Indian historian Shashank Shekhar Sinha has challenged the widely accepted theory that Buddhism vanished from India, its birth place, in the 13 th Century.
In his latest book, Casting the Buddha: A Monumental History of Buddhism in India (Macmillan, New Delhi, 2024),Sinha points out that Indians had been having debates about Buddhism’s doctrines and absorbing many of them through the centuries after the faith was declared “dead” in India.
Buddhism certainly weakened, partly due to the iconoclastic Indian Muslim rulers in the 13th Century and partly due to the simultaneous ideological re-emergence of the Brahmin-led,“Vedic” Hinduism. But it remained a major subject of conversation in India and many of its doctrines were incorporated into Hinduism. The latter phenomenon went to the extent of portraying the Buddha as an avatar or incarnation of Vishnu and therefore, a Hindu God in his own right.
Gandhara Buddha
Sinha also points out that through its role in social emancipation and political movements, Buddhism came back to the centre-stage in Indian thought, politics and international relations especially in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Casting the Buddha: A Monumental History of Buddhism in India is primarily about Buddhist monuments and archaeological remains in India and their relationship with Buddhist texts of the day. Sinha asserts that students of Buddhism have to correlate what they read in the texts with what can be seen in the monuments and archaeological findings to clearly understand and accurately portray the beliefs, practices and culture that prevailed during the “Buddhist-era” in India(when Buddhism held sway over the vast land).
Buddhist revival
To come to the theme of this article, a Buddhist revival did take place visibly. In significant ways, Buddhism came to occupy the centre-stage in Indian politics, particularly in the mobilisation of the depressed or marginalised castes. Subsequently, in the Nehruvian-era, it became a key tool in forging ties with Buddhist countries in South, South East and East Asia.
Thanks to Nehru, India’s national symbols is actually Buddhist – such as the Dharmachakra and the Lion Capital found in Sarnath. The wheel in the centre of the Indian flag, known as the Ashoka Chakra, represents the Dharmachakra, the law of dharma or the eternal wheel of righteousness. It symbolises the Buddhist notion of justice in society and the moral principles that should guide actions. The Ashoka Chakra also represents India’s commitment to upholding the rule of law, peace, and justice as part of its national identity. A Buddhist symbol is now an embodiment of the vision of India as a just State.
Successive Indian Governments since Nehru have used India’s Buddhist past to establish symbiotic or civilisational links with many countries of East, South East and South Asia including Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
Sinha gives ample credit to Westerners, principally the Europeans who had rediscovered Buddhism and helped spread awareness across the world. But he challenges the view that but for the Westerners, Indians would have continued to think that Buddhism died in their country in the 13th Century.
Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia(1879) claims that Buddhism was re-discovered by the Westerners in the 19th Century. But Sinha argues that India had already had a tradition of conversations with Buddhism in the pre-Colonial and early Colonial era. A first century CE Buddhist text in Sanskrit titled Vajrasuchi (Diamond cutter) attributed to Ashwaghosha was against Brahminical casteism. It was first published in modern times in 1839, forty years before Edwin Arnold’s book was published.
Sinha says that Vajrasuchi’s English translation was a hit across India and Europe among social reformers and Christian missionaries particularly. It was translated into Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Nepali.
Because of the expansion of trade, in the 12th and the 13th Centuries, the West began hearing about Buddhism in India. Marco Polo had given an account of it. But the focus of the Westerners was South East Asia rather than India.
European travellers and itinerant merchants did see stupas and monasteries but these were in a very dilapidated condition with no obvious connection to Buddhism. Xuanzang, for instance, found the the Buddha’s images in Hindu temples and concluded that Hinduism had absorbed Buddhism. But in reality, Brahminsm was bitterly opposed to mixing Buddhism with Hinduism. But still, the adoption of Buddhist ideas and forms of worship by the Hindus continued.
During their early interaction with India, European scholars and enthusiasts were debating whether the Buddha was a mythical figure or a real figure, a “historical person” such as Jesus or Mohammad. The other question was whether the Buddha was born in India or Persia or Mongolia.
The texts that were available to the Westerners at that time were in Sanskrit and not in Pali, the language the Buddha used. And the material pertained to the Mahayana school of Buddhism. But, the study of Buddhism in various parts of South East Asia and India gradually convinced researchers that they were all part of, or variations of, one religion- Buddhism and that its origin was in India.
Mahabodhi temple in 1879 before renovation
Eugene Burnauf (1801-1852) was the first European to write a book on ‘Indian Buddhism’ or Buddhism as practiced in India. It was based on Sanskrit manuscripts from Nepal. It was then found that texts from Tibet and China were translations of Indian texts.
Towards the end of the 19th Century, Pali texts were being discovered and translated. Thomas William Rhys-Davids formed the Pali Text Society in 1881 to collect, translate and publish them.
A deep study of the Pali texts showed that the Buddha was a social reformer, challenging the hegemony of the Brahmins and the hold of Vedic rituals and sacrifices. Scholars also sensed that there were differences between the original teachings of the Buddha and his immediate disciplesand later accounts and interpolations.
