times under the guise of magic, a pattern that existed for Buddhist tantrism
in Bengal and perhaps elsewhere in India as well. Buddhist leaders such as the
Theravadin Moggaliputta-tissa at Ashoka’s court were sometimes friends of
rulers, and in some cases were relatives of upper-class families. For kings of
frontier areas or conquest regions, founding monasteries was a means of set-
tlement or of removing property from rival lords (a pattern particularly no-
ticeable in the Buddhist-supporting conquest states in northern China, and
paralleled by royal support of Christian monasteries in early medieval Ger-
many and eastern Europe). Monasteries, too, as the only forms of collective
organization transcending the family, were preeminent at accumulating prop-
erty; as early as the Kushan Empire (in the northwest around 100 c.e.), there
were indications that laypersons were transferring property to monasteries and
circumventing family inheritance, provoking legal counterattack by Brahman
legists (Dutt, 1962: 201, 313). Donations to monasteries might come from far
away, including incomes from grants of land and villages by distant kings or
merchants, as well as expenditures of students and pilgrims; thus a great
monastery or shrine in one’s kingdom would be a center for trade and for
amassing wealth.
In all these respects Buddhism contrasts with the Brahmanism which grew
out of the old Vedic priest guilds. Brahmanism expanded the importance of
kinship structures throughout society, through marital and ritual regulations
which made up a greatly elaborated caste system. Learned pandits became
formulators and custodians of legal codes which restricted the autonomy of
the state while bolstering the economic and social powers of local elites.
Brahmans not only tended to make themselves tax-exempt, but also limited
the abilities of rulers to mobilize resources to expand the state. Hinduism
flourished where rulers were weak; conversely, the social penetration of Hin-
duism perpetuated a pattern of weakly centralized, ephemeral states.
Indian Buddhism and Hinduism are two points along a continuum; neither
is a state religion, although Buddhism has a closer symbiosis with strong states,
Hinduism with weak ones. Buddhism, carried by monks as missionaries or
refugees, was much more transportable across lines of civilizations than Hin-
duism. Buddhist monasticism could be incorporated into strong states with
well-established literate civilizations, and could introduce state administration
into preliterate tribal regions. Brahmanism was much less transportable. It
could not take root merely by the migration of a few Brahman priests to a
foreign court, such as took place at times in China, the Archipelago, and even
Sri Lanka. Its successes came by permeating tribal areas, as it did during
its spread from the Ganges to southern India, as well as into Nepal; from
around 100 to 600 c.e., it spread into Burma and southeast Asia, but was
largely displaced when Buddhism received patronage from consolidating states
186 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths