[Buddha-l] Rice & Dragons

[Jo]

Artur:

I have always thought that Buddhism's decline in India was primarily caused
by the lack of imperial support for the Buddhist institutions. Lower rank
dynasties stopped endowing local monasteries, not needing them anymore in
the role of a legitimizing factor, long before Muhammad's prophetic visions;
the results of neglect clearly visible already for Xuanzang and Yijing. When
Bakhtiyar Khilji appeared in Bengal, Buddhism was already in decline there -
what he devastated were only pitiful remnants of earlier riches.

 

Indeed. Buddhism's disappearance in eastern India-Bihar, Bengal and south
into Tamil Nadu-was caused by Hindus , Senas for ex., toppling weak Buddhist
kingdoms, such as remnants of the Pala dynasty, and ceasing to foster its
monasteries, temples and so forth. Later, Muslim invaders finished the job.
Some of the denizens of Nalanda fled to Nepal, where many ancient
manuscripts of Nalanda provenance now repose. 

 

Joanna