Institutional support

 

Doug´s Dharma is a YouTube channel devoted to “secular Buddhism”, but also discusses early Buddhism and the Pali Canon. The upload above is a 40-minute lecture by Doug Smith himself on the decline of Buddhism in India, and is actually quite interesting. Doug argues that Islam wasn´t the main reason for Buddhism´s near-disappearance from the Indian subcontinent, although it was certainly a contributing factor. Rather, the decline of Buddhism began centuries earlier and was connected both to internal Buddhist issues and to competition with Hinduism (or what later became known as Hinduism).

The main problem seems to have been that the Buddhist sangha (monastic order) lost its close connection to the laity, instead becoming “independent” or rather dependent on kings and other wealthy patrons. For instance, Buddhist monasteries received large donations of land, including peasants paying taxes or doing corvee labor. Monks no longer had to beg for their upkeep, but this also meant that they became isolated from the common people, including the Buddhist laity. This in turn created an opening for Hinduism to fill the vacuum. Another factor in Buddhism´s decline was changes in the patterns of international trade. This weakened the Indian merchant guilds, which were important bases for Buddhist support, Buddhism being to a large extent the religion of the vaishyas. There was also a general decline of Indian urban centers.

Since Buddhism became almost completely dependent on royal patronage, the Islamic invasions proved fatal. The invaders deliberately targeted institutions associated with the power and prestige of the native rulers. For instance, the famous Nalanda university controlled 200 villages, had their own armed militia, and so on. Apparently, the Muslims didn´t bother attacking non-Muslim religious institutions lacking royal support. It should also be noted that at the time of the Muslim invasions, only one large Buddhist kingdom remained in India, all others being Hindu.

As already mentioned, Buddhism also competed with Hinduism. For instance, Tantric Buddhism is strikingly similar to Tantric Shaiva Hinduism, presumably because it *is* a Buddhified version of Tantric Shavism. But this syncretism can work both ways: once a Hindu tradition had been rendered more “Buddhist”, that Buddhist tradition could just as easily be Hindufied. And indeed, this is precisely what seems to have taken place. There are examples of Vajrayana Buddhist temples which were simply switched to Hindu temples, with all the Buddhist cult statues intact. The images of bodhisattvas were simply re-interpreted as Hindu deities. A non-Tantric Hindu example of syncretism was the idea that the Buddha was actually an avatar of Vishnu. Doug believes that this made it possible for Buddhist laypeople to enter the Vedic fold while keeping their Buddhist practices, since it could now be argued that they were directed to a popular Hindu deity.

Since Doug is Buddhist or pro-Buddhist, he also draws some Buddhist-concerned conclusions from all of the above. Since the main reason for Buddhism´s decline in India was its strong dependence on elite support, Doug believes that Buddhism should develop new forms suitable for ordinary people in the modern world. For instance, mindfulness meditation. Another example is Ambedkar´s re-introduction of Buddhism to post-independence India in the form of a political protest movement among the Dalits (“outcasts” or “untouchables”). However, it struck me that perhaps meditation is a bad example, since meditation retreats are often expensive and hence mostly serve the affluent White middle and upper classes in the United States. In a sharp economic downturn, Buddhist meditation centers might be the first to close down! In other words, they will lose their “institutional support”…

With that reflection, I end this blog post.