INDIA

For Buddhists, India is a land of many buddhas. From time immemorial, bodhisattvas have been born within India's borders, have awakened there, and have attained final nirv??a. As the buddha of our present era, ??kyamuni is crucial but not unique: The dharma he taught has been found and lost countless times over the ages. This myth of buddhahood has profoundly affected traditional biographies of ??kyamuni, a fact that limits their utility as evidence for "what really happened."

Historians accept that ??kyamuni lived, taught, and founded a monastic order. But they cannot easily accept most details included in his biographies. Available sources are twofold—textual and archaeological—and neither is satisfactory. Textual sources cannot be fully trusted, since even the earliest extant texts date to five centuries after ??kyamuni's death; archaeological sources are older, but sparser in their details. For this reason, scholars cannot agree upon the century in which ??kyamuni lived. One chronology places his life circa 566 to 486 b.c.e.; a second, circa 488 to 368 b.c.e., and other dates are proposed as well. Scholars do not know all the doctrines ??kyamuni taught, nor how people regarded him in his own day. Lacking even such basic knowledge, one can consider the social milieu of Buddhism's origins in only the most general terms.

The social milieu of early Buddhism (fifth or fourth century b.c.e.)

To understand the rise of Buddhism, one must look to a world in transition. Approximately one millennium before Siddh?rtha Gautama—the man who was to become the Buddha ??kyamuni—was born, waves of nomads, the Indo-?ryans, crossed the mountain passes of Afghanistan in approach to South Asia. Little is known about these people. What is known comes from their sacred Vedas, collections of hymns and lore to be used in the performance of ritual. These texts represent the Indo-?ryans as proud warriors, noble masters of the world who by 1000 b.c.e. began replacing their caravans with agrarian settlements. As agricultural production increased, villages developed into towns, and towns into cities.

As the Indo-?ryans settled, Vedic lore increasingly became the dominant ideology of the Gangetic plain in North India. Vedic Brahmin priests performed rituals, told stories of the gods, and explained the working of the universe; they even guaranteed supporters a favorable place in the afterlife. But the Vedas had been composed when the Indo-?ryans were nomad-warriors. Although the Brahmins held that their sacred knowledge was valid in this new urban context, some found that a hollow claim. Men like Siddh?rtha Gautama were not satisfied by the ordinary patterns of daily life, or the Vedic legitimations thereof. Such men left their families and wandered out of the cities to become ?rama?as (seekers). Siddh?rtha was to become the most successful critic of the Vedic Brahmins, and the most famous representative of India's seeker movement.

The problem, as Siddh?rtha saw it, was that the Vedic priests of his day did not merit their high social status. Those Brahmins claimed to be the offspring of Brahm? (the creator god), and thus to be conduits of supermundane power (Brahman) in the human world. When the seeker Siddh?rtha encountered these priests, however, he did not find them upright or learned godson-earth. To the contrary, Buddhist texts present them as beguiled by the wealth and tumult of urban India. They come across as greedy, foolish, proud men who hide their fraud behind high-flown claims to supremacy based upon the ancient names of their clans and caste.

By considering the institutional foundation of Buddhism in its sociohistorical context, one finds ??kyamuni to have been a critic and innovator whose institutional genius lay in his ability to legitimate new rituals of social engagement appropriate to the economic situation of his day through claims that he was merely reforming a broken social-spiritual order. For instance, verse 393 in Dhammapada (Words of the Doctrine) reads: "One is not a Brahmin because [one wears] dreadlocks, or due to one's clan or caste. It is due to truth and dharma that one is pure, and is a Brahmin." This verse promises that Buddhist "Brahmins," unlike the Vedic, are not frauds, for their brahminhood is guaranteed by the imprimatur of ??kyamuni himself, the teacher of true dharma. Vedic priests, by contrast, were not only frauds, but dangerous frauds. For by denouncing these priests' brahminhood, ??kyamuni also denied the efficacy of their rituals. In their place he offered his own disciples, who had realized four noble truths and become worthy "Brahmins." The multiple connotations of the word ?rya—the ethnonym for India's conquerors, the adjective noble, a description of Buddhist truths—connect ??kyamuni's religious innovations with hallowed memories of the past. In sum, rather than sponsor elaborate Vedic rites or pay the fees of Vedic priests, the laity were directed to make offerings of food, clothing, and medicine to ??kyamuni and his sa?gha (community of monks). This was presented as a truly efficacious way to earn spiritual merit, ensuring a family member's favorable afterlife. As receivers of gifts, Buddhist monks were ideally suited to the new urban landscape of northern India.

