1: Emperor Ashoka became enlightened after embracing Buddhism and he was the first and the last secular emperor ever to have ruled India.
As we all know, Ashoka, propelled by a sense of guilt after the bloodbath in Kalinga embraced Buddhism as some form of redemption to overcome the same. Not many Marxist historians and Islamic historians in India do seem to acknowledge a little fact that Emperor Ashoka was helped by two of his Hindu mentors in this move. So, to start with, if Hindus were as dogmatic about their faiths, as these historians have projected Hindus to be and had persecuted Buddhists, why and how did those that had sway over this great emperor allow him to embrace Buddhism as his personal faith?
And the anti-Hindu bias of these historians has forced them to hide Ashoka’s disdain towards other faiths, after he became a Buddhist. Here is an incident chronicled in “Ashokavadana” (acts of Ashoka) and I am quoting it verbatim – “….an incident occurred which greatly enraged the king. A follower of the Nirgrantha (Mahavira) painted a picture, showing Buddha prostrating himself at the feet of the Nirgrantha. Ashoka ordered all the Ajivikas of Pundravardhana (North Bengal) to be killed. In one day, eighteen thousand Ajivikas lost their lives. A similar kind of incident took place in the town of Pataliputra. A man who painted such a picture was burnt alive with his family. It was announced that whoever would bring the king the head of a Nirgrantha would be rewarded with a dinara (a gold coin). As a result of this, thousands of Nirgranthas lost their lives.” Only when Vitashoka, Ashoka’s favourite Arhat (an enlightened monk, a Theravada-Buddhist saint), was mistaken for a Nirgran tha and killed by a man desirous of the reward, did Ashoka revoke the order.
But our biased historians would never even acknowledge this, as, Buddhism was supposed to have cleansed Ashoka of all negativities and this incident flies in the face of the secular image that these folks have carefully built.
Myth #2: King Pushyamitra was a Hindu bigot that slaughtered Buddhist monks.
This King Pushyamitra , who was a military general in the Mauryan army (when the dynasty’s power was on the wane), executed a coup and he founded the Shunga dynasty. The charge that historians desperately try to make is exactly the account we saw above (what Ashoka did), excepting that this time, Ashoka has been replaced by Pushyamitra and instead of Nirgranthas, the victims were Buddhist monks. And the delta information in deriding Pushyamitra comes in the form of a powerful Arhat creating many of the monks’ heads and having them sent to King Pushyamitra’s court. Do we need anything more in terms the credibility of the accounts of King Pushyamitra persecuting Buddhists? The myth seems to hinge on some magic of a senior Buddhist monk creating severed heads of other monks and sending them to the king! Also, this narrative on Pushyamitra occurs towards the end of Ashokavadana. And it gets even shallower, as, there are historical accounts of King Pushyamitra patronizing the construction of many Buddhist monasteries. This is where the statement of the historian Etienne Lamotte assumes significance: “To judge from the documents, Pushyamitra must be acquitted through lack of proof.” (History of Indian Buddhism, Institut Orientaliste, Louvain-la-Neuve 1988/1958, p.109)
Myth #3: Hindu rulers systematically uprooted Buddhism.
This is a very generic myth and to counter it we are going to use chronicles of Chinese travelers, some of whom, where students of Buddhist theology. When Hieun Tsang (the Chinese traveler and a student of Buddhist theology) was in India, king Harshavardhana organized the Kanauj assembly (643 AD). This king was a patron of both Shaivism and Buddhism and in fact Harshavardhana has written plays integrating legends from Puranas and Jataka. The invitees to the Kanauj assembly included King Bhaskaravarman of Kamrupa (Assam), many Buddhist monks, Hindu and Jain scholars. And where did Hieun Tsang pursue further studies? He did it in Buddhist University of Nalanda. Had Hindu rulers were so intent on finishing off Buddhism, how did this University survive? And a couple of centuries prior to this assembly at Kanauj, another Chinese traveler Faxian (330 – 420 AD) had chronicled the hold of Buddhism in India. Even in the two centuries between these two Chinese travelers, Buddhism did not wither away, which, clearly indicates that across this land ruled by Hindu kings, the growth of Buddhism was never curtailed.
And let us further see what we can infer from Hieun Tsang about Buddhism in India, in his works –
His chronicles, while discussing that some of the Hindu kings were not favorable to Buddhism, does not anywhere mention anything close to state sponsored violence being unleashed against Buddhists by these Hindu kings. And our Chinese friend (a known Buddhist student of theology) was of some repute and if these Hindu kings were so bigoted (as our modern day historians would have us believe), he would not have been allowed to enter into such kingdoms at all.
