to separate the worship of local gods from Buddhist
temples. These policies, which created Shintoas an in-
dependent religion, resulted in the destruction of thou-
sands of Buddhist temples.
School rivalry in Sri Lanka
Persecution resulting from rivalries between different
Buddhist traditions also occurred in Sri Lanka before
the twelfth-century unification of the Mahavihara by
Parakramabahu I. After unification, monks of rival
schools took fresh ordination in the Mahavihara, los-
ing all previous rank. The Pali canon came to be
treated as orthodox, while the Abhayagirivihara and
Jetavana became associated with the more inclusive
MAHAYANAtexts.
The Nikayasan ̇grahaalso records the third-century
persecution of the Abhaygirivihara by Gothabhaya,
who burned their books and branded (marked as crim-
inals) the expelled monks. The Mahavamsarecords
how Gothabhaya’s successor, Mahasena, temporarily
reversed royal patronage in favor of the Abhayagirivi-
hara. The Nikayasan ̇grahafurther records the decima-
tion of the mysterious blue-robe sect, a form of tantric
Buddhism, in Southern India under King S ́rHarsa:
“Pretending to be convinced, he sent for the blue-
robed brethren and their books, and having got them
with the books into a house, he made a fire-offering of
house and all” (Fernando, p. 19).
These chronicles, which are recorded in the Ma-
havihara tradition, naturally attribute persecution of
their own tradition to evil monks, and the persecution
of rivals as a triumph over corruption. Nevertheless,
the process described appears to be similar in each case.
After consecration of a king, particularly after victory
in a major military campaign, the king sought to “pu-
rify” the san ̇gha in emulation of As ́oka.
European colonial period
From the sixteenth to the twentieth century, the Eu-
ropean colonial powers managed to undermine Bud-
dhism through a subtle structure of institutional
persecution. Mechanisms for the implicit promotion
of Christianity included the establishment of secular
and Christian education systems designed for colonial
administration, the rewarding of conversion with pro-
motion and employment, nonsupport for state-
san ̇gha interaction, and failure to set protocols for lay
support of Buddhism. Active persecution also oc-
curred, particularly in the early days of European col-
onization. These patterns were especially evident in
Sri Lanka, beginning with the suppression of Bud-
dhism by Portuguese Catholics in the sixteenth cen-
tury, and continuing through the active and then
implicit promotion of Protestantism, first by the
Dutch and later by the British.
Attitudes favoring Christians continued to influence
events even after the colonial period. Suppression of
Buddhism by the American-backed government in the
former French colony of South Vietnam led to the well-
known Buddhist SELF-IMMOLATIONprotests in 1963.
The Catholic government was in power in part because
of Vatican pressure on the United States to prevent the
democratic elections that would have given mandate to
the moderate Marxist Ho Chi Minh. President Diem
aimed to destroy rival religious groups by passing leg-
islation that gave preferential status to Catholics and
prevented the practice and teaching of other religions.
The persecution of the majority Buddhist population,
including the torture and murder of tens of thousands
of Vietnamese and the incarceration in concentration
camps of hundreds of thousands, came to a head when
Diem prohibited the carrying of religious banners on
the Buddha’s birthday. This restriction contrasted with
the flying of the Vatican flag in celebration of the
Catholic archbishop, who was Diem’s brother, only a
few days earlier. Diem’s troops fired directly into Bud-
dhist crowds, and mass hunger strikes and other
protests followed. The self-immolation of the monk
Thich Quang Duc in 1963 in full view of the interna-
tional press brought the plight of Vietnamese Bud-
dhists to the world’s newspapers and television screens,
eventually forcing the U.S. government to publicly dis-
tance itself from Diem’s religious policies.Communism
The most significant ideology affecting religions in
twentieth-century Asia has been communism. Al-
though Buddhism sometimes fared marginally better
than other religions, the overall damage has been great
because many of the areas affected by communism
were traditional Buddhist strongholds.
Some non-communist governments, such as those
in Thailand and Indonesia, actively encouraged partic-
ular forms of Buddhism by way of defense against com-
munism. In Thailand this entailed undermining some
forms of Buddhist practice, including WILDERNESS
MONKSwhose traditional domain was the poor and re-
mote northeast, which bordered countries with Marx-
ist governments. This is an example of the persecution
of a group within Buddhism because it was believed to
be coterminous with a different target, namely com-PERSECUTIONS