The sa?gha and social norms (fifth or fourth centuryb.c.e.)

According to Buddhist lore, the sa?gha was founded ??kyamuni taught the Dharmacakrapravartanas?tra (Turning the Wheel of the Law) to five men who had been his companions when he undertook intense when S ascetic rigors before he attained buddhahood. Swiftly, ??kyamuni attracted many more followers, ascetics, and seekers to his community. As the sa?gha's reputation spread, it earned support from wealthy merchants and kings. Such patronage was necessary, for this community was comprised of bhik?us (beggars living on alms). Thus, monastic rule books represent ??kyamuni as fervent in his pursuit of a monastic "good neighbor" policy. For as a social institution, Buddhism was woven into a web of parallel institutions—economic, political, familial, medical, cultural—that had no necessary stake in the sa?gha's perpetuation. Potential donors had definite expectations about how bhik?us should comport themselves. If monks transgressed those expectations, they stood to lose support. It is thus crucial to recognize that although Buddhist monks took the radical step of leaving their families, the Buddhist sa?gha was neither a radical nor an antisocial institution. It did not strive to undermine fundamental social canons. Indeed its rules often legitimated and conserved those canons.

Tensions between the sa?gha's identity as a community of beggars, and its need to conform to public norms of behavior, are exemplified by stories about founding the order of nuns. When asked to admit his foster-mother, Mah?praj?pat? Gautam?, as the first female bhik?u??, ??kyamuni refused, even though he admitted that women are as capable as men of becoming arhats. The rationale given for his reluctance was that bhik?u??s would be like blight in a field of sugarcane, weakening the san?gha's vitality. ??kyamuni prophesied that if he founded an order of nuns the sa?gha would remain true to his teachings for five hundred years only, whereas if he did not admit women, his male brotherhood would survive one thousand years without decay. Ultimately ??kyamuni relented, after pledging Mah?praj?pat? and all future nuns to accept eight extraordinary rules, which thoroughly subordinated the female bhik?u??s to the male bhik?us. In sum, the male institution's reluctance to grant unreserved legitimacy to its female counterpart reflected a broader cultural ambivalence in India concerning women, one that was misogynist in its value judgments, even while it recognized the inevitability of women's social presence.

The Buddha's death and the First Council (fifth or fourth centuryb.c.e.)

If the sa?gha was founded with ??kyamuni's first sermon, his death forced it to be reborn. Without a single, universally accepted voice of authority, Buddhist monks became increasingly divided over wisdom, practice, conduct, and religious goals. The ongoing history of the sa?gha presents a tug-of-war between, on the one hand, individuals or groups seeking to conserve what they considered the core of ??kyamuni's religion, and on the other hand, the continuing need to conform to changing social, cultural, political, and economic structures.

The first example of such a battle comes from the stories of ??kyamuni's own life, when his cousin, Devadatta, attempted to supplant him as the sa?gha's leader. The sources suggest that this rebellion was swiftly quashed by ??riputra and Mah?maudgaly?yana, ??kyamuni's chief disciples. After ??kyamuni's death, however, a more comprehensive strategy was needed to keep the sa?gha whole. That strategy is contained in the legend of a First Council: a convocation held in the city of R?jag?ha during the first summer after ??kyamuni's death. Buddhist traditions claim that this council was comprised of five hundred monks, all arhats. It was presided over by Mah?k??yapa, an early convert and the most accomplished monk still alive. The purpose of this council was to recollect all ??kyamuni's teachings, and thus to establish the discourses (s?tra), monastic rules (vinaya), and formal doctrines (abhidharma) that would sustain the unified sa?gha in ??kyamuni's absence. Scholars do not regard narratives about this council as historically credible. Nevertheless, one can certainly see its rhetorical value. Buddhists could affirm that within one year of ??kyamuni's final nirv??a, all of his pronouncements were recited, confirmed as the legitimate buddhavacana (word of the buddha) by a congregation of perfect men, and set in their appropriate canonical baskets.

