By the starting of the 12th century A.D, Buddhism was extinct from India. How a religion extinct from a country where it began, flourished and spread in the whole world.
In the year 563 B.C, Siddharth Gautam was born and his ideas laid the foundation of Buddhism. In the 3rd century B.C, Buddhism spread in India rapidly with the conversion of 'The Great Ashoka' from Hindu to Buddhist.
Along with the conversion of many popular kings, ministers, and scholars, Buddhism had gained massive followers in India. But after some centuries, it started declining, and at a point in time Buddhism extinct from India and spread in east Asian countries, Sri Lanka, etc.
So... what factors led to the decline of Buddhism in India, but to understand this we have to first understand why did it spread in India...
Why Buddhism began and spread in India?
Hinduism was the major religion in India before Buddhism. But Hinduism had many things that many people didn't favor, like the caste system, statue worship. Hinduism criticizes 'interest' that traders didn't like and many others believe.
Siddharth Gautam was one of them. He challenged believes of Brahmins or priests. Traders and many other communities favored him and gave huge charity to Gautam Buddha's pupils for mainly three reasons.
- The contemporaneous Caste System (Varna Vyabastha) was not given importance in Buddhism.
- Buddhism promotes non-violence, which could end wars between many kings, which would result in an increase in trade.
- In the 'law and order' texts of Hinduism. Business of 'interest' was criticized.
- Buddhism promotes a simple and pure way of living.
Reasons for the decline of Buddhism in India?
The evils of Hinduism against which it started a war in the starting also entered Buddhism.
To face the competition of Buddhism, Hindus improved their religion. They emphasized the protection of cows and paved the way for religion to shudra and women.
Over time, evils entered the Budhha religion. Later they left 'Pali language' that was the local language and adopted the Sanskrit language that was the language of scholars.
By the 1st century A.D, Buddhists started statue-worshipping in large numbers and started taking huge amounts of offerings from worshipers.
Kings also started to donate money to Buddhist monasteries, which made Buddhist monks' lives full of luxury.
With the entrance of women and huge wealth in Buddhist monasteries, the conditions of ms became worse. Buddhist monks started understanding women, as things for their joy.
Once, Buddha said to his asthore pupil Anand " This religion would have lasted for 1000 years if women had not entered the monasteries. But when women have given the right of entering the monasteries, this religion will last only for 500 years"
Hindu king Pushyamitra Shunga tortured Buddhists. King Mihirkul of the Hood dynasty, a shiva follower, killed many Buddhists. King Sashank cut the tree, on which Buddha got knowledge. Bhaktiyaar Khilji destroyed Nalanda university thrice. It was repaired twice but not thrice. Almost 300K books were burnt for months, which lead to the decline of Buddhism in India.
Today, India is the home to 8.4 million Buddhists of the world.
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