While the scholars were steeped in their manuscripts, paintings of places in India, some with Buddhist links, appeared in the European publications. William Daniel published his engravings in 1830. Charles D’Oyly’s lithographs came out in 1838.
The advent of Archaeology in India in the 19th Century contributed to an increase in the knowledge of Buddhism in India. But the first set of archaeological excavations was not done by professionals but by British officials out of curiosity. An amateur, Colin Mackenzie found the remains of a stupa in Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh in 1798. In 1800, a doctor excavated a stupa in Vaishali in Bihar. In 1905, in the course of another excavation in Sarnathin Uttar Pradesh, the Lion Capital of Ashoka was discovered.
The stupas in Sanchiin Madhya Pradesh were discovered by Gen. Taylor in 1818. The Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab got excavations carried out in Manikyala in North West India in 1830 and this was followed by further excavations in the Gandhara region (now in Pakistan) by Alexander Burns and Charles Masson. Since Burns and Masson found Greek coins in the stupas, they thought the stupas were tombs of Greek kings.
Between 1834 and 1837, James Prinsep an assay master (an officer appointed to try the weight and fineness of the precious metals) was able to decipher the Brahmi and Kharoshthi writings in coins and stupas. This was due to Prinsep’s contacts in Buddhist Ceylon such as the civil servant George Turnour and the bhikkhus Turnour knew during his posting in the Sabragamuwa District.
In 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the appointment of Gen. Sir Alexander Cunningham, as its Director General discoveries multiplied. Cunningham traced the structures mentioned by Chinese travellers Faxian (4th and 5thCenturies CE) and Xuanzang (7thCentury CE). In 1830, the writings of Faxian and Xuanzang were published, first in French and then in English.
Gandhara area
Between 1861 and 1865, Cunningham had identified 160 Buddhist sites in North India. The Gandhara area (now Pakistan and Afghanistan) was excavated and the Bamiyan Buddha was discovered in Afghanistan. By 1884, the Mahabodhi temple complex in Bodh Gaya in Bihar was renovated. It became one of the four holy sites related to the life of the Buddha and particularly to the attainment of Enlightenment.
The Mahabodhi Temple Complex was first built by Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century BC. The present (subsequently renovated) temple was built in the Gupta period (4th to the 6th CenturyCE).
It is one of the earliest Buddhist temples built entirely in brick, which is still standing. It is considered to have had significant influence in the development of brick architecture over the centuries, Sinha says.
The next Director General of the Archaeological Survey Department, Sir John Marshall (1902-28) was more interested in discovering and restoring stupas and monasteries associated with Emperor Asoka.
“The stupa’s remains were correlated with contents in the written texts to get a full picture of the ideas and practises of Buddhism in various places. The sculptures gave evidence of Buddhist practises. Coins, inscriptions and artefacts helped tell the story with greater accuracy. Marshall was able to link the sites of Asoka with the 5th centry, the Buddhist text Divyavadana” Sinha points out.
Fascination with World Religions was a feature of Western intellectual life in the second half of the 19th Century. Interest in Buddhism, Hinduism and reformist sects grew. Edwin Arnold’s ‘The Light of Asia’(1879) was an adaptation of the Buddhist text Lalitavistara, a narrative poem on the life, times and the philosophy of the Buddha.
Inspired top Indian leaders
The Light of Asia was translated into several Indian languages. Soon, it inspired top Indian leaders such as B.R.Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore. The World Parliament of Religions was held in Chicago in 1893 where Anagarika Dharmapala of Ceylon gave a lecture on the ‘World’s debt to Buddhism’.
Hindu reform movements such as Brahmo Samaj and Prarthana Samaj also helped create an interest in Buddhism. Buddhist societies were formed in many parts of India and these societies produced Buddhist literature. Tagore included Buddhist themes in his artistic productions.
Even the Hindu Mahasabha patronised Buddhism though it maintained that Buddhism was only “reformed Hinduism” and not a separate religion. Hindu business houses also supported and propagated Buddhism, Sinha reveals.
The Hindu Birlas patronised Buddhism. Jugal Kishore Birla (1883-1967) financed 15 major Buddhist temples. He financially supported the Hindi translation of Pali texts. J.K.Birla was aided by leftists and Marxists of the likes of D.N.Kosambi and Rahul Sankritayayan.
There is, therefore, no dispute that Buddhist ideas and beliefs survived, albeit in the margins of religious thought in the Indian subcontinent. In that sense, Europe cannot be entirely credited for the discovery or revival of Buddhism in India, Sinha says.
Buddhism also inspired anti-caste movements and efforts to build an equalitarian society through the Constitution of independent India. After Independence, Buddhism was included into State craft, nation building and international relations too.
Politicians use Buddhism to promote egalitarian and equalitarian ideas. Even orthodox believers in caste are co-opting Buddhism to interpret Brahminical Hindusim as containing within itself the Buddhist idea of a caste-free society. They portray Buddha as the 9 thincarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu.
India is using its Buddhist past to establish “civilisational” links with Buddhist countries and is promoting its Buddhist monuments to attract pilgrims and tourists from Asia. Indeed, as Sinha says, “The Buddha has come to occupy the Centre-stage again.”