Schism after schism (fourth through second centuryb.c.e.)

The same institutional memory that lauds this "orthodox" meeting also tells of other, "dissident" monks, who rejected the council's authority. Accordingly, even if scholars knew that a council of elite disciples really did convene in the year after ??kyamuni's death, they still could not reckon how many subgroups existed within the san?gha that followed a dharma and vinaya owing nothing to R?jag?ha's convocation. The meeting held in R?jag?ha is remembered as only the first of several. As time progressed, the ideally unified sa?gha splintered into numerous disparate sects (nik?ya), each claiming to faithfully preserve ??kyamuni's dharma and vinaya. It is difficult to give a precise account of these later councils, for each sect relates this history from its own biased point of view. Nevertheless, the most important of these later councils can be dated to approximately one hundred years after ??kyamuni's death, and placed in the north Indian city of Vai??l?. At issue were several practices of Vai??l?'s sa?gha, which some from outside the city considered violations of the vinaya. With the exception of Therav?da materials, all other sources agree that the dispute was resolved and that the "lax practices" of the Vai??l? monks were declared unacceptable, a verdict apparently accepted by the Vai??l? monks themselves. Thus, for the time being, the unity of the sa?gha was restored.

Some time after the council at Vai??l?, however, a more far-reaching dispute erupted, which resulted in the first schism in the Buddhist community: a division between one group that styled itself the Sthavirav?da (P?li, Therav?da; The Teaching of the Elders) and a second group that called itself the Mah?s??ghika school (The Great Assembly, or "Majorityists"). Accounts vary as to the cause of the dispute; according to some, the disagreement was occasioned by the so-called five points of a certain Mah?deva, which concerned the fallibility of the arhat. It now seems more plausible, however, that these points arose later and occasioned a schism within the Mah?s??ghika subgroup itself. More likely is that the original dispute was provoked by the addition of some new vinaya rules by the group that styled themselves the "Elders," which were rejected by the more conservative Mah?s??ghikas. In any event, the division between the Mah?s??ghika and the Sthavirav?da is universally accepted within the tradition as the first real schism to split the Buddhist community. All the schools that subsequently emerged within Indian Buddhism are offspring of one of these two main groups.

The schism between the Mah?s??ghika and the Sthavirav?da was but one example of centrifugal forces that had long been present in the sa?gha. Multiple claims to authority, differences of language, of location, and of monastic rules, as well as burgeoning differences over doctrine and religious practice all contributed to the further division of the sa?gha into numerous nik?yas, as the Sthavirav?da and Mah?s??ghika sects both ruptured internally. Though the absolute number of nik?yas is not known, it is popularly held that several centuries after ??kyamuni's nirv??a, the sa?gha had split into eighteen separate nik?yas. Some of these nik?yas were distinguished by little more than geography, others by unique doctrines, and still others in terms of their ritual practice. Each nik?ya possessed its own canon, grounding its own profession of san orthodoxy. Unfortunately, with the exception of the Therav?da's canon in P?li, and scattered fragments from other nik?yas, little of this once vast literary corpus survives.

Institutionalization and the worship of st?pas (fifth through third centuryb.c.e.)

Monastic competition after ??kyamuni's death was not the only agent of institutional change. Traditional tellings of ??kyamuni's biography do not end with his final nirv??a in Ku?inagara. These narratives describe the people gathered at ??kyamuni's death as observing a body progressively emptied of personal vitality. The body was cremated. But a dispute soon arose over who owned the funerary remains. The people of Ku?inagara claimed these relics (?ar?ra) for themselves, since ??kyamuni had chosen their territory for his final nirv??a. But the people of other territories swiftly demanded relics as well. To stave off war, equal shares of ??kyamuni's remains were given to all. Each of these measures was then housed in a memorial st?pa.