So what the above instances go to show is that Hindu kings were not Hindu extremists that destroyed Buddhism, as, the modern day historians try to claim. Given the obvious gaps in their falsified accunts, some of the historians use King Mihirakula as a Hindu poster boy that unleashed violence against Buddhists. But what they willfully gloss over is that this king was not a Hindu but was a Hun ruler that belonged to a clan (of Central Asian Xionites origin) that invaded North West India. The historians claim that King Mihirakula was a Shiavitie but in his campaigns against the kingdom of Malwa and Gwalior, he razed down temples and Buddhist stupas alike and this confirms his non-Hindu origins. Just to be doubly sure, I am also presenting his lineage which proves he was not a Hindu. Mihirakula was the son of the Hun ruler called Toramana and their Hun lineage and the spread of the kingdom can be seen in the Jain literary work called Kuvalayamala.
But our biased historians will have none of these and they will continue to parrot the lie that Hindu kings like Pushyamitra and Mihirakula persecuted Buddhists!
Myth #4: Adi Shankaracharya instigated Hindu kings to rid India of Buddhism
This is a myth that is completely unfounded. The historical records show that by the time Adi Shankaracharya started traveling and engaging Buddhist scholars in theological debates, Buddhism was already on the wane, due to the fact that monasteries started becoming organized power centers of kingdoms and instead of propagating the message of Gautama Buddha, they ended up setting agendas and started influencing the public discourse on theology. Buddhism had, by Adi Shankara’s time become monastery centric and the closed groups of monks started becoming corrupt. And in order to cling on to their exalted status the monks started espousing the very same superstitious beliefs that the original Buddha sought to destroy in the society of his time. Of course, we will deep-dive into reasons for the decline of Buddhism towards the end of this article.
Returning to Shankara, if anything the spade work for a theological counterpoint / debate against Buddhism was put in place by the famous Purva Mimamsa scholar called Kumarila Bhatta from modern day Assam. He had enrolled in the Nalanda University to understand Buddhist theology so that he can do a comparative study with Vedas. He was thrown out of the University, when, he questioned the understanding of one of his teachers on Vedic philosophy, who, criticized the Vedas. Kumarila Bhatta had already weakened the theological hold of Buddhism amongst the masses, by the time Shankara arrived. Kumarila Bhatta engaged many a Buddhist scholar in public debates on Vedas and was instrumental in many kings that patronized these Buddhist scholars returning back to the Vedic fold.
The debates that Shankara engaged in had the criterion that the one that lost the debate should embrace the faith of the victor. When Buddhist scholars lost debate after debate with Shankara, they had no choice but to honor the commitment and when they did so, the king / prince to whom these Buddhist scholars were mentors ended up following suit. There is nothing in the historical records, even remotely, to suggest that Shankara forced Hindu kings to unleash violence against the Buddhists.
While he did engage in discussions with many rulers persuasively about Hindu dharma, the charge of this Hindu Guru engaging in violence against Buddhists is the unilateral dream of biased historians. There is not even a shred of evidence that substantiates the charge of Adi Shankaracharya instigating violence against Buddhists. And just to be sure, if we deep dive into the Advaita philosophy, as expounded by Adi Shankaracharya, the same ethics that are seen in the Vedas, Upanishads & Bhagavad Gita, like truth, non-violence, service etc are seen. Had Adi Shankaracharya acted against what he publicly preached or had he done things blatantly contradicted the message of Vedas, he would have ceased to be the philosopher / saint he is.
Decline of Buddhism in India:
Here is where the falsified, unsubstantiated blatant lies of many a historian will be buried. Now, will our biased historians give us details of which of the Hindu kings pillaged and burnt down Buddhist monasteries? They hardly can but we are going to churn out some hard hitting facts.
“There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans,” writes the author. “Islam came out as the enemy of the ‘But’. The word ‘But,’ as everybody knows, is an Arabic word and means an idol. Not many people, however, know that the derivation of the word ‘But’ is the Arabic corruption of Buddha. Thus the origin of the word indicates that in the Moslem mind idol worship had come to be identified with the Religion of the Buddha. To the Muslims, they were one and the same thing. The mission to break the idols thus became the mission to destroy Buddhism. Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before Islam came into being Buddhism was the religion of Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar and Chinese Turkestan, as it was of the whole of Asia….”
