Reason for Decline of Buddhism

Decline of Buddhist Sanghas: Sanghas became centers of corruption. Discipline of Vinay Pitaka was violated.

Revival of Brahmanical Hinduism: Rites and rituals of Hinduism were simplified. It also incorporated Buddhist principle of non-violence and accepted Buddha as a Hindu incarnation.

Buddhism lost royal patronage, which it received during the period of Asoka, Kaniska, and Harshavardhana. The Gupta rulers were great patrons of the Brahmanical religion.

Buddhism was divided into several groups like “Hinayana,” “Mahayana” “Vajrayana” “Tantrayana” and “Sahajayana,” and ultimately, it lost its originality.

Buddhist monks gave up Pali and took up Sanskrit, the language of intellectuals which was rarely understood by the common people. So, people rejected it.

Mahayana Buddhists started worshipping Buddha as a God. Image worship was a clear violation of the Buddhist doctrines, which opposed the critical rites and rituals of Brahmanical Hinduism.

Northern India was mostly ruled by the Rajputs from the eight to twelfth century who found great pleasure in fighting. They discarded the Buddhist principle of non-violence.

1. It is nearly difficult to present a continuous narrative of Buddhism’s near-extinction in India’s plains. This is mainly due to a scarcity of archaeological evidence and a shocking lack of indigenous writing on the subject. Surprisingly, the issue has remained one of India’s most overlooked themes throughout its history. Apart from the history of Buddhism’s fall in India, other topics related to this decline are critically studied in this book. To understand the background of the Buddhist decline in India, it may be necessary to consider the history of decline in different parts of the Indian subcontinent. However, because of the inadequacy of the primary information, only a basic sketch can be constructed.

Buddhism’s Decline in India’s History

Xuanzang’s assessment of the state of Buddhism in India during the first part of the seventh century is extremely useful in this context. To begin with, given the scarcity of knowledge on the issue, Xuanzang’s account of the state of Buddhism (Sanskrit language origin) in various parts of the Indian subcontinent is rather exceptional in terms of its specificity and impartiality