Why would people have been willing to go to war over the funerary fragments of a dead holy man? Here one finds a window onto early Indian Buddhism. St?pas associated with ??kyamuni provided sacred sites at which lay and monastic Buddhists alike were able to enter his otherwise inaccessible presence. Once in that presence, they could make offerings and reap merit. Thus, st?pas promised spiritual power to the kings who controlled them, and particularly prestigious sites would also have generated great revenues from pilgrims who traveled from far and near for worship. Similarly, caityas (shrines commemorating places visited, and objects used, by ??kyamuni) also became pilgrimage centers.

Pilgrimage was enormously important in Buddhism's development. Laymen, laywomen, monks, and nuns all encountered one another traversing the Ganges basin, from sacred site to sacred site. Such shared ritual, in turn, became the foundation of a shared religious identity, an all-inclusive community called "the fourfold assembly" in Buddhist texts. But even though patterns of worship gave the laity a bona fide position within this assembly, the institutionalization of pilgrimage also granted additional duties and opportunities to the monks. Large monastic communities grew up around major st?pas; these monasteries' inhabitants served as caretakers, priests, and teachers. Acting for the good of the buddha, of their brotherhood, and of their kingdom, monks made Buddhism a fixture of the Indian religious landscape for nearly two millennia.

A?oka Maurya (third centuryb.c.e.)

Artifacts dating to the reign of A?oka, ruler of the Mauryan dynasty (third century b.c.e.), provide the oldest extant evidence for Buddhism in India. A?oka was an important early patron of the sa?gha, and his exertions on its behalf are celebrated in traditional Buddhist writings from Sri Lanka to China. Legend holds that A?oka raided the original group of st?pas in order to redistribute ??kyamuni's relics into eighty-four thousand st?pas, making that presence available throughout his kingdom. A?oka is said to have held a grand council in order to reestablish a single orthodoxy within the sa?gha; he also supposedly made pilgrimage to all the places important to ??kyamuni's life.

Though hyperbolic, these literary paeans point to A?oka's prominent role in Buddhism's institutionalization. Archaeological remains provide more precise, through less glorified, evidence of A?oka's activities. Among the many edicts A?oka incised on pillars and boulders, several speak to his interest in Buddhism. The Bh?br? edict, for instance, recommends a set of seven texts for Buddhist monks and laity to read and study (all the texts focus on ethics, suggesting that, for A?oka, good Buddhists were also good citizens). The Kau??mb? edict denounces disunity within the sa?gha, ordering schismatic monks to return to lay status. The Nigliva inscription tells that A?oka doubled the size of a st?pa dedicated to a past buddha named Kon?kamana. In short, although sectarian Buddhist writings on the religion's early historical development cannot be trusted in their details, archaeological evidence from A?oka's reign allows us to accept these texts' broad characterization of this era, when worship focused on st?pas, devoted Buddhists made pilgrimages, and nostalgic tales of ??kyamuni's harmonious sa?gha contrasted with the sharp-edged glare of contemporary circumstances.

A time of change and development (second centuryb.c.e. to fourth century c.e.)

The Mauryan empire did not long survive A?oka. It was followed by five centuries of political turmoil, during which indigenous dynasties and foreign invaders vied for supremacy. Although Buddhism established a base identity during Mauryan times, the succeeding era of political competition and social diversification fostered new doctrinal and institutional expressions. During these centuries, monastic spats increased the number of nik?yas to eighteen, or more. Additionally, monasteries and pilgrimage centers were increasingly founded outside the Gangetic basin: in the South (Amar?vat?, N?g?rjun?ko??a), central India (B?rhut, S?Ñc?), and the Northwest (Tak?a??la, Ha??a, B?miy?n). A tradition of representing the buddha in iconic form developed during this period as well, alongside numerous regional styles.

Religious creativity was not the sole property of Buddhists, however. This era also saw innovations in Hinduism, leading to its increased popularity. The Mauryan dynasty was succeeded in north India by the ??ga, whose first ruler, Pu?yamitra (187–151 b.c.e.), showed a strong interest in Vedic ritual, and governed with the support of Vedic Brahmins. Buddhists number Pu?yamitra among the sa?gha's greatest enemies. In central India during this same century, a Greek legate erected a pillar in K???a's honor. Still, such developments do not signal Buddhism's eclipse. One of the Indo-Greek kings, Menander (ca. 150 b.c.e.), is claimed as a Buddhist convert, while the Kushan royal Ka?i?ka (first or second century c.e.) sought to emulate A?oka through his largesse and close stewardship of the sa?gha.