Dr.Ambedkar also laments the nature of priesthood and the practices of the communities (Buddhism and Hinduism) that enabled Hinduism to survive, while, Buddhism was not so lucky, against the brutal assaults by Muhammadans. “Such was the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Islamic invaders. The axe was struck at the very root. For by killing the Buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This was the greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India….” He continues elsewhere “…and the difference is so great that it contains the whole reason why Brahmanism survived the attack of Islam and why Buddhism did not.”
The lists of similar instances are available across the books that have been quoted above. But the biased historians of our land willfully follow an ostrich like approach and keep repeating the lie that Hindus uprooted Buddhism from India, violently. May truth prevail.
References:
Any anti Hindu is quick to say " but Sungas persecuted Buddhists". This is pure nonsense. In very heartland of Sunga ruled MP, we have this Bharhut stupa which was extensively beautified under Sunga rule as said and we will see the evidence.
![[image]](https://qphs.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-bec6a6eb5f4e7bc9a5e571218bcdd3e2)
![[image]](https://qphs.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c884c46f0fff68b13066bd6d9d908001)
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Almost 2100 year old Prakrit inscription on eastern gateway of this Stupa says that stone work was caused to be made in 'reign of Sungas'. Text of inscription along with translation. One of grandest ancient Buddhist monuments built under patronage of Sungas
Source for inscription on Bharhut is here. The book lists every inscription and is as authentic as it can get. (3)
People who ask Divyavadana a Buddhist text also depicts pushyamitra sunga as a great prosecutor of Buddhist will u accept that -
are WRONG. FACTUALLY WRONG. That is because they have apparently never read the Divyavadana . I did. Divyavadana NEVER claims "Brahmin Pushyamitra Shunga persecuted Buddhists". It actually talks about "Pushyamitra Maurya a descendant of Ashoka" persecuting Buddhists.
nglish translation of the relevant section of Divyavadana. Pushyamitra Maurya was a descendant of Ashoka . Much nonsense has been written about alleged persecution of Buddhists by Pushyamitra Sunga when in reality the Bharhut Stupa was enlarged under Sunga patronage.
![[image]](https://qphs.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c1e06f87553a3b7f5c844efce68d59d1)
Pushyamitra Maurya was a descendant of Ashoka via his successor Sampadi( Samprati). He was the son of Pushyadharman who was Samprati's descendant. Source: Divyavadana (English translation by indologist John Strong.
Infact, Divyavadana is very clear. it says-"With the death of Pushyamitra Maurya, the Mauryan lineage came to an end" Divyavadana very clearly states that the persecutor of Buddhists was the last Mauryan king. The word "Sunga" doesn't appear in Divyavadana
![[image]](https://qphs.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-0c183754571eef6c745ade1a1f22a0f7)
Buddha's father Śuddhōdana was a Hindu. According to the Buddhist scriptures themselves, Śuddhōdana performed Vedic Yajnas and drank Soma according to Vedic injunctions. He was a devotee of Indra.
Buddhist chronicle Mahavamsha says India was full of non Buddhist "heretical worshipers of Brahman" during this period.
There was never a "violent communal confrontation" between Hindus and Buddhists as a society, whether in India or South East Asia. Sects which are very popular survived into modern times. Sects which lost popularity saw their followers drift towards Shaivism and Vaishnavism.This is not to say that either "Brahmins usurped Buddhist temples" or "Buddhists usurped Brahmin/Hindu temples". The actual process of "conversion" was very complicated and depended upon a set of social and political factors. "Conflict" is certainly not the word here.Archaeological evidence shows that Buddhism was a minority religion even in this period (Maurya-Kushan). There is complete absence of Buddhism at both Gandhara and Mathura in the pre Kushan layers. Even in the Kushan period, the presence was 'weak"
Even in the Kushan capital Mathura, the earliest Buddhist sculpture didnt appear before 2nd cent CE. Complete absence of Buddhism in Pre Kushana layers and a weak presence in Kushan age. In entire corpus of early Mathura inscriptions, only two inscriptions are Buddhist.
To this I must add, that contrary to popular perception, various Kushan emperors like Vima Kadphises and Huvishka were Shaivites rather than Buddhist and they did not mint any deity other than Shiva on their coins. Worship of Nagas and Yakshas was the popular "folk religion