The bodhisattvay?na (second to first centuryb.c.e.)

The Buddhist sa?gha was a ritual community pledged simultaneously to the preservation of an ultimate truth and the legitimation of social norms. As social forms, economic systems, and rulers changed, Buddhist monks devised new, locally appropriate expressions of their core principles. The fact that so many nik?yas came into being so quickly testifies to the ideological ferment of this time.

A backlash against this turmoil produced the most comprehensive breach in Buddhism's early history. Each nik?ya claimed orthodoxy, inspiring some partisans to adopt stalwart sectarian identities. But other Buddhists found this strident sectarianism a violation of ??kyamuni's ideals. These latter viewed their brethren as backsliding from the original intent of the renunciant's life. Zealous to recover that origin, they accused those monks of being hypocritical, hedonistic, lazy, and unstudied in the rules of conduct. These reformers singled themselves out by advocating living in forests, an optional practice for all monks. But even more importantly, these monks sought to reform Buddhism by declaring themselves to be bodhisattvas, riding the bodhisattva-vehicle (bodhisattvay?na) to perfect buddhahood.

Institutionally, this bodhisattvay?na had a diffuse origin. It cannot be traced to a single social group, nik?ya, locale, or founder. Its members did not claim to be the First Council's heir, and thus to form a new nik?ya. Rather, these bodhisattvas were united by a common vision, for which nik?ya membership was beside the point. They held that bodhisattvahood, and ultimately buddhahood, was the only legitimate aspiration for ??kyamuni's followers.

This bodhisattvay?na was adopted by monks and laity alike. For the renunciants, monastic vows and bodhisattva's vows were not in conflict. To the contrary, by aspiring to become ??kyamuni's equal, a monk demonstrated just how seriously he took his renouncer's role. For the laity, too, to articulate a bodhisattva's vows was to signal one's serious religious intent. Most nik?yas held that only monks can become arhats; individuals who aspired thus were expected to abandon lay life. But the nature of the bodhisattva path made it such that a bodhisattva could marry, work, raise a family, and still be spiritually adept. Thus the same vow that enabled bodhisattva monks to aggrandize themselves as ??kyamuni's legitimate heirs, allowed bodhisattva laity to aggrandize almsgiving and worship as significant accomplishments on the path to buddhahood.

From bodhisattvay?na to Mah?y?na (first centuryb.c.e. to second century c.e.)

The fact that the bodhisattvay?na developed simultaneously in many centers makes it difficult to speak of an origin per se, or even a single bodhisattvay?na. However, there is one aspect of religious life that these scattered bodhisattvas did share in common: a desire to learn more about how they should live, practice, and think as bodhisattvas. The nik?yas had little to say about the bodhisattva figure, and what information their canons did provide was general and retrospective.

In the centuries after ??kyamuni's nirv??a, members of the nik?yas composed (or edited) s?tras, but they presented their work as the Buddha ??kyamuni's. Bodhisattvas were no exception to this practice. By the first century b.c.e., a new genre of Buddhist literature was being written, focusing upon the path and practices of bodhisattvas. The first works of this literature are lost. The earliest texts that do still exist, from circa first century c.e., reveal this bodhisattva movement to have been diffuse and numerically insignificant. But they also begin to use a distinctive name, Mah?y?na (Great Vehicle). The Mah?y?na began as a minor reform movement within the constraints of nik?ya-Buddhism. It soon developed new and distinct forms of the religion.

The wide range of subjects one finds in early Mah?y?na s?tras is suggestive of the diverse origins from which it arose. These s?tras show that Mah?y?nists were concerned with reforming Buddhism on a number of fronts: doctrinal, sociological, soteriological, cultic, and mythological. Some severely criticize Buddhists who do not take the bodhisattva vow, while others contain no such polemic; some speak to a monastic milieu, while others champion lay bodhisattvas. This early Mah?y?na was heterogeneous, with bodhisattvas even disputing other bodhisattvas in an open-ended process of decentralized change.

Institutionalization of the Mah?y?na (second to twelfth century c.e.)

Although s?tras provide the first evidence for the Mah?y?na's existence, few contemporaneous material artifacts show their influence. That is to say, archaeological data do not suggest that the Mah?y?na directly affected monastic life, patronage, ritual, or even education during the first, second, or third centuries c.e. Only in the fifth century is there significant public evidence of Mah?y?na Buddhism in India.

The "underground" nature of Mah?y?na at its inception is one factor in this slow transition from spiritual movement to public institution. But an important catalyst toward change came in 320 c.e., when Candragupta I founded a dynasty that united north India as a single state for the first time since A?oka. The changes initiated by Candragupta's ascension are so numerous that 320 c.e. is often cited as the first in a new era of Indian history. For explaining the Mah?y?na's institutionalization, however, the most profound development was economic.

Before the Guptas, monetary exchange formed the basis of the north Indian economy. A money-economy circulates wealth through direct transactions between people. Nik?ya-Buddhism was well suited to such a system because the nik?yas emphasized the worth of the monks (or the st?pas they controlled) as recipients of donation. Indeed, Buddhism gained such prominence in the centuries after ??kyamuni's death in large part because its ideology justified the accumulation of money, and provided a way to benefit from that accumulation even after death. Beginning with the Gupta dynasty, however, this money-economy began to give way to one based upon ownership of land. The Guptas did not attempt to govern their entire territory directly from their capital city. Rather, as "Lords of the Earth," the Guptas permitted petty kings to retain residual control over their regions, and gave fields and villages to Brahmins, who then administered those lands. Thus, beginning with the Guptas, wealth became less associated with amassing money than with holding jurisdiction over a quasi-independent territory; one did not have prestige because one could enter into many exchange relationships, but due to one's close alliance with the imperial suzerain.

For Buddhism this meant that the wealth, position, and surplus resources of the merchants who had made up the bulk of the religion's early lay followers were diminished, leaving only members of the royalty and Buddhists themselves as donors. As possession of land became essential for Buddhism's survival, Buddhist institutions were ever more dependent upon direct royal patronage. This required Buddhists to adjust the tenor and focus of their religious productions, and directly address royal concerns in Buddhist media.

The Mah?y?na was particularly well suited to this new economy. Its s?tras had long used royal imagery when speaking of buddhas and bodhisattvas. Thus, the PrajÑ?p?ramit? literature (Perfection of Wisdom texts) describes bodhisattvas as fearless heroes, wearing armor while mounted on the great vehicle. Buddhas, similarly, are presented by the Mah?y?na as lords, each of his own personal buddha-land, surrounded by divine retinues; they engage in demonstrations of mutual admiration and support; they send bodhisattva emissaries to one another. In the fifth century, these literary tropes begin to make their mark on public art and inscriptions, revealing the symbolic maneuvers by means of which Mah?y?na Buddhism became prominent in India.

The institutionalization of Indian Mah?y?na Buddhism reached its apogee in the great monastery at N?land?, which, as a center for higher education, attracted students to Northern India from throughout Asia. As delineated by the seventh-century pilgrim Xuanzang (ca. 600–664), N?land?'s foundation dated to the imperial Guptas. In the early fifth century, one king built a monastery at a lucky spot in this town. Over the next century, subsequent Gupta rulers added to that establishment. Eventually, devout rulers from other parts of India, and even other countries, made their own donations of buildings and resources. By Xuanzang's day, N?land? had become the preeminent Buddhist university. Its endowment included several hundred villages; its dormitories housed

several thousand students. And although a liberal education was possible—including the Vedas, medicine, and art—every student was required to study Mah?y?na literature as well. In later centuries, N?land? was supplemented, and then surpassed, by two other Mah?y?na universities, Otantap?ri and Vikrama??la; both were established by the P?la dynasty that ruled in India's Northeast from about 750 to 1150 c.e. Furnished with ample lands by their P?la patrons, these great monasteries were eventually depopulated, their books destroyed, during the thirteenth-century Muslim conquest of north India.

The end of Buddhism in India (seventh to thirteenth century c.e.)

The fact that Mah?y?nists came to have a significant public presence does not mean that nik?ya-Buddhism was eclipsed. A census of monks, made by Xuanzang in the seventh century, reveals that monks who were primarily identified with the nik?yas still outnumbered Mah?y?nists. Yet, of the original eighteen-plus nik?yas, only four remained vital, and almost half of all nik?ya-Buddhists belonged to the Sa?mit?ya sect, whose tenets were the object of considerable intra-Buddhist polemic.

When Xuanzang's census is compared with an account given by Faxian (ca. 337–418) in the fifth century, however, one notices that the Mah?y?na's institutional gains took place in a landscape within which Buddhism as a whole had become less prominent. The same economic developments that supported the Mah?y?na also instigated an effloresence of sectarian Hinduism devoted to Vi??u and ?iva. Like the Buddhists, these Hindus sought royal patronage. But unlike the Buddhists, the Hindus were effective allies for kings who needed to socialize indigenous and tribal peoples. Brahmin legal codes, rooted in the Vedas, legitimated a strictly stratified society, and gave every person a fixed place within that society. Such codes eventually gave rise to a "caste system." Though Buddhist texts take the existence of "caste" for granted, they attempt neither to justify this social system, nor to disseminate it. From the point of view of India's rulers, Buddhist monks were less effective ideologues than Brahmins. In turn, as Brahmins held primary responsibility for transforming villagers and tribals into royal subjects, those peoples came to identify themselves with the Brahmins' own gods. Thus, although Buddhism flourished in the post-Gupta period, the religion became increasingly rarified and disengaged from the immediate interests of the common masses.

This transformation of Buddhism's social base was, ultimately, the cause of its downfall in India. Buddhist monks became increasingly professionalized: intellectuals in "ivory towers," uninvolved in the day-to-day lives of common folk. The destruction of the great monasteries (N?land? in 1197; Vikrama??la in 1203) by invading Turks provided the coup de grace. Lacking strong royal support, and long since having lost that of the populace, India's Buddhist monks had nowhere to turn. A travelogue written by Dharmasv?min, a monk from Tibet, reveals that by the mid-thirteenth century there were almost no self-professed Buddhists remaining in India.

Over the preceding two millennia, Buddhist institutions, ritual practices, ideas, ideals, and ways of life had become a part of the social landscape in almost every Asian land. These regional and national Buddhisms all looked back to ??kyamuni for authority, though the incredible diversity of their forms and expressions might have astounded him. Despite Buddhism's demise in its first home, its traditions continued to thrive.

The revival of Buddhism in India (nineteenth to twenty-first century c.e.)

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a resurgence of Buddhism in India. The first concerted attempt toward reintroducing Buddhism to the land of its origin was made in 1891, when Anag?rika Dharmap?la (1864–1933), the son of a wealthy furniture dealer in Sri Lanka, visited Bodh Gay?, the site of ??kyamuni's awakening. Distressed by the sorry neglect of this site, he founded the Mah? Bodhi Society with the aim of fostering its restoration. Dharmapal?'s motives were missionary as well as devotional. Educated in the Christian missionary schools of colonial Sri Lanka, Dharmap?la imagined that a renewed Bodh Gay? would serve as a center for the propagation of ??kyamuni's teachings. The fact that this small town is now filled with monasteries and hostels serving pilgrims from all over the world is the realization of Dharmap?la's dream.

However, in terms of the re-creation of a native Indian Buddhism, no figure has been more important than Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956). As a leader of India's Untouchables, Ambedkar renounced Hinduism in favor of Buddhism, believing that this conversion would lead to greater respect for his downtrodden people. Ambedkar himself has now become a central figure of reverence for India's neo-Buddhist movement.

In 1959 Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, escaped to India, soon followed by many thousands of his countrymen. In exile, the Tibetans have remained vigorous patrons of Buddhism: establishing monastic centers that serve their own people as well as the curious who visit India to learn about Buddhism. Indeed, as Buddhism became a religion with a global reach during the latter half of the twentieth century, all evidence has shown a burgeoning appreciation within India itself for its Buddhist heritage.

See also:Aja???; Councils, Buddhist; Hinduism and Buddhism; India, Buddhist Art in; India, Northwest; India, South; Mainstream Buddhist Schools

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Richard S. Cohen